In the pitch-black darkness. The loud rustling sound suddenly ceased. A large rabbit that had been innocently bounding through the undergrowth collapsed, stiff as a log.
A closer look revealed a black snake, seemingly one with the darkness, biting the rabbit's nape and coiling its body tightly around it. The rabbit, after twitching its body a few times as if in a seizure, soon went limp. But the black snake did not move a muscle.
Though the rabbit had already stopped moving, the snake only uncoiled its body after several minutes, as if to make sure of the kill. If anyone had been watching this scene, they would have thought the expression of the black snake as it uncoiled was quite human-like. As if it were relieved, as if it were sighing.
In fact, it was. The black snake was relieved, and it sighed. But since it was not human, that sigh manifested as a flick of its tongue and a hissing sound.
This black snake possessed human-like emotions and thought like a human. Because this snake was a person. To be precise, it had been a person in its past life.
That's right.
This black snake was a reincarnator. He did not know if a snake could be called a 'person,' but regardless, he, Jaekyung, had been reincarnated. He had lived one life as a human, experienced one death, and then began his second life as a snake in this strange and mysterious world.
Jaekyung's second life was not easy from the start. When he had barely broken out of his egg and breathed the air of the new world, a terrible hunger began to set in, as if it had been waiting for him.
In the face of this extreme hunger that nearly made him lose consciousness, he, without a second thought, hastily chewed and swallowed the egg he had just hatched from. When that was not enough, he greedily devoured three or four other eggs scattered nearby. And only after barely satisfying his hunger did he realize he was no longer human.
Accepting death was not so difficult. This was because he had memories of his past life. The memory of his final moments, when he had sensed his death amidst the suffering of a wretched illness.
However, his second life as a snake was not easy to accept. His identity as a human, stemming from the memories of his past life, drove him half-mad. What saved him from his descent into madness was the hunger that returned almost immediately, as if it had never left.
Even in his half-crazed state, he could instantly feel that this intense hunger was not normal. How long had it been since he had filled his stomach? In the agony of feeling like his belly was sticking to his back, his instincts led him to the other eggs that were still left.
He could not overcome his instincts; he did not even feel the will to resist them. He once again devoured five or six eggs. Along with the small, unopened-eyed snakes sleeping inside the broken shells.
Thinking back on it now, they were his siblings. To be precise, his would-be siblings. In other words, he had committed cannibalism, devouring his own kin… but he did not feel much about it.
Even thinking about it now, the hunger at that time was too terrible. It was not a situation where he could afford to weigh his options. If he did not want to die, he had to eat, whether it was his brothers or anything else.
Sniff, sniff!
Jaekyung, who had been tearing at the rabbit meat, swallowed the remaining third in one gulp and pressed his body flat against the ground. Then, he silently slid through the undergrowth and climbed a small tree nearby. After enough time for a few breaths had passed, a dark figure revealed itself.
It was a boar. But it was no ordinary boar. Setting aside its size, its entire body was covered in thick fur like that of a sheep.
Because of this fur, when Jaekyung first saw this 'boar' from behind, he had mistaken it for a sheep.
'Damn pig.'
That bastard has an absurdly keen nose for the scent of blood. Jaekyung had his prey stolen by that pig once before. Seeing it shamble over and snort, as if telling him to get lost, Jaekyung had no choice but to back away obediently.
That thing was truly the tyrant of this area. He was not the only poor beast to have had its prey stolen by that thing. The few beasts that resisted and refused to give up their food were dealt with harshly by that merciless creature.
'This is not enough.' After climbing onto a branch, Jaekyung regurgitated what he had hastily swallowed. Then he began to tear off and eat the slightly softened meat bit by bit.
In his past life, Jaekyung had not liked snakes. But he had vaguely heard that snakes swallowed their prey in one go and digested it slowly. However, he tore at the meat, burying his head in his food like a male lion he had once seen in a documentary.
He did not consciously do it; it just happened naturally. Jaekyung did not find it strange. His teeth were not like the snakes of his past life, with one on the top, bottom, left, and right.
Like a shark or a crocodile, dozens of them were packed tightly together. In fact, perhaps he was not a snake, but something that resembled a snake.
Gulp!
After chewing and swallowing every last piece, Jaekyung suppressed a slight feeling of regret and raised his head. Through the long branches and leaves, he could see a sky shimmering with a mysterious light. That light was similar to, yet different from, the polar auroras he had only seen on TV or the internet in his past life.
It was more colorful, more mysterious, and more distant. The first time he saw it, he was so overwhelmed by its wonder that he could not look away for a long time.
On the other hand, the fact that the wondrous and beautiful sky was filled with countless large and small celestial bodies, similar to the moon of his past life, was not so surprising. It was because he had already guessed as much and was prepared to accept it. 'So it is another world.'
In his past life, Jaekyung had enjoyed reading genre fiction. Especially around the time his illness worsened to the point where it was hard to leave his sickbed, he had kept them stacked by his bedside and read them constantly.
Among the genre novels he had read so voraciously, there were quite a few of the so-called 'reincarnation stories,' where a protagonist who died was reborn in another world. It would be a lie to say he had not envied the protagonists who wonderfully forged new lives in a new world without any worries or difficulties.
That wish grew more desperate as his pain intensified, as he grew closer to death. Could it be that the wish he had harbored then, a wish he made to a god he never believed in his entire life, had been granted like this? If so, he should have made his wish a little more specific.
Well, what use was there in thinking about that now? Anyway, after opening his eyes in this new world, Jaekyung repeatedly ate and slept in the very spot where he was born. For maybe two days?
Three days?
Perhaps even longer. His food, of course, was the other eggs. There were over dozens of eggs in the nest where he was born, and only after eating them all did Jaekyung reluctantly venture outside.
And he saw it. A snake far more massive than the anacondas he had once seen on TV in his past life, which he had thought were monstrously large. It could no longer be called a snake.
A dragon? An imugi?
It was so large he could not take it all in at once, making it impossible to even guess its size. He could only tell that the thickness of its body was greater than any of the surrounding trees. Every time it flicked its tongue and breathed, the surroundings seemed to tremble.
Faced with a colossal creature that seemed to have come straight out of a monster movie, Jaekyung froze like a stone. But this was only due to the shock of witnessing something so unreal, not because of fear. As the shock subsided, he felt not fear, but a sense of familiarity and relief.
In truth, from the moment he first saw the monster, Jaekyung already knew instinctively. It was his parent. He did not know if it was his father or his mother, but in any case, it was the being that had brought him into this world.
The first meeting between parent and child, which should have been touching. Unfortunately, that tender moment did not last long.
Three days? Four days?
Jaekyung, who had been comfortably eating the food brought by his parent—be it father or mother—suddenly widened his eyes at two people who dropped down from the sky.
That's right.
They were people. Their skin was not blue, they did not have horns on their foreheads, nor did they have multiple eyes or a tail. They had the same appearance as he did in his past life.
But only their appearance was the same; their substance was not. The moment they appeared, a suffocating pressure washed over him like a wave. It was so intense it was hard to breathe.
"Krrrrr."
The giant black snake, which had been watching its offspring eat, also sensed the disturbance and growled fiercely. The air seemed to freeze from its ferocity, but the two strangers did not seem to mind in the slightest.
“A Solitary Ink-Scaled Python. There is no mistake. And such a large one at that." "Haha. Senior Brother. With a size like this, we could make dozens of treasure armors.”
Jaekyung could not understand what they were saying. However, he could tell that they were not at all frightened, even when faced with a monstrous snake larger than a decent-sized building, and were instead delighted. He could not guess the source of their confidence, but sensing something ominous in their attitude, Jaekyung quickly hid himself.
He crawled deeper into the cave and squeezed his body into a small crevice in the cave wall. He did not dare to even think of escaping outside the cave. He followed the warning of his instincts.
BOOM! BOOM!
Soon, terrible shrieks and thunderous roars began to echo. The violent tremors alone made it impossible for Jaekyung to keep his wits about him. His whole body ached, and his head was spinning.
If he let his guard down for even a moment, he felt he would pass out. 'What in the world is this!' Swayed by the wretched emotion of curiosity, he peeked out his head and saw something constantly flashing.
Explosions were going off near the giant snake's head, and something whitish repeatedly appeared and disappeared. Just looking at it for a moment was enough to make his eyes hurt.
'Ah.'
He did not know what was going on, but he could vaguely sense that his parent was in a disadvantageous situation. Because the ferocious roars from before now sounded like screams soaked in pain.
THUD!
Jaekyung's feeling was not wrong. The giant snake, which had been struggling desperately, let out a long, tragic scream and collapsed powerlessly. Having seen that, Jaekyung squeezed his body back into the crevice in the cave wall.
He waited as if dead, even holding his breath. It was, without a doubt, the moment he had exercised the most patience in his past and present lives combined. Until then, Jaekyung had thought he did not feel much attachment to his second life as a snake, but now he knew that was a delusion.
He wanted to live. It was the same when he was a human, and it was the same now that he was a snake. Whether human or snake, they were both living creatures, and survival was the sole nature of a living being.
How much time passed while he desperately held his breath? He even dozed off for a moment, but he held on, steadfastly keeping his mind together. But while he could somehow manage the fatigue, there was nothing he could do about the extreme hunger.
In the end, unable to bear it any longer, Jaekyung cautiously poked his head out. The devastated cave entrance came into view. It was collapsed and cracked, as if it had been bombed.
Neither the snake nor the people could be seen. Had the giant black snake, his parent, died? A worried thought crossed his mind for a moment, but Jaekyung soon began to crawl desperately along the ground.
His eyes were half-rolled back from hunger, and the thought of having to fill his stomach immediately dominated his mind. Fortunately, there was a rat nearby, placidly digging at the ground. Jaekyung held his breath and crawled silently toward it, then bit the back of its neck in a single motion.
The series of hunting movements was as smooth as if he had repeated it tens, hundreds of times. And so, his second life in this other world began in earnest. 'Something is strange.'
Unintentional independence and the first hunt. He did not know how many days had passed since then. A rough guess would be about a month?
Even if there was a margin of error, it would only be a few days. It was a long time if you thought it long, a short time if you thought it short, but it was clearly not enough time for a snake so small it could not even coil around a single egg to grow to over three meters.
'Or is it? Considering the size of that snake.' Jaekyung thought of the giant snake that must have been his biological parent in this life.
Considering its size, for which the word 'monster' was most fitting, his own abnormal growth rate seemed to make some sense. 'Am I going to grow that big too.' If so, this endless appetite was also understandable.
To grow that big, just how much would he have to eat? He could not even imagine. Jaekyung had seen all sorts of things while wandering this vast forest, or mountain, but he had never seen a monster that defied common sense like his parent.
Considering that size is almost everything in a natural ecosystem, his parent must have been a high-level or even the apex predator in this area. If so, then Jaekyung himself could be called the seed of a predator. 'But growing that big is not necessarily a good thing.'
From what he had witnessed himself, superhumans existed in this world. His parent, which looked like it could coil around and crush a small building, had been taken away by just two people. He had not seen it being dragged away himself, but judging by the circumstances, it was almost certain.
If superhumans existed among people, then perhaps something similar existed among beasts. This meant that, unlike in his past life, the structure of the ecosystem might not be one where large beasts occupied the top positions. In that case, a large body could be a disadvantage rather than an advantage.
Because he would be more easily spotted by those who prey on large game. This strange world was full of unknowns. Although it was not satisfying, Jaekyung did not want to lose the second life he had newly gained in vain.
That was also why he had tried to get away from the cave. The beings who had human forms but were not human at all—'aliens' by his standards—had instilled in him extreme fear and wariness. At times he knelt to his instincts, mainly hunger, but Jaekyung tried to think and judge rationally.
This was one of his absolute strengths. His competitors were fundamentally beasts, and beasts rarely engaged in what one would call thought. It might not be true for all of them, but the beasts he had seen and experienced so far were basically slaves to their instincts.
They ate when hungry and slept when tired. Of course, they had their own sense of caution, but it was only at a rudimentary level.
Crunch!
The beast with its neck broken went limp. It basically had the appearance of a lizard, but its body was short, its legs were long, and it had three joints. It was an agile creature, with especially incredible jumping power.
If he had not lured it with the red grass it liked to let its guard down, he would not have been able to hunt it so easily. 'Will this be enough?' Jaekyung held the creature in his mouth and headed for his temporary nest.
It was located on a thick tree, a place where a small family of birds originally lived. Two days ago, Jaekyung had driven out that bird family and made the place his temporary nest.
Being moderately high up, creatures that could not climb trees could not reach it, and with plenty of branches and leaves hanging over it, it was not a target for birds of prey. The only threats were birds that did not fly high, but since they were no match for him in terms of size, they rarely ever attacked.
'This is just a temporary measure.' It was a good nest, but he could not use it for long. It was because of his body, which was growing larger and naturally heavier by the day.
A branch that did not shake yesterday would shake today, and tomorrow it would crack. Though slightly exaggerated, it was for this very reason that Jaekyung had to change his nest several times. The tree he was currently using as a nest was the largest one in the area.
The moment even this place could no longer support him, he would have to leave for somewhere far away again. And based on his experience so far, that moment would surely come soon. 'Can it hold out for about two days?'
Midway up the tree, a hole of moderate size had been carved out. It was probably the mark of another beast that had made it its home. Jaekyung stored his leftover, or yet untouched, prey there.
It was a stockpile for days when his hunts were fruitless or when he could not eat his fill, but even though the amount was considerable, it seemed insufficient in Jaekyung's eyes. This was because the amount he ate increased day by day. 'Should I start aiming for bigger ones.'
Until now, Jaekyung had adhered to only one principle. That was safety. Even if he felt it was an opportunity, if he thought he might get hurt, he would never attempt it.
He only targeted easy prey that he could catch without injury. This was, in fact, the habit of most beasts, but Jaekyung was even more cautious than them. Thanks to that, he had been able to survive and grow without incident until now.
But it seemed that method had now reached its limit. The things he could hunt safely were all small beasts, and they were now insufficient to fill his stomach. If he really tried to fill his stomach with only such things, he would have to catch ten of them a day.
His hunting skills had now reached a level of mastery, but even so, he did not succeed every time he hunted. Hunting required not only skill, but also luck. No matter how skilled he was, if he did not encounter any prey, he would just have to suck his thumb.
Of course, he did not have thumbs anymore. 'It cannot be helped.' Tearing at the meat of the beast he hunted yesterday, Jaekyung made up his mind.
Starting tomorrow, he would try aiming for slightly bigger ones. 'It is a shame I do not have venom. Am I just a grass snake after all?'
After starting to stand on his own, Jaekyung had come to understand himself. What he could and could not do. Whether he had any useful weapons, and so on.
In the process, he learned that his only weapon was his large, sturdy body. He was a snake, but not a venomous one. 'Perhaps the snakes in this world do not have venom.'
Jaekyung reflected once again. He had to forget the knowledge of his past life. He should not fall into any kind of preconceived notion.
During this past month or so, the knowledge from his past life had sometimes been helpful, but it had also been a trap. After a few experiences, Jaekyung tried to discard the knowledge of his past life.
But he still could not completely let go of it, and the knowledge from his past life had become a fixed idea that often landed him in difficulties, both big and small.