"… Ah, I'm in a cave. Did I make it to the new world?"

A sudden familiar voice makes me jump up in shock and quickly s.h.i.+ft my gaze around. "Uh, Ms. Obina? Is that you? Where …"

I look at the bracelet, the IEB, on my wrist and sigh in relief. "So, hearing you in my head right now means everything that happened earlier wasn't a dream. I really died and transferred to this new world with a near-invincible ability, right?"

"Why's that?"

I look in the direction where it leads out of the cave just as I start feeling tremors underneath me. A grayish-purple humanoid creature that's bigger than an elephant comes my way as Ms. Obina said. The creature in question has large hands and feet that's disproportionate from its limbs like one would expect from a regular human's. Its skin has a sedimented-like texture as many plants, mushrooms, and fungi are grown and scattered over its body with colors that practically scream 'poison.' It has a potbelly that could fit four or five basketb.a.l.l.s. With its only article of 'clothing' being a small bush of leaves under said belly, one could a.s.sume this creature is a male, and as Ms. Obina warned, this guy has a seriously angry expression on his ugly mug that makes pigs look like princes.

"Uh … you wouldn't be unreasonable enough for us to not talk this out like mature adults, would you?"

"Glock kiiiiiill!"

"Yeah, I should've guessed you are," I conclude as the Toxic Troll runs over to try and swat me to the side. Quickly deciding to test something out, I brace myself for impact.

Don! Kshaaa!

I get knocked off my feet and sent flying to the rock wall before cras.h.i.+ng into it. I fall to the floor and roll to where I face up.

"Huh. Makes sense our differences in weight would send me flying, but I hardly felt anything at all." I notice two bars in my peripheral to see a barely noticeable smidge of the red bar that says HP is missing compared to the blue one reading MP. "I can't tell, is that 1 or 2 HP down? There's no number to display."

"Buraaaaaaaaap!" the Toxic Troll then unleashes a ghastly belch that spews nauseous fumes as I'm down.

I cough and hack while trying to cover my nose and mouth with my sleeve as much as I can. There's a burning sensation in my lungs. "Ugh, when's the last time you brushed and rinsed? You could kill someone with that breath."

"Guraaagh! Die! Die! Diiiiiee!"

Don! Don! Don!

"… G.o.d, you have horrible foot odor, too. Ugh, guess that shrub doesn't cover much of your junk from below, either," I comment nonchalantly as the Toxic Troll takes his giant foot to repeatedly stomp me to the ground. I cover my face with my arms to block as much as I could, and looking at my peripheral, the HP goes down a smidge each time the Troll's stomp lands on me, but I notice a big dent was taken before that. It must've been that burn I felt in my lungs when he spewed that gas. It actually could kill someone if unleashed continuously.

"Okay, I think this is enough testing right now. Ms. Obina, how do I use my skills here?"

So, then, if I want to shove this guy back, I should use … "Blowback Punch."

Bakyu-n!

"Guraagh?!"

Don!

Right as the Toxic Troll was delivering another stomp, I met it halfway with my fist while using my skill. Looks like the force was enough to not only move him away but also fall on his back.

Taking advantage of the opening, I quickly get up and go right between his legs. The moment I have my target in sight, I pull my right leg back.

"Man Killer."

Guki!

A disgusting pop resounded the cave the moment the point of my foot impacted the Toxic Troll's jewels, followed by that same creature's scream of pain. I feel something dripping on my shoe.

Critical Hit.

I heard something like that in my head, too.

Ms. Obina says as I get on the Toxic Troll's stomach and move up until I get to his head.

"Glare."

Bwoooooooon!

"Glk!"

Even if I haven't read the description on what this skill does, if it's anything like what happens when I meet eyes with another person back on Earth with not even a little hostility, they freeze up like a deer in headlights. This is what's going on with the Toxic Troll right now when I give him as much intensity as I do when I'm p.i.s.sed off. I don't know how much of an effect this has in the new world, but it seems to have stopped him from moving at a great degree.

Then, I deliver a rain of punches on his face, one after another that knocks the head from side to side. Blood and snot start to leek out from his mouth and nose respectively that get onto my fists and clothes. His sedimented skin cracks and breaks off from each impact. It's like I'm punching a mixture of dirt and rock, not sure how much damage I'm really doing with just my fists, but as long as I keep him still with my 'Glare,' I'm gonna continue to go at this the cheap way.

I feel my heart racing with adrenaline. I thought I also felt something creep on my face, but I didn't think about it too much as I continued this one-sided a.s.sault.

"Remember, that I tried, to resolve this, by talking things, out first. You brought this, on yourself, the moment you, attacked me!" I exclaim between punches.

He couldn't even utter a grunt in response as I pull an open hand back.

"Do me a favor and don't bother me ever again. Demon's Palm."

"No—"

Dooon!

I deliver what I consider the most powerful attack that I hardly ever used back home for good reason. The moment my palm makes an impact on his forehead, much of his sedimented skin is blown away until I see some kind of stone that might make up his 'bones.' The skull collapses in itself and punctures the brain inside it, giving extreme hemorrhage before his body falls limp like a rag doll.

Dddda, Di-da!

Drrbing-bong-bing!

The cave was in silence until those strange noises resounded.

"Uh … Ms. Obina? What was that?"

"Ah, so I've won, then. So, what comes—" I say before a blue window that's similar to the goldish-yellow one I saw in that white room appears in front of me. A list of descriptions follows.

[You have now reached 'Poison Resistance' LV 7!

[You have now reached 'Glare' LV 7! Note: Cooldown time is no longer required. You may now activate it without saying the skill. Just intend to stun your target as you intensify your glare and let the skill do the rest.

[Congratulations! You have created the new skill, 's.a.d.i.s.tic Smile' LV 1!

[You have achieved the 'Formidable Underdog' t.i.tle!

[You have now learned 'Underdog Bonus*!]

"… Wait, what?" The influx of info was too much for me, so I open my status and see for myself what the changes were, and the results were staggering.

~~

Jinma Kotori

Race: Human

Cla.s.s: Brawler

[New t.i.tle(s) achieved: Formidable Underdog]

t.i.tle: Natural-Born Brawler, Studious, Seeker of Knowledge [Formidable Underdog (only seen by the user)]

Equipment: Roughed-Up Suit

Stats:

LV: 55 (+54)

HP: 583/890 (+140)

MP: 840/840 (+140)

ATK: 3455 (+207)

DEF: 63760 [3188 (+254) X 20]

SP. ATK: 2043 (+140)

SP. DEF: 51980 [2599 (+130) X 20]

AGI: 1002 (+129)

LUCK: 16 (+5)

EXP: 1697/5500 (+~150000)

STR RES: FIRE, WATER, STORM, TERRA, HOLY, CURSE

SP: 254 (+54)

[BP: 25 (only seen by the user)]

[TAL: 0 (only seen by the user)]

Ability: Violently Tempting Challenger

Dragon Scale Defense

[Obina's Champion (only seen by the user)]

~~

Jinma Kotori

[Skill(s) Leveled Up: Pa.s.sive: Poison Resistance LV 7; Active: Glare LV 7

[New Skill(s) learned: s.a.d.i.s.tic Smile LV 1, Underdog Bonus*]

Skills:

Pa.s.sive: Poison Resistance LV 7, Cooking LV 7, Merciless Style LV 6, Throw LV 6, Resourceful Weapon LV 6, Despair Resistance LV 4, Fear Resistance LV 4, Protective Style LV 4, Money Grubbing LV 3, Baking LV 3, Housekeeping LV 3, Ma.s.saging LV 3, Studying MAX LV, Catch*, Intimidation* [Underdog Bonus* (only seen by user)]

Active: Glare LV 7, Heavy Throw LV 6, Demon's Palm LV 6, Blowback Punch LV 5, Man Killer LV 5, s.a.d.i.s.tic Smile LV 1, Scare*, Taunt*

~~

"So … let me see if I have this right," I say after double-checking my status. I gesture to the dead Toxic Troll at my feet. "This guy here was so powerful that I got up 50+ levels from killing him; I leveled up this much while in my default cla.s.s, which gets me these 'Underdog' stuff somehow; and finally, I was … I was smiling back there?"

"Special Monster?"

"Huh, so the monsters in this world evolve, too? And yet, aside from his horrible breath, it looks like each blow he delivered only took like, what, 1 HP out of me because of my stupidly high Defense (DEF)? Wish I knew how strong he was to make a comparison. Anyway, what should I do with this guy?"

"I wonder … could the Toxic Troll be guarding something if he attacked at first sight?" I reach into my pocket to take out my smartphone—thankfully undamaged despite the beating I took—and turn on the flashlight function to search deeper in the cave.

~~

[1 Hour Later]

"Well, that went a lot better than I expected," I say as I'm walking through the dense forest.

What I found at the cave's deepest pa.s.sageway was a h.o.a.rd of coins in gold and silver, which are part of the currency in this country called karos, along with some gems, jewelry, and s.h.i.+ny weaponry. Seems like this guy's notorious for collecting this stuff from pa.s.sersby after killing them. He didn't look smart enough to know how valuable all of these are, he probably just liked how s.h.i.+ny they looked and decided to h.o.a.rd all that he could.

I decided to use a good chunk of that money to convert into BP and buy a what's called a Null Spell from Ms. Obina's IBS called [Storage]. Null Spells in this world are unique spells that are not categorized within the six existing attributes. It could very well be in a league of its own. There are those who carry the same one, others that have something incredibly rare that are their very own, and some might just not have it at all. [Storage], from what Ms. Obina told me, is a very valuable Null Spell for merchants and adventurers to transport large quant.i.ties of goods that could exceed how much the MIB itself could hold depending on how much MP the user has.

At her suggestion, I bought [Storage] to put the Toxic Troll's corpse into and deal with later. I then quickly sorted the monster's h.o.a.rd and shoved all of the said monster's silver coins and weapons in my MIB while all the gold, gems, and jewelry are in [Storage] along with the corpse.

Just to note, one copper makes 1 karo, 100 karos for one silver, and 10,000 karos for one gold. Aside from copper coins, silver and gold ones can be split into halves, as do their values that's self-explanatory.

Knowing gold coins has more value than silver ones, I thought it'd be best to stash these in a safe place and pull it out in case of emergencies, and who knows how much the gems and jewelry were worth? I can probably sell some of these for more money later. I also bought what's called a 'Divine Makeover' from Ms. Obina's shop that would give me a non-changing appearance in some areas to clean myself up a little. I just cut my black hair short to a buzzcut, a permanent shave on my face and body—save for one place above my genitals that's trimmed—and kept the scars I gained from Earth for personal reasons. I decided to look at other stuff in her IBS later and head out of the cave to look for civilization first thing. I also took the liberty of storing the stuff I had on me in my MIB so I wouldn't lose them and only have the IEB in my pocket. I had spent about 20 minutes in the cave before I left with the corpse and h.o.a.rd, and I've been walking aimlessly for almost an hour now. I'd check the map and see where I am, but with my only clue being dense forestry, it could be practically anywhere. Ms. Obina can't help me this much as part of some 'rules' she has to follow as an Immortal.

"Man, even with all of that money and stuff, it still feels like there's nothing in this bag," I say to myself as I lug the MIB over my shoulder. I actually had to stop partway to check I had everything in there out of needless worry.

"Well, I had a bit of a rocky start with that fight first thing since I woke up, but it still worked out in the end. Though this is the beginning of a new life for me, I shouldn't get too excited. With monsters like that guy around, I'll have to be more vigilant. Who knows what I could carelessly step into if I'm not care-FUUULL?!"

Fwap!

Something immediately s.n.a.t.c.hes my leg and whisks me up from the ground as I walked, accidentally dropping my MIB out of shock. The next thing I know is that I'm dangling upside-down by some kind of loop latching on my ankle.

"f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, fuuuuuck, I'm really high right now. Calm down … calm down, dammit. Breathe … squeeze, let go, and breathe …" I try to do the routine that I do when I'm suddenly faced with my traumatic fear of heights. Closing my eyes, focus on loosening up my body and breathing while trying to calm down my racing heart.

"Get yourself together and a.s.sess the situation, Jinma … okay. I must have gotten caught by some kind of trap. My bag is … nope, not looking down. I must be well above a few meters from the ground right now. I could either just hang here and wait for help to come around, or try to get myself down … let's see what we're working with here. Okay, straighten up, clench your b.u.t.t and core, and … hup!"

I bend myself over like I'm doing a sit-up to grab the leg that's being latched by the rope to see what I'm dealing with. "… What the, what kind of rope is this?" I touch a few places of the strand to check for knots, only to find they're rather sticky as well as being surprisingly thin.

Isn't this … a spider's webbing?

"Well, well~, what do we have here~?"

A new voice makes me jump a little before I turn to the direction it came from to find a woman … with six beady obsidian eyes and the lower half of her body being that of a giant bluish-black spider's abdomen. Her arms and hands have an exoskeleton with a likeness to her legs that give them a claw-like appearance. Her hair that's medium-short in length has a similar color to her spider abdomen, but her skin has a contrasting, pinkish-white flesh shade. She looks at me with a playful smile like a mother caught her kid with their hand in a cookie jar.

I'm not … in deep s.h.i.+t right now, am I?