'Huh? What the…?!'
Alex, all of a sudden, felt himself falling through a dark void. It felt like something was pulling him backwards, and when he turned around, he could see a white light in the distance that kept growing brighter and larger the closer he got to it.
He screamed in panic, only for the light to finally engulf him, and a moment later, he felt himself hitting the ground face-first.
To his utter surprise, it seemed he had somehow managed to survived that fall, seeing as he was still alive. He groaned as he lifted up his head, then spat the snow from his mouth.
'What happened?'
That thought had barely crossed his mind before another even more urgent one followed close behind.
'Wait… where am I?'
He immediately pushed himself up and took a look around.
All around him were large evergreen trees and the entire ground as far as he could see was covered in snow. Alex looked up to see that snow was still falling and since it was night, the only source of light was the moon high above which cast an eerie silver glow across the entire forest.
Seeing this scenery before him, Alex was flabbergasted. One minute, he was finished with his shift and heading home, and the next, he was in the middle of God knows where.
How did he end up here?
As his mind tried to make sense of the situation, he realized that the cause of this mess was probably that strange white card he had picked up earlier.
'Ah… the card. Where is it?'
He immediately began to search for it, tapping the pockets of his convenience store uniform. When he couldn't find it, he almost panicked, but then his eyes landed on the ground where he had landed face-first and he could see the edge of the card peeking out from under the snow.
Quickly, he reached down and picked it up, then wiped away the snow from the card before studying it.
Just like before, there was a countdown timer glowing in red.
[23:59:12]
'The timer increased a day?'
Alex flipped the card over, and on the other side of it, there were new words written in black.
[Welcome to the Fates Divine Mountain of Trials]
[If you want to move on to your world, there are three rules you need to follow.]
'Huh…? …mountain of Trials?'
Things were beginning to feel a lot more terrifying for Alex now.
He had read enough webnovels and watched enough horror movies to recognize this sort of scenario.
As he read the words on the card, many questions ran through his mind, but the mere fact that he had somehow been mysteriously yanked into… wherever the hell this was, was enough to tell him that this wasn't just something as simple as some kind of prank.
He swallowed as he stared at the card, and just at that moment, the words suddenly melted away, and new words appeared in their place.
[Rule 1: You must survive until the end of the countdown.]
[Rule 2: You must take the life of a creature on this mountain before the end of the countdown. It could be any life, but note that you will be judged based on the quality of that life. If you take more than one life, the first life taken is what will be used to judge you.]
[Rule 3: You must not lose this card no matter what.]
'Seriously?! I just wanted to go home, man.'
Alex looked up from the card for a moment with a hollow expression, and took a look around the forest.
'This is just… insane.'
He sighed tiredly, and a cold puff of air escaped his lips, turning into a faint mist in the freezing night.
Then he looked back at the card and asked, "What happens if I'm not able to keep to the rules?"
There was no reply.
Alex took a deep breath, exhaled the anxiety that was already gnawing at him from all the strange things that had happened so far, and tried to keep himself composed and focused.
'This… is definitely not how I imagined my night would go.'
Rubbing the back of his neck, he muttered to himself resignedly, "Well, I'm not going to stick around and find out what happens if I don't keep to rules. I guess I better look for something to kill, then."
He looked away from the card and began walking through the dense snow, trying to move in a careful, alert manner while sticking close to the trees. After all, one of the rules was to survive until the end of the countdown. If the card was telling him he had to survive, it stood to reason that there were things out here capable of making sure he didn't.
'By the way, just what sort of creatures are in this place?'
As if in response, a loud roar suddenly sounded from the distance to his west. Then birds suddenly erupted from that direction and took off in a flight of panic.
Alex froze.
'What is that?!'
His eyes were wide in panic, and his heart had began to thrum wildly.
'A bear? No… that definitely sounded like a tiger?'
Well, tiger or not, he didn't really want to find out. That didn't sound like something he could kill, but it did indeed sound like something that could definitely kill him.
"Okay, Alex. Let's just uh… avoid that direction," he whispered to himself before turning and walking off even more quietly.
As he trudged forward, his eyes kept darting around to see if he could find a stick or something that he could use as a weapon to hunt or at least defend himself from being hunted.
"Tsk. It would have been better if I was given some sort of weapon, though," he muttered as he picked up a small branch from the snow and realized it was too rotten to be of any use.
But just as he was about to throw it away to look for another, stronger one, the card in his hand began to shine with a sudden light, almost causing Alex to drop it. Then, its form began to shift and stretch.
Startled, he ended up dropping it into the snow anyway.
In the next few seconds, the shape fully changed into a dagger, and the light died down as quickly as it had appeared.
"Huh?"
Alex blinked a few times, stunned.
"Was that… magic?"
He picked up the dagger and studied the blade. Along the simple black hilt, the countdown timer was still ticking away in that same eerie red glow, and the blade itself was surprisingly sharp. But rather than being impressed at the magic he had just witnessed, he was a bit… disappointed.
"Wait… why couldn't it be a spear? Or a sword? What's with this… knife?"
He sighed, and after a moment, continued walking on while gripping the hilt tightly.
'At least, it's better than nothing.'
With each heavy, crunching step he took, he shivered because it was really cold, and he wasn't even wearing a proper jacket. Just a thin convenience store uniform that offered almost no protection.
'Curses! Maybe I shouldn't have picked up that card.'
He looked down at his name tag, pinned crookedly to his chest, and then at the dagger. It was a ridiculous contrast. He was just a guy who should be stocking shelves and overcharging people for coffee and energy drinks, not a hunter in some twisted survival game.
He paused for a second to pull his collar up, trying to shield his neck from the wind, but the movement only made the cold air seep further down his back.
'I wonder what happened to the others who also picked up a card. Are they also here?'
Slowly, he resumed his trek deeper into the forest.
'Maybe…'
A few dozen minutes of labored walking passed, then he stopped beside a tree to rest as he was already breathing hard, and his lungs were stinging from the icy air.
'God, it's so cold.'
He rubbed his hands together for a bit, then raised the dagger and looked at the timer on the hilt.
[23:23:19]
'It's been over thirty minutes, and I've yet to see any creatures that I can kill.'
Coincidentally, his eyes drifted from the blade to the snow, and that was when he could see a small print, like the tracks of a snowshoe hare.
'Are those…'
Sure enough, a snapping sound echoed from a cluster of bushes about ten meters ahead.
Trying to be as quiet as possible, Alex began to walk closer to where the sound came from, while also weaving between the trunks of the towering trees. It was then that a small rabbit suddenly hopped out of a bush and looked around.
From behind the tree that Alex was using for cover, he studied the small creature. Then he noticed that, marked in gold on top of its head, was one large star.
He quickly crouched low, trying to mimic a predatory stance.
'You got this, Alex!'
He lifted one foot, took a very quiet step, then another.
The creature snapped up its head, causing Alex to halt in place. After looking around briefly, the rabbit seemed to relax, returning its attention to the frozen patches of grass beneath the snow.
'Please… just stay like that, little bunny. I just need to kill you.'
Alex raised his leg to take another step, but just then… a red fox suddenly burst out from a nearby bush and launched itself towards the rabbit.
The rabbit kicked off the snow in a desperate leap but the fox was too fast, and so its jaws clamped shut around the rabbit's neck mid-air.
'No, no, no… that was mine, you thief!'
Alex was angry. But then something suddenly caught his attention. On the fox's forehead were two stars that were similar to that of the rabbit.
'Wait a minute…'
Looking at the star marks, Alex remembered rule number two, which said that you will be judged based on the quality of the life you take.
'Do those stars have anything to do with the quality of life of the creature?'
He wasn't sure. It could just be a strange coincidence, but he was willing to bet that it probably did.
While he was still pondering this, the fox suddenly dropped the rabbit and began running away.
Alex blinked in surprise and was about to chase after the little thief when something massive suddenly fell from a nearby pine tree, crushing the fox instantly.
It was a two and a half meter, ape-like creature with four muscular arms. Its upper set of arms was significantly larger than the lower pair, and each of its hands ended in horrifyingly sharp claws. The creature's massive body was covered in bone-white fur that was stained with blood, and more of it was still dripping steadily from its open mouth, which housed several rows of jagged fangs.
'Holy crap! What the hell is that?'
Alex took a cautious step back in horror.
'Five… five stars?'
The creature slowly stood upright, revealing five golden stars marked clearly on its forehead. It lifted its leg and stared lazily at the remains of the fox smeared under its foot. With a casual shake of its leg to clear the mess, the beast placed its foot back on the ground and slowly turned its gaze toward where Alex stood, only to find that the poor boy had long since begun running for his life.