How was I in this position...? Here's what happened in the morning.
The mother hound had appeared without warning.
I'd been walking through the forest—well, more like being dragged by my instructor's ridiculous pace—when he suddenly stopped, sniffed the air, and grinned that awful grin.
"Perfect," he'd said. "Wait here."
Then he'd vanished like smoke.
I'd stood there like an idiot for maybe thirty seconds before I heard it: a low, rumbling growl that made my bones vibrate and my bladder weak.
She emerged from between two massive crimson trees—a Cerberus hound easily twice the size of any I'd seen in the books back at the Ashvale library from memories. Her fur was pitch black, seeming to drink in what little light filtered through the ash-grey sky. All three heads tracked me simultaneously, six molten gold eyes burning with predatory focus that said I was already dead, I just didn't know it yet.
My hand instinctively went to the training sword at my hip. The spatial storage bracelet on my wrist grew warm—a nervous habit I'd developed, touching it whenever I was stressed. As if the emergency rations and spare clothes stored inside would somehow help against a monster that could probably swallow me whole.
what should a avid reader of transmigration genre novel do when he himself transmigrates. Isn't it simple?...
Just hoard as much as food, water, clothes, potions anything he can get his hand into and use the trademark of fantasy world i.e. spatial ring or bracelet to store them.
"Nice... doggy?" I tried, taking a slow step backward.
She charged.
No warning. No posturing. No dramatic buildup. Just pure, lethal intent condensed into several hundred pounds of muscle and rage.
I threw myself to the side—my new body responding faster than my modern-world brain could process—and barely avoided the first lunge. Her leftmost head snapped at empty air where I'd been standing a heartbeat before, teeth closing with an audible clack that made me whimper.
I drew my sword while rolling to my feet. The motion was clumsy, unpracticed, completely graceless. I nearly dropped the damn thing twice.
She circled, all three heads weaving in a hypnotic pattern that made my eyes water trying to track them. I tried to remember my instructor's lessons. Swing forward. Swing back. Swing diagonal.
None of which explained what to do when the target had three mouths, outweighed you by several hundred pounds, and looked at you like you were an appetizer.
She lunged again. I swung—a wild, panicked arc that had no technique behind it, just pure desperation and the vague memory of my instructor's demonstrations. The blade caught nothing but air as she twisted mid-leap with impossible agility, her right head coming around to bite at my sword arm.
I yanked it back, stumbling over a twisted root. My ass hit the ground hard enough to make my teeth clack together.
Her middle head reared back.
And breathed fire.
"WHAT THE—"
I rolled left on pure instinct, the flames scorching the ground where I'd fallen. The heat was intense even from several feet away, singeing my hair and making my eyes water. The smell of burning fabric told me my training pants had gotten the worst of it.
This was insane. This was impossible. I was going to die here, killed by an oversized fire-breathing dog in a forest that looked like a rejected concept art for hell, and my last thought was going to be about how unfair it was that I'd already died once.
But then something clicked. Not muscle memory—I didn't have any. Not technique—I had barely a day of "swing the sword forward, you lazy brat" training.
Just pure, animal survival instinct. The kind that transcends bodies and lives and makes you do stupid, desperate things.
I scrambled to my feet and ran.
Not away from her. Toward her.
She wasn't expecting it. None of her heads were. They were still tracking where I'd been, her massive body coiled for another lunge. I closed the distance before she could react, my sword gripped in both hands like a baseball bat—because that was literally the only frame of reference my modern-world brain had for "hitting things with a long stick."
I swung with everything I had.
The blade connected with her left head's snout—a glancing blow that barely cut through her thick hide. It probably hurt me more than it hurt her, the impact jarring my arms so badly I thought I'd dislocated something.
But it surprised her. All three heads recoiled in shock, and for one precious second, her neck was exposed.
I didn't think. Thinking would have meant recognizing how insane this was. I just swung again.
This time the sword bit deeper, in her throat. Not a killing blow—not even close. But enough to make her bleed. Enough to make her hurt.
She reared back, howling—a sound that echoed through the entire forest like a mournful bell tolling for the damned. The sword was still embedded in her neck, wrenched from my hands by her violent movement.
I fell backward, weaponless, hands empty and shaking, watching in horror as she thrashed. Blood—darker than it should be, almost black like oil—poured from the wound, sizzling where it hit the scorched earth.
But I still did not rest, gathering all my courage, I walked toward her and twisted the sword which was already in the wound.
"No, wait! I didn't mean—" My voice came out as a pathetic croak. I didn't want to do it but I had to do it.
But she wasn't listening. She staggered, her movements becoming sluggish, uncoordinated. The wound wasn't fatal—I could see that much at much. But by twisting the sword I made it severe. And in this hellish forest, severe meant deadly. There were no healers here. No mercy.
She tried to charge one more time, but her legs gave out. All three heads turned to look at me, and I saw something in those molten gold eyes that made my stomach twist.
Not just rage. Not just pain.
Recognition. Understanding.
She knew she was dying. And she knew it was my fault.
After what felt like an eternity, the hound gave its last mourning howl.
The sound was different from her earlier aggression. It wasn't a battle cry or a threat. It was pain. Loss. Grief. And unmistakably—a summons. A call to her pack, her children, telling them what had happened.
Who had killed her.
Then she collapsed, her three heads hitting the scorched earth one by one—left, right, center—each impact sending up small clouds of ash.
I didn't even care to pull out my sword from the hound's neck. My legs gave out and I fell butt-first on the blackened ground, gasping for air that tasted like sulfur and death. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn't have held the sword even if I'd wanted to. My whole body was shaking.
I'd killed something. Actually killed it. Not in a video game or a movie. A living creature that had been breathing moments ago.
The reality of it hit me like a physical blow.
But wasn't it too easy to kill my first beast with not much severe injuries.
That's when my instructor materialized from thin air, lounging against a nearby tree like he'd been watching a mildly interesting play. His expression was completely neutral, bored even.
"You shouldn't have killed it," he said casually, examining his fingernails with more interest than he'd shown me.
Something inside me snapped. The fear, the exhaustion, the guilt, the sheer absurdity of being thrown into a death forest for entertainment while he watched—it all boiled over in one moment of pure, incandescent rage.
"SHUT UP!" I shouted, my voice hoarse and cracking, echoing through the twisted trees. "If you don't bother to help, then don't bother to talk!"
For a moment, his expression shifted. Not anger. Not disappointment. Something else. Something that might have been approval, or amusement, or respect. I couldn't tell and I didn't care.
Then he smiled—that infuriating, knowing smile that made me want to punch him square in his smug face—and vanished like smoke.
And that's when I heard it.
The rustling. From multiple directions. Growing louder. Angrier.
Bhauu! Bhauu!
Around ten to twenty juvenile Cerberus hounds burst from the crimson undergrowth, smaller than their mother but no less deadly. Their yellow eyes locked onto me with pure, undiluted hatred that needed no translation.
One of them—the scarred one, the biggest of the juveniles—approached the mother's corpse slowly. It sniffed her still-warm body, nudged her with its middle head as if trying to wake her.
Then it threw back all three heads and howled.
The others joined in. A chorus of rage and grief that made my blood run cold and told me exactly what was coming.
"Oh, you've got to be—"
They charged as one.
I ran.
[Present]
The scarred leader's teeth were inches from my face when I kicked upward with both legs—a move born of pure panic rather than skill—and caught its middle head under the jaw.
It yelped, stumbling backward, and I scrambled to my feet.
The circle of hounds tightened.
"Okay, so negotiation is clearly off the table!" I shouted, backing away. "Plan B it is!"
I had no Plan B.
My hand went to the spatial storage bracelet again—more out of habit than any real plan—and I pulled out the first thing my panicked mind grabbed.
A water flask.
"Oh, perfect!" I said hysterically. "This will definitely help!"
The scarred leader lunged again.
I threw the flask at its face.
The metal container bounced off its right head, which seemed to make it angrier.
"Worth a shot!" I turned and ran, leaving my failed negotiation and even more failed combat behind.
The clearing was ahead. Maybe thirty meters now.
But thirty meters might as well have been thirty miles.
The pack was right behind me, their barks synchronizing into a rhythm that sounded almost like laughter.
One hound broke from the formation, flanking me from the right. Another from the left. They were coordinating, cutting off my escape routes with tactical precision that no pack of dogs should possess.
A root caught my foot. I stumbled, barely keeping my balance.
The hounds sensed weakness and accelerated.
This was it. I was going to die. Again. Killed by dogs that I'd tried to reason with, bribe with food, and hit with a water flask.
The clearing was so close. Just twenty meters. Fifteen.
A hound lunged from behind, all three heads opening wide.
Ten meters.
I felt teeth graze my calf.
Five meters.
The jaws closed around—