Black Eyes

  As I start walking to find something to eat, I remembered that I had SSS-rank strength. With that, I could easily run at light speed—not exactly light speed, but with SSS-rank speed, maybe I could even cross this forest in no time. And maybe I’d find a city or something where I could get food too.

  Having that in my mind, I took a running stance and started running… but thinking I could now control my strength, I quickly crashed straight into some trees. The tree that I collided with got destroyed after I hit it, as well as the ground.

  Standing up, I looked backward. I was shocked to see how much distance I had just covered—it looked like I ran 1 km.

  “Really? This much?” I think.

  I understood now that running wasn't as simple as jumping. Then I looked at my half-torn shirt, now more torn than before.

  “There’s no use wearing this now,” I say, looking at my shirt that’s completely ripped apart.

  I pulled off my shirt and, with my strength, it came off easily into my hand. Then folding it small, I tried to put it in my pants pocket—but there were no pockets in my pants. I guessed there was no need for pockets after death.

  Thinking the torn shirt in my hand might be useful in the future for something, I hit the ground. The hand holding the shirt easily pierced the soil. Opening my hand, I put the shirt inside that hole and pulled my hand back out, then covered the hole with soil.

  The place I hid my shirt was easy to remember because of the destroyed tree and ground nearby—because of me.

  Now I wasn’t wearing any shirt, only pants. I didn’t know what people would think when they saw me. Well, I could think about that later—first, I needed food.

  With that in mind, I took a deep breath. Then, controlling my strength, I started running slowly. Then I started increasing my speed slowly.

  Suddenly, I felt like some superhero from a show I watched as a kid.

  “I’m not even using 10% of my strength, and I’m still this fast!” I say.

  Then I tried to jump—it was a small jump, but I reached the average height of a tree. Without stopping when I landed, I continued to run.

  It was really fun—running at super speed and jumping. Then I started putting more strength in and tried to increase my speed. Even if I wasn’t using half my strength, I still felt like this speed was already enough.

  While I was running, I continued to jump and land without stopping. Now I could jump higher than the average tree while running, and my speed was also good.

  I thought I was currently running at 50 km per hour. That might not seem fast in a car, but without a car, it felt like I might die if I crashed into something in the way. But I knew I wouldn’t die—I continued to run and jump.

  I jumped because I could see what was ahead of me. But the only thing I was seeing was dark forest. It had been five minutes, I guessed, that I’d been running, but I’d pretty much covered the same distance I saw when I first jumped into the sky after being teleported to this world.

  Still, there was endless forest behind me—that was the only thing I could see.

  Then, increasing my speed more, I took a big jump. The jump was so long, I thought it covered almost 6 km.

  “I’m not doing that again. I feel like I might die if I fall—or worse, someone else could die if I fall near them,” I say.

  With that thought, I continued running, making sure not to crash into the ground. Thinking ahead, I prepared myself to keep running without stopping when I landed.

  Now I needed to learn how to take quick turns without slipping. Thinking that, I started taking quick turns, dodging trees in my way. I was successfully able to do that too. Now I could jump, run, and turn easily.

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  With this achievement, I jumped again, and without stopping, I continued to run, repeating the same process again and again.

  I noticed that the forest ahead of me was slightly changing—like there were more different types of trees than before.

  Suddenly, I realized that with such a large forest, I might lose the way to my tree house that I created. But I knew there was a big tree where my house was and that destroyed area too, so I could easily find it again.

  I committed to keep running, knowing I needed to find food because I was hungry and that was my priority.

  I jumped, landed, and continued running—without sweating, thanks to my SSS-rank stamina.

  With another jump, I saw a deep valley in front of me. Continuing to run, I jumped from the valley’s top edge, deciding to land on the other side. I saw it was still the same—the black forest. Nothing changed much.

  While falling, my eyes caught a creature flying to the left side below me in the distance. It looked like a dragon baby—but bigger than that flying dinosaur. This was two times bigger than that, and it was also black.

  “Why is everything black here?” I think.

  I wasn’t surprised to see a dragon, because I knew the god already warned me that this world had magic. I guessed it was normal to imagine such things.

  Well, the black dragon didn’t see me, but I ignored him with a smile. Landing on the ground, I continued running.

  “I’m not afraid of that dragon, knowing I can even cook him for my dinner,” I say.

  The reason I ignored him is that I knew there would be more creatures I could find if I kept running.

  “Or should I hunt this one?” I think. But then I continued to run.

  I guessed it had been half an hour since I started. I also increased my speed compared to before, and now I could easily control my strength.

  While dashing through the woods, I tried to learn some tricks like dashing in a zigzag—thinking how I could dodge someone’s attack and maybe use this technique to hunt.

  While doing that, my legs slipped many times, but I was able to maintain my balance without falling. Once I mastered my strength, I didn’t need to worry about monsters I might face in the future.

  I already knew hand-to-hand combat because of my past life, and with this SSS-rank strength, it’d be even easier for me to fight.

  Now it had been one hour, I guessed, since I’d been running, and the distance was more than I imagined.

  I started to regret not hunting that baby dragon creature in the valley, because after that, I didn’t find any other creature.

  Thinking that, suddenly, between tree branches, my eyes caught the tip of something—I didn’t understand what it was.

  It was a black thing piercing the sky. Because of the trees in my way, I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I was close to something.

  I quickly jumped again, trying to see what that thing was.

  As I jumped, my eyes widened in shock. The tip I saw was the top of an enormous, tall castle.

  “It’s so tall… it looks like it might touch the sky if the sky was a bit lower,” I say.

  I couldn’t see the full castle because it looked like I was on a slope, and the castle was situated below across the forest.

  After landing, I continued running toward that black castle. I hadn’t fully seen it yet. Jumping and dodging, I finally stood on top of the hill where the castle was fully visible.

  This time, I was even more shocked than before. That black castle was now completely visible to my eyes.

  It was not just a castle—there was a whole city around it. I was still very far from the castle, so I knew no one would see me.

  “I guess it belongs to some demon,” I say, looking at the castle.

  The castle also looked black, dark—like it actually belonged to demons. It was situated in the middle of the city. The city wasn’t that big, more like a large town.

  And the interesting thing was, all the houses and buildings in the city looked destroyed—just like the forest.

  Actually, not all. When I looked carefully, I saw some buildings and homes were not destroyed—they were in good condition compared to the others.

  My eyes also caught people walking inside the city. I didn’t see them clearly, and I didn’t even understand if they were human or not. But I knew they weren’t all human—some of the people on the streets looked like giants holding big weapons.

  “It’s good that I have SSS-rank strength. I don’t know what would’ve happened if I didn’t have this strength,” I think.

  Thinking whether I should go back or continue to see what kind of people live here, a sense of fear hit my body.

  I saw the same dragon-like creature hovering in circles mid-air around the black castle. I knew going near the city meant danger.

  “Well, the best thing is that the castle is much farther from my tree house, so I don’t need to worry. But I want to check what kind of people live here,” I say.

  Looking from the hill, I tried to find a place near the city where I could hide and see what kind of people lived there—

  …not knowing that someone, hidden in the trees, was already watching me from the tree's bushes.