[Force Initialize Dainv Origin System]
[Dainv OS Started…]
[Progress… Error]
[Origin Core integrity state: Damaged]
Gale's eyes snapped open. His body jerked up and the pain hit him immediately. Sore and bruised, luckily not in any areas that would immobilize him. Then he looked around. The first thing he saw wasn't the familiar ceiling of his room. He wasn't even sure whether he was back on Earth.
Everything around him was unfamiliar. He saw the sky webbed by branches that almost completely blocked it. It was nighttime, yet some unfamiliar blue light from the moon still filtered through the branches.
He blinked a couple of times, trying to get rid of the disorientation. The tree in front of him was too massive. Its trunk was bigger than the average house's in square metres.
Gale walked up to the tree, inspecting it closer to see what the hell he was up against. Dad always said the trees would give him an idea of what world he was in, though he never really asked why dad would say such weird things as if he would be going to different worlds.
He pressed his palms against it, feeling the rough texture of the bark. Its jagged bark felt hard. It left a charcoal-like dust on top of his fingers and palm. He had half expected it to crumble away due to its brittleness that felt like charcoal. Yet it didn't.
It was too real.
He jumped to his feet, using his hand as a visor to look at the darkness beyond him. Visibility was almost completely gone. He could barely even see his hand in front of his face when he waved at himself.
According to the sound of when he stepped, the ground was soft. Vegetation covered it all around. Brushes touched his exposed ankle, hopefully not poisonous. Dried leaves and branches crunched when he shifted his weight.
Now it was clear.
He was no longer in the prison that was the orphanage. This was in the heart of a forest unlike anything he had encountered on Earth before with mom and dad. It was clear. The blue moonlight filtering through the canopy was clearly not the moon he was used to, nor were the trees he was used to this tall and thick. They were too tall, too large, too much of everything for this to possibly be in any of the environments he had ever lived in. The trunk of one was the size of the houses he passed by on the way to school.
The air was surprisingly fresh. He breathed it in. It didn't have the annoying dust and carbon that lingered in the city air. The orphanage itself was barely breathable. Now he was in his environment where the shadows danced along the wind that rustled the branches high above.
Gale walked around, pushing forward for five minutes straight. Getting a clear view of the sky would allow him to get a bearing on where he was. The stars would tell him. He had always liked watching the stars with mom. She would always lecture him on how to read the stars to find their location. He always liked listening to her just talk, and he would get lost in her voice. He never thought he would be using those lectures now.
Once he got to a clearing, he looked up immediately at the sky, expecting the stars to talk to him. Instead, he saw two celestial bodies, much larger than what he expected hanging in the sky. One was a sun. The other was the blue moon that eclipsed the sun, too big to be the moon he knew. He waited for 10 minutes to see whether the blue moon would get out of the sun's way.
It didn't.
The blue moon followed where the sun was as if it were locked to it. That was the last confirmation he needed to see. This wasn't Earth. It didn't need to follow any of the rules that were set there.
"Holy shit," Gale whispered. "Am I dead?"
Dad would have slapped him if he had said that out loud if they were still around. But clearly, he wasn't dead. He remembered the growl in his bedroom with the smiling twisted teeth. The drone of the air conditioner died as if it had gone on mute. It was then that suddenly there was a flash of red with roots all over that made him lose consciousness.
Unless he died and came back to life, except in a new world where swords and magic exist, that would make him the knight in shining armour who vanquishes the demon lord, or being the demon lord instead, because it's a reversal of the trope, where he could finally become the evil lord that would reign against the people of this place as revenge for how he was treated unfairly in the other world called Earth.
Gale took a deep breath after thinking too much. He slapped his face with both of his hands, snapping out of his own fantasies. This place was extremely real. In the first place, if this was death, then it felt more real than the time he lived in the orphanage. Checkmate.
Now, he needed a plan. A plan to survive whatever this situation was. The mantra his parents always told him was 3 things. Stay low, blend in, survive. Ever since he was a kid, mom and dad always repeated it, even teaching him how to survive on his own in a forest with a grueling curriculum.
He then remembered there was something that popped up in his mind or in front of him just before he fainted. It was a robotic voice notification with a popup screen that looked like it was from the 2000s.
As soon as he thought about it, a translucent screen appeared in front of him.
[Origin Core integrity state: Damaged]
…
Name: Gale Hathie
Race: Dainv
Core Integrity: Damaged
Attributes: [
Max Load: 1
Efficiency: 1
Essence: 10/10
]
Skills:
[]
Passives:
[Breath of the Void]
[Mission: Repair Core Integrity.]
…
Gale stared at it, not knowing what he was seeing. He didn't know whether he was dreaming, hallucinating, or on LSD.
Not sure I know what LSD is.
Everything up to this point was already very weird, now his brain or eyes were playing tricks on him. The popup in front of him made no sense at all whatsoever. It said it was the Dainv OS.
The word Dainv as his race stood out. He lived all his life as a human, yet it said he was a Dainv. It felt alien to him. He was certain he didn't become anything else, a robot, or a different race altogether. His body still felt the same, although now a bit bruised in places. It sounded like words straight out of a fantasy book, and here he was—in a grim, dark fantasy world. It could be that the other kids drugged him enough to have the hallucinations, but he hoped that they weren't bad enough to put him through that kind of experience… he hoped.
He reached out a finger to the translucent screen and tapped on Breath of the Void. To his surprise, the screen responded to his touch. It opened a new window with even more vague information.
[Breath of the Void: A window of the void exuding its breath into the surroundings.]
Gale blinked a couple of times. He read it through multiple times, each pass only leaving him more confused.
What does this even mean? It said it was a passive. If he was talking in gaming terms, then it was something that was always on, but he felt nothing. Void literally meant nothingness though.
Gale closed his eyes to check if there was anything different about himself. It was then he noticed the change. He could still see and feel the world around him, although vague but definitely there.
Closing his eyes felt like he could even see more than when he had his eyes open. He could feel the detail and information of the things that were in that small radius. From the details of the tree behind him, each cracked bark, to the bugs crawling around its roots.
He opened his eyes to look at the screen again and then touched the next thing that interested him, the mission text. A new window popped up, revealing even weirder information.
[Mission: Repair Core Integrity.]
[Extract Origin from a living being.]
Gale reread the text over and over again.
The hell does this even mean.
Sure, he wasn't the brightest in the orphanage, but Gale was pretty sure that he wasn't the stupidest. Maybe he got too many beatings recently since he was graduating from the orphanage. They didn't hit his head, though.
He cursed inwardly. The staff always said the fantasy books were just junk. He ignored them, rightfully so. Now he regretted not reading more encyclopaedias. Those could've helped a bit in uncovering what this Core or Origin is.
Maybe.
That one was a huge reach. All just a lie to comfort himself. Even studying properly wouldn't have made this situation any better.
"Extract Origin from a live being?" he muttered out loud. "What do you even mean?"
None of it made sense. It didn't even say what the purpose is for fixing the damned thing.
He looked around the unfamiliar dark forest, using more of Breath of the Void than his actual eyes, half hoping that something would give him a clue.
Nothing.
The forest offered nothing to him. Just the bleak darkness of a permanently eclipsed surrounding. It gave him more questions while also not answering any.
He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to calm himself down. Dad always said to take deep breaths when you're in a stressful situation. It released endorphins to calm you down and gives you some time to think about what the hell to do.
When he opened his eyes again, the mission still stood in front of him.
[Mission: Repair Core Integrity.]
[Extract Origin from a living being.]
"Okay," said Gale. "I need to repair you… and to do that… I have to extract something called 'Origin'."
The absurdity of his situation almost made him laugh.
He looked to his hands, hidden by the dark, somehow he could see they were there. He was half expecting them to have transformed into a pickaxe or some kind of butchering tool. It did tell him to extract Origin from a living being. Some kind of harvesting tool would've made sense.
To Gale's disappointment, they were still the same hands. Five fingers on each hand. Slender and bruised.
Gale sighed. Life had always been tough on him, even when he was still living with his parents. At least when they were still around, he could rely on them and they would just tell him what to do. Now, there was no one to rely on. He had to solve the riddle of this game called "life". First, the orphanage. Now this damned forest alone.
He looked to the book that lay beside him when he first woke up, wondering if it contained any answers. He already knew it was futile, yet his hands still moved to reach for it.
A flip to the first page introduced the main character born into fallen royalty of the court. A flip to the chapter after, the main character had lived his life to be exiled. A flip to the next chapter, the main character had lived his life to become strong and independent, now the kingdom wanted him back and his family.
It was a formulaic book, but nonetheless, Gale liked it. In the end, the main character became the knight that vanquished the demons that invaded the kingdom. Yet at the end of the day, it was just a fantasy book that provided no answers.
Suddenly, a distant growl caught his attention. Gale's heart dropped. He gripped the book tightly to his chest. The growls sounded nothing like what he heard back on Earth. That growl is nothing like a bear. It's more like a bear on crack. A cocaine bear levelled up to eleven.
Okay. Think, Gale. You're in a strange forest. Giant and strange trees everywhere. Weird sky above. Weird moon. Creepy sounds everywhere. Funny-looking system hallucinations. What do you do? Or what should you do?
—Survive.
It was the first thing that came to mind. There were three steps to survival. Water first. Then food, and then shelter. And maybe a way back home as a bonus.
He needed to close the screen in front of him first. As he thought it, the screen disappeared. Convenient. Interacting with it was also easy, similar to a computer. That was the only convenient thing that came out of this situation. It didn't make him feel any better, though.
He then looked around the tree, carefully inspecting the floor of the forest. Any signs? Hundreds. No point in looking at the signs if there were too many.
He chose a random direction to move. Any direction was as good as any.
Another clearing in the distance showed itself. However, he felt something in the back of his head. His hair pricked up. Someone or something watched him move. It felt like a gaze that burned right into the back of his skull. Yet every time he turned around quickly to check, nothing was there.
Gale gulped. He tried to push the worry aside. If there was nothing there, then there was nothing. Worrying about survival was more important. Every minute he didn't secure the first goal could be the difference between life and death.
Focus. Dad always said water first. But how do I find water?
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, recalling the lesson his dad taught him. He listened to the forest, hoping to catch the sound of running water. All he could hear was the gentle breeze rustling the leaves.
No water nearby. Keep moving.
He started walking again, hyperaware of everything in his surroundings. His foot stepped on a twig and made him jump, thinking it was a predator. He kept his eyes open for any signs of water. Moss on trees could point to the water. Gradual slopes on the ground could slope down enough to pool up a pond. That would lead him to running water.
As he walked through the underbrush, something caught his eye. Tracks. Not just any tracks. There was something clearly odd about the tracks. He crouched down to inspect them closer. His dad taught him how to read tracks. He learned all about the different footmarks of all the wildlife on Earth. Based on how deep the footprint was, it would say how the animal would be running or walking. And based on how erratic it was, it could be running away from something or its other moods of just grazing.
However, these tracks were unlike anything he had seen before. They were big, much bigger than any of the animals he was familiar with from Earth. Some even looked like they belonged to something with multiple legs, while others were on fours, but massive. Its footprint was bigger than his head. But for fairness' sake, his head wasn't even that big in the first place.
If these tracks were accurate, the forest would be home to creatures straight out of a nightmare. The world of swords and magic was gone.
Stay calm. Size doesn't always mean danger. Remember what Mom said about bears?
Still, Gale couldn't shake off the unease. He stood up, patting away the dirt from his hands. He continued his search for water. Worrying about the beasts could come later. He would die anyway if he didn't get the first three steps done.
Gale moved faster this time. He went through the thick forest. The deeper he went, the thicker the forest became, with even thicker trees that had trunks the size of much bigger houses almost rivalling a mansion.
On the way, he saw a fruit that ominously had a red glow that pulsed like a heart. It looked nothing like fruits from Earth. For one, it glowed. It also had a heartbeat that made it absolutely unappetizing. The whole fruit looked like a heart... a grotesque mango.
Then again, some fruits on Earth did look alien too. There was one time a girl brought a durian into the orphanage. It stank the whole dorm up for almost a week. For some reason, she blamed Gale. The staff gave him an earful after that.
With that in mind, he was tempted to try the fruit. Only tempted. It wasn't worth the risk. Surviving a couple more days without food was ok. Surviving without water—that's a death sentence.
As he walked, more tracks of the same giant footprints littered the ground. There were even broken branches high up in the giant trees with giant branches. It could possibly be the impossibly tall animals that broke those branches or something worse that flew above the ground that broke those branches. Gale didn't want to know any of it.
I'll need to hunt eventually, Gale reminded himself. But how do you hunt something that could probably swallow you whole?
Everything his parents had taught him was going to be tested in this environment. However, most of what they taught was for smaller game like rabbits and deer. These tracks definitely weren't anything the size of a deer. Not even the size of a bear he'd been forced to hunt once just for sport.
"Still, the basics would be the same," Gale told himself. Find their tracks. Learn their patterns. Set up traps. Much bigger traps. It would be risky, but he might be able to take one down and eat it if the traps were lethal enough.
He pressed on. The soles of his feet started becoming sore. Gale cursed inwardly again. His feet had become weak after spending years reading in the orphanage. He should've gone to the gym or walked around the neighbourhood while reading.
Just as he was about to despair, he noticed the air change after walking through one more clearing. The ground was more damp and sloped downwards. The air became mustier. He closed his eyes to listen to the sounds of the forest again. And there it was, the sound of running water.
Gale picked up his pace. Soon enough, a creek came into view. Its water was clear. He could see the rocks at the bottom.
"Sweet baby Jesus," Gale said, tears almost running down as he cried.
He cupped his hands and drank from the creek, not caring about whether the creek was dirty or not. That worry would have to wait for later.
Step 1 was done. Now he needed to find food and shelter. Then maybe find a way home, if that was even possible.
He scanned his surroundings to see any suitable spots. His eyes fell on a cluster of rocks near the creek. It formed a natural alcove, partially hidden by foliage. It wasn't perfect, but it would do.
As he approached the alcove, he inspected it carefully, noting the escape routes and where ambushes likely would come from. It was good, defensible enough, by Earth standards. Not sure if that's a good thing or not as he hasn't seen any of the animals of this world yet.
He began gathering fallen branches and leaves that would be used to make a crude shelter within the rocks.
Suddenly, the same growl echoed through the forest, closer this time. He froze momentarily, stopping any of his movements. Then, he jumped at the closest bush to hide as the growls grew closer and more violent.