Opening her eyes slowly, Mahiru Kanata found herself staring at a massive, thick tree. Looking around, she realized she was standing on the summit of a hill.
Behind her lay a dense forest, while in front of her stretched a steep cliff. The sky glowed a bright orange, signaling that night was fast approaching.
As Mahiru Kanata pondered how she ended up there, why she was in this place, and countless other questions swirling in her mind, a sudden vision caught her attention.
A gigantic sea-blue whale appeared, soaring through the air as if it were swimming in water. It glanced briefly at Mahiru Kanata before ascending into the sky, vanishing without a trace.
"Beautiful..." Mahiru Kanata muttered instinctively, mesmerized by the sight of the flying whale.
Drawn by the ethereal vision, Mahiru unconsciously stepped forward, following the whale's path. However, in her daze, she forgot about the steep cliff ahead and fell from an immeasurable height.
"Ah... Am I going to die?" Mahiru Kanata was jolted from her reverie as she plummeted, the realization of her situation hitting her all at once.
Resigned to her fate, Mahiru closed her eyes as tears streamed upwards due to gravity. As the ground below drew nearer, she whispered her final wish:
"If I could live again, I'd want to explore the world and see its beauty."
With those words, Mahiru's body struck the base of the cliff, shattering instantly from the impact. She died instantly, leaving no remains behind.
One hour...
Four hours...
Ten hours...
Twelve hours...
Mahiru Kanata's shattered body began to reconstruct itself. Slowly, she opened her eyes, stunned to find herself alive. She was certain she had died.
Touching the ground with her hand, she noticed a pool of thick, partially dried blood—her blood.
"Did I... come back from the dead?" she murmured, the realization dawning on her. Yet, she quickly denied it.
"No! I don't want to become an undead!" she panicked, inspecting her hands. However, her body was intact, with flesh and warmth intact. She was still human.
But how could she explain this phenomenon?
Though confused, Mahiru recalled her last wish before dying and resolved to pursue it: she would explore the world and find beautiful places.
Rising to her feet, she left the place of her death and began limping away in search of civilization. Though her legs still ached, the pain gradually subsided.
As she walked, Mahiru tried to remember what had happened before her death. She had been at school... but everything after that was a blank.
"This feels like a plot from one of those isekai manga," she thought, testing familiar phrases like "Status" to see if anything would happen. But nothing did.
Disappointed, she sighed and continued her search for a settlement.
Ten minutes later...
In those ten minutes, Mahiru's body fully recovered, feeling even stronger than before. Curious, she approached a tree and punched it.
Her hand throbbed in pain, turning red. "Ugh... maybe it's just my imagination," she muttered, blowing on her sore hand.
Shaking her head, Mahiru resumed her journey.
Her stomach soon growled with hunger, and she blushed slightly despite being alone. Forced to find food, she avoided venturing recklessly into the forest and instead searched the area she had already traversed.
She found plants and fruits resembling apples, grapes, bananas, papayas, wild taro, gotu kola, nettle, and clover. Mahiru decided they might be edible and crafted a makeshift bowl from fallen wood to cook them.
After gathering water from a nearby stream, she boiled the plants and fruits over a fire she started using twigs. She discarded the first batch of water, refilled the bowl, and boiled them again for twenty minutes.
Sampling the plants, she found them bland but edible. However, the boiled fruit was overwhelmingly bitter, causing her to spit it out immediately.
"Ugh... disgusting!" she exclaimed, gagging and coughing.
Moments later, Mahiru felt dizzy. Her vision blurred as she collapsed to the ground, unconscious. Her breathing stopped, her heart ceased beating—she had died from food poisoning.
Twelve hours passed...
Mahiru's heartbeat resumed, and she gasped for air, slowly regaining consciousness.
"Ugh... did I faint? That must have been poisonous. Lucky I didn't die," she muttered, oblivious to the fact that she had indeed died again.
"Well, at least I survived the scary night by fainting!" she remarked cheerfully. Dusting off her clothes, she prepared to continue her journey.
At dawn, Mahiru set off once more, determined to find a settlement.
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To be continued...!!!