If nothing unexpected had happened, he would have been sitting in his matriculation examination hall.
He would have had a smooth journey, passing his exams with good results and securing a scholarship to the best intermediate college.
But now, every bit of that effort had gone down the drain, rendered completely futile.
However, reality is often far crueler than expectations. Lying beneath the lush tree, covered in bruises, he realized he had been a victim of jealousy.
The reason? The original owner of this body had been socially clueless, much like the nerdy students Sam used to know. He had been lured out here under the guise of friendship, only to be intentionally abandoned. Having no real survival experience, he had simply starved.
'What could anyone expect from a tenth-grade student? To survive in an uncharted wilderness without any tools or guidance? His fate had been sealed the moment he set foot in this unknown territory.'
Now, the real test was Sam to face: how to survive and escape this place!
"Ugh!" Sam felt sick at his wretched fate.
"Is this the starting point every transmigrator has to face?" He didn't know, but he was absolutely certain this wasn't going to be easy.
Gurgle!
His eyes widened. "F*ck!" he cursed, a deep sense of dread settling over him.
Forcing himself to calm down, he sat back heavily. "I have to preserve my energy and think rationally."
He needed a concrete survival plan.
First: Water. The dry, hot breeze meant he couldn't afford to leave the shade of the tree.
Second: Food. This situation didn't allow him the luxury of being a picky eater. These were his most basic, desperate needs, and his body was screaming at him to fulfill them quickly.
Taking a deep breath and swallowing his pride, he pressed his ear against the thick bark of the lush tree. He waited patiently until he heard a faint, wriggling sound.
Gulp.
Right now, these creatures were the only luxury he could afford. These bark-eating caterpillars could satisfy both of his immediate needs—hydration and energy—buying him precious time. His only other option was to sit around and starve like the previous owner.
Clenching his fist, he rummaged through the original owner's baggage, searching for anything sharp.
A multi-utility knife!
Finally, a faint smile lit up his face.
'How did he still manage to die, then?' He quickly shook his head, pushing the thought aside. He carefully pressed his ear back against the bark, once again locating the faint wriggling reverberating inside the wood.
Krik!
Applying just the right amount of pressure, he carved a deep circle into the bark with the sharp blade. With the perimeter cut, he carefully wedged the knife in and pried the section of bark away from the trunk.
"This should be enough to grab it," he murmured under his breath. He pulled the bark back, revealing a squishy, fleshy, white caterpillar wriggling in the exposed wood.
Just the thought of eating the bug made him nauseous. Calming his racing heart, he sacrificed his dignity, pinched the caterpillar, and immediately popped it into his mouth.
Squirt!
Bitter juice exploded, filling his mouth. Fighting down his heavy, nauseous gag reflex, he forced himself to chew, mashing the squishy insect between his teeth.
It was revolting, but he knew this body desperately demanded sustenance. He guessed the previous owner had been starving for four or five days; he had to meet his basic needs before expending even a fraction of his energy.
Gulp.
With his dry mouth finally hydrated and his cracked lips regaining some moisture, he forced it all down.
So bitter!
Transmigrating into this world and immediately eating something he would never have considered in his past life made one thing incredibly clear: the days ahead were not going to be easy. But he was dead set on surviving, no matter the cost.
He repeated the process, quickly catching another caterpillar. This time, with a bit more of his sanity intact, he focused on it to see if his system could scan it.
Bark-eating Caterpillar
- Born only to eat bark.
He let out a sigh of relief.
'At least I still have a meager bit of luck on my side!'
Without wasting any more time, he tossed it into his mouth. As he munched on the squishy insect, red juice leaked from the corner of his lips. Refusing to let even a drop go to waste, he licked it away and swallowed.
...
Lying beneath the shade of the lush tree in this lonesome region, Sam now had to figure out what to do next.
He had managed to fulfill his basic conditions, but he was far from safe.
What a fate! Who would have thought that starvation would leave him with only one option: eating live caterpillars?
He could have tried to roam around and search for fruits, but the hellishly hot breeze would have quickly dehydrated him.
He didn't want to corner himself into an even more desperate situation. Without knowing which local fruits were safe or poisonous, eating the caterpillars had been the most logical choice to satisfy both his hunger and thirst.
A lazy part of his mind was screaming at him not to struggle, to just stay put in his comfort zone, but he refused.
A comfort zone was just a dead-end road. He wanted to challenge himself in this new world. In his previous life, he'd had it all figured out: he was in his final year of a Civil Engineering degree, while concurrently mastering C++ and pouring his free time into developing a 2D runner game for Android using Unity and C#.
He had always possessed a deep hobby for learning computer languages; the logic of interacting with machines through compilers had deeply intrigued him.
Transmigrating here meant he had lost all of those earthly opportunities, but fate had also brought him entirely new ones. And his mind wanted to hide in a comfort zone?
To hell with that!
"This is my body! My mind! I have the final say," he whispered fiercely. "And right now, my only goal is battling against this fate and getting out of here alive."
The golden rays of the sun were slowly losing their intensity, and clouds were beginning to resurface in the darkening sky.
Now it was time to hunt!
Carefully and silently, he climbed higher into the lush tree, hiding himself securely among the dense, leaf-covered branches.
He tried to access the previous owner's memories to figure out how the boy had survived out here for so long, but unfortunately, those specific memories were a blurry mess. He couldn't access them at all.