Three days had passed since Nam stumbled into this world—three days of dragging his aching legs over uneven dirt paths, weaving between trees that stretched like towering green pillars, and sleeping under branches that creaked ominously whenever the night wind grew bold. Morning mist still clung to the forest floor, curling around his ankles as if the earth itself were trying to pull him back down for a rest he could not afford.
His breath fogged faintly in the cool air.
His thoughts, unfortunately, were far less cool.
Travel had been… unforgiving. The uneven terrain shifted from soft mossy ground to jagged roots that stuck out like nature's caltrops. Humidity made his shirt cling to him. Insects dove at him with the enthusiasm of longtime fans greeting a celebrity. And above all that, he carried a ticking disaster inside his ribcage.
Eating the stone—the divine mana core fragment—had been the beginning of his misery.
He staggered to a stop as a sharp pressure built beneath his sternum, like a live wire curling tighter and tighter. The trees around him swayed in a lazy breeze, their leaves whispering, but the world sounded distant. He braced a hand against a moss-covered trunk, sucking air between his teeth.
"Nope. Not again—ah, come on!"
The mana surge hit him.
Lightning flared under his skin, lighting up the veins of his arms like fleeting blue cracks. The sensation wasn't pain exactly—it was more like being forcibly plugged into a power outlet for the crime of breathing. Birds in the canopy scattered at the sudden static hiss.
He lowered himself onto a half-rotten log, the bark crumbling beneath his fingers. Here came the worst part: he had to expel the excess mana before it tore something important.
Nam inhaled, exhaled, and forced the surge out in a slow, controlled stream. Small arcs of electricity snapped across the ground around him, briefly illuminating fallen leaves and cold patches of dew. A faint burning smell filled the air—ah, great, he'd scorched the dirt again.
When the last of the oppressive pressure trickled out of him, the world settled back into place. Chirping insects. Rustling leaves. A clearing filled with dappled sunlight. Nature pretending everything was fine.
Nam wiped sweat from his forehead. "This is what I get for eating things I don't understand. This is why we read tutorials. This is why we don't snack on ancient divine cores."
Travel resumed.
The forest thickened as he walked. Branches intertwined overhead, filtering sunlight into shifting mosaics on the ground. Strange mushrooms glowed faintly beneath ferns, their bioluminescence turning patches of earth a soft green. Occasionally he spotted small birds perched on high limbs, watching him suspiciously—as if they sensed the unstable mana simmering within him.
To distract himself, he recited what he remembered from the game.
"Mages were basically nobles," he muttered while stepping over a fallen trunk. The wood smelled like mint and damp earth. "Not because of bloodlines. Just because everyone else is terrified of people who can turn them into ash."
Magic circles determined a mage's rank. First Circle was basic. Second Circle was respectable. Third Circle was the start of "I carry myself like a VIP." Anything above that? You were essentially an aristocrat with explosive privileges.
By his own rough estimate, Nam was between First and Second Circle now.
For his age and experience? Ridiculous.
The terrain shifted again as he walked. Trees thinned out, giving way to taller grass and wide pockets of exposed dirt—signs that he was entering a zone where beasts roamed more freely.
The wind carried the faint musk of monsters, a sharp metallic tang beneath the scent of sun-warmed grass. Birds no longer perched overhead; they fled at the slightest hint of movement.
Nam slowed his steps.
He couldn't afford complacency now.
The Magic Academy—the infamous starting zone of E.F.O—loomed in his thoughts. In the game, it was a nexus of political conflicts, petty rivalries, heartbreaking separations, institutional discrimination, and enough drama to keep forum threads alive for months. Annoying to play through. Impossible to ignore.
He could have skipped it. In theory.
In reality, the place held too much weight over the safety of the world he now had to live in.
And the reason was simple: the protagonists were there.
Yes, plural.
When you started the game, you could choose from five main characters. Unlike custom avatars like Nam, they each had unique opening routes, unique stats, and unique storylines. But what mattered most was their role.
They were the official hero candidates.
Heroes were not a myth here. They were selected every generation—ever since the last Demon King fell. After that war, the Emperor of the Golden Throne and the Thirteenth Hero decided they had burdened otherworlders enough. Summoning was banned. Instead, the academy was founded to train their own people to solve their own problems.
And whoever rose as the chosen hero was the deciding factor in the fight against the dark mages, remnants of the abyssal beings left after the Demon Lord's defeat.
So yes—the academy mattered.
And no—one did not simply stroll into it.
Had Nam not secured a test voucher, the gates would have been as unreachable as the moon.
Which meant the place was anything but normal. Students with monstrous power were the baseline. Second Circle was the minimum to be taken seriously. Third was average. And the prodigies—the ones the story labeled protagonists—were operating on a whole different plane.
Fourth Circle mana pools before age sixteen.
Techniques honed by top-tier instructors.
Spell efficiency flirting with theoretical perfection.
Combat instincts sharpened by years of training.
Some even possessed unique traits that broke the rules outright.
Next to them, Nam was painfully aware that he was… not that.
How could a clueless idiot fare among them? the narrative wondered.
He paused.
Eyes narrowed.
Offended.
"Hey—hey! Who are you calling an idiot? I got high marks in high school, you know!"
The forest declined to respond. A beetle crawled across a rock, as if to express polite disagreement.
Nam rubbed his forehead and forced himself back on track. His earlier mana estimate resurfaced: roughly Second Circle. Respectable, but nowhere near adequate for the academy.
He crested a rise and looked over a field of tall grass. Wind rippled through it like slow-moving waves. Beast trails carved faint lines across the expanse. One of them was wide—too wide. Something large had passed recently, and the grass still shivered with the memory.
"If this is the warm-up area," he muttered, "I don't want to know what the academy exam looks like."
He adjusted his grip on his makeshift walking staff. It wasn't straight. It wasn't sturdy. It barely qualified as a stick. But it made him feel marginally more heroic, which counted for something.
As he descended the slope, dried leaves cracked underfoot. Occasionally, unstable mana flickered along his fingertips. His control was improving, but the core fragment's leftover energy still throbbed with an unfamiliar beat he couldn't quite align with.
He exhaled slowly, giving himself a pep talk only the wind could hear.
"Second Circle base. Potential to rise higher once I get the fragment in Elton. Not bad… not great… could definitely be worse."
He paused to rest near a stream. The water was clear, cold, and alive with silver fish flickering between stones. As he cupped water into his palms, the chill helped steady the cracking buzz running along his fingers.
"Still… can't really complain," he admitted reluctantly. "I did eat a divine core. That's cheating. High-tier cheating."
He recalled more details, letting the forest sounds anchor his racing thoughts.
The divine wolf of chaos and storms—Fenrir. A creature that could devour mana storms, mountains, armies, anything. The thirteenth Hero killed it three hundred years ago after a continent-scale chase that nearly wiped out half the Northern Territory. Fenrir's body dispersed across the world, its core breaking into fragments.
One of those fragments—or more precisely, one percent of one—was sitting in Nam's stomach.
"You can guess what the stone was," he told a passing squirrel, which stared judgmentally. "Yup. Its mana core. I'm basically a microwave with legs right now."
He rose from the stream and continued westward. The path slowly transitioned into rougher terrain—more rocks, fewer trees, harsher sunlight. The air warmed, carrying the faint smell of dry grass. Elton wasn't far now.
He quickened his pace.
"Only ate a tiny piece," he reminded himself. "Fenrir won't wake up unless it gets at least fifty percent of its core in one place. Lore says it needs that to form consciousness again."
He paused, watching golden sunlight reflect off a distant hillside.
"So I'm safe," he said.
Silence responded.
He added: "Probably. Maybe. Hopefully."
The breeze picked up, brushing tall grass against his legs and carrying the sound of something faint—distant chatter, maybe travelers on the path ahead.
Nam squared his shoulders, inhaled deeply, and let his mana stabilize once more.
"Later, if I ever get that fifty percent… maybe I'll try making a deal with him."
A reckless plan. A brilliant one. A long-term death wish wrapped in ambition.
"But first," he muttered as the pressure under his ribs began to build once more, "let me survive not blowing up today."
***
Nam doubled over, clutching his ribs as the familiar pressure coiled tighter and tighter beneath his sternum.
Three days in this world. Three days of this nonsense.
The surges came every three hours like an annoying subscription service he never signed up for.
He wheezed.
"This again—seriously? I get it, divine core, blah blah—can we negotiate a cooldown?"
His breath hitched as the mana inside him writhed, demanding release. He knelt beside the stream, fingers digging into the dirt. The world blurred at the edges. All he had to do was hold still, focus, let the mana cycle out before it decided to redecorate his organs.
He inhaled.
Exhaled.
Focused—
Something massive moved in the distance.
A shadow slid across the grass, long and fluid, accompanied by a low rumble.
Nam blinked sweat out of his eyes and squinted.
A massive creature padded into view—easily twice his size at the shoulder, fur shimmering like liquid silver under the sun. Elegant posture. Long fangs. Eyes glowing with predatory hunger.
His stomach dropped.
A Giant Silver Moon Wolf.
A rare species. Fast. Intelligent. Arrogant.
And unlike other beasts, this one showed no fear. Its tail swayed. Its jaws hung open in anticipation.
"Oh come on," Nam croaked. "Why now? Of all times—why not wait until after my hourly meltdown? I swear I'm delicious only on weekends."
The wolf stepped closer, drool dripping from its fangs.
Nam forced himself not to move, but his mana was spiraling, building, thrashing. If he lost concentration—
He didn't want to imagine that outcome.
The wolf lunged.
It moved so fast the world seemed to skip a frame. One heartbeat it was ten meters away; the next, it was already mid-strike, claws sweeping toward his spine.
Nam flinched, bracing for pain—
Crack—!
A golden arc of lightning flared to life behind him, exploding outward like a blooming flower of light. The wolf's claws met the barrier instead of his back.
The impact scorched the wolf's fur and blasted it sideways.
Nam stared.
"…Huh?"
The wolf shook its head furiously, smoke rising from its flank.
The injury was minor, but the insult was massive.
It roared—an angry, guttural sound that rattled the branches overhead—and charged again.
Nam was still kneeling, struggling to stabilize the mana before it ruptured something vital.
"Buddy, now is not the time! I'm already fighting for my internal organs!"
The wolf's second strike came even faster.
Crackle—!
Lightning erupted again, automatic and reactive—a shield formed from mana he was trying to suppress. It lashed out with jagged tendrils, burning across the wolf's muzzle and forcing it back with a yelp.
The creature snarled, furious.
Normal attacks weren't working.
So it changed tactics.
Wind gathered at its paws—thin spirals thickening into blades.
"Oh no," Nam whispered. "Magic. You use magic. Great. Amazing. Perfect."
The wolf launched a Wind Burst.
The pressure wave slammed into him. The lightning barrier absorbed part of it, but Nam still went rolling across the dirt, coughing, vision spinning.
The good news?
The hit forcibly dislodged some of the unstable mana inside him.
The bad news?
Everything else.
He pushed himself upright, chest burning, but the internal pressure had eased enough for him to move.
He staggered sideways just in time as another wind blade carved a line across the ground where his torso had been.
Nam steadied himself. He raised his fists.
"Fine. You want to do this? Let's do this. I've been practicing."
The wolf circled, lowering itself, muscles coiled for the next pounce.
Nam inhaled, syncing with the slight rhythm of the leftover mana. He stepped forward—not gracefully, but decisively.
The wolf lunged.
Nam met it halfway.
He ducked under the swipe, pivoted, and slammed a punch into its chest. His knuckles barely touched fur before a burst of raw mana exploded from his fist—unrefined, clumsy, but powerful.
The blast sent the wolf skidding back several meters, claws carving trenches in the dirt as it struggled to regain footing.
Nam stared at his smoking fist.
"…Okay. That was not planned. But I'll take it."
The wolf snarled again—angry, but now cautious.
Nam smirked, though his legs trembled.
"I didn't just sit around these past few days, you know. I practiced. I trained. I learned some tricks."
In truth, most of those tricks involved praying he didn't electrocute himself again, but the wolf didn't need to know that.
It charged once more.
Nam dodged.
Barely.
The second surge of lightning flared behind him like a loyal-but-unpredictable bodyguard, shocking the wolf's flank and throwing off its rhythm.
They clashed again.
And again.
The wolf's elegance met his desperate improvisation. Wind bursts collided with wild arcs of unstable lightning. Punches detonated on contact. Dirt flew. Grass burned. Echoes of thunder shook through the clearing.
The battle raged—chaotic, uneven, brutal.
And for the first time since arriving in this world, Nam realized something crystal clear:
He was actually keeping up.
Not winning.
Not dominating.
But surviving.
Barely.
And sometimes, surviving was enough.
-----
✦ End of Chapter.