Si Hon approached the little girl, stopping close enough that his shadow fell over her small frame. "You. Made a mistake."
He whispered it soft, almost gentle, like the words themselves weren't sure if they wanted to be a threat or not.
But the girl only smiled up at him, unbothered. "Then command me again, Summoner."
Si Hon stared at her for a long second, then smirked. "I command you too..."
The sentence just hung there, unfinished, dangling off the edge of something he clearly hadn't decided yet.
"Hehe." He huffed out a short laugh, sighed, scoffed at himself. "Aigo… nevermind."
A pause.
"I feel bad… you know— nothing, nvm." He shook his head slow. "I guess I'll just." The words left his mouth like a quiet promise aimed more at himself than at whatever stood in front of him.
The snow resumed falling.
Sound returned all at once, the frozen wind cutting back across the mountainside and rattling the canvas of his tent like the world had just remembered it had a job to do.
"Oh look, everything's normal again," he muttered.
The little girl simply stood there, hands folded neat behind her back, thin white dress fluttering against the cold without so much as a shiver, her mirror-like eyes reflecting the red safe-zone circle, the forest, and Si Hon himself all at once, like a painting that hadn't decided what it wanted to be a painting of yet.
Si Hon looked down at himself and exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down his face with a tired groan— because only now did he properly register just how ruined he looked.
Disgusting.
Gross.
Full beggar-lookalike energy.
His shirt hung torn open across the ribs where that dragon-wolf thing had slapped him around yesterday, half the fabric stiff with dried blood, the cold biting straight into his skin every time the wind slipped under the shredded cloth.
"…Great," he muttered flatly. "I feel sexy. And for sure this beats winter fashion. I love this."
He scanned the safe zone and spotted them— a neatly folded pile of clothes sitting right beside the tent, clothes that definitely weren't from his original world, and definitely weren't part of yesterday's single reward either, and yet there they were, lying there like they'd always belonged.
Si Hon's eye twitched. "…Systemmy."
The window popped up immediately, smug as hell. 「It is one of your other rewards. I simply waited for you to stop dying long enough to notice. And I would like for you to not call me that nickname, I already told you.」
"Sure." He stared at the folded clothes, then back at the window. "This… Are you a tsundere?"
「No.」
"I see… so you're a tsundere."
「No. Stop.」
Si Hon snorted, grabbing the bundle— warm fabric, dry, surprisingly well-made, a fur-lined shirt, thick woven pants, a scarf that looked hand-stitched by an actual hunting tribe somewhere.
He glanced at the girl on his way into the tent.
"Stay there," he muttered, and she nodded once, obedient as someone told to wait quietly in a lobby.
Inside, he changed fast, breathing out a soft sigh at the warmth crawling over his bruised ribs— the clothes actually fit, didn't itch, whoever or whatever had crafted them clearly knew exactly what surviving this floor required.
He stepped back out pulling the scarf snug around his neck.
"Okay," he said, tugging his sleeves down. "That's better."
He turned to find the girl standing in the exact same spot, same posture, same blank expression, dress fluttering in the wind without a single flinch, no arms wrapped around herself, no reaction at all.
"You cold?" he asked.
A small pause before she shook her head once. "I don't feel cold," she said simply.
"Do you feel anything?" he asked, more careful this time.
She blinked slow. "Not in the way you mean."
Si Hon exhaled through his nose. "Right. Emotionless ice fairy. Got it." He tugged his scarf tighter. "Anyway. Do you want clothes? Something warmer?"
Her head tilted. "I do not require clothing."
"Cool, that's— great… amazing, yep… totally normal."
She smiled politely. "May we proceed, Summoner?"
Si Hon rubbed his temples. "Yeah, yeah, okay. Since you're… uh… here now… we should… y'know. Try not to starve."
He pointed toward the forest, where enormous snow-heavy trees loomed like pillars holding up the whole gray sky, branches thick with frost, mountain paths twisting between them into hidden predator dens and frozen rivers buried under layers of snow— an entire ecosystem built with one purpose, killing anything that hadn't been born there.
The wind hissed faintly through the branches, carrying with it the distant echo of something massive on the move, something that clearly didn't care that it was supposed to be morning.
Si Hon swallowed hard. "We need food," he said quietly. "And water. And firewood."
The girl stepped up beside him, dirt finally parting neatly around her bare feet. "I will follow," she said.
"Right," Si Hon replied. "I'm your summoner, aren't I?"
She nodded once.
"Then follow me," he said, voice steadying with each word. "And don't… randomly evaporate stuff unless I ask. Okay?"
Her eyes brightened faintly, not with emotion, but with something closer to acknowledgment. "Understood."
Si Hon stared out at the tree line.
Something howled far in the distance. The wind carried ice and something faintly metallic underneath it— blood, maybe, old or fresh, impossible to tell from here.
He inhaled deep. "Okay. Let's go."
And the summoner, torn ribs and borrowed clothes and all, stepped past the edge of the safe zone into a world that hated him, a little girl who granted consequences trailing silent behind him.
The red circle flickered once.
The forest exhaled.
And Day One truly began… prolly.
The moment his boot crossed the invisible line, the red circle vanished behind him.
「Good luck don't dying.」
The air changed instantly. Inside the safe zone it had been quiet, muted, almost breathable. Out here, the forest inhaled around him.
A deep, groaning shift rolled through the pines, branches creaking under their own frost, ice sliding loose off bark somewhere far off, something massive brushing a trunk in the distance.
Crunch.
A rustle.
Then another crunch.
The girl beside him didn't react at all, but Si Hon felt it anyway— that prickling, crawling sensation climbing up in the back of his neck.
Something was watching. Not closing in. Not fleeing either. Just watching, tracking his steps from somewhere behind the white curtain of falling snow.
He tightened his scarf. "Shiver my timbers. Not creepy at all."
The girl looked up at him, blank. "Is something wrong, Summoner?"
"Nah," Si Hon muttered. "Just the forest staring at me like I'm food."
She nodded like that was a perfectly normal thing to say.
「Area: Snowfall Mountain.
Currently in First Floor Ecosystem.
(A quiet hell designed to starve and freeze intruders.)」
The forest wasn't just snowy trees. It breathed. Snowfall Mountain was alive in the worst possible way, built on layers of predators that hunted in rotation like a scheduled shift change nobody had agreed to work.
The morning belonged to the soundless stalkers— Pale Fangs, wolf-shaped things camouflaged perfectly into the snow, leaving no footprints behind, watching far more than they ever attacked.
Midday belonged to the silent gliders, shadowy owl-shapes perched high in the branches, blinking without a sound.
And then there were the ones that didn't follow any schedule at all— the watchers, the ones Si Hon kept feeling on the back of his neck, moving between the trees too tall to be animals and too quiet to be anything normal.
He'd seen one already, once, when he'd woken up the night before— just a shape, and two glowing eyes hanging in the dark.
He tightened his grip on his makeshift stick-spear. "Focus. Food first."
***
「Hours Later」
"Shut up…" Si Hon was on his knees, half-buried under a bush, looking every bit like a homeless raccoon rifling through a trash can for scraps. "Berry… berry… berry… oh thank god, A BERRY!!!!"
He plucked a tiny cluster of deep blue berries, brushing snow off with numb fingers, cold and firm with a faint frost sheen the system was already labeling before he'd even asked.
「Frostbite Berries. Nutritional value: low. Potential poison: 3%. Edible: yes.」
"Three percent chance of dying," Si Hon muttered.
"Honestly better odds than my life so far."
The girl watched him crouched in the snow, expression unmoved. "You are inefficient at gathering sustenance," she observed calmly.
"Thank you," he said flatly. "I love morale boosters." He shoved the berries into his mouth fast, before he could think too hard about the consequenc.
「Next Problem. Hehe. Water.」
"Yes… I KNOW!" Si Hon froze. "I don't have a bottle." He stared at the snow in his hand. "I don't trust that."
He turned, scanning the area, and spotted a tree with broad, heavily frosted leaves that still looked intact.
He snapped one off— tough, thicker than a normal leaf, almost leather-like, faintly waxy, perfect for not tearing apart the second he touched it.
He shaped it into a crude bowl with shaking fingers while the girl watched. "You are… crafting a container?"
"Yes," Si Hon said. "I call this… not dying." He scooped snow into the leaf bowl and held it near his mouth, breathing warm air over it slow and miserable but effective, until cold water finally pooled at the bottom.
His hands shook as he drank.
The girl tilted her head. "Your survival instincts are primitive."
"Your feedback is so helpful," he wheezed.
"And yet," she added, "you have survived until now."
"Barely… and, this is only day 1, maybe." he muttered.
「Something Moves.」
A branch snapped, loud, too heavy for a wolf, too slow for a bird.
Si Hon froze.
The trees in the distance shifted, snow dripping off a high branch somewhere out of sight.
The girl turned slightly, eyes narrowing not with any emotion but the way a machine adjusts its sensors. "It's watching us again," she said.
Si Hon swallowed. "Yeah. I noticed." He tightened his grip on the stick. "Let's move. Slowly."
She nodded. Snow crunched under his boots. Snow did not crunch under hers.
The watcher followed— quiet, patient, waiting for something— and Si Hon, weak, hungry, ribs still aching with every step, walked deeper into the white forest.
They walked another hour, the girl trailing behind him silent as a polite kid on a field trip while Si Hon scanned every direction like a security camera bolted to a swivel.
Then he heard it— running water, a faint trickle threading under the wind.
"River?" he whispered, following the sound until they reached a narrow frozen stream, its surface cracked in thin jagged lines, clear water still moving slow beneath.
Si Hon exhaled in relief. "Oh thank god… actual water." He knelt, hands pressing flat against the ice.
The girl spoke. "It may be unstable."
"It's fine," Si Hon muttered, confident right up until the ice made a sound and the system window popped up half a second too late to matter.
「You idiot.」
CRRRRAAACK.
"A—" The entire sheet dipped beneath him, his right foot shooting forward, left foot sliding back, and then he fell— SPLASH— a perfect faceplant straight into the shallow stream, cold water exploding upward and soaking his pants, his shirt, everything he'd just changed into hours ago.
The girl watched him FLAIL like a DYING FISH without a flicker of concern.
He resurfaced gasping. "Ahhhh!!!! It's so cold!!!! Ahhh fuckkk what the fuck!!!!"
She stepped closer. "Summoner," she said, calm as ever, "you are… wet."
"Thank you." He slapped the water dramatically. "That's so helpful."
She offered no assistance, just stared, and he dragged himself out shivering violently, teeth chattering, arms wrapped around himself. "I'm gonna die from embarrassment…"
「As if you get embarrassed.」
"Oh, you got me. Lol." Still shaking, he crouched again, broke off a smaller piece of ice, and scooped genuinely clean water into his leaf bowl, drinking and muttering curses under his breath the whole time.
***
「Hours Later.」
"Why the hell do you keep doing that?" Si Hon shouted at the window.
「Cus it's funny lol. ┐(￣ヘ￣)┌」
He clicked his tongue and kept walking, eating more berries along the way, finding another edible root buried near a rock, walking more, the sun above the clouds dipping without so much as a warning until the whole world just— dimmed.
Not slowly. Not softly. Just night, all at once.
Si Hon blinked up at the sky. "Wait— what? It was noon? HELLO???" He looked around wildly. "Did the day just skip!??"
The girl nodded. "This floor experiences accelerated dusk."
"How'd you k— well, okay, that's gre—"
A sound cut him off mid-word. A deep, guttural hoooohhhhh— a sound the snow itself seemed to flinch away from.
Si Hon froze.
The girl turned toward the tree line. "They arrive."
He turned, very slowly, and watched the forest shift, snow sheeting off branches in heavy falls as something massive moved between the trunks.
Then another. Their silhouettes broke the tree line at last— towering gray-furred shapes, shoulders wider than any bodybuilder's, bodies hunched like monstrous gorillas, fur matted thick with frost, arms long enough to drag across the ground, breath misting off them in thick steam clouds.
Some carried crude wooden bats, huge, spiked, hand-carved from torn bark and bone. And their eyes— black, ringed faint with blue light, tracking every inch of him.
「The MUNCHES. Survival rate: 0%. Run… Si Hon, run!!! They'll play with you but at least there's a chance! Now!」
"You know I can't do tha—"
The first one stepped forward, sniffing at the air, and then it spoke— in a voice far too human for something that size. "HHHHhhhoooom… little human… we found you again…"
Si Hon's body twitched. "Haha… nah," he whispered.
Another leaned its massive face down close, grinning with teeth like cracked stone. "You smell… tired…"
"Uh… I'm tired," Si Hon answered honestly, because what else was there to say.
The third one chuckled, deep and rumbling like an engine on its last legs. "Hehehe… run for us… we like when you run…"
Si Hon's eye twitched. "Haha… sure? Woho, yea, I'm so gonna run," he said, hands planted on his knees, shuffling his feet in the world's most unconvincing warm-up.
The girl beside him hadn't so much as blinked.
"Summoner. Your heartbeat is elevated."
"What? It's not—"
All three MUNCHES exhaled together, a low hungry chorus rolling out into the dark. "Niight… run… time…"
Their bats hit the snow at once— THUD, THUD, THUD— and the forest itself seemed to echo their laughter back at him from every direction.
For one long second, nobody moved.
Si Hon's brain ran through every option it could scrape together and came up with exactly none of them, which left him standing there with a stick that suddenly felt like a very sad, very inadequate joke.