Day 2.
Kaiser clicked his pen, scribbling in the notebook he'd labeled Survival Log.
"Still no fire. Still no monsters. No food besides cans. My back hurts. The cave smells like moldy socks and rot. But hey—I'm alive."
He closed the notebook and exhaled, letting his eyes rest on the canopy above. Shafts of sunlight pierced through the trees. Birds chirped somewhere in the distance. It would've been peaceful if it weren't so damn uncertain.
This wasn't some magical realm with sentient swords waiting to bond with him.
This was reality. And reality sucked.
He chuckled bitterly."Right about now, the average cultivation MC would stumble into a cave and find a secret inheritance," he muttered. "Or maybe an old man frozen in time, offering him the power of the gods in exchange for a foot massage."
Nothing like that had happened.
Instead, he'd found a cave that reeked of something long-dead, and a few canned goods that would run out in two or three days. Great start.
Kaiser strapped on his makeshift gear—backpack, helmet, bat. He left the cave cautiously, marking the trees with small notches using his multitool.
Goal: Water.Priority: Survive long enough to figure out what the hell this world even was.
If animals lived here, they had to drink somewhere. That meant water. And water meant a chance—however slim—of eventually finding civilization.
He scanned for high ground, climbing over gnarled roots and boulders. Hours passed. All he got were scrapes and bruises. No river. No stream. Not even a goddamn puddle.
He sat under a tree and wiped sweat from his forehead.
"Seriously, how do those protagonists do it?" he muttered. "Stab a boar, build a hut, tame a wolf, and start a sect. Day one."
He picked up a stick and snapped it in half. Not out of anger. Just to feel in control of something.
By noon, he'd circled back to the cave.
Kaiser set up a small tarp near the entrance to avoid the stench inside, sipping the last of his bottled water. He opened his laptop—blessed be Offline Mode—and pulled up survival notes he and his friends once wrote for fun.
He smiled faintly.If trapped in the past, use basic leverage and physics to build primitive tools.Find clean water. Boil it if you can. Avoid brightly colored fruits unless you're sure they're edible.
It was all theory then.
Now it was his life.
He switched tabs to a PDF on medieval weapons, fingers tracing the schematic of a crude crossbow.
"Flexible wood, cordage, tension anchor, trigger system… how hard can it be?"
Turns out, very hard.
But he managed. Slowly. Painfully. With trial and error.
By the time the frame looked even remotely usable, it was late afternoon.
He tested the tension with a thin vine. It snapped.
"Yeah, okay. Not killing anything with this yet."
But it was progress. Real, tangible progress. His first tool—no, his first weapon—in this world.
He leaned against the cave wall, watching the light fade. The sky blushed orange through the trees.
Silence pressed in.
Kaiser sighed. "This isn't the fantasy. No destiny. No system message. No cheat."
His mind drifted to home. His room. His friends. His parents.
They must be panicking.
He imagined his mother crying, his dad shouting at police who had no answers. A letter on the kitchen table saying he'd gone somewhere but couldn't explain where.
He closed his eyes. I didn't even get to say goodbye.
Then—a sound.
A soft, distant trickle. Almost like—
Water?
His eyes snapped open. He stood up fast, heart pounding.
"Water!" he hissed, gripping his bat.
He hesitated.
It was getting dark. Exploring now was asking to die of something dumb—like falling in a ditch or being eaten by something worse than a bear.
He pulled out his map. Marked the direction.
Tomorrow. He'd check it tomorrow.
Later, curled under the tarp, he summoned the blue [TRANSMIGRATION GROUP CHAT] panel. Still only one name on the list.
kaiser[1]
He tapped on the chat tab, typed.
kaiser[1]: Day 2. Built a crossbow. Found potential water source. Still no cheat.kaiser[1]: Dear Admin, I'd like to file a complaint. You dumped me into the woods with no powers, no tutorial, and a single chat window.kaiser[1]: At least give me someone to talk to.
No response.
Not that he expected one.
He stared at the screen a moment longer before closing it.
Just before he dozed off, he whispered to himself:
"They all lied. Every single novel. This isn't fun. This isn't cool. This is just... lonely."