When Darren opened his eyes, he found himself standing in the midst of a vast meadow of tall grass. The wind was blowing constantly, making subtle howling sounds. The tall grass and the leaves of the sparse trees looked a little yellowish, and the morning sky didn't have it's vibrant hue of blue. Compared to all the foreign worlds he's been to up to this point, this one seemed much less . . . tranquil.
He observed his own body and found that he had all his gear with him. He also tried the system functions that was supposed to be barred, and found that they really were unusable.
Darren then looked around and muttered to himself, "I need to get out of this tall grass first." Tall grass impeded both view and motion, and he knew a few creatures from his world that used things like these to their advantage.
Darren knew that he had to be extra cautious, now that he didn't have the skill [Pokerface] to back him up. It was a good thing even mossbags were taught basic survival skills, so he didn't have much reason to panic yet.
He began to march to the west, where he could spy a small hill. As he walked, the tall grass slowly got more sparse, and rocks and boulders became more frequent. A couple more dozen steps before he reached the slope of the hill, Darren couldn't see any vegetation in front of him anymore. It was just a hill with dry soil and littered with rocks and boulders.
On the other side of the hill, there seemed to be more hills, with much rougher terrain and littered with larger boulders.
Darren could imagine where he would set-up camp now, since some boulders would be large enough to act as a windbreak. The ground was elevated here, and there were very few things that block the view of his surroundings. This rocky hill indeed was a good place to set up camp.
"But how am I supposed to make camp . . ? Do I really have to go get wood or something?"
There weren't any camping stuff in the Breach, so Darren figured that he must be the one to procure them. However, the system responded.
▬▬▬▬Answer to Query▬▬▬▬▬
Once every day, the user can use [Set Camp] to instantly place down a simple tent and a few other survival tools.
This tent cannot protect the user from beasts, so it is advised against using the tent for protection.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
"Oh, that's nice then."
Darren searched for a nice spot at the hill and used [Set Camp]. After he did, the area was bathed in white light, blinding Darren for a few seconds. When he opened his eyes, a green tent-for-one was there. There was a mat outside with various camping tools, like an axe or a primitive stove.
A panel also appeared before Darren.
A few seconds afterward, a panel with a timer appeared before him.
▬▬▬
Time Before Wave 1
00:02:51
▬▬▬
"Wave 1?"
▬▬▬Tutorial▬▬▬
When a wave happens, all the beasts in the area will be alerted by the user's presence, and will head towards where the user is.
The user may choose to hunt those beasts before a wave happens to lower their numbers later, or wait for a wave to happen so that all nearby beasts come out.
There aret three waves in total in the first day.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
"Wait, wait, wait, wait-- what?"
However, the system made no response.
"System?!"
. . .
Darren made an exasperated facepalm as he looked at the timer. The system actually only gave him three minutes to prepare?!
After more than two minutes of worrying incessantly and complaining to the system, there were about 10 seconds left before the wave began.
"Oh, heavens have mercy."
And as the countdown arrived at 00:00:00, an announcement rang in his head.
"Wave 1 has begun."
Nothing changed much in Darren's immediate surroundings, but that only added to his terror. With no real reason, he grabbed the hilt of the sword at his waist, his hand shaking.
He looked around and spied multiple slight movements in the tall grass, approaching him. He turned around and found coyotes and other creatures easily traversing the rocky terrain of the hills. Not including those hidden in the tall grass, there were at least 20 beasts encroaching on Darren.
Darren understood that panicking was totally unnecessary here, but having the ability to calm oneself down was another matter entirely.
Shaking from fear, he switched to his bow and nocked an arrow, before shooting at one of the coyotes.
It was easy for the creature to evade Darren's shot, but it continued on its path without worry and thus got struck by the arrow on its shoulder.
It made a loud whimper upon getting injured, but it only began running faster at Darren. The other coyotes didn't react at all when they heard their kin's whimper.
'It's slightly different huh . . .' Darren thought, wanting to shoot the coyote once more before brandishing his sword.
His second arrow didn't hit, and the coyote was closer than ever, so Darren drew his sword and held it in front of him.
Going by the running coyote's speed, it was probably going to lunge at Darren once close enough. Darren thought of this and prepared to slash diagonally once the coyote was close enough.
As the coyote drew near, Darren did his best to keep his eyes peeled, despite the gnawing desire to close them.
And when the coyote prepared to jump, Darren's arrow still lodged into its body, he also prepared to swing his sword.
Slash!
His swing was a little early, so he only managed to make a shallow wound at the coyote's chest.
Seeing as the coyote's momentum would still cause it to crash at Darren, he moved sideways and let the coyote dive into the ground. The wound on its chest doused the dry ground with blood.
But despite all its whimpers, it still wanted to kill Darren. It looked at Darren with its teary eyes, its lips lifted and its fangs bared.
Terrified by the nearly-dead coyote, Darren lifted his sword and drove the blade into the creature's neck, stopping all of its life signs.
Darren was starting to get tunnel vision from the stress and terror, but when he remembered how lots of other creatures were out there to kill him, he was forced to look at the big picture again.
He wanted to do the same thing he did earlier-- shoot a beast so it would run ahead-- but when he saw how close the beasts were, he couldn't help but take in a shaky breath. They were about two minutes away from his position.
He sharply turned around to look at the tall grass meadow and found that the creatures were now emerging from the tall grass-- catbeasts. They looked like leopards, but their size was just a little larger than the average domesticated dog.
Darren forced a gulp, before nocking an arrow once again. On the face of certain death, he reminded himself by muttering under his breath, "I can ressurect, I can ressurect."
He released the arrow and shot a catbeast, making it run ahead of the others. Catbeasts were much faster than the coyotes, so Darren felt a strong tug at his gut as the creature ran up the hill.
He gritted his teeth and brandished his sword, waiting for the catbeast to jump, "There is absolutely no way I can be comfortable with the thought of dying!"
Slash!
After that, Darren tried to pull that attempt once more, and ended up being surrounded by all the beasts. He tried struggling, slashing his sword blindly, but it did very little to help him.
Teeth and paws all over him, he lost his own flesh chunk by chunk. It wasn't painful anynore, but it was beyond terrifying.
Then the pain came back-- the phantom pain from the eaten parts of his body. Darren's screams only got louder, and his voicebox threatened to rip from all the screaming, but he couldn't hold himself back anymore.
The event only lasted for a few seconds, but it felt like a long time. It was a rollercoaster of all horrid feelings and sensations.
Then, when the damage to his body exceeded a certain threshold, Darren stopped being.
♦♦♦
"Ah, he died on the first wave." Ryn shrugged, flicking her wrist downward to make the system panels appear.
It would be huge problem if Darren somehow got used to 'dying,' so Ryn had countermeasures.
"As punishment for dying, you have to feel the sensation of . . . inexistence."
Ryn set some timer to one second, before clicking on a start button. When the timer reached zero, she clicked on [Ressurect User].
♦♦♦
After what felt like an insanely long second, Darren's consciousness returned.
He immediately sat up on the stone altar of the breach and began coughing violently. He wantedo to vomit too, but his stomach was empty, so he just gagged all the while coughing for about five minutes.
When he 'died,' he of course lost all of his senses. But for some reason, he saw a vision. It was hard to wrap his mind around it, but it made him feel like he didn't exist. The vision showed him a glimpse of the universe without the idea of 'Darren Saurtent.'
As he tried to calm the wrecked sensations of his own body, Darren thought of which event was more terrifying: dying, or not existing.
One might say that there wasn't much of a difference, but if they asked Darren, he would adamantly state that the two were different. He couldn't really choose which one was more terrifying though.