[You are a BUG.]
“…?????”
Those were the first words I saw right after I was transferred to this world.
My name is Jang Ryu-o. I’m an ordinary college student, twenty-two years old, who had just been discharged from the army.
It had been an ordinary day. The kind of day anyone could have.
The kind of day where I should have just washed up, lain down, and snickered while idly scrolling through Neotube Shorts.
You know how Neotube’s algorithm works. Riding the algorithm of game reviews I usually enjoyed watching, one particular game review came to me.
The title of the game was “Maze Hunter.” Despite the simple title, right from the start, a famous reviewer’s generous score of 4.5 was slapped prominently on the screen.
It was a simple game where the player became a member of a raid team attacking labyrinths, exploring and pioneering mazes filled with the unknown.
But as I watched the reviewer praise it endlessly, saying that despite its simplicity, it possessed extraordinary depth, I found myself becoming more and more absorbed in the video.
Since it was recommended by a reviewer with similar tastes to mine, I added the game to my cart as if bewitched, then hit download.
If it had been a competitive game, I would have diligently read through the early-game guides, but since it was a single-player game, I decided to look at the review page instead.
As if answering my expectations, the review page was full of long English comments and blue thumbs-up icons.
There were occasional red thumbs-down icons and plenty of talk about bugs… but what game in the world didn’t have bugs?
As the percentage steadily climbed, my excitement grew with it, and when I finally pressed the start button…
[You are a BUG.]
Along with those words, I found myself dropped all alone in the middle of a vast empty field.
“What is this…”
No matter how much I looked around, all I could see was a plain thick with fresh green weeds and the wind brushing against my sweat-damp, oversensitive neck. There really wasn’t a damn thing.
The only clue I had was the text floating on this status window.
Surely this wasn’t some message mocking me by saying, “You are an insect.”
Then what was it? Did I get some incredible cheat? An immortality bug? An infinite money bug?
There were so many kinds of bugs in the world that I couldn’t even begin to guess.
For now, I pressed the X above the irritating words in front of me.
The status window that finally revealed itself said this.
[Status Window]
Name: Jang Ryu-o
Class: None
Title: None
Level: 1
HP: 100/100 MP: 50/50 Strength: 5 Agility: 5 Constitution: 5 Intelligence: 5 Luck: 5
Remaining Points: 5
Trait: BUG
Skills:
“…”
I thought I’d be happy if I ever saw a stat window in reality, but faced with a status window that was even less impressive than I expected, I was left speechless.
For now, I lacked both information and mental composure, so I decided to just click some stats.
First up was Strength.
I raised Strength by one, but there was no noticeable change.
‘Did my strength… increase a little?’
Maybe I was expecting too much from investing just 1 point, but going from 5 Strength to 6 was a 20 percent increase.
But for something that was supposed to be 20 percent, I really couldn’t tell.
‘I guess the calculation method is different…’
I got up and started running.
This time, it was Agility’s turn.
I put a point into Agility while running, but I didn’t feel my feet becoming lighter or myself getting any faster.
“Hoo… hoo… Then what’s Agility…”
At that moment, a flying bug began buzzing around me.
For some reason, its movements looked slow, so I swung my hand through the air, and the flying insect was crushed inside my palm.
Normally, I would have just swiped uselessly at empty air, and the fly would have leisurely escaped as if mocking me.
“Oh? What? Ah!”
A realization flashed through my mind.
‘Accelerated thought!’
That was it. If I raised Strength, speed would naturally increase, and Agility seemed to accelerate my thoughts.
‘Then what about Intelligence?’
For now, I skipped Constitution and invested a stat point into Intelligence.
MP: 70/70
Intelligence increased my MP pool.
I couldn’t immediately feel that I’d gotten smarter or anything.
Considering my head was still in chaos, maybe it had nothing to do with that…
Based on that, I could infer that Constitution was…
HP: 150/150
As expected, my health pool increased.
The last one remaining was Luck. But I wondered what use raising Luck would be in this empty field.
Wasn’t luck a relative and extremely ambiguous word?
My hesitation didn’t last long.
I gently placed my finger on the arrow beside the Luck stat.
The reason I decided to raise Luck was that there really was nothing around me.
That meant I would soon be walking in some direction or doing something, and at a time like this, I thought even a little luck might help.
I had no basis for it, but shouldn’t I have at least a faint hope?
Wishing that even a faint hope would appear, I placed my finger on the arrow.
At that moment…
[¿‽¿¿¿‽¿plete! ¿‽¿¿‽‽‽]
“?”
As the status window was contaminated by question marks, my mind was also filled with question marks.
Agility: 6 Constitution: 6 Intelligence: 6 Luck: ¿?9
“What is this…?”
I couldn’t tell whether I should consider this as my Luck increasing, or as something having gone seriously wrong somewhere.
The number immediately visible was “9,” so it seemed like it had increased, but if there was a minus sign attached to it somewhere?
I couldn’t see a bright future at all.
I still had no idea what was going on, but at this rate, I felt like I’d either starve to death or become some beast’s meal, so I forced my unmotivated body to its feet.
Because first, I had to survive.
“Sigh… Which direction did the sun move again…”
—Splat!
“…?”
When I looked toward the source of that unpleasant sound, there was a slime.
Putting aside the question of where the hell it came from…
At least it wasn’t that big.
The problem was that its color was murky and unpleasant, and it was approaching me.
And that the slime was taking the kind of pre-hunt posture cats did, the kind I’d only seen in Neotube Shorts.
I instinctively felt that it was about to hunt me at any moment…
—Gloop, gloop…
I instinctively threw myself to the side and rolled.
—Shweeeek!
“What the hell!”
—Boom!
The black slime half-destroyed the spot where I had been standing just moments ago.
Its power was no joke, enough to fill the air with a thick cloud of dust.
My judgment was quick.
Following the cliché, I knew that once that dust cloud cleared, the slime would attack me again, so I just ran.
—Shiiik! Thud! Shiiiik! Thud!
“Uwaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Perhaps delighted to see prey for the first time in a long while, the slime put its whole body into trying to crush me.
If I got pinned under that thing, I’d obviously either be scattered as chunks of meat or end up in some other unpleasant state.
As if proving that humans could exert more strength than usual in the face of death, my legs moved far more nimbly than normal.
—Thud thud! Thud thud! Thud thud! Thooom!
“I should’ve gone all in on Agility! Uwaaaaaaah!”
No matter how long I ran, no welcome message like “Agility +1” appeared.
But the situation was too urgent for me to feel disappointed.
I tried using my head…
Since it was a guy that only charged like a wild boar, couldn’t I just dodge left and right?
The method I came up with after using my head was merely dodging left and right…
But since I had no other method, I kept glancing behind me and dodged from side to side every time the slime jumped.
—Thud!
“Whoa!”
—Thud!
“Hup!”
—Thooom!
Vibrations traveled through my two legs for a long time.
“What the hell! Don’t you know when to quit?”
Maybe it got pissed off watching me slip away just when it was about to catch me, because the slime began picking up the tempo.
—Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
“Uwa-uwaaaaaaaagh!”
All I could do was run around the plain while making pathetic noises.
My heart pounded violently, and the sound of ringing spread through my head, forcing me to think only of what I needed to survive.
‘I have to dodge faster. Faster! Faster! Faster!’
As I ran madly in diagonals like that, my steps gradually began to feel lighter.
It didn’t feel like I was stepping on the ground, but rather kicking off the wind near the ground and soaring.
Along with the pleasant sensation of wind wrapping around my feet, my speed gradually increased.
The slime grew farther away, and I became more and more accustomed to running.
With my stamina nearly depleted, I felt elated by the refreshing sense of liberation.
At this rate, I could keep going straight—
—Pshk!
“Uh…?”
—Crash, tumble, tumble!
Feeling something foreign in my stomach, I looked down and saw that the slime had stretched out long like a spear and pierced through my abdomen.
I didn’t really understand the pain.
Strength drained from my body, and the ringing I thought had passed by sounded an alarm in my head again, forcing me to stare squarely at the situation before me.
‘I heard you’re not supposed to pull out something that causes a penetrating wound…’
Judgment and circumstances were not always aligned properly.
The slime that had dealt me a fatal wound seemed to have finished its business at some point, melting away and spilling messily onto the ground.
Paradoxically, once the very thing that had pierced through the wound disappeared, my bloodstream enthusiastically began spraying toward the newly opened passage.
In the end, unable to move even a finger, I crawled across the dirt.
“Ah…”
Was this what it felt like to have all the blood drain from your body? Hot, clammy sweat seeped out all over me, yet I felt cold instead, and drowsiness gradually washed over me.
I resisted the weight pressing down on my eyelids, but it was no use. Without seeing the light bursting from my stomach, I closed my eyes.
—Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
—Level up!
—Ding! You have obtained the essence of the “Executioner”!
[You have acquired the skill “LV.MAX Slime’s Body”!]
—Ding! Additional points will be awarded according to your unbelievable achievement.