Seeing the bloody red giant "Game Over" word hovering over his retina, Ash blinked, squinting against the sudden brightness, his mouth couldn't help but twist when he dumbfoundedly looked down and saw his body sprawled on the forest floor like a discarded rag doll, blood and something suspiciously white (brain matter?) oozing from the gaping wound beneath his skull. A small axe, nestled with gruesome intimacy, completed the tableau. Overall, the sight was very disgusting.

"Well, I didn't expect my mouth would be so ominous," Ash muttered dryly while shaking his head before focusing on himself. He appeared in a soul form, similar to what he had seen in various movies, currently hovering on top of his lifeless body.

"Am I in my astral form? Or have I become a ghost? Since my body is dead, this means I should be a ghost now," Ash pondered thoughtfully before turning his head. He saw two 1-meter tall, thin, ugly humanoid creatures with long pointy ears, light green skin, and wearing simple leather skirts made from an unknown animal's hide on their crotches, resembling a certain child raised by an ape. They loomed over his corpse, gleeful malice twisting their ugly faces.

"If my years of profound knowledge from various novels and anime are not deceiving me, those two green humanoid creatures should be Goblins—the most common and weakest, the absolutely dregs amount the monsters in the fantasy world. They're also known as the punching bags of novice adventurers, dealt with by protagonists or other low-level characters in the early stages of their journeys to gain experience or acquire heroines."

"Seriously?" Ash sighed, an exhalation that didn't quite escape his nonexistent lungs. "It doesn't even take me 10 minutes to come to this new world, and I'm already dead at the hands of the weakest known monsters in the fantasy world. Is there anything more shameful than this? This world is definitely not a peaceful one, where any random guy can roam in the forest with his pitiful strength," he mutters while rubbing his forehead in frustration. If he had the option to choose the world he is going to regenerate in, like most fanfic protagonists, he would definitely choose a peaceful world with difficulty setting fixed on easy mode.

Suddenly, a harsh chime shattered the silence, a cold echo in Ash's incorporeal mind.

[ *Ding:- Warning: Please select a saved file within the next 10 seconds to review; otherwise, the Host's soul will be erased from existence by the defensive rule of this world, and the Host will die permanently. ]

[ 10...

9...

8...

7...

"F*ck, there's a timeout setting too? Hey, okay, okay, I understand. Now, stop this damn animation of throwing those big bloody countdown numbers on my face," Ash yelled angrily. For some reason, he felt like his System was more in a hurry to revive him than he himself.

Just then, a grating voice pierced the air. "Hahaha, did you see that, hmm, hmm, hmm? One-hit kill, I told ya. This humi is an idiot, and it will be child's play to hunt him down. Look, I was right, as always."

Ash who had already opened his Save and Load window and was about to click on the Load Option of file No. 1, was stunned to hear Goblin A's mocking voice. Surprisingly, it not only sounded no different than any normal human, but he could also understand their weird language perfectly without any problem, despite never encountering it before.

"You're right, maybe I was thinking too much. This humi is really too easy to kill, unlike the one chief told us about in the tribe. But it's still better to stay alert; not every humi is as easy prey as this one," Goblin B, who had a cowardly personality, countered his voice tinged with caution.

3...

2...

The countdown ticked relentlessly, dragging Ash back to his immediate predicament. Although he wanted to listen to more of their conversation to learn about this new world, seeing that the countdown was about to hit 0, he chose his life over his curiosity and clicked on the Load Option.

The world dissolved in a blinding flash. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself sitting on the ground in his new healthy body, without an axe stuck in the back of his head.

But this happiness was quite short-lived because only a second after coming back to life, a pain strong enough to make anyone faint immediately hit the back of his head.

"Ahhh..." Ash screamed, clutching his head, ensuring unimaginable pain. But before he could even lie on the ground and roll around in pain, as abruptly as it came, the pain vanished as if it had never been there before, and everything was just an illusion. Leaving him panting, drenched in sweat, his mind reeling.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Haa, haa, F*ck! What... what the hell is going on?" Ash rasped, the terror still fresh in his voice. His forehead was covered in sweat, indicating that what he experienced now wasn't an illusion.

"F*ck, don't tell me this is the punishment of dying. System, can you delete or turn off this setting?" Ash, after calming down a bit, tried to communicate with his system, which, like before, gave no f*ck about his calling.

"Sigh, I was about to say thanks to God for blessing me with such a good system, but it seemed like I was being happy for nothing. Who knows just how many weird settings this system of mine has hidden for me? But at least this pain only lasted for 3 seconds, which is still within a tolerable range," Ash muttered, wiping the clammy sweat from his brow.

"At least my system is still many times better than those trash systems I've read about in countless novels. If I had one of those life-ruining systems, maybe I would have already changed the world or might be having an in-depth conversation with Lady Death for trespassing her rule and transmigrating to another world without meeting her," Ash said jokingly, trying to cheer himself up with hope that his system wasn't that bad and still reliable. He gazed at the sky. Again, he was dumbfounded by seeing two big clear dots in the sky beside the sun.

"Does this planet have two moons?" Ash's eyes darted up, momentarily captivated by the sight of two moons hanging heavy in the alien sky. "And they seem quite bigger or nearer than Earth's moon... Damn it, Ash, this is not the time to think about this kind of thing. Better hide before those goblins give you another headshot."

Muttering to himself, Ash buried his curiosity in his heart, stood up from the ground, and quickly hid behind a giant 80-meter-tall tree, which seemed very common in this world, Ash could also see some trees even larger than this. After checking that he had hidden carefully without leaving any opening, Ash began to wait for those two goblins who had nearly taken his life, treating him like a rabbit.

The goblins seemed oddly gentlemanly, or rather, gentlemonstely, as they didn't make Ash wait for too long. A minute or so later, Ash heard their clear voices again.

"Today's hunt was a near-death experience, don't you think?" Whined Goblin B, his voice laden with cowardice as he lugged two limp rabbits over his scrawny shoulder.

"Sigh, yes, you are right." Snorted Goblin A, his tone gruff. He dragged the carcass of a massive brown and black boar, its tusks glistening with a menacing glow. "This damn boar literally smashed me into the tree. If not for your interference at the last moment, giving me a chance to give it a fatal attack, I might have already become its food."

A moment of shared fear hung heavy in the air before Goblin B piped up again, enthusiasm lacing his voice. "Then I think now we should stop messing around and join an Armored Goblin Squad. I heard that although they don't treat newbies like us well, at least food and weapons are not a problem at all. And recently, because there is no big conflict going on, not many goblins are dying under them. Seems like a safe bet, eh?"

"I am not sure about it. Last time I saw them killing a newbie like us just because he didn't massage properly," Goblin A hesitantly replied, clearly not very optimistic about joining other goblin squads, before falling silent.

A tense silence followed, broken only by the rustle of leaves and the chirping of unseen birds. Goblin B, aware of his friend's dark history, didn't continue on this topic and also became silent, observing his surroundings with a puzzled look on his face.

"By the way, didn't that unearthly scream come from this way? Do you think we missed our opportunity and that human ran away?" After a moment of silence, Goblin B asked with a frown.

"Probably," Goblin A shrugged, a dismissive snort escaping his lips. "Otherwise, there is no way we haven't found him yet. Maybe after realizing that he made too much noise, he ran away in fear that we found him. After all, this is our territory."

Goblin A kicked a pebble at his feet in frustration, probably very eager to bring Ash back to his tribe. After venting his anger, he sighed helplessly and started walking toward his tribe, dragging the boar like a dejected trophy.

Goblin B, mirroring his friend's somber mood, trudged along in silence.