Thirty days.
One full month without a boss, without factory quotas, without a paycheck.
Here, time wasn't measured in working hours, but in heartbeats. As long as mine kept thudding, it meant I hadn't yet lost to natural selection.
I sat on a high branch, unmoving. My muscles were stiff, locked in a static position for the past four hours. In the old world, sitting this still would have killed my back. Here, stillness was the currency used to buy an opportunity.
Down below, the trap was set.
Not magic. Not luck. Just basic physics.
Gravity, tensile stress, and the coefficient of friction.
I ran my thumb over the surface of my hand. The texture reminded me of coarse sandpaper. Back then, factory work had ruined my skin, leaving it bruised and fragile. But this forest did the opposite. Every scratch healed into a tougher layer of scar tissue. My body was no longer a piece of scrap worn down by labor; it was being reforged into combat hardware.
Variable 1: Wind direction. Northbound. My scent was masked.
Variable 2: Target weight. Estimated four to five hundred kilograms.
Variable 3: Rope integrity. Triple-braided aerial roots. Tensile strength sufficient to withstand the initial shock.
Calculations complete. Now, I just had to wait for the external variable to enter the equation.
Snap.
A branch breaking in the distance.
My heart didn't race from fear. It beat with the steady rhythm of a metronome. Thump. Thump. Thump. Adrenaline began to flood my bloodstream—not as a panic button, but as fuel for focus.
It was here.
The horned bear.
The monster at the apex of this sector's food chain. It walked with a heavy arrogance, ignoring the thorny bushes scraping against its thick hide. In its chest, a red crystal pulsed dimly—a biological reactor core powering a half-ton killing machine.
I exhaled slowly, equalizing the temperature in my lungs with the ambient air. In the old world, I studied anatomy just to draw game characters. Here, that knowledge wasn't art. It was a map of vulnerabilities.
Neck. Carotid artery. Eyes. Heart.
I dropped down. Soundless. Landing with bent knees to absorb the impact. The bear turned its head. Its crimson eyes locked onto me. There was no dramatic roar like in the movies. Real animals didn't waste energy showing off their vocal cords before a kill.
It lunged.
The ground shuddered. The momentum of five hundred kilograms of accelerating mass meant certain death upon collision. I didn't run away. I sprinted across its path. Baiting it.
Five meters.
Three meters.
I could see the vapor of its breath, reeking of carrion. Now.
I threw myself down, sliding across the muddy earth just beneath its gaping jaws, and yanked the hidden knot in the dirt.
SNAP!
The braided roots pulled taut. The bear's front legs snagged.
The law of inertia took effect. An object in motion stays in motion until acted upon by an outside force. Its legs stopped. Its body didn't.
THUD!
The behemoth was hurled forward, losing its balance. It slammed into the dirt and tumbled directly into the depression I had prepared.
CRUNCH.
That sound... The sound of flesh being pierced by something both blunt and sharp at the same time. Wet. Heavy. Sickening.