The morning sun in the Forest of Death didn't rise so much as it oozed through the impossibly thick tree trunks, casting a sickly, pale green twilight over my little dirt bunker.
I knew it was morning because the screeches of the terrifying wildlife had been replaced by a different set of terrifying daytime screeches. Oh, and my cheap AEON sleeping bag was completely soaked in cold, miserable sweat.
I groaned, a sound that originated from the very depths of my soul, and tried to sit up.
Crack. Pop. Sizzle.
My spine sounded like a bowl of Rice Krispies being run over by a lawnmower. Every single muscle in my morbidly obese body screamed in agonizing rebellion. My thighs burned from my panicked waddle yesterday, my arms ached from swinging the All-Purpose Farming Tool, and my back felt like it had been used as a trampoline by a family of ogres.
"Okay," I croaked, my voice rough. "Okay, Ard. Time to rise and grind. You promised your divine goddess wife you'd get strong. Time for the classic isekai training montage."
I unzipped the sleeping bag, rolled onto the damp dirt floor, and pushed myself up onto my hands and knees. I took a deep breath of the humid, ozone-scented air.
"Push-ups," I declared to the empty cave. "We start with push-ups. One hundred a day! It worked for Saitama, it'll work for me!"
I got into what I generously assumed was a plank position. My stomach immediately sagged, resting comfortably on the earth. I squeezed my eyes shut, gritted my teeth, and pushed with all my might.
"RRRRRGHH!" I strained, my face turning the color of a bruised tomato. The veins in my neck bulged. I pushed. I shoved against the planet.
My elbows bent exactly half an inch. My triceps instantly began to violently vibrate, a spasm of pure, unadulterated weakness.
"ONE!" I gasped, immediately collapsing face-first into the dirt with a heavy, pathetic thud.
I lay there for a solid minute, panting like a pug on a treadmill. I couldn't do another one. My arms simply refused to respond to the electrical signals my brain was sending.
"Fine. Okay. That's fine," I wheezed, rolling onto my back and staring at the wooden logs of my ceiling. "Push-ups are advanced. We'll build up to that. Let's do sit-ups. Core strength is essential."
I bent my knees, crossed my arms over my chest, and contracted my abdominal muscles. Or, rather, I contracted the thick layer of adipose tissue where my abdominal muscles theoretically resided.
Nothing happened. My shoulders lifted perhaps a millimeter off the ground. My center of gravity was so completely skewed that trying to sit up felt like trying to lever a boulder with a toothpick.
"HGGGGNNNN!" I sounded like a dying walrus. I swung my arms for momentum. I kicked my legs. I thrashed on the ground like an overturned turtle for a solid five minutes before giving up, completely out of breath and slick with fresh sweat.
"Right," I panted, wiping my forehead. "Physical training... is going to take a while. I need to drop like, a hundred pounds before I can even do a basic workout routine. That's fine. I am a magic user anyway! I have the 'Foolish One' skill! High Magic Affinity! Mystic Learner! Natural Flow! I'll just grind my MP!"
I sat up cross-legged, adopting a classic meditation pose. I closed my eyes and focused. The system said my 'Natural Flow' sub-skill gave me a higher sensitivity to feeling magic in nature. I reached out with my mind, trying to tune into the frequency of the world.
And immediately, I felt it.
It was incredible. The air was thick, shimmering, and vibrating with an invisible, pulsing energy. I could feel the life force of the massive trees, the strange, toxic hum of the glowing mushrooms, and the sheer, raw ambient mana of the Forest of Death. It was like suddenly opening my eyes in a room full of brilliant colors after being blind my whole life. My High Affinity was working flawlessly.
"This is amazing," I whispered, a genuine smile spreading across my face. "Okay, now to draw it in. Or, wait, I need to use my own MP first to increase my capacity."
I looked inward, searching for my own mana pool. If the forest was a raging ocean of magic, my internal mana pool was a single, slightly damp sponge sitting at the bottom of a dry teacup.
One MP.
"I can work with this," I told myself. "I just need to cast a spell. Something simple. A spark. A breeze. Just enough to drain the point so my body regenerates it, hopefully with a slightly larger capacity."
I held my hand out, palm facing the log barricade. I pictured a tiny flame. Just a little lighter fluid spark. I concentrated my pathetic drop of mana, pushing it down my arm, through my veins, and out into my fingertips.
FZT.
A minuscule, pathetic blue spark, roughly the size of a flea, popped off my index finger. It made a sound like a static shock from a cheap carpet and instantly vanished.
And just like that, it was as if someone had unplugged my brain from the wall socket.
An overwhelming, sickening wave of absolute lethargy crashed over me. The color drained from my face. My vision blurred, and the edges of my sight went black. I slumped forward, hitting the dirt floor, my head spinning wildly. Mana exhaustion. I had literally spent every ounce of magical energy in my body to create a static shock, and it felt like I had just run a marathon while donating blood.
"System," I groaned into the dirt, too weak to even move my jaw properly. "Status."
The blue screen hummed into existence.
[STATUS]
Name: Ard Voldigoad
Level: 1
Strength: 1
Speed: 1
Stamina: 1
Endurance: 1
Vitality: 1
MP: 0/1
I stared at the numbers. I waited. I watched the screen for five full minutes.
Nothing changed. No ding. No "Strength increased by 1!" No "MP capacity expanded!"
Nothing.
The sheer, crushing reality of my situation finally settled in. This wasn't a game where doing a single push-up raised a bar. This was reality. Physical and magical changes were going to take weeks, maybe months, of grueling, consistent, agonizing repetition. There was no instant gratification. There was only the grind.
"I hate this world," I muttered, slowly pulling myself up into a sitting position as my 1 MP slowly began to trickle back, easing the headache. "I hate it so much."
But then, the glowing pink silhouette of my goddess flashed in my mind. Her voice, sweet and embarrassed, promising to wait for me.
"No," I slapped my cheeks. "No complaining. The grind is the grind. If it takes a year to get my strength to a 2, then I'll take a year. First things first: breakfast. Then, we need a better base."
I opened the Online Grocery app. My balance was down to 100 Yen after buying the sleeping bag. I picked the remaining purple mushrooms from the cave wall and tossed them into the vortex.
[Balance: 6,500 Yen]
I bought a massive, high-calorie breakfast bento with grilled salmon, a rolled omelet, and extra rice, along with a liter of water. I practically inhaled it, feeling my stamina gauge sluggishly refill.
Once I was fed, I grabbed my All-Purpose Farming Tool.
"Alright, buddy, do your thing."
I waddled over to the ironwood log barricade I had built the night before. I pictured a heavy mallet. The divine tool pulsed, the long handle shrinking slightly, the metal head morphing into a massive, flat-faced sledgehammer.
I swung it against the logs. With a deafening CRACK, the magic of the tool shattered the heavy timber, blowing my doorway wide open.
The pale green light of the forest spilled into my cave. I stepped out, my military survival knife strapped to my thigh, my magic hammer resting on my shoulder. I checked my cooldowns.
[Common Skill Creation: 12 Hours remaining.]
[Common Item Creation: 12 Hours remaining.]
I was stuck with what I had for the rest of the day.
"Time to explore," I said, trying to sound brave. "I need water, I need a clear space, and I need a place that isn't a damp hole in the ground."
The Forest of Death did not make exploring easy. The underbrush was a nightmare of thick, thorny vines and massive ferns that seemed to actively reach out to trip me. I kept my new Basic Appraisal skill active constantly, my eyes darting left and right.
[Blood-Sucking Vine. Will drain your fluids in minutes. Avoid.]
[Exploding Spore-Pod. Detonates upon impact. Avoid.]
[Paralysis Centipede. Avoid.]
"Everything in this forest is a hazard!" I complained, carefully stepping over a log covered in bright red, pulsating moss that my appraisal told me was highly acidic.
I walked for hours. My fat body was drenched in sweat, my breathing labored. I used the Farming Tool—now shaped back into a sharp machete-like sickle—to hack my way through the dense vegetation. It was exhausting work, but the divine magic of the tool made the cutting effortless.
As I pushed deeper into the woods, the terrain began to change. The ground sloped upward, the dense clusters of smaller trees giving way to older, more ancient growth.
And then, I broke through a massive wall of hanging vines and stepped into a clearing.
My jaw dropped. The All-Purpose Farming Tool slipped from my sweaty grip, hitting the earth with a dull thud.
"No way," I breathed, my eyes wide.
It was massive. 'Massive' didn't even cover it. It was a clearing roughly the size of three football fields, perfectly circular, bathed in actual, unadulterated golden sunlight that streamed down through a deliberate break in the canopy above.
But the sunlight wasn't the focal point. Standing dead center in the clearing was a tree.
It was the Great Tree. It looked exactly like the legendary tree Hiraku Machio had found in the first episode of Farming Life in Another World.
Its trunk was so wide a small village could be carved into it. Its bark was a deep, rich mahogany color, pulsing with a faint, warm magical aura that I could actually feel soothing my tired muscles. The roots spread out like sleeping dragons across the clearing, creating natural, elevated terraces of flat, pristine earth. The canopy above was a vibrant, impossibly bright green, providing a perfect shade over the surrounding area.
It was majestic. It was divine. It was perfect to be a home.
"This is it," I whispered, practically vibrating with excitement. My otaku architectural plans immediately went into overdrive. "I can till the earth between the roots. I can build a log cabin right at the base. The tree will protect me from aerial predators. The sheer ambient mana radiating from this tree will help my MP regeneration! It's perfect! I claim this land in the name of Ard Voldigoad!"
I took a triumphant step forward, ready to run (or waddle) up to the base of my new home.
GRRRRRRUUUUUMMMMBLE.
The sound wasn't my stomach this time. It was a deep, guttural, vibrating snarl that seemed to rattle the very bones in my chest.
I froze. The triumphant smile slid off my face, replaced by a mask of cold, creeping dread.
Slowly, agonizingly, I turned my head toward the edge of the clearing.
Stepping out from the shadows of the tree line was my old friend. The six-eyed mutant wolf.
It looked absolutely furious. It was covered head-to-paw in dark, drying mud from the pitfall trap I had dumped it in yesterday. Its six crimson eyes were locked directly onto me, burning with an intense, personal hatred. Acidic saliva dripped from its jagged maw, sizzling as it hit the grass of the clearing.
"You've got to be kidding me," I whined, my voice cracking perfectly. "Don't you have better things to do? Go hunt a deer! Go eat a goblin! Why are you holding a grudge against the fat guy?!"
The wolf didn't answer. It just lowered its head, its massive shoulder muscles bunching up.
I couldn't run. The clearing was too open, and my stamina was already depleted from the hike. If I turned my back, it would rip my spine out in three seconds.
"Fine," I breathed, panic giving way to sheer, terrified desperation. "Fine! You want to dance?! Let's dance, you ugly mutt!"
I kicked my foot up, popping the handle of the Farming Tool into the air and catching it. 'Sickle!' I commanded the tool in my mind.
The wood lengthened, the metal head snapping upward and sharpening into a lethal, gleaming scythe shaped tip tip.
The wolf howled—a sound that made my ears ring—and charged.
It cleared the distance between us in a blink. It was impossibly fast for its size. I didn't even have time to brace myself. I thrust the spear forward blindly.
The wolf didn't even try to dodge. It swatted the heavy wooden shaft aside with a massive paw. The sheer force of the blow wrenched the sickle out of my grip, spinning it away into the grass.
"Ah!" I yelled as the wolf collided with me.
It was like being hit by a furry, acid-spitting freight train. I was launched backward, tumbling across the dirt until I slammed hard against one of the Great Tree's massive roots.
The air was blasted from my lungs. Stars exploded in my vision. Before I could even gasp for breath, the wolf was on top of me.
Its jaws snapped inches from my face. I threw my arms up, crossing them over my throat just in time. The beast's teeth clamped down on my left forearm.
"AGGGGHHHHH!"
The pain was blinding. It was absolute white-hot agony. The teeth pierced straight through my flesh, grating against the bone. The acidic saliva burned like liquid fire inside the wound.
The wolf thrashed its head, trying to rip my arm off. I was screaming, my vision swimming with tears and panic. I was going to die. I was actually going to be eaten alive.
No! I have a goddess waiting for me! I won't die like this!!! I am NOT dying as dog food!
Adrenaline—pure, unadulterated survival instinct—flooded my system. With my right hand, I frantically grabbed the textured grip of the Common Tier survival knife strapped to my thigh. I ripped it from the sheath.
I didn't aim. I just brought the heavy, serrated blade up and plunged it directly into the side of the wolf's neck.
The blade sank to the hilt. The wolf let out a gurgling shriek, its grip on my arm loosening for a fraction of a second.
It was enough. I ripped my bleeding arm free, ignoring the sickening tearing sound. I kicked out with both feet, planting my heavy boots squarely in the beast's chest, and shoved with every ounce of strength I had.
The wolf stumbled backward, blood pouring from the knife wound in its neck. But it wasn't dead. It was just angrier. It shook its head, snarling, preparing to lunge again.
I scrambled backward against the root, clutching my mangled left arm. My spear was twenty feet away. My knife was stuck in the wolf's neck. I had nothing.
"Think!" I screamed at myself. "Think, damn it!"
My mana!
It had regenerated while I was walking. I had 1 MP.
The wolf lunged, jaws open wide to crush my skull.
I threw my right hand forward, aiming directly for its six cluster of eyes. I didn't try to cast a fireball. I didn't try to cast lightning. I just poured my single, pathetic drop of mana into the 'Natural Flow' around me and visualized a flashbang.
FZT-CRACK!
A blinding, intense spark of pure magical light erupted directly in front of the wolf's face. It wasn't powerful, but it was bright, and it was right in its eyes.
The wolf yelped, squeezing its six eyes shut, its lunge faltering as it was momentarily blinded. It crashed into the dirt just a few feet to my left, disoriented.
"FARMING TOOL! COME TO ME!" I shrieked, holding my right hand out.
I don't know if the tool had an auto-return function, or if the sheer desperation in my voice activated a hidden feature, but the heavy wooden sickle violently vibrated in the grass. It shot across the clearing, snapping perfectly into my outstretched palm.
I didn't hesitate. I didn't think about the pain in my arm or my utter lack of stamina. I gripped the wooden handle with both hands, ignoring the blood slicking the wood, let out a primal, terrifying roar, and drove the bladehead directly down into the side of the blinded wolf's ribcage, aiming right where I assumed its heart would be.
SHNK.
The divine metal pierced the thick hide, slid between the ribs, and buried itself deep into the beast's chest cavity.
The wolf stiffened. Its six eyes snapped open, wide and unfocused. It let out one final, rattling breath, blood bubbling from its maw, and then collapsed.
Dead.
I stood there for a second, leaning heavily on the bloody spear shaft. The forest was dead silent, save for my own ragged, wheezing gasps.
"I... I killed it," I whispered, disbelief washing over me. "I actually killed it."
And then, the adrenaline vanished.
"AARRRGHH!"
My knees buckled. I collapsed next to the wolf's corpse, clutching my left arm. The pain hit me like a physical blow. It was excruciating. The wolf's teeth had shredded my forearm, tearing through fat and muscle. Blood was pouring out, mixing with the dark, acidic slime of the beast's saliva.
"System!" I cried out, my voice weak and trembling. "Online Grocery! Open!"
The blue and orange interface popped up in my vision, slightly blurry through my tears.
I needed money. Fast.
I reached out with a trembling hand, grabbing a handful of the wolf's bloody fur, and mentally commanded the system to appraise and deposit it. The black vortex appeared over the corpse.
To my shock, the vortex expanded, swallowing the entire minivan-sized mutant wolf in one massive gulp.
[Item Appraised: Corrupted Alpha Wolf Corpse. (Contains: Low-Grade Magic Core, Acidic Glands, Corrupted Pelt, Meat)]
[Value: 150,000 Yen]
[Balance: 156,500 Yen]
One hundred and fifty thousand Yen. I had just made rent by killing a dog.
But I couldn't celebrate. I was bleeding out. I navigated the grocery interface frantically, skipping the food, skipping the tools, and heading straight for the pharmacy section.
Click. Large Gauze Roll.
Click. Medical Tape.
Click. Heavy-Duty Antiseptic Spray.
Click. Ibuprofen.
"Purchase!" I gasped.
The plastic bag dropped onto my lap. I tore it open with my teeth. The next ten minutes were the most agonizing experience of my entire existence. I sprayed the antiseptic directly into the open bite wounds. It fizzed and burned, neutralizing the acidic saliva, but it felt like I was pouring liquid fire onto my exposed nerves. I screamed until my voice gave out.
Sobbing and hyperventilating, I awkwardly wrapped my arm in thick layers of white gauze, taping it as tight as I could manage with one hand to stop the bleeding. I dry-swallowed four ibuprofen pills, leaning my head back against the thick bark of the Great Tree.
I was a mess. My clothes were shredded. I was covered in mud, sweat, and wolf blood. My left arm was a throbbing, useless lump of white bandages. My stats were still completely pathetic, and I had almost died on day one.
But as I sat there at the base of the massive, majestic tree, looking out over my beautiful, sunlit clearing, a strange sense of pride washed over me.
I survived. I fought back. I won.
"Okay," I whispered, letting my eyes drift shut as the painkillers slowly began to work their magic. The gentle, warm aura of the Great Tree pulsed behind me, soothing my battered body. "This is it. This is ground zero. Tomorrow, I start my life in this ridiculous other world."
I let out a long, shuddering breath.
"I'm going to make this place beautiful," I promised my absent goddess. "Just wait for me."