Chapter 3: Day 3

“What is this…!”

A village destroyed by food insects that overflowed from the ‘hole’.

A man trembled as he appeared in a place that seemed like hell had descended on earth.

“You f*cking!”

Kurrrr!

In response to the man’s angry cry, the surrounding air trembled.

Meanwhile, the food insects that had devoured all the humans in the village recognized the newly appeared man as ‘another prey’ and rushed in.

Rustle rustle rustle rustle rustle rustle.

The food insects rushed towards the man with the strange sound unique to insects.
It was as if a huge black wave was rushing in.

The angry man frowned at the food insects rushing towards him.

At the same time, the man waved his hand towards the black wave of food insects.

Whoosh!

Flames rose with the man’s gesture.

The flames that rose in the air were then divided into hundreds of pieces and poured towards the black wave of food insects.

Boom!

Kwagagagak!

Each time a piece of flame touched the food insects, a huge explosion occurred.

With one explosion, dozens to hundreds of food insects disappeared without a trace.

However, despite the explosion of the flames, the momentum of the black wave of food insects was still fierce.

“Tsk, I didn’t expect to fail at the last minute.”

The black wave arrived right in front of him.
The man clicked his tongue, looking at it, which was made up of thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of millions of food insects.

At some point, the anger that had been clearly felt from the man just before could no longer be found.

Instead.

“This is why I said not to leave it to the trash.”

Kwagagagak!

Before the man could finish his words, the black wave of food insects swallowed him up.

Kwarreureu-!

Rustle rustle rustle rustle.

A powerful shock spread through the earth in all directions.

From the black wave of food insects, a sound of something being gnawed on could be heard.

Anyone could see that the death of the man swept away by the black wave was a fait accompli.

But.

Flick-.

A tiny flame rose above the black wave.

It grew in size and stretched out to form a strange formation.

Rise-.

The moment the formation was completed, a voice filled with a presence that shook the mind and body resounded from within the black wave.

As if in response to the voice, the completed formation raised a huge flame from the center of the formation.

Fall.

The flame created in the center of the formation fell to the ground.
No, onto the black wave.

Devour.

The flame that fell on the black wave rapidly grew in size and devoured everything.

Burn-.

The flames that grew in size and devoured the black wave, the food insects, burned all the food insects it devoured into a handful of ashes.

The food insects burned to ashes and disappeared without a trace.

In the center, the man revealed himself as if nothing had happened and clicked his tongue again.

What was in the man’s eyes as he looked around was contempt.
And anger and doubt.

Although he called them trash, the guys who managed the ‘pot’ he had made here were quite useful for ordinary people.

Martial artists… was it?

Worms that tried to break through the limits of ordinary people by learning martial arts.

The ones who managed the pot here were first-rate martial artists who were quite powerful among martial artists.

Though they were just trash that was not even better than a cultivator who had just entered the world of cultivation.

“Did they fail to manage it?”

The man shook his head and denied it.

He had imprinted an irresistible fear on those pieces of trash.

In addition, he had forced restrictions on their minds and bodies so that they could not make even a minor mistake.

Then.

“An attack by wild beasts?”

The man thought of another possibility.

Certainly, if it was an attack by wild beasts, this could have happened.

The pot was one of the few places that was strictly managed even where the man belonged.

Those maggots who didn’t even know what the pot existed for.
But who wished to elevate their own realm would be enough to do such a crazy thing.

However, all of that was just the man’s guess.

Already, there was not a single drop of blood left of anything living here, due to the worms raised in the pot.

If wild beasts had attacked, they would have been the first to be eaten by the worms.

“It’s disgusting.”

With those words, the man disappeared like a gust of wind.

***

“Haa! Haa!”

The girl, who had been running for a long time, breathed heavily.

“Where is this…?”

Farther.
Farther away.

The girl, who had been running just to get a little farther away from that goddamn hell, realized that she had entered a forest at some point.

However, the forest she entered was strange.

From the grass growing on the ground to the trees that grew so densely that they formed a forest.

Everything was dyed black, so anyone could tell that it was definitely not a normal forest.

A black forest.

A black forest..

“Should I call it Black Forest for now?”

The girl muttered and lay down on the ground.

Even the leaves of the trees that made up the Black Forest were as black as if they had been splashed with ink.

But.

“Heh, hehe.
Ehehehe.”

A strange laugh leaked from the girl’s lips.

A blue sky was spread out between the black leaves.

A sky so blue that she could never see it in hell unless the hole opened.

Just looking at that sky, the girl couldn’t stop laughing.

Freedom.

I am free now.

Now I could go anywhere I wanted on my two legs.

She didn’t have to drink rotten water to quench her thirst.

She didn’t have to compete with worms and eat human corpses to relieve her hunger.

Grumble.

“Come to think of it, I haven’t eaten yet today.”

The girl, who had been rolling around on the ground for a long time, enjoying her freedom, got up at the loud rumbling of her stomach.

Normally, she would have licked some rotten water or eaten the food she had stashed away.

“But now it’s different.”

The girl smiled.

This was not hell.

This was a forest where many living things lived.

Even though the girl was fine with eating human corpses, she had no intention of continuing to eat human corpses even after escaping from hell.

But.

“I’ve never hunted before.”

In the first place, it was impossible to hunt the beasts of the forest with this young body.

Of course, that didn’t mean there was no other way.

First.

“Let’s fill my stomach first, and then make a trap.”

If she couldn’t hunt directly, she could just hunt using a trap.

Although it would be quite crude since she was making it without any knowledge or tools.

“If I’m lucky, I might be able to hunt a small rabbit.”

Nodding in satisfaction at her perfect plan, the girl moved.

First, she was going to pick some fruit that might be somewhere in this forest.

At the very least, there must be at least one fruit tree somewhere in this vast forest.

It didn’t matter if the fruit was poisonous.

Maybe it was because she had been drinking rotten water while living in hell.

The girl instinctively felt that her body wouldn’t be poisoned by ordinary poison.

Fruit~.

“Where could it be~.”

Humming a tune, the girl wandered through the forest.

She wandered around for 5 minutes.

She couldn’t see any fruit.

“It must be somewhere.”

The girl didn’t think much of it.

She wandered around for 20 minutes.

She still couldn’t see any fruit.

“Ah, it’s still okay for now.
It’s not like I’m so hungry I can’t stand it.”

The girl’s expression hardened slightly as she muttered.

She wandered around for an hour.

She couldn’t find any fruit.

Only then did the girl realize that something was wrong.

It wasn’t just that she couldn’t find any fruit.

She had been wandering around the forest for an hour….

“I haven’t seen a single bug.”

No fruit?

Yes.
She could understand that to some extent.

But.

There wasn’t a single bug living in this vast forest?

That couldn’t be.

Of course, there was a possibility that this forest was also a ‘special place’ like that goddamn hell.

However, the girl denied that possibility.

Certainly, the sight of everything being dyed black, such as grass, trees, and leaves, was somewhat eerie.

“At least I don’t feel the same strangeness as hell.”

When was it?

It must have been about a year after she started eating human hearts.

On that day, too, the girl was picking out a somewhat fresh corpse from among the corpses that had fallen from the hole and was eating its heart.

While doing so, the girl felt a certain strangeness.

It was something that couldn’t be explained in words, but she could still know one thing.

That strangeness was preventing her from escaping from hell.

The reason why, no matter how much she ran forward, she would return to the place where she first opened her eyes at some point was because of that strangeness.

In the first place, hell was not a normal place… no, it was not a normal space.

It was like a magical barrier that appeared in fantasy novels.

Or a strange space like a formation that appeared in martial arts novels.

In contrast, this forest didn’t feel that strange.

So.

“I, I must not have found it.”

The girl clung to the dwindling hope and moved again.

A little farther.

If she went a little deeper, there must be fruit somewhere.

No, it didn’t have to be fruit.

She would be fine with even a bug, so she hoped to find something.

How long had she been moving with that thought?

She gradually increased her walking speed and ran through the forest for several hours.

“Haa~! Haa-!”

The girl running through the forest breathed heavily.

At some point, an undisguisable fear appeared on the girl’s face, and her eyes were shaking like crazy.

Her running body had already reached its limit, and if she lost her focus even a little, she would fall to the ground.
Then she probably wouldn’t be able to get up again.

Even so, the girl ran.

She ran and ran and ran and kept running.

Just like when she escaped from hell and ran until she reached this forest.

However, there was one difference from then.

Shriek!

“You f*cking!”

A terrifying sound that made her heart shrink, coming from behind her.

The girl unknowingly cursed.

The running girl thought.

‘Why is there such a monster!’

That thing chasing her was clearly a monster.

It was a monster covered in the skin of a snake.

That was because, what kind of snake was as big as a subway train?

What kind of snake had two heads?
And a pure white horn growing from each of those heads?

One thing was clear, that monster had sufficient reason.

The reason the girl herself was still alive was proof of that.

That thing was enjoying this situation.

Even though it could eat her, it was clearly enjoying the situation where she was terrified and running away.

Even so, the girl didn’t stop running.

She wanted to live.

She wanted to survive.

How could she have escaped from that hell?
To become a meal for a monster snake without even properly enjoying this freedom?

Don’t be ridiculous.

Don’t f*cking joke around.

No matter what, I will….

“Survive..!”

Crunch!

I will survive.

The girl’s mouth, which was about to shout that, closed in an instant.

Her legs, which had been running through the forest like crazy, had long since stopped, and the girl’s eyes unknowingly turned to her back.

What was reflected in the girl’s slowly turned eyes.

It was….

“Ha, haha.
F*ck.
There’s really no f*cking possibility.”

Another monster was eating the two-headed snake.

Would it look like that if a lion and a tiger were mixed together?

It was smaller than the snake, but it easily killed the snake and was munching on its corpse.

Grr?

Her eyes met with the monster that was eating the snake.

At that moment, the girl felt a chill and an irresistible fear run up her spine, and she ran again.

The monster, which had been looking at the girl who was running away without looking back for a while.

Grr-.

As if nothing had happened, it just continued to eat.