I stayed still for a second, listening for the howling again, then looked around properly.
Only then did the situation really settle in.
I was stranded.
I already knew there was no way back up—I'd thrown myself off the ridge to get the kill. But when I turned and looked over the edge, slow and careful, it got worse. There wasn't any clear way down either. Just an open drop, broken stone, and the kind of distance that made my body remember falling before my mind wanted to.
I leaned back from the edge at once.
So I'd trapped myself here.
A dry scoff slipped out.
The lengths you go for some EXP…
I turned away from the edge, moved back toward the center of the ledge, and pulled my focus inward to check my stats again.
HP: 4 / 25
MP: 0 / 5
Attack: Lv.2
Defense: Lv.2
Speed: Lv.5
Vitality: Lv.2
Perception: Lv.3
Resolve: Lv.2
I studied the numbers in silence until one of them kept tugging at my eye.
Speed: Lv.5
That stood out. Compared to everything else, it was high—high enough that I should feel it. High enough that if these numbers meant anything at all, then I shouldn't be moving like the same pathetic thing that had crawled out of an egg.
I lifted my head and looked across the ledge.
…Only one way to test it.
I started running, careful at first, using short controlled steps while I got used to how this body moved. My sticky feet still clung to the stone, but not as badly as before, so I pushed a little harder, then harder again, letting the turns come faster each time.
I circled the ledge, weaving around broken stone and the dead wolves, building speed with every pass. Wind tugged at my warped face as my steps blurred together, and my body moved faster than it had any right to.
For a moment, I didn't feel like I was copying the wolves.
I felt like one.
I slowed near the cliff wall, thoughts sharpening as I looked up the sheer stone. There was no safe way down and no clear way back up, so my gaze dropped to my hand as I pressed it against the rock.
It stuck instantly.
I stared at the wall while the idea formed piece by piece. If I could move faster now, and if this body naturally clung to surfaces…
Could I run up the wall?
I backed away from the cliff face and lowered myself slightly, eyes fixed on the stone.
If this body wanted to cling to everything it touched, maybe I could finally make that work for me.
I judged the distance once, then again, hating how much this depended on me getting it right the first time.
Okay, here goes nothing.
I pushed off the ground and ran hard, the stone blurring faster under me with every step as I drove straight at the wall.
At the last second I kicked one leg out and slammed it into the rock, forcing it to stick—really stick. My body jerked, balance wobbling for half a heartbeat, then caught.
I used the momentum I'd already built to throw my other leg up after it. That caught on too.
For one wild, stupid second, it worked.
One step. Two. Three—
Then my balance gave out.
The speed I'd carried into the wall was too much for a body like this. My flesh swayed the wrong way, too soft, too unstable, and the movement threw everything off. I tried to correct, but my shape lagged behind itself. My body dragged sideways, lost purchase, and peeled off the stone before I could recover.
I fell backward and slammed into the ledge. My body spread flat on impact, sticky flesh splashing itself against the ground—and a dull ache rolled through me for it.
HP: 3 / 25
I stared up at the dimming sky for a second, stunned, the number hanging there over me like an insult.
…You can't be serious, I barely fell.
It hadn't failed completely. That was the annoying part.
It worked—briefly. Just not with a body like this, not when I still barely knew how to keep myself balanced.
For now I had to be more careful.
I got up slowly and glanced toward the treeline. The light slipping through the leaves was fading fast now, turning weak and gray between the branches.
System, if I don't eat or drink… how do I heal?
Sleep.
I exhaled slowly. A reply rose to the front of my mind—something bitter about how obvious that answer was—but I killed it before it formed.
I wasn't giving the system another chance to call me stupid.
The only shelter on the ledge was a shallow hollow carved into the rock wall, just deep enough for the stone above it to hang over like a roof.
It wasn't much. The front was still wide open, and the whole thing felt more like a suggestion of safety than the real thing. But it was all I had.
I tucked myself into it as tightly as my unstable body allowed, stone at my back, open air just beyond me. It didn't feel secure. It felt temporary.
Still, exhaustion pulled harder than fear. Darkness crept in, and before long, I drifted off.
I didn't know how long I was asleep before a howl tore through the night.
My senses snapped awake instantly. The forest went still with it—no insects, no rustling, no small sounds in the dark.
I lifted my head, blinking hard as I came fully awake, and realized it wasn't as dark as I expected. The overhang was still shadowed and the forest beyond it looked dim and heavy with night, but I could make out more than I should have: edges, shapes, movement in darkness where my old eyes would've seen almost nothing.
I pondered for a second, then remembered.
Perception: Lv.3
Even a couple of levels could change this much.
I looked up at the ledge I'd initially jumped from.
A bright green glow pierced the dark.
Impossible to miss.
I focused on the shape around it. Familiar. I glanced at the dead wolves scattered across the ground, then looked back up.
Same kind of outline.
Same kind of body.
But bigger.
The thing standing above me looked like one of them, only heavier, broader, and carrying itself with far more intent.
It howled again, louder this time, the sound rolling through the trees and pressing into the hollow where I lay. Then its gaze shifted and locked onto me.
It howled again, louder this time, and its eyes dragged across the dead wolves on the ground below.
The pressure hit the moment its eyes pinned me. My body felt suddenly heavier, like the ground was trying to swallow my legs, like standing upright had become something I needed permission for. It didn't roar. Didn't move.
It just looked at me—and that was enough.
The levels I'd gained meant nothing to this thing.
To it, I was still prey.
Three wolves stepped out from one side of it, and three more from the other. The alpha howled again, and two of the wolves—one on each side—stepped forward and raised their front paws.
Then they slashed into the air.
Three claw-arcs tore free from each wolf, compressed force ripping through the dark in jagged lines as they came down at me all at once.
My body moved before the fear could catch up. I threw myself sideways as the first arc carved into the ground where I'd been standing, stone and dirt exploding upward in a violent burst. Another tore past my shoulder. Another hit the ledge wall and sheared a chunk loose the size of my body.
Rocks rained down.
I ducked under one falling arc, twisted away from another, and nearly lost my footing as the ground split beneath me. The ledge was being shredded around me. Every impact carved trenches through stone, blasted dirt into the air, and sent fractures racing under my feet while claw-arcs crashed down in staggered bursts, forcing me to keep changing direction as debris hammered the ground around me.
I weaved, stumbled, recovered, and moved again.
My body was reacting before my thoughts could catch up, sticking, stretching, correcting, adapting in motion.
I'm faster, I realized. Much faster.
The green eyed wolf howled again.
I looked up just as it rose higher on its hind legs, both front paws lifting at once. For a split second it held there, poised—and then it slashed downward.
Not at me.
At the ledge.
Three claw-arcs ripped free from each paw. Six lines of compressed force screamed through the air, crossing and folding into each other as they tore downward in an overlapping X of pale violent pressure.
The moment they hit, the ledge detonated.
The stone didn't just crack.
It split.
The cliff face sheared open in a thunderous burst as the strike carved through rock like it was rotten wood, and fractures exploded outward beneath my feet, racing across the ledge in jagged lines.
The ground dropped.
My heart slammed once, hard, and I checked my HP.
HP: 14 / 25
I hope it's enough.
The ledge split apart beneath me. Cracks tore through the stone in every direction, and chunks of rock dropped away all at once, the dead wolves' bodies sliding into widening gaps before vanishing into the dark below.
I moved on instinct.
Jumping rock to rock, I used my sticky body to cling for half a heartbeat longer than I should've been able to, forcing each landing just long enough to launch again. Then one slab cracked under me and gave way.
I fell.
A chunk of stone slammed into my side on the way down.
HP: 8 / 25
Something inside me went slack, and my next movement came a beat too slow.
Dammit!
Another rock dropped past me, just off my left side. I threw out a stubby leg—and it stuck.
The falling stone yanked me with it. For a second I dangled off the side of it, my body swinging in open air while the rock plunged faster than I could think, taking me with it like I was hooked to its edge.
I forced my sticky flesh to pull tighter, stretching myself toward the rock instead of away from it. It hurt in a horrible way, like my limbs were about to tear right off under the strain.
I reached again.
This time one of my hands stuck.
Then the other.
I dragged myself piece by piece until the rest of me slapped down onto the falling stone.
I got myself onto the stone and clung there for a second, forcing my bearings back into place.
Then I looked down.
The ground was coming fast.
My head snapped around, searching—rock, dark, falling debris, nothing useful—until something massive broke through the chaos.
A tree.
Its trunk loomed up through the collapse, huge and solid, the only thing down there that looked like it might not break before I hit it.
If I can stick to that, I live.
I exhaled slowly, then forced my body to angle toward the trunk.
I drove everything I had into the rock beneath me and kicked off hard.
The slab split apart under the force with a sharp crack, fragments breaking away as I launched.
For a second, it worked too well.
I flew through the air toward the tree—fast, then faster—and as the trunk rushed closer, I realized I wasn't slowing down at all. I'd put too much into it.
"AHHH—!"
My flesh splashed across the bark on impact, spreading around it as the force slammed through me.
HP: 3 / 25
Already flattened against the bark from the impact, I started sliding down the trunk while gravity dragged me toward the ground. Every few inches my flesh caught and stuck just enough to slow me before slipping again.
Then I dropped the last stretch and hit the ground with a dull thud.
HP: 2 / 25
The world tipped sideways.
For a moment I just lay there, dazed, vision swimming, my thoughts coming in slow and loose like they weren't fully connected to my body yet. I knew I'd hit something. I knew I was on the ground. Beyond that, everything felt blurred and far away.
Then the stones came after me.
Cracking. Breaking. An avalanche of rock tearing down the cliff face, smashing into the ground and ripping through trees hard enough to drag me back into myself all at once.
I forced myself up, and my body betrayed me immediately. Everything felt slower, heavier, my balance lagging half a step behind where it needed to be as the cliff kept tearing itself apart above me.
No time.
I stumbled forward, then corrected, then forced speed out of limbs that didn't want to give it. My head snapped around, searching for anything—some gap, some cover, anything I could throw myself into before the collapse caught me.
Then I saw it.
A narrow opening in the rock, half-hidden through the spray of dirt and falling stone. Not much. Just a dark shape in the cliffside that looked like it might lead somewhere deeper.
I didn't stop to think.
I lunged for it, pushed harder as it came into focus, realized at the last second it was some kind of cave, and threw myself inside without hesitation.
…I'm lucky to be alive.
I took a moment to steady myself.
I let out a slow breath that sounded thinner than I wanted.
I needed sleep, and that wolf wasn't going to give up. It wanted revenge.
The thought settled deep within me.
I guess that's the consequence of killing something in this world…
My perception let me pick out the edges of the cave: jagged stone, uneven ground, and just enough light bleeding in from the entrance to keep me from stepping blind.
I didn't trust the cave. I didn't trust any of it.
Nothing had been safe since I was forcibly born into this world. Every second had been nothing but chaos.
So I moved deeper into the cave, slow and deliberate, trying not to make a sound against the stone.
Then a harsh squawk echoed out from deeper inside, cutting through the dark and washing over me all at once.
My body edged back a step on instinct, already bracing to run if it had to.
The echo died away, and I forced myself to settle with it. One breath. Then another. When nothing lunged at me, I took a few more careful steps and peeked around the bend.
At first all I saw was a messy shape tucked into the stone—thin branches, leaves, bits of whatever had been dragged in and forced together into something nest-like.
As my eyes adjusted, the details sharpened.
Eggs.
Some marked with thin cracks. Some still whole, like nothing had reached them yet.
Then I saw it.
A bird.
Smaller than me. Fragile-looking in the way something only gets after surviving too much—lean body, patchy feathers, a hooked beak, and hawk-sharp eyes.
It stared straight into me.
I shifted my footing slightly, not even trying to move forward.
The bird took it as enough.
It squawked—softer this time—and flinched back toward the nest, trying to keep itself between me and the eggs without actually coming any closer.
…It's scared of me.
That landed harder than I expected. Not because it was weak. Because for the first time since I woke up in this world, something looked at me and saw a predator.
I crept a little closer, careful with every movement.
Now I could see the nest clearly.
Ten… maybe fifteen unhatched eggs. Five are already hatching. One mother bird.
Relief washed through me before I could stop it.
This would be easy EXP.
I could level up here, get stronger, and maybe—finally—deal with that damn wolf instead of waiting for it to find me first.
I took another step.
The bird shrank back further, feathers trembling as it pressed itself closer to the nest. Still no attack. Still no real fight in it.
I raised myself slightly, leaned forward, and gathered myself to lunge.
My body didn't move.
A sharp tension seized through me, like every part of me had tightened at once. My limbs went heavy and sticky, refusing to obey.
…What?
The bird squawked again.
A surge of nausea hit—except it wasn't nausea. It was deeper than that. A violent recoil crawled through my core like a warning.
Don't.
The word wasn't spoken. It wasn't even thought of.
It was felt.
I stopped right there, while the feeling settled hard and ugly in my chest.
This didn't feel like survival.
It felt like… them.
I forced myself back down. One slow step, then another.
The pressure eased the moment I stopped advancing, like something inside me had unclenched in relief.
The bird didn't attack. Didn't chase.
It just watched.
Then images hit me—not like thoughts, but like reflexes.
Fire. Ash.
My family—whatever they'd been—burning without resistance.
My body jerked. A sharp spasm ripped through my core, like something inside me recoiled from the memory itself, and my limbs went rigid again, refusing to move forward. The taste of smoke flooded my mouth even though there was no smoke, and heat crawled over my skin in phantom waves.
Killed casually. For EXP.
The words rose in my head—and something in me recoiled so hard it barely felt like mine. Emotion flooded through my body all at once, raw and violent, less like I was feeling it and more like my flesh was remembering something it refused to forgive.
I still wanted to survive. I still wanted to get stronger.
But my gaze lingered on the eggs, and my body held me there—heavy and stubborn, like it had already made the choice for me.
I stepped back.
Fine.
I'll kill predators. I'll kill things that hunt me.
My thoughts hardened, and this time my body didn't fight me.
But I'm not going to become like the ones who killed my family.
I turned away and moved back toward the cave entrance until I found a small corner cut into the stone, tucked just far enough out of sight from the opening to feel like cover. I settled into it and leaned against the wall as exhaustion dragged my body down.
I needed sleep.
And a plan.
I glanced back once.
The bird was still there, watching me. Not with fear anymore.
With something closer to relief.
I may be classed as a monster now, but that doesn't mean I have to act like one.
Outside, the rubble finally settled and the night grew quiet.
The bird hadn't moved.
Still watching. Still calm.
Then its head slowly turned toward the cave entrance, and it went perfectly still.
Something was out there.
But despite everything, sleep took me anyway.