“...Grrrrr.” The bear let out a low growl, as if tired of watching two unmoving statues.
“Wha—!?” The rabbit quickly did an about-face and began hopping away as fast as possible. The explosive jumps it had used to annihilate its foes were instead being used to jet it to safety as fast as possible.
However, its escape was still unsuccessful.
The Claw Bear rushed forward, surprisingly fast for its large frame, and swiped its paw at the Kickmaster Rabbit. The rabbit nimbly dodged, twisting its body to avoid the paw’s sharp claws.
It looked to Hajime like the rabbit had somehow managed to dodge perfectly, avoiding even a glancing blow.
However... The moment the rabbit landed, a fountain of blood spurted forth, and the two halves of the rabbit fell in different directions.
Hajime watched on in shock. That overwhelmingly powerful rabbit had been killed so easily. It hadn’t even had time to put up a fight. Hajime understood why it had been so scared and ran earlier. That monster was on a completely different level. Even the rabbit’s Capoeira-esque martial art skills had been of no use in the face of its might.
The bear leisurely walked up to the rabbit’s corpse, speared one chunk of it with its claw, and began scarfing it down, making sickening squelching noises.
Hajime was rooted to the spot. The combination of fear and the bear’s sharp gaze kept him pinned in place. It kept its eyes on Hajime even as it chewed on the rabbit.
It finished the rabbit off in three huge bites, then turned its body around and roared at Hajime. Its eyes told Hajime everything he needed to know. The bear’s next meal would be him.
Panic gripped his mind as he stared into the eyes of the predator.
“Uwaaaaaah!!!” He let out a garbled scream and momentarily forgot about the pain of his broken left arm as he mounted a desperate escape attempt.
However, it was impossible for Hajime to escape from an enemy not even that rabbit had been able to flee from. He heard the sound of rushing wind, and an instant later something hard hit his left side. He was flung against the wall.
“Gahaah!” Hajime coughed violently as all the air was pushed out of his lungs, before sliding down the wall to fall in a heap on the ground. His vision blurred over, but he could still make out the bear chewing on something.
But he couldn’t quite make out what it was. It had already finished eating the rabbit, so it couldn’t have been that. Then he realized the bear was chewing a very familiar looking arm. Still confused, Hajime looked over to his left side, which had become inexplicably lighter. Or, more specifically, to where his left arm should have been...
“H-Huh?” His expressions stiffened, and he tilted his head in bewilderment. Why don’t I have an arm? Why is there so much blood spurting out? His mind, no, his entire being was rejecting the reality his eyes saw. But he could only feign ignorance for so long. The excruciating pain of having his arm ripped off finally hit, which brought him back to reality soon enough.
“Agaaaaaaaaahh!!!” Hajime’s scream of anguish echoed throughout the labyrinth. His left arm had been torn cleanly off from the elbow down.
That was the bear’s particular magic ability. Its claws were wrapped in blades of wind, and could cut thirty centimeters past what their length would suggest. All that considered, it was a miracle Hajime only lost his arm. Hajime wasn’t sure if it was because the bear was toying with him too, or if he was just lucky, but that last attack should have cut him in half.
After it finished wolfing down his arm, the bear slowly started walking toward Hajime. Unlike the rabbit, it didn’t seem to be looking down on Hajime. Instead, it merely saw him as food, nothing more.
It slowly extended one of its claws toward Hajime. The fact that he wasn’t ripped to shreds by it told Hajime the bear meant to eat him alive.
“Aaaaaah! Gaaaah! T-Transmute!” His face covered in tears, snot, and drool, Hajime screamed out his transmutation spell and set his right hand against the wall behind him. He was barely even aware of his own actions any longer.
He had been ridiculed as incompetent and had no magical affinity or physical talents to speak of, so Hajime, the weakest of them all, relied on the only power he did possess. A skill that was normally only used to craft armor and weapons.
Hajime, who possessed a job normally only meant for blacksmiths, desperately fought back. Because he’d been ridiculed for his lack of strength, he’d used all of his knowledge to think of unique ways to put his power to use. His results had been so unorthodox that he’d surprised even the knights, and his fervent devotion to his lone skill had even made him somewhat useful to his other classmates. This was why, even in the pits of hell, Hajime instinctively relied on this skill, and it was also why that skill was able to save him.
His sky blue mana shone briefly, and a depression opened up in the wall behind him. Hajime barely avoided the bear’s outstretched paw and tumbled back into the hole he had created behind him.
The bear roared, furious that its prey had managed to escape from right under its nose.
“Graaaaaaaaaah!!!” It wrapped wind blades around its claws once more, then thrust its paw into the hole Hajime had made for himself. The wall screeched angrily as the bear’s claws gouged furrows into it.
“Aaaaaaah! Transmute! Transmute! Transmute!” Hajime’s panicked mind registered the bear’s roar and the sound of the walls being gouged away, so he continued transmuting in succession, trying to put as much distance between him and the bear as possible.
He didn’t dare look back for even a second. He just kept transmuting. And crawling forward into each new opening he made. The pain of losing his left arm was temporarily forgotten. His survival instincts had kicked in, and he transmuted like his life depended on it. Which, frankly, it did.
He had no way to tell how far he’d dragged himself. Hajime had no idea; he just knew he could no longer hear the bear thundering behind him. In truth, he had not actually traveled all that far. Transmutation was only effective within two meters of his target (this was still double what it had been initially), and blood loss had slowed him considerably. He wouldn’t be able to keep moving for much longer.
In fact, he was already on the verge of unconsciousness. Still, he squeezed every last ounce of strength out of him to keep crawling forward. However...
“Transmute... Transmute... Transmute... Transm...” He kept chanting the incantation, but the wall in front of him remained unchanged. His mana had run out before his consciousness. Drained of all his strength, his hand fell away from the wall and he collapsed on the ground.
Hajime used every ounce of his willpower to keep himself conscious, rolling himself onto his back. He gazed blankly at the dark ceiling above him. There were no green crystals there to light his surroundings.
Hajime began recalling events from his past. Guess this is what they mean when they say your life flashes before your eyes. He went over his life, from preschool, to elementary, to middle school, and then finally to high school. Memories flew by, until at last they stopped... on the night he had talked with Kaori. He recalled the moonlight spilling in from the window, and the promise he had made with her.
His consciousness finally faded as he recalled that fond memory. But before he sank fully into unconsciousness, he felt water dripping onto his cheek. They felt like someone’s tears.
Drip... Drip... The water trailed down his cheek and dripped into his mouth. Hajime’s faint consciousness slowly began to grow brighter. Bewildered, he slowly opened his eyes.
I’m alive...? Did someone save me? He raised himself up, only to bump his head on the low ceiling.
“Agah!?” He remembered too late that he had made the ceiling above him a mere fifty centimeters tall. Hajime raised his arms up to the ceiling to transmute a larger hole. However, only a single arm entered his line of sight, and he cried out in surprise.
He stared at the stump of his left arm in disbelief for a moment before remembering he had lost it recently. A sharp
pang of pain ran down where his left arm should have been. He was experiencing phantom pain for the first time. His face twisted in anguish and he reflexively gripped his left arm, only to realize— That there was slight swelling where his arm had been cut off, and the wound had already closed.
“H-How...? It was bleeding so much...” It was too dark to see, but if there had been any light it would’ve been clear that Hajime was lying in a pool of his own blood. In fact, Hajime had lost so much blood that he should by all rights have been dead.
He felt around with his right hand and felt the sticky sensation of blood all around him. It was recent enough that it hadn’t dried yet. With that, he was able to confirm that his bleeding out had not been just a dream, and that it had been only a few minutes since Hajime lost consciousness.
And yet his wound had completely closed up, and as Hajime pondered how such a thing was possible, he felt water drip onto his cheeks and mouth once more. He felt somewhat revitalized as the drops slid down his throat.
“Don’t tell me... this is what saved me?” Hajime was still a little lightheaded from the blood loss and phantom pain pangs, but he reached his hand out to the source of the water and transmuted the earth around it.
Still somewhat unsteady, he continued transmuting deeper and deeper into the wall. The strange liquid that he now realized couldn’t possibly have been water, continued oozing out of cracks in the rock. Interestingly enough, it restored his mana as well, so Hajime was able to continue transmuting without running out of energy. Hajime deliriously continued transmuting, single-mindedly seeking out the water’s source.
Eventually, the slow trickle transformed into a faster stream, and Hajime finally arrived at the source of the liquid.
“This... is...” The source of the liquid was a basketball-sized crystal that emitted a pale blue light.
The crystal was buried into the wall around it, and the liquid was pouring out from underneath it. It had an aura of wondrous beauty about it. The light it emitted was just a shade darker than an aquamarine’s. Hajime stared at it in wonder, his pain momentarily forgotten. Then, as if drawn to it, he put his mouth to the crystal.
As he did so the, the pain, the haze that had fallen over his mind, and the fatigue, all left his body. As he had suspected, it was the liquid from this crystal that had saved Hajime’s life. Which meant that the liquid contained some kind of healing agent. His phantom pain could never be cured for good, and the blood he’d lost wasn’t coming back, but the rest of his wounds and all of his mana were restored in an instant.
Though Hajime didn’t know it, the crystal was actually a “Divinity Stone.” Divinity Stones were rare crystals, and considered to be one of the world’s greatest historical treasures. Modern day people thought them a lost legend.
Divinity Stones were created when a large clump of mana pooled together and crystallized over the course of a thousand years. They ranged from thirty to forty centimeters in diameter, and then over the course of a few hundred years their saturated mana liquefied and poured back into the earth.
The liquid they secreted was known as Ambrosia, and it healed all wounds. It couldn’t regrow missing limbs, but supposedly it extended one’s life so long as they continued to drink it, and was also referred to as the elixir of life. Legend claimed that Ehit healed the masses with this very Ambrosia.
He realized he’d just narrowly escaped a very painful death, and Hajime slumped down against the wall. He hugged his trembling body, then buried his face in his knees, the fear of death still fresh in mind. He no longer had the energy to try and escape. The constant stress and fear had finally broken him.
If it was just enemies he had to face, then he might have managed somehow. He would have rejoiced at the fact he was still alive, then gotten back up.
But those eyes the bear had looked at him with broke him. Those were the eyes of a predator that saw Hajime as nothing more than food. The eyes most humans, who stood at the top of the food chain, never even had to dream about. Those eyes, and the sight of the bear chewing on his own arm, had completely crushed Hajime’s spirit.
Someone... anyone... please save me... But he was deep within the pits of hell, so there was absolutely no way his thoughts would reach anyone. He didn’t know how long he sat there. But for the longest time, he just huddled in a fetal position, begging for salvation he knew would not come.
Four days had now passed since Hajime had fallen from the bridge.
In that time he had barely moved, drawing the sustenance he needed from the Divinity Stone. However, while Ambrosia could keep a man alive through all but the most heinous of conditions, it could not sate his hunger. Though he couldn’t die, Hajime suffered constant pangs of hunger, along with the phantom pain that ran down his missing left arm.
Why is this happening to me? That question had been something he constantly thought about.
He couldn’t sleep because of the pain and hunger, and if he drank more Ambrosia, all it did was clear his mind to let him feel the pain more vividly. Over and over, his fatigue brought him to the edge of consciousness, only for the pain and hunger to draw him back. And then to escape the pain he would drink more Ambrosia, which only invited further pain. He had repeated that cycle more times than he could count.
At some point, Hajime stopped drinking the Ambrosia altogether. He had unconsciously chosen the fastest way to end his pain.
“If all that awaits me is eternal pain... then I might as well...” He muttered to himself, clearly defeated, and let his consciousness slip away.
Three days after that.
The pain which had passed a certain threshold had abated for a while, but that was simply the calm before the storm. His starvation came back in full force, and excruciating hunger pangs continuously wracked his stomach. The phantom pain continued as well, tormenting Hajime all the while. It felt as if his fingernails were slowly being peeled off one by one, and then salt was dumped in the open wounds.
I’m... still not dead yet...? Aaah... Please, please... I just want to live... While craving death, he still instinctively clung to life. His thoughts began to contradict themselves. Hajime was no longer capable of rational thought. His delirious mumblings no longer made any semblance of sense.
Yet another three days passed.
Without the Ambrosia’s aid, he would expire in another two days. He had drunk nothing in that time as well, so his thirst mingled with his hunger.
However, a short while earlier, around the eighth day since discovering the Divinity Stone, a strange shift in his mentality had begun. Hovering between wishing for death and praying for salvation, his mind had begun to warp, and dark thoughts began welling up from Hajime’s subconscious.
Like slime, it had slowly oozed into the cracks in his heart caused by his suffering, and slowly eaten away at his soul.
Why do I have to suffer so much...? What did I ever do to deserve this? Why me... Why did it end up like this? God just kidnapped me and dropped me off at this place... And then my classmates betrayed me... I was looked down on by a rabbit... And then that bastard ate my arm... His thoughts continued to grow darker. Like black ink slowly spreading through white parchment, Hajime’s pure heart slowly grew sullied.
Someone was at fault, someone had pushed this unfairness on him, someone had hurt him like this... His mind started searching for an enemy to hate. The pain and hunger and darkness all slowly eroded away Hajime’s sanity. His dark thoughts continued to grow.
Why isn’t anyone coming to save me? If no one’s going to save me, what should I do? How can I make this pain go away? By the ninth day, Hajime was trying to find a way out of his predicament.
Thoughts of how to escape the pain were all that filled him, and even anger and hatred were slowly being worn away. There was no time to be trapped by such petty feelings. Because no matter how much he raged against his foes, Hajime’s pain never lessened. In order to escape the absurd and unreasonable situation he was stuck in, unneeded feelings had to b
e discarded.
What is it I want? I want to live. And what’s stopping me from living? The enemy. And just who is the enemy? Everyone and everything that gets in my way, everything that pushes this unreasonable fate onto me. So what is it I should do? I should... I should...
The tenth day. Both hatred and anger had vanished from his heart. The unfair god that thrust him into this world, the classmate that betrayed him, the monsters that wanted to kill him... even the smile of the girl who said she would protect him... they all ceased to matter.
Compared to the pressing need for survival, such tiny feelings meant nothing. Hajime’s will resolved into a hardened point. Like the tip of a sword forged from the fires of hell. Sharp, strong, and able to cut through anything.
And his will desired to... Kill them. There was no hatred, hostility, or anger in those words. Just a simple statement of fact. In order to live, he had to kill.
Anything that threatened his life was an enemy. And all enemies were to be... Killed. Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill. In order to escape the relentless hunger, he had to kill them and eat them. It was at that moment that the kind, quiet Hajime Nagumo, the Hajime who blew everything off with an apology and a smile, the Hajime Kaori had come to admire, ceased to exist.
And a new Hajime Nagumo, one who was willing to mercilessly slaughter anything that stood in his path, was born.
His shattered soul had reformed once more. And it was not as a mere patchwork, hastily repaired soul. No, this was a soul reforged in the darkness and despair of hell, a soul tempered in pain and instinct. A soul harder than steel.
Hajime dragged his weakened body over to the cavity where the Ambrosia had spilled, then lapped it up like a dog. His hunger and pain still remained, but his body regained its vigor.
Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest Vol. 1 (Premium) Page 11