Damned System

Chapter 4. Beta Test (3)

I found a method to absorb mana, but it proved to have more restrictions than anticipated.

Killing animals seemed far too risky.

It could lead to being reported for violating animal protection laws.

There was also a sense of repulsion at indiscriminately taking a life.

To me, the struggle for survival was different from senseless slaughter.

However, I couldn’t just sit idly by.

I compromised between my conscience and survival.

I decided to exclude animals but uproot plants.

“At least I need to stay alive.”

I wasn’t a person noble enough to care for the life of every blade of grass I consumed.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t lay a hand on large plants like trees.

Breaking branches didn’t produce any effect.

To absorb mana, the plant must be uprooted and definitely killed.

Consequently, the trees scattered abundantly across the back mountain were akin to a pie in the sky.

Instead, I stomped on every weed I could see.

Though it was winter and there weren’t many, I still managed.

Engaging in such mad labor, I was able to gather a little more mana.

Regardless, feeling or using mana remained a distant goal.

Thus, I decided to also prepare realistically.

That’s why, even late at night, I couldn’t put my phone down.

Animal hunting, killing beasts, knife hunting.

I feverishly entered various search terms but found no satisfactory results.

“It’s all about guns.”

I was going crazy. In frustration, I tossed the phone beside the bed.

But not long after, I picked it up again.

I couldn’t forget what had happened earlier that morning.

The horrible pain and the screams of agony.

My body vividly remembered that moment.

Recalling the unfamiliar pain and fear caused my muscles to tense and my heart rate to quicken.

Every time I felt that way, I took a long breath. To master my emotions and maintain composure.

Later, I dedicated another couple of hours to searching.

Right before sleep claimed me, I hesitated briefly and entered another search term.

“Large dogs.”

I wondered if I could identify the creature that had bitten me.

Thankfully, I soon found a dog that looked identical.

“Kangals…”

The Turkish national breed, the Kangal, is said to possess a bite force strong enough to rival predators.

“And this is just stage one.”

The phenomenon I was experiencing resembled a game.

And typically, games become progressively difficult.

There were three stages in total, and I had merely experienced one.

If the remaining two stages also featured beasts, the creatures would likely be more dangerous than the Kangal.

My hand, clutching the phone, became sweaty.

Despite this, I gritted my teeth and somehow tried to sleep.

* * *

My mana had increased by 7.4, reaching a total of 42.4.

Still, using mana was a distant prospect.

Nonetheless, it was the fifth day since the first mission had ended.

A sound I never wanted to hear again hit my eardrum.

Ding.

「A new test will commence soon.」

I was resting at home, having completed my work, when I abruptly bolted upright.

The stark white space I had seen earlier unfolded before my eyes.

Shaking my head vigorously, I chased away sleep.

“Inventory.”

I immediately opened my inventory, but my face crumpled.

Four out of the five square slots were empty.

I had no clue when the second mission would begin.

Hence, I kept prepared items in the inventory at all times.

I meticulously packed a baseball bat, kitchen knife, protective gear, painkillers, and hemostasis agents.

Yet, remaining in the inventory was just a single dagger provided by the system.

Other than that, I was left with only the clothes I had slept in.

A black tee, cargo pants, and military boots that were commercially sold.

Among my preparations, only those remained in my possession.

「A new weapon, a longsword, will be provided.」

My teeth were grinding with resentment.

Accompanied by the sound of metal clinking, a longsword approximately the length of my arm fell.

Picking it up, the mission window appeared.

MISSION

「Tutorial (Beta Test 2/3)」

Eliminate the target.

Time limit: 00:10:00

Start timer: 00:01:00

My cheek twitched.

“This damned…”

Beyond the mission window, the beasts visible were lionesses.

Judging by size, they were similar to the Kangals I had previously seen.

However, there were three of them.

Fear and anger intermingled, causing my head to spin momentarily.

Even amidst such confusion, the timer continued to count down mercilessly.

Soon it reached zero, and with the lionesses charging, I yelled out.

“Bring it on!”

I felt I had to at least expel my fear that way.

The one charging head-on was the quickest.

I thrust the longsword, gripped in both hands, forward.

Luck was on my side. The blade disappeared straight into the gaping maw of the lioness.

I was pushed by the heavy weight but managed to brace myself.

Thanks to that, I avoided falling flat.

The lioness, impaled by the longsword, convulsed.

Having taken one down right at the start, there was no time to revel in it.

“Huh!”

Riding over the limp lioness, another lunged at me with its jaws wide open.

Hurriedly, I let go of the sword and grabbed the loose skin beside its jaws.

This time, unable to withstand the beast’s charge, my body was pushed backward.

I ended up falling to the ground.

“Target has been killed. 11 mana absorbed.”

During that brief moment, mana flowed into me from the slain beast.

It was an amount incomparable to mana absorbed from plants.

Those creeping into my body were overwhelming me.

But I had no space to think about that.

“Urgh!”

Snap, snap, snap!

Right in front of me, the lioness’s jaws threateningly snapped shut and opened repeatedly.

I had to fend off the lion even while enduring maddening sensations.

While I was grudgingly holding onto the beast’s hide, preventing it from closing in closer.

A heinous pain suddenly seared through my left leg.

Crunch.

The sound was alien, yet it echoed loudly like thunder.

“Argh!”

My desperate shout did nothing to alleviate the situation.

With a sickening tear, flesh and muscle ripped away, and everything below my knee was completely severed.

Blood spurted like a fountain.

The once-white space had long been stained red.

Another beast had bitten down on and tore away my leg.

“Hmph, huh…”

Tears and drool streamed down uncontrollably.

Though I had lived 25 years.

A moment was all it took to stand on the edge of life and death, and the fear of death was absolute.

I was terrified, convinced I’d be devoured by the beasts at any moment.

I wished to die painlessly, and not suffer through the agony before death.

And I regretted.

“If I knew I’d die here!”

In the instant I gave up, it would all be over.

If I had given up back when I struggled to make ends meet, I wouldn’t have today.

Rather than crumbling before fear, gathering my resolve even more fiercely in that moment of despair.

Something foreign began to stir within my body.

「Mana Manipulation is commencing.」

「Trait ‘Mana Manipulation’ has been generated.」

I didn’t have the luxury to thoroughly examine the words that appeared before me.

I thrust my palm into the lion’s upper jaw, gripping its lower jaw with the other hand.

Muscles in my forearm swelled and the jaws began to part.

When, at last, I let out a scream driven by sheer rage.

“Ahhhhhh!”

The lioness’s jaw was forced open beyond the limits of its joints.

Splash.

Red blood sprayed onto my face.

Huff, huff.

Shoving aside the lion that had collapsed with a strange noise, I glared intently and shouted.

“Inventory!”

A firm touch was felt in my hand.

There was one left!

Clutching the dagger tightly, I yelled.

“Come on, you bastard!”

* * *

Once the mission ended, something crawled into my body again.

I was mentally overwhelmed, yet withstood the sensation.

It felt akin to being tortured.

Upon exiting the white space, I immediately vomited everything inside me.

“Blergh!”

The last one did not die easily.

To start with, my condition was really bad.

Having lost so much blood, my vision blurred, and my grip often slipped.

As a result, I had seen my guts spill out and heard my flesh being chewed.

Towards the end, I almost died from having my throat bitten.

Yet, I barely managed to gut the last lioness.

Thanks to that, I survived.

“Ugh, huuu!”

I wanted to cry out, asking why I had to go through such things.

Hadn’t life been tough enough already?

Why add this wretched situation to it too!

I vividly recalled the pain of the lion biting into my leg.

Fear and despair from the beast’s fangs sinking into my neck were unforgettable.

Cloaked in those horrifying memories, I sobbed silently for a while.

「Congratulations! MISSION – Tutorial (Beta Test 2/3) has been successfully completed.」

「As a reward for success, 10 mana is granted. All injuries will be healed.」

「Result calculation complete.」

「Congratulations! Player Kang Hyunwoo has eliminated the target in 00:08:51.」

「Based on your result, 3rd rank reward Attribute Mana 3 has been granted.」

The following messages didn’t register in my mind.

The relief of having made it through was overshadowed by the fear of what might come next.

A sense of resentment, with nowhere to vent, filled me.

* * *

With a day gone by, I forced myself to pull together.

Time moved on, whether I lamented my suffering or not.

Now was the time to stand up and move forward, not sit down and cry.

Thus, I decided to take a break from night work for the time being.

Preparing for future missions became the top priority.

The first mission ended around 10:30 PM.

The second mission ended close to 10:10 PM.

Considering the time spent in the white space, it likely started around 10 PM.

The first had likely stabilized for quite some time.

‘Both times were almost the same.’

Next time may not differ greatly.

I needed to sleep at night and maintain my condition.

Getting bitten by a beast half-awake didn’t seem appealing.

Going to work as if nothing happened felt impossible too.

And of course, even during breaks, I moved without rest.

To verify the distinct changes in my body after the second mission.

I started running early in the morning.

Reaching near my house, I halted, breathing roughly.

“Really, what a surprise…”

The record left on the app was shocking.

I had run at 20 km/h for two hours without stopping.

Yet I didn’t feel as if my legs would buckle or that I would collapse.

Just heavy breaths and some fatigue.

If I desired, I felt I could run for an hour more.

My stamina rivaled that of top marathon runners.

“Phew…”

While people could exhibit superhuman strength when faced with life-threatening danger, this exceeded that.

Tearing open a lioness’s jaws or lifting a 100 kg refrigerator by myself.

It was even possible to leap two meters further than Olympic champions.

More than anything, the significant changes in my senses, such as vision and hearing, stood out.

They had become so sharp and vivid, incomparable to before.

It felt as if I was gradually stepping out of human boundaries.

These irrational changes came with anxiety.

“What on earth is happening?”

A mission that started out of nowhere.

Reality transformed like a game.

A perilous crisis threatening death, as well as strange scars.

The anxiety and fear remained vivid.

Yet, I could not be held hostage by these feelings.

I had to accept my current situation.

The game had begun, and I needed to survive.

“I must adapt.”

Otherwise, I might die playing this crazy game.

That simple conclusion greatly aided me in determining what needed to be done.

To adapt to this game, I needed information.

Had I not reflected on mana after the first mission.

Thus realizing that mana was a fundamental force of living beings.

I wouldn’t have thought to absorb mana through uprooted plants.

“Then, it might have been more dangerous.”

What if the minimum mana operation requirement was 50?

I could have been overwhelmed by the second lioness.

I might have truly died.

Therefore, I must constantly think and ponder to uncover more about the system.

Even if wrong, I couldn’t stop, and even if hard, I couldn’t give up.

“Phew.”

Regulating my breath to calm my mind, I called forth the manual.

With the file itself damaged, I had to draw inferences from what was written.

In fact, this game had a slightly different setup compared to normal games.

There were no concepts like levels or stats.

The status window only displayed a few simple words.

Mana, affiliation, race, rank, attribute, trait.

“Among these, the manual mentions four.”

Mana, rank, attribute, and trait.

I meticulously parsed through the manual.

Though I had read it once, I hadn’t memorized everything.

I intended to go through it thoroughly in sequence.

Gradually reading helped me pinpoint words that appeared in the status window.

「Trait」

Refers to a player’s innate ability, where certain traits may %#(! ◎¡!# ◎ː&△** ^&ㅉㅃ(=…….

「Attribute」

#◎!*ㅉ $^! Refers to the natural inclination one can utilize, and allows ▲ ◎〗※ː¿¿#!*ㅃ&^¿■■■. Additionally,……

“Phew.”

Truly, it’s infuriating.

Damned System