The morning of my first day at work.
I had deliberately woken up early, finished getting ready, and set out for the office, but I never made it to the company.
Because I failed to avoid a car that, drunk on alcohol or drugs or whatever it was, had been putting on an acrobatic driving show since early morning, and ended up in a traffic accident.
As I was struck by the car and sent flying through the air, something like a revolving lantern flashed through my mind.
Elementary school, middle school, high school, then the army, university, and preparing for employment.
In that revolving lantern, I was always living diligently, never once taking a break.
If the accident hadn’t happened, I probably would have become an office worker and gone on living diligently all over again.
Once I had gone through all my memories, a thought suddenly occurred to me.
‘If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve lived a little more leisurely.’
Leaving my belated regret behind, my head slammed into the asphalt rapidly rushing closer.
Crack!
Along with that brutal sound, my consciousness sank straight down into some unknowable depth.
***
I opened my eyes amid a murderous cold that felt as if it would tear my skin off.
What I saw upon opening my eyes was a snowy plain befitting that murderous cold.
A place of massive glaciers and raging blizzards.
Don’t tell me this is hell?
I thought I’d lived a decent life, donating here and there and doing volunteer work, but to think I’d fall into hell.
If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve gone to church or a temple on weekends.
I tried to move my body to escape the cold, but my body wouldn’t move as I wanted.
I couldn’t feel anything that could be called arms or legs, and the only thing I could do was crawl along the ground like a grub.
Since my body wouldn’t move properly, I couldn’t even properly check what kind of situation I was in.
‘Damn it. I’m already freezing to death, and now I can’t even move properly? This really is no different from hell.’
Still, if I just stayed there, I felt like I’d freeze to death, so I drew out every last bit of strength I had and moved my body, even if it meant crawling across the ground.
At first, moving was agony, but as I kept at it, I somehow got the hang of it and was able to inch forward in the direction I wanted.
How long had I crawled like that?
Drip, trickle—
Amid the sound of the mercilessly howling wind, I heard the sound of flowing water.
After crawling around for so long, I was thirsty, and with the thought that I had finally found something other than snowfields, I turned toward the sound and crawled again.
How long had I crawled like that?
At last, I found the source of the sound, a place like a lake.
As soon as I reached the lake, I plunged my head in and drank.
Gulp, gulp—
“Ahh. I feel alive.”
A glass of water after some hard cardio.
This is what life is all about.
Once I supplied my exhausted body with water, a little vitality returned.
And once my vitality returned, I had enough composure to look around.
The lake was so huge that I couldn’t take it all in at a glance.
I looked over the lake once, then lowered my head to check my reflection in the water.
It was to confirm the arms and legs that hadn’t moved since I’d fallen here.
And only after checking my reflection in the lake did I understand why I hadn’t been able to move my arms and legs.
“A snake?”
There, a snake with navy-blue scales and bright yellow eyes was reflected.
An absurd situation in which I had gone from human to snake in an instant.
It was shocking enough, but my heart quickly calmed down.
Because that wasn’t the important thing right now.
At this rate, I looked like I’d die from the cold first, so what did it matter if I was a snake?
Originally, once I could move my arms and legs, I’d planned to make something like a simple igloo to escape the cold, but how was I supposed to make an igloo with a snake’s body?
I pondered it for a moment, but no suitable method came to mind.
Grrr—
To make matters worse, now my stomach was starting to scream for food too.
Cold and hungry, I found myself resenting the world for no reason.
What in the world had I done wrong to become a snake and be dropped into a hellish place like this?
Today of all days, I missed my warm home and ramen.
Ahh, I hate this world.
The world that suddenly shoved me into this body, and the fate that made me die in an accident on my way to my first day at work.
I hated everything so much I couldn’t stand it.
The more I poured out that hatred, the denser my emotions became, and the more my head began to itch.
Crunch—
Something grew out, piercing through the scales on my head.
It was still tiny, but it clearly looked like a horn.
But right now, I didn’t care about that at all.
Just as I was going mad with the desire to engrave this hatred into the world—
A delicious smell brushed the tip of my nose.
The moment I smelled it, my mind, which had been sinking into hatred, returned.
Where, where is that smell coming from? Just what is it that gives off such a delicious scent?
I moved my body, following the smell.
Fortunately, the source of the smell wasn’t far from the lake.
After moving only a short distance, what I found at the place I arrived at was neither a splendid feast nor appetizing food.
It was the root of a tree larger than my own body.
The roots stretched out at random, making it hard to tell what they were at first, but the way they climbed upward and converged into one barely allowed me to recognize them as tree roots.
Drawn by the smell, I approached the root and opened my mouth.
Questions like, Is it all right for a snake to eat something like a tree root? did not occur to me.
For now, filling this empty stomach came first.
Crunch!
Contrary to my expectation that it would be as hard as it was large, the teeth that had at some point grown inside my mouth easily tore into the root.
Munch, munch—
‘Apple flavor?’
Unlike its appearance, the tree root tasted similar to an apple.
The texture was moderately similar too, making it really feel like I was eating an apple.
I took another big bite of the tree root.
‘Mango?’
This time, it tasted similar not to an apple, but to a mango.
After biting into the tree root a few more times, I realized that this root tasted different every time I ate it.
I ate the tree root without stopping until I was full.
“Buuurp—”
Considering my size, I thought I had eaten so much I couldn’t tell where it all went, but perhaps because the tree was no ordinary size, I hadn’t even managed to finish a single fine root.
Well, the more food there is, the better, so if anything, isn’t that a gain?
Once my stomach was full, drowsiness washed over me.
It was hard to resist my eyes slowly closing.
But if I fell asleep like this, it wouldn’t be strange if I froze to death at any moment, so I looked around for a suitable place to rest.
Then I saw that the space between the tree roots I had gnawed at looked just right for crawling into and sleeping.
“I’m lucky.”
I moved my body, slipped between the roots I had eaten away at, avoided the wind, and closed my eyes.
As for what to do from now on, I’ll think about that after I sleep and wake up.
***
A long time passed after I became a snake and fell into some unknown place.
I don’t know exactly how much time passed.
There was no clock to check the time, and this place was always filled with blizzards and thick clouds all year round, so there was no way to even tell day from night.
Still, it was certain that a truly long time had passed.
Because the lake that had once been so vast I couldn’t see its end now looked about the size of a spring to me, because my body had grown that large.
On top of that, my appearance had changed as much as my size.
I, who had once been an ordinary snake with navy-blue scales, now had an appearance that could no longer be called a snake.
I had thought it strange from the moment horns and fangs first sprouted, but once legs and wings grew out and my horns became even larger, my appearance was no longer that of a snake, but something better described as a dragon.
Becoming a dragon instead of a snake was something worth celebrating, but if there was one disappointing point, it was that I couldn’t fire off a breath of flame, the ultimate move of dragons from creative works like movies.
I could fire something similar to a breath, but the breath I released was not fire; it was a breath filled with poison that rotted everything.
The fact that I was hungry meant it was about time to wake up from sleep.
“A strong and powerful morning.”
I didn’t know if it was morning or evening, nor did I know how long I had slept, but in any case, after waking up, I lightly shook out my body.
Ruuumble—!
From my perspective, I had only moved lightly to shake the frost off my body, but the aftermath caused an earthquake.
But without paying it any mind, I moved my body toward the roots of Yggdrasil to fill my stomach.
Yggdrasil was the name of the tree that had provided me with my daily bread (roots) from the day I fell here until now.
Originally, I had just called it a big tree, but an unpleasant little brat who came here every once in a while told me in passing that its name was Yggdrasil, so I came to know it.
As I approached Yggdrasil’s roots, there were prior guests already there, gnawing on the roots.
“Rainbows, good to see you.”
“Krk—” “Khuu—”
I greeted them warmly, but what came back was the sight of them on high alert, wary of me.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
Snake-like things with the seven colors of a rainbow.
I also learned these guys’ names because that rude little brat taught me, but since it was annoying to remember them one by one, I just call them the Rainbows.
Since we’re of similar origin, I’d like to get along with them, but I have no idea when we’ll ever become close.
Ignoring the Rainbows as they watched me with utmost caution, I bit into the roots of Yggdrasil, which today as always mercifully provided me with my daily bread.
In the past, I would get full from eating just part of a fine root, but now, something on the level of fine roots doesn’t even make a dent.
Considering my size, that was only natural.
Slurp!
Only after I slurped down dozens, no, hundreds of strands of roots like noodles did I finally feel somewhat full.
To think its regenerative power is so good that even after I eat it like this, it soon returns to its original state.
If Yggdrasil hadn’t been here, I would have starved to death long ago, or gone mad and charged outside.
Now that I’d eaten, what should I do?
Should I carve a glacier for the first time in a while? Or should I go to another world and see an acquaintance for the first time in a while?
Just as I was wondering what to do, I sensed a familiar presence.
Dadadadada!
At the sound of something running while stepping on Yggdrasil’s roots, I lifted my head upward.
Then someone, running at a speed I could barely see with my eyes, landed on a root near me.
A giant rodent with an adorable appearance, impressive for its deep orange fur, white belly, black round eyes, and fluffy tail—a squirrel? A red squirrel? Something like that, anyway.
Because it was huge, it was hugely cute, but with a personality inversely proportional to that cute appearance, it was Yggdrasil’s mascot, one I wanted to smack at least once someday.
Ratatoskr had appeared.
Ratatoskr, who landed in front of me, immediately raised one hand, pointed at me with the tip of a finger, and flew into a temper.
“Hey! I told you not to slurp the roots like noodles!”