*Drip

Feeling a drop of water hitting my face, I awoke from my sleep to see an unfamiliar grey ceiling.

[.... Where am I?]

Staring at the grey ceiling, I thought long and hard, trying to remember how I had gotten here.

[I went to sleep in my bed like normal last night. Did I get spirited away?]

However, another drop of water splashed onto my face, interrupting my recollection.

Pulled out of my confusion, I sat up and wiped my face, then glanced around.

"Hello? Anybody there?"

Hearing no reply, I considered the reasons I could have been brought here.

[Did someone kidnap me? But why would they just leave me here alone?]

Knowing that even if someone were to kidnap me, they wouldn't just leave me here, I discarded that guess.

[Then have I been transported into another world? But I didn't die, and I'm still wearing the clothes I wore when I went to bed. Did someone summon me? That's... pretty far-fetched. And no one is here. But maybe.]

Thinking of the novels I'd started reading ever since I could remember, I recalled the new genre that had been getting more and more popular lately. Reaching that thought, I said the keyword in most of those novels.

"System?"

Even after waiting a few seconds, nothing happened.

"Storage?"

"Status?"

After wasting a few more seconds saying random things that I thought would do something, I brought my thoughts back to my current situation.

[Sigh, just wasting time here won't do me any good. I don't know how or why I've been brought here, but I'm sure I'll find out soon enough, now I need to find out where I am and look for food. I'm hungry.]

Standing up, I started looking around more carefully. The cave I was in was wide enough to fit at least nine people standing side by side and went a dozen meters deep with a small lake likely formed from the water droplets. I could see a forest from the entrance of the cave.

"I'm in a forest? And it looks pretty big. What the hell? Did I actually get isekai'd?"

Seeing nothing special in the cave, I walked towards the entrance. I saw that I was indeed in a huge forest that Earth shouldn't have anymore, the idea of me getting transported to another world started becoming more and more probable.

The cave was also embedded on the side of a mountain with more trees as far as the eye could see going up into the atmosphere.

"Argh, I'm in a forest with just my clothes. I don't even have shoes. Am I supposed to walk around in the forest barefoot? Haaah."

Shaking my head as complaining wouldn't do anything now, I started planning my actions from now on.

[This forest looks pretty big, and there are probably animals in this forest too with how big it is. Since it looks like it's early in the morning, I should find food and water first before thinking of anything else. There's that lake in the cave, so now I just need to find food, maybe fruits. I need to search in the forest.]

Since there should be large animals, or more specifically, predators in this huge forest, I started looking for something to use as a weapon after recounting all of the knowledge I knew for surviving in the forest.

"I need to find something sharp and durable if I want to even have a chance in the forest."

Going back into the cave and collecting a few long but medium-sized stones, I started slamming the stones against each other, going at different angles to try sharpening them.

After a few tries, with most of the stones completely breaking into smaller pieces, I got the hang of which angles to hit and finally made three stones only partially break, making them barely look like cone-shaped spearheads but sharp enough to draw blood with one clean hit.

[I'd prefer to fight bare handed but I've only ever fought bare handed against humans, since I'll probably get into a fight with animals, It would be better to fight with weapons, preferably one with a long reach. I don't have ropes to make any stone spear or axe, and I'm not skilled enough to make one without it, maybe I can make a wooden spear when I find a suitable branch.]

Since the water in the small lake is probably from rain, it should be safe to drink, but it would probably drain through the soil soon unless it rains again. I have no containers to hold water, so I also needed to find a permanent source of water.

After drinking a few mouthfuls of water, I left the cave and silently searched the perimeter to see if there were fruits nearby, with two of the three sharp stones in each hand.

Watching my steps and carefully surveying the forest, I found a few berry bushes that looks edible with enough berries to maybe last a few days if I were to eat frugally.

Picking a few berries and taking a small bite, I searched the perimeter further to see if there were more fruits, and picked up a few thick branches and leaves.

After a few minutes of searching, I returned to the cave with a few thick branches, a few small leaf branches, and a handful of berries.

Picking up the straightest branch that should be the most suitable. I used one of the sharpened stone to scrape of wood on the tip, making it sharper.

Now that I have secured food and water enough for a few days, wood to make fire for the night and a shortspear and three stone knives to protect myself, I thought of what my next move would be.

[I don't know if I've been transported into another world or kidnapped and thrown here, but I should try to find my way back to civilization. Maybe there's a village nearby. I ought to find a river since that's where people would make villages.]

With the cave as a temporary shelter until I found a concrete way to civilization, I left the cave and started going up the mountain in search for a river with my shortspear in my hand and a stone knife in my left pocket.

After half an hour of walking uphill and stopping to mark the trees every few minutes, I finally heard the sound of water flowing.

Following the sound, I arrived at a river with water flowing down the mountain about two meters wide, just deep enough to reach my upper calves.

As I was about to move closer to drink a few mouthfuls of water, something suddenly walked out from the forest a few meters to the left from me going towards the river.

It was around a meter tall and almost two meters long, its height almost reaching my upper stomach.

[Is that a hog? No, a boar? What the, Why is it so big? It's almost double the size of a normal boar. And most importantly, what are those blue lights floating around it?]

It was a huge boar. Tiny moats of blue lights floated around it as it headed towards the river.

[...Should I try killing it? I don't know what other animals there are in this forest, and this might be the easiest to for me to hunt, and it doesn't have a horn like some of its counterparts. With my skills, it shouldn't be hard to kill it... probably.]

Carefully observing the animal, I tried to think of what those lights floating around it could be.

[I just need to be careful of the blue light. It doesn't seem to be dangerous, but I can't just tell from its look. It could be magic since I've never seen that before, and if it is, then I would deal with creatures with magic sooner or later, so better find out now.]

Steeling myself for my first ever fight against an animal, and likely one with magic too, I readied both my weapons into my hands and looked at the closest area where the boar's vital organ might be, and one which I would be able to stab into from this angle.

Determining the spot where I presumed its liver would be, as I didn't know animal anatomy, I thinned out my breath and controlled my muscles to try and make as little unnecessary movement as possible to avoid making noises. I approached the animal quickly while also avoiding the blue lights.

Using the momentum I had built up from the short dash, I went in for a stab using my left hand with the shortspear and my knife holding right hand supporting the front of the spear.

*Stab

"Hiiiiiik!"

I didn't know if I hit the vital organ or not, but as the animal squealed in pain and was turning towards me, I moved my dominant right hand, which was now closer to its turning head, and stabbed the stone knife towards its right eye.

Just as my sharpened stone was about to stab into its eye, the blue lights around us moved. I felt the direction of the wind shift, making the concentration of the blue light higher.

The blue lights gathered in front of me and I felt a strong push in front of me, skidding me about a meter away from the boar. This caused my eye stab to miss and my short spear to be pulled out of its abdomen, drawing large amounts of blood.

A little caught off-guard but also something I had thought of within the realm of possibility with the variable of magic, I quickly stabilized my footing and side jumped to the left, dodging the charging animal with the blue light being concentrated on the vanguard of its dash.

I traced my short spear along its body as it passed me, causing a large slash wound and aggravating the abdominal stab wound.

"Hruuuuuk!"

With another squeal that screamed of pain, the animal continued dashing and started getting further and further away from me, leaving large trails of blood behind.

"No."

Chasing after the fleeing animal, which seemed to be getting weaker and weaker from blood loss and while also running through a few muddy puddles, I started catching up to it. It seemed to be using magic to make itself faster somehow as the blue lights were concentrated in front of it.

But even so, I was still gaining ground. Due to the animal being burdened by its injuries.

Catching up to its left side, I stabbed into it and pulled the spear back out, causing it to now bleed on both its left and right side.

With it now bleeding larger amounts of blood, the boar collapsed after running a dozen meters, causing it to roll a few meters further.

Slowing down and feeling that I was already breathing heavily as my stamina drained like water, with my hunger being a large cause, I thought of quickly ending this and returning to the cave to rest and before anything comes running from the abundant smell of blood.