…Fyn pursed his lips and flexed his fingers while sitting atop his single bed's torn mattress.
He knew he didn't have time but he couldn't help but miserably and obsessively recall all that happened yesterday – the day his misfortune started…
After he had vanished along with his dorm, when he woke up yesterday evening, he was still inside his dorm rooms.
The moment he woke up, messages flashed before him.
[Welcome to Hellhound…]
[You have discovered a new realm! You've gained the title 'Realm traverser'... Agility +1]
[You've gained one stat point!]
Fyn was disoriented then but after an hour or so, he figured things out. He had a basic system with stats. The stats were generic and only three: Strength, agility and posture. He didn't have any conclusive idea on what 'posture' was.
Overall, when he'd call out, "status", he could access the screen. A hovering blue screen that flashed –
[System(broken)]
Class: testcase
Title: Realm traverser
Strength: 2
Agility: 2 (+1)
Posture: 5
Stat point: 1
Remark: You are a testcase !@#**** … Weak but surprisingly durable.
Fyn had decided to not use his stat point right away. And all in all, he was somewhat excited on the inside.
Alas! His grin was short-lived. It died forever after the moon appeared on the dusky sky of the realm.
…He grit his teeth hard enough to hurt which forced clarity of the present. He knew he couldn't revel in the past anymore.
He had no time. Right now, Fyn's eyes hovered past the window and he could tell that it wasn't long until a murky, purple moon appeared in the night sky.
He gulped while his fingers shook.
He had spent the whole day muttering words of courage to himself, convincing himself that he had no choice but to be brave. But it was easier said than done.
Whenever he attempted to calm down, his left shoulder tingled. The whole of his left arm was missing off of it. Yesterday night he had lost it in a fight with that monster.
And as he had guessed – just like yesterday – the moon appeared and the same harrowing message flashed before him.
[Survive the test! Night tidal…]
[Testcase #1024's test commences…]
[Wave 1…]
Fyn's house was in a dilapidated condition. His glass window was shattered, even its metal frame was marked by fang bites and was deformed. The wooden gate stood no chance and it was obliterated out of existence. Only hinges and splinters stood in its place.
There was not a single thing inside that was undamaged, including the walls. They were battered by the strong body of that monster ramming it.
And then exactly like before, the same first monster appeared out of the darkness at the spawn point, he flinched and then calmed his breath.
The 'spawning' – as he termed it – was exactly the same as before. Even if everything was miserable and he had no weapon, no strength, no agility. He still had experience with him.
It was nothing winnable, but he had to stay positive.
He shuddered in anticipation while the monster walked all the way through its spawn point to his dorm room. It walked the distance of those couple hundred meters with a menacing glare and predatory calm. It appeared that Fyn, for it, was but a weak and unappetizing food.
The terrain it walked was just of dry sand over brittle, rocky terrain without a sight of any flora or fauna. It provided a clear sight of the monster's activities. The only being that was, apparently, with him in this realm.
A meter tall wolf-like creature with long crooked talons like an eagle and thick hide akin to a buffalo. Fyn had nothing that could pierce across its purple fur and thick skin.
Yet none of that mattered.
Just like the last time, the monster had suddenly picked up pace when nearing the house.
Its yellow eyes had gained their red glint…
All the same…
Though on the other side, Fyn was worse off than yesterday. All the previous night, Fyn had spent it fighting this monster. He had panicked and lost his arm early in the fight, and he never recovered from the shock that night.
He clutched his fist, missing his left hand and barely, he had maintained a dwindling will to live. He did not want to fight the monster.
No! I'll live!
He bit on his own lip, waking himself from his pitiful thoughts while the wolf monster pounced inside the room.
His body froze but he put all his mental strength to move and dodge the attack. Luckily, his will was stronger than his fear and he dodged but the hesitation cost him a gash on his left shoulder.
It's fine…
He murmured to himself even though it hurt like hell. The only thing he had was that his body was indeed very durable, and had decent regeneration.
His body, apparently, couldn't regenerate a missing hand but all the gashes he had from the fight yesterday were healed in a couple hours.
It was truly an inhuman feat. Perhaps because of his high posture.
Nonetheless… he had to focus on the monster before him as he couldn't endlessly regenerate.
If he wanted to live, he had to win this fight. He wasn't going to lose another hand tonight. He didn't have that liberty all together.
The agile wolf monster didn't wait for Fyn to gain a standing – while it was also especially hard for Fyn to get up with the disorientation of a missing hand. It ran to attack him on the ground.
Fyn was nothing close to a trained fighter but he had realised two things from his previous fight. He confirmed it, observing the monster in real time right now.
Firstly his pain sensation was definitely more dulled than an average human. He would've felt the gash way more if he were in a normal, human body.
And secondly this monster followed a pattern that he had started to see. It was unpredictable but it almost had a set of attacks that it did. Not in a predictable order but the trajectory could help him guess what would happen. Like the trajectory from the wolf could help him predict if it would dash, or lunge or use its talons, or fangs. This was mostly the case because he had fought this monster for hours yesterday.
Realizing this, his brain naturally calmed a tad bit.
In retaliation to the monster dashing at him, Fyn decided that leg kicks were the better choice to hurt as much as he could at a distance. It was mostly his bodily intuition catching up.
He shot both of his legs forward while pushing his right hand against the wall to fight against the reverted pressure.
The monster was seriously heavy and Fyn couldn't push it off, but it staggered and his face jerked away from the push. Fyn didn't waste a second to follow up with another such kick, and then another.
The monster ran and backed off, putting some distance between them. Then it turned back and growled, but didn't attack immediately.
Fyn stood up with wall support while His mind had entered a flow state, and he was intuiting patterns.
He guesstimated that the wolf monster would dash but then lunge from a distance but alas, the result was a bit different.
The monster did dash and lunge, but this time the wolf monster lunged on the bed beside him – closing the distance. While tearing the mattress further with its talons, it jumped forward and it was quicker than Fyn could ever react.
The next moment, the monster was on Fyn's chest. Its talons were already digging deep.
Fyn screamed a guttural roar, "Aaggh!!"
Calm down! It doesn't hurt as much…
He oriented himself by biting his own tongue and not losing his hope to pain.
While the monster readied to unleash more horror on his guts, Fyn knew his only choice was a brutal counterattack. Thus he reacted instantly.
He mindlessly thrashed a hand at its face. The slap landed and it barely did anything but that wasn't his plan.
He grasped the wolf's mouth and pulled on it. The disoriented wolf staggered forward and that was all Fyn needed as he, without hesitation, shoved his thumb inside its eye until he could feel his thumb nail pierce inside the iris and slowly, slice it in half, and shoved it inside the socket.
The wolf monster wailed and desperately tightened and hooked its claws on Fyn's chest but he was determined. It hurt him but he knew it could be healed, and with dulled senses it felt less like an utterly damned gash and more like multiple needles twisting inside him. This was bearable.
As soon as he damned one eye of the wolf monster, he started to bang the thick skull of the monster with punches non-stop while twisting his body and using every ounce of his strength.
Fyn's attack finally took a real toll on the wolf monster as it tore its talons out of Fyn's stomach and retreated.
Blood gushed out of Fyn's guts, but again his durable constitution replenished his blood faster, and clotted it faster too.
Fyn and the wolf monster both glared at each other withholding severe wounds and breathing raggedly.
Yesterday he had panicked too hard to realize that he perhaps might've stood a chance against this creature.
In this grim situation, the severe pain somehow appeared ticklish. The death of the monster in front of him seemed believable.
Please let me go home after this!
He had decided to win though he knew it wasn't gonna be easy.