Chapter 1:
The Sudden Beginning of My Survival Life:
Days 1 and 2
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THERE I WAS, making my way through the forest. We lump all forests together as one category, but there are actually all kinds, and everyone envisions different things. The forest I found myself in had an old-growth feel to it. To put it simply:
Thickets! Trees! Bugs! Hrrrrngh!
Yeah. That about summed it up. My discomfort index was skyrocketing. It was gonna be kinda sorta really hard to push my way through the thicket without proper equipment. Not to mention, my only clothes—my sweatshirt and sweatpants—were bound to get all tattered before I knew it. Still, with no means of surviving in the wasteland, I didn’t really have much choice. Off I went, all by my lonesome.
It would be dangerous to venture aimlessly into the deep woods, so I wandered around near the edge. After about an hour of searching, I turned up a tree that I thought I’d be able to climb. There was a bit of a clearing around it too, so it seemed like a good place to make my base.
“Now, let’s take a look.” I carefully checked the perimeter and the state of the tree.
From what I could tell, there weren’t any animal tracks or unnatural marks on the tree. There were no signs of dangerous-looking insects like bees or ants.
You might think it’s strange that I was worried about ants, and I get it; your average domestic ant in Japan’s no threat, but you have to remember they’re cousins to the hornet—any unfortunate soul who’s stepped on a fire ant hill can tell you that.
Speaking of bugs, I had yet to find any strange varieties of insects, however much you might expect to find them on faraway planets or alternate Earths. Not to say that I actually wanted to run into any.
Anyway, the tree looked safe, so I slowly eased my way up it. I’ll admit, I was scared. I made it about two meters before I screwed up and looked down. I would have to find some way to anchor myself or I wouldn’t be able to sleep.
I slowly climbed down and took a breather. What did I need next? Probably fire and water. So long as I had water, I could survive for a time without food. Seeing as a fire would drastically improve my immediate chances of survival, I figured that was the higher priority—which was a shame, because while I knew how to start one in theory, I’d never actually done it before. I figured I ought to get to it while I still had some daylight to work by.
First, I needed the straightest branches I could rustle up. I gathered large wood chips, supple branches, flat stones, and assorted small bits of kindling.
I was afraid I’d wind up barbecue if I couldn’t contain the flame, so I cleaned up the fallen leaves near my base tree, dug a small hole with Stone Knife #1, and placed a big wood chip inside. I used Stone Knife #1 to hollow it out in several places.
Next, I would snap a straight branch in two and whittle the points on the ends. Then, I would pack the wood chips into the hollow, hold the branch between my hands, and rotate it—except I wouldn’t because it was clear that this would only end in blisters and wasted effort with my limited stamina and willpower.
And this was where my sweatpants would come in handy.
“Lalala, c’mere, string.”
I pulled the drawstring from my waistband and tied it around the supple branch, turning it into a bow. I wrapped the “bowstring” up in the straight rod I had made, planning to make frictional heat by moving the bow back and forth to rotate the rod. Basically, I would recreate the tried-and-true bow drill method.
I pressed the rod down using the flat stone and stuffed the wood chips into the hollow where the rod would do its work. Now all I had to do was move the bow back and forth.
It was hard and painful. The bow broke, and I couldn’t get it to catch fire… After much trouble, I somehow wrung a couple of sparks out of it, but I still couldn’t actually get anything to catch.
“Damn it! But don’t think I’ve been defeated yet!”
This time I prepared even more wood chips and shavings for my starter. That was when I realized that crushing dry leaves would probably be best. I was stupid, so stupid. I wouldn’t be surprised if my soul gem had turned completely black, if I might shamelessly steal an idiom.
And at last, I had my fire. I already had kindling prepared, so I turned it into an open-air fire right away.
“Ahhh, so warm.”
The sun was about to set, so I stopped staring at the fire and went to gather more kindling from nearby.
“I’m starving.”
As I stared into the fire, I started wondering how I wound up here. I couldn’t come up with any rational explanation. Was this my punishment for some sin I didn’t know I’d committed? I looked up at the sky and took in the planet and moon hanging overhead.
There’s no world where this is normal. Absolutely not. Did I die? Is this the world we go to after?
What even were my final memories on Earth? I cast my mind back.
I was messing with my phone, watching TV in the living room. I didn’t have any family. My parents were divorced, and my mother, who had taken custody of me, suddenly passed away two years ago due to cerebral apoplexy. My dad, being who he was, already had a new family, so I was living on my own now; it felt too awkward to move in with them.
I had that day off, and… Oh yeah, I’d left my apartment to stop by the bank after lunch. And that was the last thing I remembered. Those “stepped out the front door and got whisked to another world” plots were infectious enough without infecting my own life.
Another world. That was what this place had to be. At the very least, I knew this wasn’t Earth. Was I now yet another fantasy protagonist? The prospect didn’t particularly fill me with excitement. There was somethin’ depressin’ an’ lonely ’bout havin’ ta survive all ’lone in the woods, to the point that it was driving me to affected folksiness.
I didn’t mind the genre. Getting immersed in the world of a story was an opiate for a heart aggrieved by the world’s hardships. It was pretty clear before I changed realities that I wasn’t the only one feeling desperate to retreat someplace where the rules make sense and work in your favor.
But this harsh survival game, where all I had was the clothes on my back, wasn’t what I wished for at all. Not at all. Nuh-uh. If I had to wind up in another world, then why couldn’t they have given me some kind of well-known power to cheat with? I was a modern-day kid who grew up cozily in Japan with all the necessities of life—electricity, gas, running water. I was born in the 90s, damn it! How the hell was I expected to survive plunked into a situation like this?
“I’m so hungry,” I said again, feeling the point bore repeating. I was pretty thirsty too. Damn it all. It wouldn’t do to starve. I could feel my willpower chipping away. “Tomorrow I need to find food. Or water, at the very least.”
The kindling I had collected was smoky, perhaps because it was moist or still alive. I didn’t mind; it seemed like the sort of thing that would keep bugs and larger pests away.
As I gazed at the flames hugging my knees, tears welled up in my eyes. The smoke’s fault, obviously. Damn it all.
If only this were a survival game, I could just press the F key or E key right now to bring up the fire’s crafting menu right about now… Hmm? Wait a minute.