"Shit, shit, shit, shit!"
The branch whipped Roxy Bell across the face, stinging her cheeks, but she didn't slow down for fear of her life.
Her lungs were on fire, and breathing was extremely hard. Behind her, a loud pig squeal and the sound of thundering hooves told her the beast was closing in.
She, the visitor to this world. What sin must she have committed to be this unlucky?
The beast chasing her was a pig. The size of a goddamn moving van, with tusks as large as elephant trunks and a back covered in what looked like blades.
A razor-backed boar, she'd mentally dubbed it. And it really wanted her dead.
Am I going to die... again?
"This is not how I planned my day!" She screamed in horror, sobs racking her voice as she forced her legs to move faster.
To be fair, her day hadn't had a plan. Not really.
Three hours ago, or maybe it was three days? Time was a blurry mess, and she had been in her crappy one-bedroom apartment, safe in the twenty-first century. In her favorite sweats, hate-reading the latest chapter of a webnovel on her tablet.
It was, objectively, a terrible novel. The world-building was a joke, the heroine was a doormat, and the leads were all cardboard cutouts of brooding and possessiveness.
Something she shouldn't have picked up in the first place.
The title suggested one male lead, but the author made it a freaking reverse harem, which was her offense number one.
"God, this heroine is useless," Roxy had muttered, her lips drawn into a frown as she swiped to the next page. "She's surrounded by the most handsome beasts on the planet, and all she does is cry? If I were her, I'd at least give them something better to do. That dragon king sounds like someone who would sit pretty in smut books. And I'd be the one to climb that scaly mountain."
Unfortunately, Roxy was a sucker for smut.
A pop-up had suddenly flashed in front of her eyes.
[This world is dying. Do you think you could do better?]
[YES] / [NO]
Miss Roxy here snorted. "Yeah, right. Even a blind monkey could do better than this heroine."
Only by a slight mix-up, she ended up clicking YES. A Mistake, she had screamed in her head.
Her tablet screen suddenly flashed a blinding white, something she loathed. The smell of greenery and fruit filled the air. She felt a gut-wrenching pull, as if she had just been vacuumed out of her own reality.
Her coffee mug shattered on the floor, and the world went black.
The next thing she knew, she was in a forest, cold, disoriented, and still in her bleach-stained sweats.
Before she could even process what happened, the pig appeared, chasing her, as if she smelled like bacon.
Now, her legs were giving out. She'd been running for what felt like an eternity, and her clever detours had been laughably useless against the boar who knew the forest like the back of its hoof.
How could a pig be this smart?
The thorny thicket she'd dived into? The boar had smashed through it like tissue paper, leaving her with a dozen new cuts.
The tall, climbable-looking tree? She'd gotten halfway up before the branch she was clinging to, which had looked perfectly sturdy, snapped like a dry twig. She landed hard on her butt.
"Of course!" she shrieked, scrambling back to her feet. "Why would anything in this stupid world work? This is bullshit!"
She was starting to blame the novel she was reading.
How did she, who was just reading a book, suddenly appear in this unknown world?
She didn't have the time to think, since the boar kept on chasing her. Every time she tried to run left or right, it cut her off, its tusk gouging deep furrows in the earth where she'd been a second before.
She was exhausted.
She couldn't run anymore. Her sides were cramping, the sun was baking her skin, and the boar was only ten yards back. Desperate, she leaned against a massive rock to catch her breath.
When she raised her head, panting, she caught sight of an opening. A large cave loomed in front of her. It looked straight out of a horror movie, and there was no where in hell she was going in there.
She shivered, immediately shaking her head, while her already dizzy sight scanned her surroundings for another option.
"Maybe there was a better place to hide..." she muttered.
But she could barely breathe before the loud, angry grunts of the pig snapped her into place. "Oh, holy fuck!"
She squealed, rushing straight into the cave with her last bit of strength. Her foot caught on a rock, and she face-planted hard onto the rough stone floor.
Her head pounded, and her feet screamed in pain. Fucking hell, what did I do to deserve this?
No amount of cursing could help her now; the only way was to survive the damn boar and figure out what kind of shitty world she was in.
She looked back to find the boar had screeched to a halt right outside the cave entrance.
Snorting. Whining. Squealing in frustration.
Any sane person would thank the heavens that the boar wasn't advancing. But Roxy? She raised her tired, battered, bruised body, stood on her trembling feet, and faced the pig.
She stuck out her tongue and raised a middle finger high in the air.
"Take that, you big-headed waste of space!" She screamed
The pig squealed as if it understood the insult, and immediately, Roxy ran further into the cave. Trying to get away from the pig, before it runs in after her.
But the pig stared at the darkness of the cave with fear, then turned and bolted.
Roxy blinked. She didn't know why the pig had run, but she'd take the win. She hurried further into the cave, just in case it changed its mind.
Finally alone, in a very dark space. No smell of any animals in place, Roxy sort for a place to sit. Until a three-note chime echoed in the space. More like a notification.
Roxy went on full alert!
[Ding!]
A blue screen flickered to life in front of her face, and she stumbled back in surprise. "What the hell was that?" She snapped angrily.
The screen followed her. She moved her head sideways, and the floating text mimicked her movement perfectly. She raised a hand to swat it away, but her fingers passed right through the light.
What the fuck?
[Initializing... Host detected. Calibrating biological signature...]
It was a pop-up, just like the one on her tablet, but this one was floating in the air.
[Welcome, Host: Roxy Bell!]
[Activating: The Baby Making System!]
The what now? Roxy felt like she was being pranked. If this were all a dream, now was the time to wake up.
[You have been selected as the sole compatible host to save this world from the 'Infertility Curse'. Your mission is to repopulate the dying bloodlines. I shall be your guide!]
Roxy felt like throwing up. She didn't ask to be put in this world, and what does this have to do with her in the first place?
"I just want to fucking go home," She whispered, horror creeping into her voice. She definitely didn't want this to be whatever "repopulating" meant.
[Unfortunately, that request cannot be granted.]
"Are you even fucking listening to me?!"
[Task 1: Get Pregnant in 8:00:00]
Roxy's eyes bulged. Was she seeing things correctly? Get...what?
"Pregnant?" she choked out. "In eight hours? With who?! That pig?!" She pointed at the cave entrance.
[A suitable partner is required. Please note the penalty for failure.]
A new line of text appeared, in blood-red font, signaling danger and urgency.
[Penalty for Failure: Horrible Death.]
Roxy's legs gave out. "This is bullshit."