…

Woosh-!

A refreshing wind in the early morning rose.

"Yaaawn!"

A young man with black hair and blue eyes had a hand on his cheek, loudly yawned. He looked out of the window from the comfort of his room, and he gazed upon the beautiful blue sky.

"Another day passed…"

He sighed, wiping the sleep away from his eyes.

"What should I do?!"

He exclaimed and laid down on his bed. And with his head buried deep in the rugged pillow, he continued to think about what he should do.

'I have spent the last couple of days doing zero things. To be honest, doing nothing but running dungeons and sleeping for days wasn't the most fun. I just repeated my life before the rebirth.'

He thought he should try and live his life differently now that he got a chance to start over. However, his desire to beat the game was much still burning inside of him.

'It's only been a week since my rebirth, and I already have this gear and stats. Do I need to speedrun the game? Or should I try socializing a bit?'

Sung-jin questioned whether he should do it, but the answer to his question was obvious.

'A broken promise…'

He repeated what the quest log said. After swiping through the different menus because he was bored, he stumbled upon a quest he still hadn't completed, so he quickly found an excuse to continue his usual lifestyle.

'I should complete old man Dal's quest first. And then I can decide if I want to have relations with anybody afterward.'

His thoughts on living differently were quickly thrown out, and in swift moments he was out on the streets of Kintroies walking the path towards the Grass Lands.

…

'There are so many people hunting this early in the morning?'

Sung-jin scouted around the Grass Lands as he went down the dirt road. And when he saw all the people that hunted the weak beasts, he got flashbacks to his past.

'All these people have it quite easy, don't they?'

He compared his experience as a newbie with the nowadays newbies, and he could clearly see a difference.

'I guess they can thank the nine pillars for that. If not for them establishing a guild system, chaos would ensue everyone.'

He thought about the first time he hunted and how hard and chaotic it was. Since, back when the first generation got summoned, no one knew anything about the game and how it worked. So a lot of people died in the early stages of the game.

"Welp, at least the majority survives today!"

He said aloud, trying to get his thoughts on other things.

'I need to find the path to Sorrowful Forest, but the walk is quite far.'

He complained about the walking distance as a horse carriage ran past him.

'I want to ride that…'

His eyes yearned for the carriage, but when looking inside his inventory, there was nothing but a few bronze coins.

'I don't even have enough coins for another night at the inn… I really need to find a way to get money.'

He looked depressed when closing his inventory. Without a reliable income, he only had one option to get coins; hunt or do dungeons. Not that it was a problem for him, but always doing dungeons could be tiring.

'It could be nice to have people hunt for me, but why would anybody do that? However, if I were a guild leader, maybe people would begin to work for me.'

He had an exciting thought, but committing to it would be too much work.

'Nah, I'm not suited for that kind of thing… I will find a reliable way to get coins at some point, but first, old man Dal's quest.'

And with shooting his idea down immediately, he began to run, and he went off the road and into the grass field.

…

Ding-!

-System: Discovered 'Sorrowful Forest'

-System: Information about 'Sorrowful Forest' available.

"Uh, I'm finally here!"

Sung-jin groaned; he had run all the way from Kintroies to the Sorrowful Forest, so he was a bit out of breath. And since the forest was normally an hour of walking away, he had to run far.

"Now, I just need to find a blossoming tree!"

He exclaimed, perplexed at how a dead and desolate forest could contain a blossoming tree. And when he looked at the forest in front of him that didn't have anything but dead forestry; he couldn't help but think it was going to be a pain.

"There shouldn't be anything of interest here, not even a dungeon… The only thing remotely good about this place is that it's a level 10-15 zone, so I'm probably able to level up to level fifteen here."

He found a little optimism about the situation, and he slowly started walking inside the forest. And as soon as he stepped inside, he quickly spotted white ghost-looking silhouettes that walked the path as he did.

"This forest is actually quite special. It doesn't have any monsters perse; the only way to get in a fight is if you provoke the dead."

Sung-jin said as he walked through a ghost that resembled a lady with a bouquet of flowers.

"I have actually been here many times before. The path leads to the next zone, though there is a shorter path, and that's the one I walked one before I went over the grass. And that's also the reason why there aren't any living creatures besides me here."

He said and looked around at the many ghosts who held him company when walking the road.

"I don't think the tree is going to be in the middle of the road, so I have to go a bit off-road."

He stared in the dark depths of the forest, and it made his throat dry. And the more he looked, the more regret he got.

"Don't worry… Nothing will attack me if I'm just careful… Right?"

Snap-!

The breaking of a branch gave him chills down his spine, and his motivation for doing the quest was suddenly all gone.

"Damn it! I'm a man! So just go in!"

He yelled, forcing his body over the edge of the road and into the dark forest he went.

…

Creaking-!

The dark forest was desolate, and nothing living could be found. The wind blew strong, but nothing other than the dead branches could be heard creaking a hair-raising sound.

"I'm not that scared. Though, if something jumps out, I will probably punch it."

Sung-jin joked and laughed when the whistle of the wind got stronger. He wasn't scared like many would have been; the only thing that worried him was he didn't know what could appear in front of him. And since the Sorrowful Forest is a level 10-15 zone, there was a high possibility of him running into a strong monster.

"I'm only level thirteen, so a high-level monster could do some damage to me, especially if it catches me off guard."

He said as he went further inside the forest.

"I've been walking for at least an hour now, and I can't seem to find anything. Not even a lead or sign of the tree."

He complained about the quest and how difficult it was to find one single tree in a vast forest.

"Dal, haven't made it easy for me. He could at least have given me more information—"

Snap-!

A sound of a branch breaking caught him off guard, he was about to go into a rant about the old man, but the mysterious sound was more important.

"That wasn't me breaking a branch…"

He said and looked down at his feet. As soon as he heard the sound of a breaking branch, he froze in motion. And without moving an inch, he could definitely say that he wasn't the one breaking a branch since there wasn't one in any distance of him.

'That's a bit creepy.'

He thought without saying a word.

Snap-!

The sound of a branch breaking resounded again. But this time, he was ready.

"There you are!"

Sung-jin exclaimed, throwing his knife in the direction of the sound.

Thunk-!

The sound of the knife hitting something, but it wasn't a sound of hitting flesh. He looked now after blindly throwing his knife, and he could see it had hit a tree trunk. But what he didn't expect to see was what sat underneath the knife.

"Huh?"