"Quest failed."
Watching his character being hauled back to camp by a Palico cart on the screen, Kael slowly lowered his controller, staring blankly at the display in silence.
It was as if his brain had suddenly frozen.
After a long while, he suddenly slammed his palm onto the desk. With a dull HP–1 impact sound, he roared in frustration, looking from afar like an overheated red shrimp.
"What the hell?! I missed that too?!!"
No. I need to calm down.
Taking a deep breath, Kael twisted his stiff neck and was just about to stand up to grab a cup of water.
The next second, a massive shadow engulfed him.
Amid the deafening crash of shattered windows and collapsing walls, only one thought remained in his mind.
"So… even staying at home, you can still get hit by a truck of fate?"
In the New World, deep within a hidden tree hollow in the Ancient Forest, a cluster of glow moss emitted a faint, gentle light.
Around it, several forest geckos lay quietly against the damp, moss-covered tree walls, patiently waiting for insects to be drawn in by the soft glow. Their eyes shifted subtly, like seasoned hunters lying in ambush.
They had no idea that danger was steadily approaching.
Beneath the shadows, a figure crept forward silently. After reaching a suitable position, it bent its powerful hind legs slightly, gathering strength. Its wings folded inward as it adjusted its balance.
With a scraping sound of claws against the ground, the shadow suddenly burst forward.
It opened its bloodstained maw wide and, before the geckos could even react, clamped down on its target. Then it shook its head violently, again and again, until the prey in its mouth went completely limp.
Only then did it stop.
After finishing the hunt, the shadow eagerly pinned down the lower half of the gecko with its foot and began tearing into it under the glow moss, devouring it in great mouthfuls.
In the dim light, its true form gradually came into view.
It was… a juvenile Rathalos.
The crimson armor plates on its body had only just begun to sprout small spikes. Its oversized head looked slightly mismatched with its slender frame. As for the wings that Rathalos were so proud of, they were currently no better than a pair of featherless chicken wings pressed against its sides—completely incapable of supporting flight.
No matter how one looked at it, this should have been a hatchling that couldn't leave its nest and still needed its parents to feed it.
And yet, this very hatchling—one that should have been crying for food in its nest—had just completed a hunt on its own.
Even if the prey was nothing more than a harmless forest gecko.
Having "hunted" once again and eaten every last bit of his meal, Kael swallowed the lingering metallic taste of blood and glanced back at the glow moss. After confirming that the geckos hadn't regrouped, he finally gave up and turned back into the shadows.
The tree hollow was not small, but that was only relative to Kael's current size as a hatchling.
Swaying slightly, he made his way to another damp corner. He bit off half of a poisonous mushroom he had deliberately saved earlier and swallowed it whole. Then, as a bonus, he snapped up a passing bitter bug in one bite.
Only after that did he return to the dark stream inside the hollow and lie down.
He had been transmigrated here for several days now, yet he still couldn't understand why, as a Rathalos, his birthplace wasn't a proper wyvern nest or even a storage site of some bird wyvern.
Instead, it was this place—an almost textbook "beginner safe zone."
There was water.
There was a steady supply of easily obtainable food, just enough to keep a freshly hatched hatchling like him from starving.
And with vines and grass hanging down to cover the entrance, the opening was narrow and well hidden. At the very least, those massive creatures that stretched over ten meters in length had no chance of squeezing in.
A safe zone like this, combined with the fact that he was alone…
It was hard not to suspect some kind of "arrangement of fate."
But thinking about it now was pointless.
As his body grew explosively over the past few days, the food inside the tree hollow was no longer enough to meet his daily needs.
Just like now.
One forest gecko and a large mushroom were barely enough to suppress the terrifying hunger in his stomach. Back when he had just hatched, this amount would have filled him completely.
So… does this mean the beginner tutorial is over?
Feeling irritated, Kael slammed his tail—now newly sprouting small spikes—against the ground a few times. After venting a little, he slowly closed his eyes.
Gradually, a strange warm current rose up from deep within the earth and began flowing into his body.
This current gently and comprehensively strengthened his physique. In Kael's view, it was probably the unique life energy of this world.
It was precisely because of this miraculous energy that such a magnificent and colorful ecosystem had been born.
Even so, Kael wasn't sure whether he was special.
Like the legendary Elder Dragons, he could actually sense this life energy and actively absorb it as it flowed through the ley lines.
In his blind spot, countless silver particles glowing with an icy blue light appeared out of thin air. They were drawn in alongside the life energy and merged into his body—yet he noticed none of it.
Time passed bit by bit.
When Kael finally felt that he had reached some kind of limit, he opened his eyes again.
"Sigh… Who would've thought that even after I stopped being human, my body still has limits? Then wasn't it pointless to stop being human?"
He muttered to himself.
With a thought, a crude panel that only he could see appeared before his eyes.
Name: Kael
Race: Flying Wyvern — Rathalos
Trait: Random Draw in Progress (99%)
The panel was extremely simple.
But as someone who had spent years reading web novels, Kael knew very well that this thing was one of his greatest lifelines in this world.
As for everything else…
Naturally, that came from his body as a high-tier predator, the so-called "King of the Skies."
In his previous life's games, Rathalos often ended up as a stepping stone for other monsters, his status dropping again and again.
But in this real world, Rathalos was undeniably a powerful creature at the top of the ecological pyramid—a true apex predator!
"Almost… almost there. Just wait a little longer."
Suppressing his excitement, Kael closed the panel and walked toward the glow moss again.
The food inside the tree hollow was about to become insufficient.
Leaving this place was inevitable.
And the skills and traits he would obtain next would give him a better chance of surviving outside.
As another forest gecko went down his throat, the "Trait" bar on the panel finally reached one hundred percent.
After a burst of dizzying garbled symbols, the draw was complete.
Trait: Acceleration (Speed increases as combat time passes)
"???"
Is this… the trait I think it is?
Why does this description feel like something from a famous game in my previous life? It's just changed from "per turn" to "over time in battle."
And there's another trait draw slot after this…
Does that mean this is a composite trait?
Then could there be a third one? A fourth one?
Kael was stunned by his own speculation.
If his guess was correct, then his future wouldn't be limited to merely surviving.
Perhaps…
He might even be able to touch that realm.
The level known as "Forbidden"—a realm that transcended the very ecological hierarchy of this world.