Chapter 2
10 min read ·
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“Mmm...”
I cracked my eyes open to the blinding sight of mountains blanketed in pure white snow.
... No wonder I was cold.
The biting cold quickly brought me to my senses. Everywhere I looked was white snow, as though the entire world had frozen over. There weren't many places on the continent where you could see a landscape this frigid.
“The northern mountains?”
The northern reaches of the continent, where brutal winter lasted all year round.
“Why am I here?”
But why would I be in the north? Until just a moment ago, I'd been in a jungle in the southern part of the continent. And I'd died there.
That would mean I'd crossed the continent after dying...
“Did the Emperor bury me here?”
These snowy northern mountains were my homeland, where I'd grown up. Perhaps he'd buried me at home out of respect for an enemy commander—an enemy, yes, but a worthy one...
Like hell he had.
“... No way.”
The Emperor would never show such mercy. What the hell did a murderous lunatic know about mercy?
Above all, I was a top-priority target on the imperial army's kill list. Whenever imperial soldiers saw me, their teeth barely survived the encounter. They ground them that hard.
In a sense, the imperial army was even warier of me than of the Hero and the other heroes.
A member of the special task force under the allied army's Operations Command. Chief of covert operations for the special warfare unit.
In that role, I'd carried out countless missions, and in the process, I hadn't merely disrupted the imperial army's plans. I'd utterly demolished them.
They wouldn't have been satisfied even with digging up my corpse to mutilate it, and I expected honors for an enemy commander? Ridiculous.
“Did they dump my body here?”
That would make sense. And instead of staying dead, I'd come back to life.
“No way.”
But that couldn't be right either. For starters, the Emperor wouldn't go to all that trouble. If he wanted to dump my body, he could have simply left it in the south. Why cross the entire continent to dump it in the north?
More importantly, how could I come back to life after having my heart pierced?
“Then what the hell happened?”
I couldn't make sense of any of this. I ran a hand down my face to collect myself...
“Huh?”
Something was wrong. The scar over my left eye.
“It's gone?”
It was gone. More precisely, I couldn't feel the scar beneath my fingertips.
Was I imagining things? But that didn't explain it. It wasn't just the scar over my left eye that was missing.
“The scar on the back of my hand, too?”
The scar on my right arm from fighting an imperial legion commander was nowhere to be seen either. This one I could plainly see with my own eyes, so it wasn't my imagination.
On closer inspection, the scars weren't the only things missing.
“Why are my hands so pristine?”
The calluses I'd earned on countless battlefields were gone, too. My hands were now as pale and smooth as a pampered young nobleman's.
As though I'd become someone else...
It happened just then.
◆Unique perk transfer complete!
A translucent message suddenly appeared before my eyes. More messages I couldn't understand followed, rising into my field of vision.
==「Player Information」==
[Name] = Adrian Whitewolf
[Level] = Level 1
[HP] = 71
[MP] = 0
[Stats] = Strength:0 Agility:0 Stamina:0 Mana:0
[Experience] = 0%
The text glittered across my vision, like the holograms used in magical communication. I could swear to one thing.
“... What is this?”
I'd never seen this before.
Of course, I'd seen magical communication holograms countless times. They were the allied army's primary means of communication.
But those holograms weren't magic you could use easily. They required several communication mages and a dedicated room inscribed with numerous magic circles. You couldn't use that kind of magic in snowy mountains with nothing but white snow all around.
Above all, there was what the messages said.
“Player...?”
These were things I'd never seen in my entire life.
I studied each item in the text floating before me.
Player, name, level. HP, MP, stats, experience.
“Does ‘player’ mean me?”
Considering that my name was written in the [Name] field, that seemed likely. In other words, I hadn't become someone else.
“Level 1?”
If “level” meant what I thought it did, this was probably a numerical measure of my capabilities. That would make my current standing [Level 1]...
“That's all?”
Granted, I couldn't hold a candle to Ian, the Hero. I couldn't deny that I fell short of the other heroes, too. But that was only because Ian and the heroes were monsters. I was by no means weak.
I'd been a key asset of the allied army, staying at Ian's side until the very end. I'd clung to life and survived even as the allied army and its heroes all died around me. The imperial army hadn't called me the “Mad Predator” for nothing.
And yet I was only level 1?
“And what's wrong with these stats?”
Now that I looked, the stats were the most absurd part. Strength, agility, stamina, mana. Every last one was scraping rock bottom.
“Why are they all zero?”
Of course, I didn't know how much power those stats represented. But zero? No matter how you looked at it, that couldn't be a normal number.
“And what's this experience underneath...?”
Just as I was wondering what on earth was going on, it happened.
◆Displaying the player's current skills.
Another message suddenly appeared. Then the display changed completely, filling my vision with new text.
==「Current Skills」==
◆I Alone Level Up[EX]
: The player can accumulate experience to increase their level. Each level gained grants 1 stat point.
◆Player's Will[EX]
: Grants immunity to all effects (curses, illusions, brainwashing, hypnosis, suggestion, etc.) that exceed the player's mental fortitude.
◆Predation[S+]
: Devour a living creature's heart to absorb its abilities and convert them into skills. However, this consumes mental fortitude.
“What the...?”
Just as that question came to mind, another message appeared.
◆A quest has arrived.
It suddenly filled my vision, and its contents unfolded before my eyes.
* * *
Y@u, in a str& ^% pl*ce$!
Op#n yeur eyyz, whazza?
Th& wVrl§※ y○◎ li%^ in is diff**?
R~b yeur eyyz an' loork aroun', whuzzat?!
Y▲u rea♠ize▲ you've f▲llen int▲ a stranj wurrld!
Tranzmigrashun! Tranzmigrashun!
What a preposterrus turn of evuntz-z-z!
Wh♧t in blazzes, and why haz thiz ♡appen♧d!
What ▒ did y@u committ-t-t!
Y@u are guilty of nothing but ■■!
You don't kno▧ how this ◈ happened, but y@u kno% what you mu※★ do.
First, survivv-z-z
@% the village of E$%.
* * *
“... What's it trying to say?”
I really couldn't understand a single thing. The only part I could make any sense of was the word [Quest] that had appeared at the start.
Ordinarily, a quest meant a search mission entrusted to a knight, or a lengthy expedition. At least, that was how the word was used on the continent.
If it meant the same thing here, this seemed to describe some kind of mission...
“But what mission?”
I couldn't make heads or tails of it. For a moment, I wondered if it was an allied army cipher—
“No, that's not it.”
If it were, there was no way I wouldn't recognize it. I was the special warfare unit's chief of covert operations. Under the allied army's Operations Command, I'd handled not only special warfare missions but intelligence and espionage operations, including gathering, compiling, and disseminating intelligence.
Naturally, I knew the allied army's ciphers inside out. So I could say with certainty that this was absolutely not something those ciphers could decipher.
“Then could it be an imperial cipher—”
Surely not.
Just as the thought crossed my mind, it happened.
◆Error: The player conflicts with the quest contents.
◆Error: Player information has changed.
◆Assigning a new quest.
◆Loading...
“Now what?”
It was putting on quite a show all by itself. Still, judging by the word [Loading], something seemed to be in progress.
I must have waited about five minutes.
◆The quest has been updated.
A message announced that the quest had been updated, and its contents unfolded.
* * *
You've opened your eyes in a strange place!
But wait a second?
Is it your imagination, or does this place somehow look familiar?
You rub your eyes and gather your wits, and—yikes?!
You realize you're in the “snowy northern mountains”!
But the snowy northern mountains?!
How did you end up in the snowy northern mountains when you were in the southern jungle?!!
Did the Emperor honor you?
Did the Emperor dump you in the snowy mountains?
No, never mind that—you're dead!!
Your head is a jumbled mess!
You've become a fool!
Why, you ask?
Because you don't even know that something is watching for a chance to take your life!
How this happened isn't important right now!!
First, you need to survive!
* * *
“What the...?”
I couldn't understand what was happening. Just as the quest said, I felt like I'd become a fool. But the quest paid no heed to my feelings and simply displayed more messages.
◆Starting tutorial quest [What on Earth Is Going On?!].
==[What on Earth Is Going On?!] ==
[Objective] - Survive
[Reward] - Inventory unlocked
[On Failure] - Death
Just as those messages were appearing of their own accord, it happened.
ROAAR!
A deafening sound assaulted my eardrums from one side.
* * *
Heavy, thudding footsteps accompanied the tremendous roar. I looked toward the sound and saw an enormous creature, about two meters tall, approaching me.
That thing staring at me and drooling was...
“An ice troll?”
Ice trolls were a mutant variety of troll native to the north. Being mutants, they were few in number and rarely seen. And by now, they were monsters you couldn't find at all.
“Didn't the Emperor capture every last ice troll?”
Trolls were monsters with exceptional regenerative abilities, which made their blood highly valuable as an ingredient in various potions. And ice trolls possessed a full five times the regenerative ability of ordinary trolls. Their regeneration had naturally evolved to help them survive the brutal cold.
Potions made from ice troll blood were likewise five times as effective. The Emperor had captured all the ice trolls to produce potions for the imperial army. He'd gone further still, wiping out wild ice trolls so that the allied army couldn't make use of them.
As a result, there were no wild ice trolls left on the continent. The only ones remaining were bred in the laboratory beneath the imperial palace.
Even I, a native of the north, had only ever seen an ice troll once...
“Wait. Could this be...?”
A memory suddenly surfaced. The first and last time I'd seen an ice troll.
That had been about fifteen years ago.
My father, the head of House Whitewolf, had passed away. After the funeral, his will was read, and he'd left everything belonging to the family to my younger sister, not me.
I'd protested, but no one had taken my side. They'd all thought my capable sister was better suited to head the family and rule the county than a wastrel who spent his life gambling and indulging in pleasure.
In an instant, I'd become the odd man out. Unable to bear it, I'd stormed out of the family home. Then, after days and days of wandering the snowy mountains, this moment had come.
ROAAR!
I'd encountered an ice troll.
That was my memory of the first and last time I'd seen one. Even though it had happened more than fifteen years ago, I remembered it vividly. It was the moment my life had taken a complete turn.
So if these truly were the snowy northern mountains where House Whitewolf stood, and if that creature drooling at me really was an ice troll...
“I've gone back to the past?”
That was the conclusion I arrived at.