"Tch, what now? You will end up in pieces again, my ass! I won't even have any pieces left if I fall from this height. Well, whatever. It's not like I can grab something to stop myself. Guess I enjoy the freefall."
Complained Noah as the wind almost ripped off his skin. He stopped moving and relaxed his body instead, letting the wind play with it. A few seconds passed like this. Noah's body accelerated to the point where it was starting to hurt him.
Luckily, not much later, the surface of this new world slowly but surely started outlining before his eyes. To his surprise, the place where he was about to land was not solid. It was water, an ocean, to be precise. Falling to water from this height still spelled death for him in the end, but at least his chances were a little bit higher.
"It looks like the gods didn't abandon m.... nevermind." Noah sighed and assumed a diving pose hoping that the friction between him and the water would lessen to a survivable extent. He closed his eyes and fell into the water headfirst, completely upside down. The landing caused a big splash, but Noah somehow survived.
[-20 HP]
A transparent but still seeable notification popped up as Noah opened his eyes under the water. The notification reminded him of the games he used to play when he was little. It was called a status window, and that's what also Noah thought at first when he saw the notification.
[HP: 80/100]
[Name: Noah Reiner]
[Race: Human]
[Title: -]
[Rank: Unranked]
Noah widened his silver eyes but not because of the fantasy-like status window that only appears in transmigration novels and isekai mangas. Instead, he wondered how a goddess could have such a boring taste. He quickly checked his health to see how much damage he suffered from the fall and closed the status window after that just as quickly as he opened it.
"This idiot Pandora. No wonder she knew about isekai. I bet she's one of those greasy keyboard warriors. At least, my HP bar didn't drop too much." Said Noah with a wry smile, but then he looked at his broken fingers and shook his head. He decided not to look at his HP bar anymore as he felt like the numbers didn't represent his state properly.
Surprisingly the HP bar disappeared at the next moment from the status window. Noah grabbed his fingers and quickly straightened them one after another. He winced in pain every time he snapped back a finger, but Noah had no choice. Soon, Noah put all of his finger bones back to their original places. Now, it was time to swim.
Noah looked around, but there was only water everywhere. Not a single piece of land could be seen on the horizon. Thus, Noah had no choice but to pick a random direction and start swimming in hopes of finding an island or other types of land. This challenge proved to be quite difficult. Swimming with his post broken fingers was torture for Noah, but again, he had no choice.
Noah started swimming and swimming, he didn't know how much time passed ever since he started, but he estimated it to be around 5-6 hours based on the sun's position. Around this time, his sight began to blur, and notifications started popping up one after another.
[-1 HP]
[-1 HP]
[-1 HP]
[-2 HP]
His strength slowly declined. Noah's body reached the limit, and the notifications started popping up faster and faster. Finally, he had no choice but to take a rest. Noah stopped swimming and decided to let his body float on the water surface. He knew that a male adult body would most certainly sink, but every second counted.
Noah let his body rest, and surprisingly, his body stayed afloat! He felt like this is the biggest luck of his life. Soon, the worrying notifications stopped popping up, and Noah flashed a winning smile. Then, he started swimming again after a good rest.
This time it took him way longer to swim the same distance, but the occasional rest breaks helped him tremendously. He already swam for another 8 hours when he suddenly spotted something in the distance. It was light. Noah's eyes lit up as he started swimming towards the light with a newfound strength that almost defied logic.
Soon, the light turned into hundreds of lights, and Noah was convinced that he finally reached some kind of settlement. Noah got closer and closer until he finally reached the solid surface.
He stepped on the fine sand and a fiendish grin appeared on his face. It was the same fiendish grin as last time when he blew up the helicopters. Victory was written all over his face as he started walking towards the dense forest that surrounded the 'hundreds of lights'.
The sun was about to set when Noah entered the forest and the rays of the setting sun seeped through the ancient trees. These trees were covered with moss and all of them were extremely tall. This dense, dark greenery paired with the occasional roars and other strange voices gave off a creepy, alarming feeling.
The forest got darker and darker until Noah almost couldn't see anything. His clothes were completely soaked and the weather was chilly. He was hungry, he was sleepy and mentally fatigued. His vision became blurry and the occasional roars kept him on the edge.
Sometimes the roars indicated that an animal was quite close to him, but sadly, Noah didn't see anything. Once again, he reached his limit and resting didn't help this time. The only thing that kept him going was the fact that he knew about the lights.
Noah was disappointed. He knew that transmigration to another world isn't going to be a smooth sailing. He knew that the countless novels he read about it didn't picture the reality. He knew it was going to be a lot harder but he never would have thought that it would cost him his life on the first day!