SDM 7

Chapter 7. Day 181 — First Protein (1)

“My eyes… they’re closing…”

For a brief moment, I was able to enjoy the pleasures of replenishing my water supply and taking a bath, but then I was faced with a new task: I had to break through the snowy mountain floor where snow was pouring down relentlessly.

When I first entered the third floor, I was too excited to notice, but with all that snow falling, this place was cold.

Extremely cold.

Humans really are fickle creatures.

After spending three months making my way through the snowfields, the snow I had once been so happy to see now felt like nothing more than a white demon.

Clunk!

“It’s a dead end. Wilson, you need to turn left. Be careful. You’re pretty big, you know.”

😮

Wilson’s expression looked different than usual because he was covered in snow.

Was he angry because I had teased him about being fat?

“Then go on a diet. You just play by yourself while I exercise.”

:<

Because of the thick snow, I couldn’t see the obstacles.

As a result, I lost track of Wilson several times and had to attempt the course again and again.

There was no point staying out in the cold for too long. It would only kill my motivation.

Whenever I lost Wilson, I would exercise for about a week before coming back.

Fortunately, Wilson’s tracks remained in the snow, making it easy to memorize the locations of the obstacles.

“We’re almost there. Just a little farther…!”

Rrrrumble.

The fierce snowfall gradually began to subside.

[You have broken through Floor 3, ‘Snowy Mountain.’]

“We made it! Hahaha!”

I brushed the snow off Wilson.

🙂

He seemed happy too, because he gave me a huge smile.

Another obstacle had been overcome.

At this rate, maybe I’d reach the summit sooner than I thought.

“Let’s see what’s next.”

I checked Floor 4, which stretched out beyond the slope.

The moment I crossed the boundary, a wave of scorching heat engulfed my entire body.

“Is it a desert after the snowy mountain?”

What a dynamically changing mountain range.

The snow that had been falling just moments ago was nowhere to be seen, replaced by blazing sunlight that beat down on my skin like needles.

“Let’s see what it feels like.”

I still had a little strength left, and since my body, which had grown cold, was now warming up, it was actually the perfect temperature for moving around.

So I decided to advance a little farther.

Squish, squish.

My feet sank into the sand.

The slope was covered in fine sand, making it extremely difficult for Wilson to push forward as well.

On the other hand, there were relatively few obstacles, so it looked like this would be a pure test of physical strength.

“Okay. I get the gist of it. Wilson, wait here for a moment. I’ll go back down and rest, then—”

I couldn’t finish my sentence.

Wham!

A sudden impact from somewhere caused me to lose my balance and fall over.

—Rumble!

“Wilson!!”

Rolling and tumbling, Wilson was already getting farther away from me, crashing through the snowfield of the snowy mountain and rolling far down the slope.

For a moment, I was stunned because I couldn’t understand what had happened.

“What the hell…!”

I got back to my feet and locked eyes with it.

“—!”

A large brown body, a sleek snout, and two horns sticking straight up from its head.

It was a water deer.

“Huff.”

“What…?”

Well, technically, I suppose it was a deer.

Deer were common animals on this continent. They were also one of the most common animals people chose when using transformation or camouflage magic.

But looking at its enormous body and the thick muscles covering its limbs, there was no way I could call this creature by the delicate name of a deer.

This was definitely a water deer.

It had suddenly appeared and rammed straight into Wilson, after all.

“Huff.”

More than anything, what pissed me off was the way it glared at me as though it had done nothing wrong.

I saw red.

Never mind the fact that it had sent Wilson tumbling down the mountain.

“You… I’m going to…”

This thing was a wild animal.

Protein.

For someone like me, who hadn’t even smelled meat since entering this place, it was an incredibly powerful temptation.

“I’m going to eat you.”

Whoosh!

Without another word, I charged straight at the water deer.

I had been rolling Wilson around all this time, and I had also been exercising consistently.

I threw myself forward, intending to knock it unconscious in one blow.

But—

“Huff!”

—Whoosh! Bam!

With a light kick from its hind legs, the creature struck me square in the face and sent me sprawling pathetically across the ground.

Wow.

My nose is bleeding.

The water deer leaped gracefully onto a higher ledge and looked down at me with an arrogant expression, as if mocking me.

“Don’t move from there.”

Without Wilson, I couldn’t chase it uphill.

I swore to myself that I would defeat it and taste that meat someday, then turned around to find Wilson.

Two weeks later, I once again pushed Wilson all the way to the desert.

The water deer was waiting for me in the exact same spot.

It raised one ear and provocatively challenged me.

“Let’s settle this like men.”

The moment I arrived, I challenged it to a fight.

—Whoosh! Bam!

But the result was a crushing defeat.

After a half-day-long struggle, I realized that I couldn’t even touch the water deer with a fingertip.

It beat me senseless.

There wasn’t a single spot on my body that wasn’t bruised.

At the end, the water deer casually nudged Wilson, sending him rolling down the slope once again.

“My protein! Wilson!”

I was devastated.

There was meat right in front of me.

Food.

And yet I was utterly powerless to obtain it.

“I was arrogant.”

Right now, the water deer was stronger than me.

It was simply the law of nature that the weak could not eat the strong.

I had no choice but to humbly accept the reality that I was weaker.

“Wilson, what should I do?”

🙂

“Yeah. I have no choice but to become stronger.”

I returned to the starting altar with Wilson.

It was time to resume my tedious strength training.

“Just getting stronger isn’t enough.”

The water deer was fast.

It was the first creature I had seen that was that fast since Clea.

No matter how much strength I developed to overpower the water deer, it would be meaningless if I couldn’t catch it.

“Wilson, do you know what visualization training is?”

🙂 ?

“You close your eyes like this and train. Imagine your opponent is right in front of you and picture everything in your mind. If you practice according to that image, you’ll perform better in an actual fight.”

🙂 !

“Let’s try it.”

Thud-thud-thud-thud—Whoosh!

I repeatedly practiced charging forward and delivering a headbutt.

I remembered the tackles football players had performed in a game of American football I had once watched and tried to imitate them.

Again.

And again.

And again.

After a month of focusing solely on throwing my body forward, I began to get the hang of it.

But—

“No. This isn’t enough.”

I could feel it.

I needed to be more desperate.

I needed to approach this as if my very life depended on landing this headbutt.

“Motivation. Motivation…”

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine an opponent who would make it easier for me to immerse myself in the training.

The water deer running around slowly transformed into another figure.

“You’re the human who lured the Grim Reaper here.”

A figure clad in black armor from head to toe pointed arrogantly at me.

“You will pay the price for daring to trespass upon the realm of the gods.”

The god of the underworld.

Hades.

Good.

My adrenaline was rising a little more.

“I…”

I bent my ankles and prepared to launch myself forward.

“DIDN’T DO IT, YOU BASTARD!!”

I slammed my shoulder into Hades with all my strength.

[You have realized the skill ‘Headbutt.’]

I had a somewhat complicated relationship with most of the gods of Olympus.

Zeus had constantly harassed our territory.

And that bastard Hermes went without saying.

Aphrodite and Hera would also randomly pick fights with me and demand tributes.

But the biggest reason I ended up trapped here was the incident involving Hades and the Grim Reaper.

The ‘Ten Days of Immortality.’

Four years had passed since Pente left, and Corinth, which I had been managing as its lord, had flourished once again, becoming an even larger city than before.

People constantly poured in from Athens, Mycenae, Olympia, and Sparta.

I also collected a considerable amount of toll money from adventurers traveling by sea.

With the gold coins I earned, I built good relationships with the guilds, allowing us to deal with monster attacks much more smoothly than before.

But, as always, the whims of the gods occurred without warning.

“Hey, you lanky one over there. Tell me, are Anticleia and Alcyone definitely residents of this polis?”

At first, I couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from.

Only after lowering my head did I realize that a small, dark figure was standing in front of me.

“I asked you a question. Answer me, insolent boy.”

A tiny girl was repeatedly kicking me in the shins.

Her purple hair, stained with the energy of death, was braided into two pigtails, and she dragged along an enormous scythe completely disproportionate to her tiny body.

Judging by her strange appearance, she was clearly not human.

I have a bad feeling about this.

The first two names the girl had asked for—

Alcyone was my younger sister, two years younger than me, and the eldest daughter of our family.

And she was even looking for Clea.

Something felt terribly wrong, and I decided that I absolutely could not simply let this girl leave.

“Corinth welcomes outsiders. Thank you for coming all this way. May I ask what brings you here?”

“Hmm. Anticleia and Alcyone’s names are written in the Book of the Dead. Therefore, I have come to collect their souls. Tell me their whereabouts.”

Cold sweat trickled down my back.

“Could you possibly be Thanatos, the Grim Reaper?”

“You have keen eyes, young man. How did you know?”

Judging by how she had practically explained everything herself before asking me, Thanatos didn’t seem particularly intelligent.

Hades governed the underworld, a realm known as the Underworld itself, while Thanatos was essentially the field worker responsible for collecting souls from the mortal world.

The fact that she had come to take Alcyone and Clea right away nearly made me faint from shock, but I maintained my composure and answered.

“Your hair is as smooth as silk, and your cloak is as dark as the night sky. Your overflowing dignity gave you away at once. You possess a mystery unlike any of the gods of Olympus. Surely there could be no one else but Thanatos, who inherited the primordial Chaos.”

“Ha-ha-ha! Exactly right! Great Father Nyx placed the night itself within my hair, so naturally I am on an entirely different level from those Olympus brats. Human, what is your name?”

After receiving a little praise, Thanatos seemed pleased, puffing out her tiny shoulders.

Thanatos belonged to an entirely different lineage from the Olympian gods, whose grandmother was Gaia.

Her father was Nyx, the god of night and Gaia’s sibling, which meant that she was related to the Titans.

Despite being from an older generation than the Olympians, she had been pushed aside in terms of power and now served as Hades’ subordinate.

She must have had plenty of complaints about that.

“My name is Sisyphus.”

“Wise human Sisyphus, this has worked out perfectly. There is something I wish to ask you. What are those sparkling lights over there, and what is that procession of humans?”

Corinth happened to be in the middle of its festival season, with lanterns floating through the streets and all sorts of shops and stalls open.

“It’s a summer festival. Have you never seen one before?”

“I am Death. I usually travel to cities devastated by plagues and battlefields. I have never seen a sight like this before.”

“Then this is perfect. Why don’t you forget about work for a while and enjoy the festival?”

“A festival? What a wonderful idea!”

And so, I decided to distract Thanatos and buy myself some time.

“Festivals are wonderful! Look, Sisyphus. How did humans come up with the idea of coating grapes in sugar syrup and letting it harden?”

Thanatos ran around the festival grounds with sparkling eyes.

She stuffed all kinds of snacks from the street vendors into her mouth, and her cheeks quickly became puffed up.

“I’ve never seen a place where humans are this happy. The ruler of this polis must be a genius. Sisyphus, do you know who the lord is? I shall grant him a special head-pat.”

“A head-pat?”

“You don’t know what a head-pat is? Look. This is how you do it.”

Thanatos grabbed my hand, placed it on top of her head, and rubbed it back and forth.

She was surprisingly soft.

“How does it feel? Doesn’t it make you happy?”

Thanatos smiled brightly, a piece of candy still stuck to her mouth.

“You don’t need to give me a head-pat. I’m the lord of Corinth.”

“Eeeeh?!”

Thanatos jumped so high that she spent quite some time fluttering her cloak before finally coming back down.

The Grim Reaper whom everyone feared was actually this childish.

I couldn’t help but let out a dry laugh.

After finishing our tour of the festival, I asked Thanatos for one favor.

I wanted to see the ledger containing the names of the dead.

If their tragic fate had already been decided, perhaps there was nothing I could do about it.

But at the very least, I wanted to confirm it with my own eyes.

However—

[Anticleia]

[Alcyone]

The handwriting of the two names was strangely different, as though they had been written over something else.

The ink also looked as if it had not yet fully dried.

“Lady Thanatos, may I ask who writes the names in the ledger of the dead?”

“Normally, the Goddesses of Fate announce the list, and the fairies write it down before delivering it to me.”

“Did the fairies deliver this ledger to you as well?”

“Hmm… Now that I think about it, the god of the Underworld gave me this one.”

“I see.”

In other words, someone else had added those names.

Neither of them had fallen ill.

Neither had been involved in an accident.

This was nothing more than a malicious whim.

The same as collecting a ‘tribute.’

“Hades.”

And there was only one person who could have deceived Thanatos using the ledger.

So that’s how you want to play it.

There was no way I would let him take my sister when her name wasn’t even originally in the ledger.

“Lady Thanatos, I’ll take you to where the two of them are.”

“Oh, will you?”

“Yes. I know exactly where they are.”

I led Thanatos up the hill.

The very same hill where I had skillfully herded cattle ever since I was a child.