Day 13.
A week had passed.
Kaiser crouched low behind a tree, his breath quiet, hands steady, eyes locked onto a twitching bush. The trap had sprung a few moments ago, and he was waiting—learning, calculating, adapting.
Snap.
The squirming squirrel finally stopped moving. Its tail gave one last flick before it stilled, neck caught neatly in the wire noose he'd crafted two days ago.
He moved quickly and silently, picked it up, and ended it without hesitation.
"I'm sorry," he whispered out of habit.
There was guilt. There always was.
But less than before.
Back at camp, he cleaned it like he'd cleaned five rabbits and three squirrels before. He still gagged when the insides spilled out, but he didn't vomit anymore. He'd learned to breathe through his mouth. Learned to push through the stench. Learned to detach.
"This is the price of survival."
He repeated that like a mantra.
Back on Earth, he would've ranted on forums about how soft-hearted MCs annoyed him—how they refused to kill, how they hesitated at the edge of death.
Now he understood.
Killing, even animals, changed you.
You didn't feel stronger. You felt… less.
Less human. Less innocent.
But hunger didn't care.
Kaiser gnawed on the squirrel leg, overcooked but edible, and opened his journal.
"Day 13. Still no golden finger. Still no reply from the group chat. Screw you, transmigration chat. I'm alone here. Completely alone."
He exhaled, glancing at the dwindling firelight.
"But I'm adapting. I'm learning."
Earlier that day, he'd gone further than usual—deeper south.
Not just hunting anymore, but foraging.
His body craved variety. The constant meat diet wasn't sustainable, and the pangs of a different kind of hunger had started creeping in—headaches, fatigue, nausea.
So he searched.
He had his offline survival guides—PDFs, screenshots, a few saved wiki pages. One folder was titled "If I Ever Get Isekai'd."
He'd laughed while making it.
Now it was his Bible.
He found berries first—dark blue, clustered, sweet but tart. Looked like blueberries. He was cautious, chewed one, waited. No dizziness. No nausea. Ate two more. Still fine.
"Luck's on my side today."
Then came mushrooms. That was trickier.
A dozen kinds on the forest floor—some red, some pale, some nearly glowing.
He ignored anything red, spotted one that looked like the Morel mushrooms from Earth. Honeycomb texture, dark ridges, no cap.
He cross-referenced it with a foraging chart. Waited. Cooked it. Ate half a cap. Waited again.
Safe.
"God bless offline Wikipedia."
But not everything looked familiar.
There were strange, thin trees with twisted trunks and bark that peeled like paper.
A fruit that looked like a pear but bled purple sap when cut.
Tiny white flowers that bloomed at night and closed in the sun.
"This isn't Earth."
He'd known that.
But that was the day he felt it.
And yet… not everything was different.
Because further south—beyond a slight hill—he found maple trees.
Real ones. Recognizable bark. Familiar leaves.
He stared up at them, confused.
"What the hell…"
He broke open the seeds, tasted one.
Bitter. But not poisonous. Edible in small quantities, according to one of his stored guides.
Maple seeds. Blueberry-like berries. Morels.
It was like fragments of Earth had been copied and pasted into something else.
"Maybe this is a parallel world," he wrote in his journal later."Close enough to Earth to echo it… but different enough to kill you if you're not careful."
He wondered then—briefly, absurdly—if some god had opened a file, clicked Earth.iso, and started modifying things for fun.
"If I meet the god who did this," he muttered, "I'm punching him in the face."
That evening, as he stirred roasted mushrooms over a flickering flame, he heard it.
A sound.
Not an animal.
Not rustling leaves.
A low, distant hum.
His heart skipped.
He froze, breath held, straining to listen.
The noise faded.
A vehicle? It was too low and steady for anything natural. Some kind of engine?
"A car?"
He ran to the dirt road—still mostly overgrown, but carved clearly through the trees. A few broken tire tracks from earlier days, nothing new.
But now… the sound.
He didn't imagine it.
"There are people nearby."
He stood in the dark for a long time, clutching his spear.
Then, silently, he returned to camp.
Day 14.
The sound came again.
Louder. Closer. More than one.
He climbed a tree, hid in the branches, and watched.
Through the distant trees, a convoy passed.
Three vehicles—worn but functional. Off-road trucks, covered in dust. Armed guards sat on the roofs, rifles slung casually across their backs. The lead vehicle had some kind of flag painted on the hood.
Kaiser's blood went cold.
This wasn't some fantasy kingdom on horseback. These were modern vehicles. Guns.
"So this world has technology…"
"Or I landed in a future version of Earth… or a parallel world that developed similarly."
But the most important part—
Humans.
He wasn't alone.
He didn't engage.
Didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
Not until the convoy passed and the sounds faded into the trees.
When he finally climbed down, his body was stiff.
His mind raced.
"Humans could save me."
"Humans could kill me."
"I can't risk it."
He dug a small pit and buried anything that looked valuable—his phone, laptop, backup drive, even his mother's jewelry.
"Sorry, Mom. I promise I didn't steal it. I just… borrowed it. In case I needed money in a world without ATMs."
He wrapped them in plastic and cloth, sealed the container, and marked it with a coded symbol only he would recognize.
Then he wiped his tracks.
He moved his shelter deeper into the woods, further from the road. Built a new lean-to, camouflaged it with moss and branches. Even disguised his fire pit.
He became a ghost.
Watching from the shadows.
Day 15.
More vehicles.
This time he climbed a different tree.
Binoculars in hand, he tracked their movement.
Different flag. Different convoy. Smaller. Slower.
A rival group? A merchant caravan? A patrol?
He couldn't tell.
But they all moved along the same dirt path—like it led somewhere important.
"There must be a settlement nearby."
"A town. A city. A base."
He debated for hours that night.
Should he approach?
Risk contact?
What if they spoke another language? What if they saw his tech and labeled him a threat or a witch? What if they sold him? Took his supplies?
"Worst-case scenario, I die."
"Best-case scenario, I find safety."
He didn't sleep much that night.
Day 16.
He laid traps, harvested more berries, practiced throwing his spear.
He tried to make a sling.
Failed.
Tried again.
Failed better.
He read old forum threads on "primitive survival hacks" saved offline.
He wasn't just surviving anymore.
He was preparing.
Because the question wasn't if he'd meet humans.
It was when.
Day 17.
He found bootprints near the old fire pit he'd abandoned.
He'd left almost no trace—but someone sharp had spotted something.
He watched from the trees as two men inspected the area. Both armed. One had a strange eyepiece—some kind of monocle tech glowing faint blue.
"They're scanning."
They grunted, spoke in a language he didn't recognize. Not English. Not Mandarin. Not anything he knew.
"So much for this being Earth."
They found nothing valuable and left.
But they knew someone had been there.
And now… they'd be looking.
That night, he wrote again:
"I used to fantasize about being isekai'd. Being chosen. Being powerful."
"Now I'm hiding from armed men in a forest, living off squirrel meat and berries, wondering if I'll die because I didn't boil water long enough."
"I used to think survival was about strength."
"But it's about silence. Distance. Timing."
"I don't know what kind of world I've landed in, but I'm starting to believe it's not one meant for heroes."
"Just ghosts."
By the end of the week, he had the start of a plan.
He would follow the road—slowly, from the trees, staying unseen. Observe the settlement. Learn the language. Understand the rules.
Only when he was ready—only when he was sure—would he make contact.
Until then?
He would remain in the shadows.
Waiting.
Breathing.
Watching.