Chapter 2: Price of Survival

The warmth of the snake's body, the sickly stench of its insides, and the fading adrenaline kept him still, even as the world outside turned colder. His eyelids fluttered, trying to shut, but his mind screamed to stay awake. Every second felt like an eternity. The soft rustling of the forest carried the weight of every failure, every wound, every broken hope he'd collected over the years.

Arin's vision swam. His body throbbed with pain, but that was nothing new. Pain was constant.What really haunted him was the gnawing emptiness.

"I didn't even get to keep my seat. Sold it to a rich kid to pay their damn tuition. And what do I have to show for it?"

Nothing.Nothing at all.

The wealth of the noble family who took his place at the university seat had never truly belonged to him. They paid their way into an education Arin would never see, and in exchange, he sold off his future. His chance to escape. His chance to make something of himself beyond scraping the dirt and fighting beasts for food.

"The rich kid gets a chance at a better life. I get to hunt monsters to scrape by. Just how the world works, huh?"

He didn't know how long he lay in the belly of the beast. The hours stretched and melted together. The Drake Eagle's shrieks were long gone, and the forest fell into a ghostly quiet. He dared not move, dared not stir a muscle in case another monster or worse — another predator — decided to feast on his sorry carcass.

In the stillness, his mind wandered back to the past. The dim memories of a world where his family wasn't in debt. Where his parents weren't broken, crawling towards death with every breath.

"Before... Before all this, we were… normal. Mom, Dad, me. A simple family, trying to survive in this damned world. But that world took them away."

He clenched his fists, ignoring the pain in his swollen fingers. His parents were more than just broken — they were shadows of who they used to be. That night, those men came for them — men with no faces, no names, no reason. They weren't the first to come after them. But they were the ones who left them bleeding, broken, useless. His father, once strong, now couldn't even lift a spoon without trembling. His mother, always healthy, spent her days coughing in agony from the poison they put in her veins.

"And I'm stuck here. No magic. No gifts. No nothing."

Arin's breath hitched, and he forced his thoughts back. He had to stay focused.

The artifact at his side flickered, a weak pulse of mana spilling out of the cracked gem. It had a mind of its own, sometimes flickering with wild magic that could save his life… or end it faster.

"At least it's something."

Gripping the artifact with shaky hands, he forced himself to sit upright, the ache in his chest making each breath a labor. He peeked out of the slit he'd made in the snake's body. Nothing. The forest was still, the once-terrifying shadows of beasts now nothing more than distant echoes in his mind.

Arin didn't know how much longer he would last like this. His only reason to keep moving forward was simple — his parents. The ones who still counted on him, despite being too sick to help themselves. They were his weight and his anchor. They were the only things keeping him tethered to this miserable, twisted world.

But the more he thought about it, the more he realized how impossible it seemed. He couldn't even keep up with the cost of an artifact repair. Every time it broke down, he barely scraped enough money to get it back in working order. And the food? The medicine? He was deep in debt to everyone who was supposed to help him — including the very man who bought his future away from him.

"A future... bought for a price I couldn't refuse. Now it's all gone. Just gone."

The hunger clawed at him, the silence thick with the weight of regret. His body begged him for rest, but his mind was far too restless.

"I'll get out of here. I'll survive. I don't care how much it costs."

He could still feel the RedHorn Rabbit's horn tucked into his belt. That horn was worth something. A lot, actually. But it wasn't enough. Not even close.

But it would be soon. He had a plan. He always had a plan.

He wasn't sure how long he could hold onto that last flicker of hope, but it was the only thing left.

The only thing he had.