"Luck, you absolute bitch!"

I screamed, tearing through the twisted forest, branches clawing at my clothes like jealous exes.

Just a few hours ago, I dared to believe—maybe—Luck was just a misunderstood tsundere who didn't know how to show affection.

Turns out? She's not misunderstood. She's just cruel.

And I'm the idiot who tried to date her again.

It's been thirty minutes. Thirty. Damn. Minutes since I entered the second layer—

And I'm already running like my life depends on it.

Because, well… technically, it does.

I had been minding my own business, thank you very much, after killing what was supposed to be a rare monster.

A Hollow Mask—so rare it had only appeared once while Noah traveled all the way to the tree.

My body had taken a solid beating even with seventy percent damage absorption from my rings.

Sure, the rings absorbed most of the explosion from that unstable card…

But tree splinters? Yeah, no. Those sneaky wooden bastards slipped right through.

One of the wooden spikes was even stabbed in my abdomen.

Pulling it out wasn't heroic. It was messy, painful and came with an arterial-level fountain of blood I definitely didn't sign up for.

I downed a healing potion right after, but it was low-grade… the only grade I could take at my current level.

The bleeding slowed, sure, but not fast enough. I wrapped a few bandages around the wound and hoped my insides would stay inside where they belonged.

So, while the wound tried to knit itself back together, I did the only reasonable thing left.

I found myself a perfect spot to rest for just some time before my wounds heal completely.

And that was when they appeared.

Not one.

Not two.

But seven.

Seven fucking Hollow Masks.

The supposedly rare, rarely-seen, nightmare-fuel monsters of this cursed forest… just casually decided to show up like they were out on a group picnic.

Of course they did.

Because clearly, bleeding out and being half-drugged on a cheap healing potion wasn't enough suffering for one day.

So, my crash out against luck was valid.

For the last half an hour, I have been running from those monstrosities.

I have been doing my best to take them down without looking directly at their cursed faces.

Which, by the way, is a joke in itself because their faces are their only weakness.

I barely managed to take three of them out but I knew I couldn't outrun them forever. Not in my current condition.

Everything hurts like hell.

My abdomen was still leaking blood through the bandages and the wound from that spike was nowhere near to closing.

And if that wasn't enough, I had picked up more injuries while running. Nothing major… but they were stacking fast.

Honestly, I wasn't even sure how I was even running anymore.

I guess human survival instincts really are magic, when the body breaks, the will just keeps screaming.

And here I was, still blabbering like an idiot… because talking meant I didn't have to think about the pain.

Or the fact that my legs were getting slower.

Or that my feet were going numb.

Or that every breath felt like it was being chewed before it reached my lungs.

I wasn't remotely afraid of pain.

I had felt worse in my last life, sleeping on concrete because I couldn't afford both rent and tuition at the same time, starving beneath flickering streetlights.

The pain from hunger was something far worse than any kind of physical pain.

People are cruel when you wear plain clothes instead of polished brands.

They look at you like you're less than human.

And some of them treat you even worse.

No—pain didn't scare me. Not because I'm a masochist or anything.

It's just… There are some other things that bother me more.

Like becoming a creepy monster's evening snack.

But my body was disagreeing. I could feel my reaction getting slower and the distance between me and the monster closing.

Hell, even my eyes were turning blurry.

Still, I wasn't running aimlessly.

I had a plan.

I was trying to find a single place within this forest.

The sole sanctuary situated within this cursed land, located somewhere in the east direction of the massive tree.

My [Ember Sense] was active, feeding me information about my surroundings constantly.

The sanctuary was a place rich with life mana, and where the pond of life was situated.

In the novel, Noah had stumbled upon it with one of his arms chopped from the Moon-Gnawed—an Eldritch abomination that even Noah with his [Katsuragami], struggled to defeat.

Only after giving his arm was he able to injure it.

That was when he stumbled upon the sanctuary.

In the novel the pond was described as tears of the Goddess of Life but back then I had dismissed it as some poetic bullshit.

But maybe it was really the tears of the Goddess, because the pond healed all of Noah's injuries, even those which he had carried since his childhood.

And if I could somehow find that place, I could go all out to defeat these guys before jumping in the pond… because unlike Noah I couldn't trust that bitch luck to just stumble on the pond while I am kissing death.

Just then, I heard something.

Sound of flowing water.

I ran more desperately than before.

The four abominations were still behind me, relentless in their pursuit, limbs tearing through the underbrush like nightmare fuel on legs.

I couldn't take another healing potion. The cooldown wasn't over yet, and forcing one down now would injure me more than it helped.

One of them was closing in—too close.

I gathered mana in my palm, forming a glowing orange card. Without stopping, I flicked it toward the ground.

A second later, once I'd gained some distance, I pulled the trigger.

BOOM!!

The explosion ripped through the forest floor.

The nearest abomination was thrown backward from the shockwave, crashing through branches like a meteor.

It didn't die.

But it bought me what I needed,

Distance.

But with that attack my mana was close to being empty.

I could barely do three or at most four more [Card Throw] before my mana runs out.

Damn it.

I didn't want to take a mana-reagent either. Not like this.

Not with my body already cracked and bleeding.

Pushing my heart and lungs any further would be a death sentence.

Instant mana surge in a broken vessel?

Yeah. That's how you die with your eyes open.

And then—

I felt it.

That shift.

The air… changed.

Ahhh, it's here.

I felt the rich Life-mana. It was so potent I could feel it even at my level, when I shouldn't have sensed anything at all.

That alone told me how immense and dense it was.

And then, I saw it.

A clearing in the middle of the forest, unlike anything else.

The trees here weren't twisted or lifeless like the ones I had passed before.

Instead they pulsed with vitality, their bark glowing faintly, like they were drinking light from the air itself.

Delicate blue flowers bloomed along their branches, swaying gently.

Every branch of the trees curved gently toward the center.

Toward the pond which radiated an otherworldly glow.

The clearing was maybe a hundred meters out.

It was near but not close enough.

I pushed forward with everything I had left.

I wasn't stupid to fight the Hollow Mask just because I was near.

I was going to fight from the edge of the pond.

I wasn't taking any chances.

But just as I closed the gap—fifty meters out—the air stilled.

Every single cell in my body screamed at me.

Not in pain but in warning.

Something was here.

Something old.

Something that didn't like to be approached.

My body moved before my mind could catch up.

Instinct took over.

I dropped flat to the ground, face pressed into the earth with my heart pounding.

And for a moment, I didn't care about the Hollow Masks.

Didn't care about blood.

Didn't care about pain.

Because I knew…

If I got up, I was dead.

"SKRAAAAAAIIIIGHHHHH—UULULULUUAAAGH—k'tk—k'tk!"

An indecipherable scream tore through the air.

It didn't sound like a creature.

It sounded like many voices layered over each other as if something which had swallowed too many souls and now spoke with all of them at once.

I didn't move.

Then, swish.

Something flew over me.

The Hollow Masks screamed.

I didn't.

I stayed still.

Then,

Crunch.

A slow, wet sound from somewhere behind.

I turned and lifted my head, just enough to see.

Toward the noise.

Toward whatever had made them scream.

Then I saw it.

And I wished I hadn't.

A pulsing mass of flesh—round and too disgusting to look at.

Countless small eyes and mouths rolled across its body.

In the center was a gaping mouth, wide enough to swallow a man whole.

And two arms stretched out from its sides, far too long for its bloated shape.

One was shaped like a scythe.

The other… like a hammer, sculpted entirely from twisted meat.

But it wasn't just their shape that made them terrifying.

It was the sound.

All the smaller mouths except the main one were screaming.

Some wailed in agony.

Some whispered, begging for help in voices far too human.

Voices that sounded familiar.

And it was now, eating through the corpses of Hollow Masks.

I recognised the abomination.

It was something I had seen in the file Noah had given me about monsters in the second layer, back when I was still designing the game.

Grafted Hunger.

An Eldritch entity.

One of the highest-level threats in the entire second layer.

…And at this moment, hundreds of its eyes were staring straight at me like I was dessert.

Something sweet it'd saved for after finishing dinner, The Hollow Masks.

As I looked at it, only one thought came into my mind.

Luck, you fucking bitch.

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