If anything, this forest was rather chill. Giant canopies here and there acting like dictators, hoarding sunlight for themselves, but they also created patches of shade where Zalanir could rest. Not that the sun was hot or anything, but he would prefer this way over walking out in the open.

  Chirping birds playing games of tag, leaves rustling whenever the wind blew through, and colorful fungi and herbs populating tree trunks and the dark brown ground reminded Zalanir of the safari his grandpa took him to when he had first arrived in Vietnam. But unlike that time, he couldn’t enjoy the scene here, as this was no safari.

  Falling into a whirlpool and waking up in a forest? His mind kept flashing a single word he knew all too well: isekai. Not only was this a fairly common start to many cultivation novels he had read, but also in blockbuster movies that dominated the cinemas.

  Now, not that he was down for this notion yet. It was just a literary device, a fictional plot—it wasn’t supposed to be real. Its role was to invoke a sense of wonder and capture the audience’s attention. How come this happened to him? Did this concept really exist?

  Only one way to find out. People. He had to find someone.

  Zalanir trod from shade to shade, staying close to big trees to avoid exposing himself in the open. The one he had just passed by looked like cinnamon tree, but there was no pungent, spicy aroma to confirm. Rather, they gave off a light earthy and smoky-like scent.

  Their branches were quite resilient. It took him almost ten minutes to break one off—roughly the length of a tennis racket. The grip was bigger than ideal, but at least having something to hold on to in the middle of a strange forest helped ease his mind.

  Though this activity also gave him the first evidence to the isekai hypothesis, as he didn’t feel tired after all of those exercises. He had utmost confidence in his stamina thanks to years of training on the pro tour, but to the degree of having no heavy breath was indeed unusual.

  He tapped every bit of his body. Nothing strange.

  He jumped up and sprinted a short distance to the next patch of shade. His body worked just fine.

  “Aaaaaaaa. Hello, I’m the best. I would like to order a bottle of water.” He tested his voice, and it sounded normal.

  Free stamina? Zalanir shrugged. He needed more hints to know for sure.

  Decaying leaves and fallen twigs crunched under his steps. He kept moving, but where, he didn’t know. The sky was getting darker, and the sun had already dipped halfway into its cloud bed. A symphony of amber color painting the sky was the only thing left before darkness took charge.

  And he saw it.

  A pooch rested on a square stone a couple of meters away. Dull silver fur, size of a potty, and tailless.

  It jumped up, snarled, and rushed to his spot the instant it saw him. Zalanir pointed the branch forward and shooed it away. Even though it looked cute, its manner was anything but friendly.

  It tried to outmaneuver the weapon, but Zalanir kept the distance. Though he slipped on something spherical and tumbled backward, and the pooch bit his left shoe. Its teeth tore through the shoe’s vamp and bit into his foot, causing him to react with a kick to shove it away.

  Shit. Rabies.

  Zalanir bolted upright and tested his foot, swinging it up and down. Still moveable, but painful. The edge of the two small holes on his Stan Smith started to turn red.

  The pooch charged at him again, but if he had held back before, he wouldn’t now. Conscience be damned.

  He thrust the branch, disrupting the charge and knocking the pup down. Adrenaline surged. He sprinted forward and kicked the pooch in the head using his uninjured foot. The sneakers wasn’t designed for combat, but neither he had the time nor other shoes to change into.

  Ug. Ug. Ug. The pooch hiccuped and curled on the ground, but then to his surprise, it stood up once again and continued its clumsy charge. Had he somehow become this dog’s nemesis, or what? What was this level of aggression?

  Fine. Take this. Zalanir swung the branch like a forehand, hitting the faltering dog on its flank. The force launched the beast into the air before it slammed onto a nearby tree.

  After a few seconds of convulsing, it gave in and lay still on the ground, silver liquid leaking from its mouth.

  You have slain [Silverfur Pooch — Level 3]

  Level advances to 2

  He spun around, searching for whoever had spoken, but there were only the high sky and swaying trees. That wasn’t his imagination. He heard it. Crisp and clear. Wait! That tone. Wasn’t it the monotone voice he had heard when passed out?

  Zalanir squinted his eyes, slowly moving his head in a circle to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. There. A blip in a purple shrub.

  “Hello. I’m Zalanir. You can come out.”

  No one responded. Silly. Probably not a person, but something stuck in that bush. It kept flashing in a fixed interval as if it was calling for his attention.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  But it didn’t stay in one place. He didn’t see it, but when he took a step forward, it moved into the ground, maintaining its spot in the lower right corner of his view.

  Then it shifted once again, though this time it was … floating in the air? But there was nothing…

  He stepped up, left, and right, but the blip remained in the same position relative to his vision, as if it moved with him. He reached for it, but his hand passed through empty air. Even hovering his hand over didn’t work. It remained visible no matter what he did.

  What a minute. That voice said he had killed the pup, didn’t it? He didn’t intend to. He’d just wanted to give it a beating so that it would lie down.

  The blip reminded him of a canvas, staying fixed in the same spot despite whatever was shown on the screen. With the sound, wasn’t it like a notification? If he treated his view as a giant curved monitor and …

  He focused on the blip mentally, and a window popped up before him, startling and making him fall on his butt.

  You have slain [Silverfur Pooch — Level 3]

  Level advances to 2

  The same announcement appeared in front of him as text, anchoring itself in the lower right corner of his vision, slightly fuzzy against the environment. It was like wearing a VR headset, but with amazing video quality and no physical weight on his head.

  The text was listed under a tab labeled “Notifications”. How original. He tried to close the tab with hand gestures, then mental commands, but only the latter worked. The interface was intuitive and quite easy to pick up.

  What was this technology? An implanted chip? He touched, scratched, and poked his head, searching for scars or incisions, but found nothing. So no surgery. Which meant it wasn’t inside his head.

  He continued to tinker with the screen. It was like the first time he had his PlayStation. He had to know what this was capable of.

  Moving on to the General tab, a virtual avatar that looked exactly like him appeared on the screen, down to even the holes in his Stan Smiths. He picked up a stone and rubbed it onto his green shorts. The avatar reflected the dirty line almost instantly.

  Neat, wasn’t it? He took the left shoe off, and once again, the avatar managed to mirror that detail. It only took several seconds to update to his most recent state, and everything was pinpoint accurate. Who needed a mirror now?

  Eight slots stayed on the right side of the avatar, labeled: weapon, hat, shirt, pants, boots, bracers, and two accessory slots. Right now, he had the shirt, pants, boots, and weapon slots filled.

  While the virtual avatar occupied the space on the right, the left displayed his name, status, and loads of stats.

  Name: Zalanir Forthern

  Level: 2

  Race: [D] Human - Origin: ?

  Health Points (HP): 118/130

  Mana Points (MP): 105/105

  Stamina: 101/125

  Strength: 7

  Dexterity: 9

  Endurance: 8

  Constitution: 6

  Intelligence: 7

  Mystique: 9

  Awareness: 9

  Spirit: 7

  Free Points: 0

  Coins: 0

  Zalanir let out a long sigh. His mind wandered back to his time playing Diablo 2 on his grandpa’s old PC. All the boss fights, all the items, all the discoveries …

  Ah, the good old time. Thinking about it calmed his heart. How long had it been since he dug into this?

  He snapped out of those memories and pushed them aside. Now wasn’t the time. He needed to take a look at his foot first. The end of the fight had distracted him from the arching pain, but now that it was already over, the pain flared up with renewed intensity, as if reminding him that it was still there.

  Resting under a brown tree with dense foliage up high, Zalanir examined his left foot in detail. His heart raced as he removed the shoe, but then, he breathed a sigh of relief upon having a clear look at the injury. Blood had already dried and formed clots around the two punctured wounds. A bit of inflammation and swelling, but nothing too serious.

  This was actually quite light compared to all the common ankle sprains and plantar fasciitis that he had accumulated ever since he had started playing tennis in his late childhood. At least, he was able to move around just right; not having to limp was already a major win.

  His head was also pretty clear. No symptoms of headache or fever just yet. Perhaps that pooch was normal? Not every bite leads to rabies. Please, no disease; else he had no idea how to find antibiotics here. Not at this sunset.

  Actually, thinking about this, could rabies even be cured? He wasn’t sure. Never thought he would get bitten by a dog. There were tons of stories about people dying from the disease, but not like there weren’t any happy ending ones either. Hopefully, this would be the latter.

  He shifted his body to the left side and leaned against the tree trunk. At least his spot would be less open and harder to find with all the shrubs in this direction. The night had already fallen; traveling now would be suicide. He just had to hope that nothing would come—a notion he hated to the bone, but he had no better alternative. As if he would be able to find a house in the middle of this forest.

  So, isekai, huh? There was no doubt now. Having a stronger and more durable body, killing an aggressive pooch, leveling up, and having stats like inside a game—all pointed to the fact that he had been transported to another world. The sun cycle seemed at least similar to Earth; he would take that.

  What was happening at home? If the center was outside of the incident, then the last batch of classes of the day had probably just started. His name would be brought up plenty of times by now. Had they found someone to handle his classes? Finding substitute teachers at the last minute would be a nightmare.

  The third book. Ah, the last book of the trilogy. Looked like he would never know how it ended now. He had waited a whole year for its release, only to have it snatched away like this. Damn this sucked.

  Wait, no. He had to think of his survival. Why was he thinking about tennis or books? Ah, whatever. None of this was his fault. He hadn’t ask for this, had he?

  No, don’t sleep. Stay awake. Dangers could be around the corner …