A canopy of broad, dark leaves stretched overhead, swaying gently in a wind that carried the scent of moss and cold earth.
Max lay flat on his back, the rough bite of damp soil against his palms.
Branches creaked. A droplet of water fell from above and struck his cheek, startling him fully awake. He sucked in a breath, and the air was too sharp, too real—green and alive in a way the stale city air never was.
Slowly, he sat up.
A wave of nausea rolled through him. His body felt wrong. Heavier in some places, lighter in others. When he looked down, he almost dropped back onto the ground.
The clothes were unfamiliar.
Rough, forest-green tunic. Leather bracers. A tarnished iron pendant resting against his chest.
His hands were broader, the fingers calloused and scored by old scars.
Heart pounding, he pressed shaking fingers to his face. The bone structure beneath his skin felt similar—enough that he could pretend, for a moment, this was still his body. But he knew it wasn't.
Nearby, something else was wrong.
A foul, coppery tang reached his nose. He turned his head—and nearly recoiled.
A creature lay sprawled in the underbrush, its mottled skin already going grey in death. A crude dagger protruded from its throat, greenish black blood congealing around the wound.
Max's eyes darted down again. His hands were stained with the same dark fluid.
He swallowed. His mouth felt dry.
Okay. Calm down.
The last thing he remembered was his apartment. The cracked mug. His bed. That flickering message
> [Awakening…]
No way this is a dream.
Max already had an idea of what was going on but he didn't dare believe it.
A dull throb pulsed in his skull. He lifted his hair away and felt the ragged edge of a scab near the hairline.
As he pressed it, a memory slid into place. Blurry images of shouting, running feet, a blunt impact from behind.
Then darkness.
A voice whispered in the back of his mind.
"My name is….. Karl."
Max tried to cling to it, but the reminder of the thought dissolved into fragments.
Max glanced around, taking in more details.
The forest floor was littered with leaves and broken branches. A short sword lay in the mud a few paces away, its edge chipped. A simple rucksack hung from a branch, its strap torn.
Moving stiffly, he crawled over and retrieved it. Inside were a few things.
A waterskin half-full.
A strip of dried meat.
A small pouch jingling with copper coins.
A folded scrap of parchment marked with a stylized seal. A sword crossing a star.
Max turned it over. Recognition stirred within him, though he couldn't say from where.
Adventurer's Guild.
The knowledge felt implanted, as if it belonged to someone else.
Max let out a shaky breath. He forced himself to think through it logically.
Fact One: He was no longer on Earth.
Fact Two: This was a real body. He could feel every bruise and ache.
Fact Three: He knew, somehow, that this world was not a hallucination.
He reached up and touched the scab again. It was miraculously healed.
Not quite, he corrected himself. It was still tender. But enough that he hadn't bled out.
Max wiped his hands on the grass, ignoring the smears of black blood. A breeze lifted the hair from his damp forehead.
Above the trees, he could see the edges of a dawn sky—brighter than it had any right to be, bleeding into hues of violet and deep blue.
Max—or Kale, whichever he was now—took a slow breath.
Max already had an idea of what was going on, but he didn't dare to immediately confirm it was just as he suspected.
Awakening.
Max thoughts snagged on something he'd heard countless Hunters describe in interviews—the moment they'd first discovered their abilities.
The stories varied. Some woke up to find themselves hovering three feet above their beds. Others accidentally shattered walls with a careless touch. But almost every one of them said the same thing about that first bewildering moment.
> "The easiest way to know," they'd say, "was to just say 'status.'"
Max swallowed. His throat felt tight.
For some reason, he felt conflicted.
Everyone dreamed of this, didn't they? The day you woke up and found out you weren't ordinary after all.
For as long as he could remember, the world had been obsessed with Hunters.
Even before he was born, there were documentaries, school lectures, late-night talk shows dissecting their feats. In just a few dozen years, the Towers had reshaped every continent, every economy, every government.
It was said the strongest among them—those who reached S-Rank—could live for centuries if they kept ascending. A lifetime of power, wealth, and near-immortality.
Put that aside, and there was still this one truth: no Hunter was ever poor. Even the weakest F-Ranks earned more in a year than most people did in ten.
And yet, standing here in someone else's body and blood drying on his palms, Max felt…strangely hollow.
Because whatever this was, it didn't feel like the stories.
He wasn't sure if he should feel elation or dread.
Maybe both.
His fingers curled tighter around the scrap of parchment. The rough texture grounded him in the moment.
Alright, he thought, drawing in another breath. Let's see if this is really happening.
Very softly, he spoke.
"Status."
The word came out ragged, carried on a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then a soft chime echoed in the air—so faint he almost thought he'd imagined it.
A translucent panel unfolded in front of his eyes.
Max's breath stuttered.
The letters were crisp, glowing with a bluish light that seemed to belong to no earthly language, and yet he could read them perfectly:
[Name: Max Norman]
[Race: Human]
[Strength: 8, Agility: 9, Constitution: 8, Mana: 3]
[Skills: Basic Swordsmanship (Lv.2 {70%})]
[Ability: Dimensional Traverse]