Get Me Out of This Damn Isekai!

"Where... where the fuck am I?"

My own voice sounded strange, muffled by an echo of trees and dry leaves. I rubbed my temples. The headache was unbearable—the kind of migraine you get when you mix cheap alcohol and bad decisions. The last thing I remembered was crossing a pedestrian tunnel on my way home after class. I must have passed out. I must have drunk too much.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. The screen was intact, but at the top, where the signal bars should have been, there was only a cruel: No Service.

"What the hell..." I muttered, looking around.

There were no buildings. No asphalt. Just a dense, ancient, dark forest that seemed to swallow the little daylight left. I decided to walk. On Earth, if you walk in a straight line, sooner or later you find a road, a light pole, or someone to ask for directions. But after what felt like hours, the landscape didn't change. Just trees, roots that made me trip, and a deathly silence that began to make my hair stand on end.

Then, I heard the snap of a branch.

I spun around. About twenty meters away, amid the undergrowth, a silhouette emerged. My eyes tried to focus, but everything was a blurry mass. During my last fall, my glasses had shattered against a rock; without them, the world beyond a meter was a useless smudge. Desperate, I pulled out the largest shard of glass that had survived the frame from my pocket. I pressed it against my right eye, using it as an improvised monocle.

My stomach dropped to my feet when I managed to focus.

It wasn't a dog. It was a wolf, but its proportions were all wrong. It was massive—the size of a small car—with charcoal-black fur and eyes that gleamed with a malicious, hungry intelligence.

Panic froze me. I slid slowly behind the trunk of a thick oak. I could hear its heavy steps on the leaf litter. It was looking for me.

"God, help me. God, please... what do I do?" My mind, fried by fear, desperately tried to figure out a move. I remembered seeing in some internet video that running from a predator was a death sentence. "If you run, you're prey. Move slowly."

I swallowed hard, stepped out of my hiding spot millimeter by millimeter, and extended a trembling hand, trying to keep my voice steady.

"Easy... easy, boy. I won't hurt you... Good boy..."

The monster didn't even blink. There was no warning, no growl. Just a flash of yellow teeth and an inhuman leap.

"AHHHHHGGGG!!"

The pain was an incandescent explosion. Its jaws closed over my left forearm, crushing flesh and bone as easily as biting into a cracker. I heard the snap of my own radius bone breaking. I screamed until my throat tore.

For some reason, the wolf let go after that first bite, leaving a trail of black saliva on my torn skin, and backed away a few meters, watching me like someone looking at a defective toy.

"My arm... my arm, no, no, no..." I sobbed, pressing the wound as blood gushed out in streams.

The animal instinct for survival took over. I turned and ran. I ran like I never had in my fucking life, ignoring the branches whipping my face while I trailed a path of blood on the ground. But the human body has limits. Within a few minutes, the blood loss took its toll. My vision blurred, my legs turned to jelly, and I fell face-first into the mud.

When I opened my eyes, barely a thread of consciousness remained. The first thing I saw were massive paws. Then, the snout of the giant wolf, surrounded by three others of its kind. Nightmare monsters.

In an act of pure desperation, I reached out my right hand, grabbed a handful of stones, and threw them at its face. It didn't even tickle them.

The alpha wolf lunged onto my chest. The last thing I heard was the snapping of my own ribs breaking, followed by jaws closing around my throat. The pain was so dense and unimaginable that my brain simply shut down into darkness as I choked on my own blood.

"NOOOOOOO!!!"

I sat up abruptly, gasping violently, tearing my lungs. I fell to my knees on the moss, arching completely as a dry heave shook my body. I ended up vomiting a string of bitter saliva, hyperventilating, hands clutching my chest.

I frantically touched my neck and torso, feeling for fang holes, broken ribs, a torn arm. There was nothing. My skin was intact, but my nervous system was still screaming. The phantom pain was there—a freezing echo telling me that, just a second ago, my trachea had been ripped apart. I was crying out of pure psychological horror.

"A... a dream?" I whispered, wiping my tears with trembling hands.

I looked around. The same tree. The same ground covered in leaves. The same light filtering through the canopy. It was the exact same damn place from the beginning. A horrifying realization hit me: I wasn't going to stay and check if the wolves were real or an hallucination.

I ran in the opposite direction, heart hammering in my ears. Fear guided me to the slope of a small hill, where the dark mouth of a cave opened between the rocks. Without a second thought, I slid inside.

I sat on the stone floor, hugging my knees, trying to process the madness. I had watched enough series and read enough stories to know what this was about, even if I refused to accept it. A medieval forest, giant wolves, and reviving at the starting point. An isekai. But it wasn't fun. It hurt. It really hurt. I decided the smartest thing was to stay there. Someone would come looking for me. I just had to wait for rescue.

But rescue didn't come. Night did.

The darkness of the cave became absolute, and with it came the cold and the fear. Looking out towards the entrance, the moonlight reflected something out there: two pairs of glowing eyes, fixed on the opening.

The wolves had tracked me. They were guarding the exit.

Trapped, I preferred the unknown darkness of the cave over feeling their teeth in my neck again. I crawled deeper inside, fumbling against the damp walls. After a few meters, a rancid, nauseating stench hit my face. It was the unmistakable stench of rotting flesh. I covered my mouth with my shirt to stifle the nausea.

The faint moonlight barely reached the back of the gallery. I bent my head and pressed the glass fragment to my eye again, sharpening my vision in the gloom.

There it was. On the ground lay the decomposed corpse of what looked like an ancient traveler, his clothes in tatters. Ragged and disgusting. And next to him, with its back to me, a creature was devouring what was left of his remains.

It was a green being, no more than a meter tall, with pointed ears and crusty skin covered in filth. Its shoulders moved to the rhythm of wet chewing noises and bone crunches that turned my stomach.

"A goblin," I thought, a cold chill running down my spine. But it wasn't the cartoonish monster from anime. This thing looked grotesque, feral, and real.

I didn't move. I didn't touch a thing. I knew if I made the slightest noise, that thing would turn around and kill me. My eyes desperately scanned the ground around the traveler's corpse. A couple of steps from the creature, half-hidden by dust, gleamed the iron hilt of a rusty dagger.

With my heart making so much noise that I feared it would betray me, I took a stealthy step forward. Then another. The smell of putrefaction was so dense it made my eyes water. I crouched millimeter by millimeter, stretched out my hand, and my fingers closed around the metal handle of the dagger. It was freezing.

I took a breath, raised the weapon with both hands, and with all my body weight, brought it down onto the creature's back.

CHUCK!

The rusty blade penetrated the flesh but slammed hard against the creature's spine, getting completely stuck. The goblin let out a sharp shriek, an inhuman screech that echoed off the cave walls. I pulled the handle with desperation, but it wouldn't come out. I was disarmed.

Before I could react, the creature spun around with feral rage. Its bloodshot eyes locked onto me, and it lunged, tackling my legs. Its filthy dagger plunged deep into my right calf.

"AHHHH!!!" The scream escaped me, tearing from my throat.

The goblin began to twist the blade inside my muscle. The pain blurred my vision. Lying on my back, with the creature frantically trying to bite my face while spitting acid saliva, I stretched out my right hand blindly across the floor. My fingers felt a heavy, damp stone. I grabbed it and, with what little strength I had left, smashed it against the side of its head.

CRACK!

The goblin groaned but didn't let go. I hit it again. And again. And again. The sound of breaking bone mixed with my own cries of pure terror, until the monster's screech turned into a wet trickle and ceased. Its body collapsed lifelessly onto my chest.

I was shaking in the gloom, hyperventilating, drenched in the black, pasty blood of the creature, which was seeping directly into the hole in my calf.

Outside, a low growl broke the silence of the night. The smell of fresh blood and the racket of the fight had alerted the wolves. I heard the sound of heavy claws scratching the stone at the entrance. They were coming in.

Panic gave me a jolt of adrenaline. I pushed the goblin's corpse aside, crawled along the floor holding back tears of pain, and using my hands soaked in monster fluids, I smeared the pasty blood across the walls of the entrance, hoping my stupid anime theory about masking the scent would work.

Then, I returned to the traveler's corpse. Careful not to touch the decomposed flesh, I tore off a piece of his old, moldy, filth-ridden cloak and tied it as tightly as I could around the open wound to plug the bleeding.

I crawled to the deepest, darkest corner of the cave, pressed my back against the wall, and covered my mouth with both hands.

At the entrance, the silhouette of a massive head blocked the moonlight. The alpha wolf pushed half its body into the cave. I heard it sniff. The sound of its deep breathing filled the air. It snorted, confused by the rancid smell of goblin blood covering the walls. Its eyes glowed in the dark, scanning the interior. It was only three meters away from me.

I closed my eyes tightly, holding back a sob, praying to any existing god that it wouldn't advance further. Meanwhile, beneath the filthy rag, an infectious, feverish burning began to throb fiercely, branching out like hot poison from my leg to the rest of my body.

Luckily, the wolf finally left.

I heard its claws move away on the stone outside, and for the first time in hours, I let out the breath I was holding. I cried silently—a cry of pure relief. I looked up at the dark ceiling of the cave and swore by everything sacred that if I got out of this forest alive, I would go to church every single Sunday of my life to give thanks. I couldn't take it anymore. Exhaustion dragged me into a heavy sleep plagued with nightmares.

The next morning, I dragged myself out of the cave, pulling my right leg. Curiously, the goblin's wound didn't look too bad, but my whole body protested. I limped horribly, not from an actual infection, but from the phantom pain. My nervous system was tuning into impulses of agony; I felt the echo of the wolf's fangs crushing my ribs, and the flesh of my calf throbbed as if the dagger were still stuck inside.

I walked aimlessly for an hour, sobbing, until a heavenly sound made me stop: the trotting of horses. A dirt road. A wagon.

"Hey! Help!" I yelled, stepping onto the path.

The wagon stopped. There were four men inside. My relief lasted a single second; they all wore swords, worn leather armor, and unfriendly faces. I tried to ask for help, but only Spanish words came out of my mouth, which to them was pure noise. They answered me in a harsh, aggressive language. We couldn't understand each other.

I started gesturing. The men looked at each other. One of them got down and approached me. I smiled, thinking he was going to help me.

Then, his gaze dropped to my neck.

The sun caught the silver chain my mom had given me. The guy smirked, showing rotten teeth. He looked at my limp, my trembling body. He saw me as incredibly easy prey.

There was no warning. His hand moved like a whip.

A silver flash crossed my vision. Before I could process it, a warm, torrential wetness began to gush from my neck. I brought my hands to my throat, but the hot liquid seeped through my fingers. I fell to my knees, trying to breathe, but only swallowed my own blood. The metallic taste flooded my mouth as I heard their mocking laughter fading away along with my silver chain.

"AHHHH!!!"

I woke up abruptly on the moss. The start. Again.

I crawled along the ground, clawing at the dirt, hyperventilating as I pressed both hands to my neck. It was smooth, intact, but the feeling of choking to death on my own blood would never be pleasant. I curled sideways, falling into absolute despair. The panic of knowing that everything in this damn world wanted to murder me completely broke my mind.

I broke into hysterical tears, sobbing uncontrollably while calling out for my family in the loneliness of the forest.

"Mom!... Dad!... Bro!... Please! What the fuck did I do to deserve this? Why is this happening to me?" I screamed to the sky, resigned and destroyed.

I was making so much noise, wallowing in my misery, that my own crying attracted the second wagon. This time it was a single man, an old man with a gray beard transporting baskets full of vegetables. His gaze was suspicious, but not malicious.

Remembering the lesson, I buried my silver chain in the mud with a stomp before he could see me. The old man spoke to me in his incomprehensible language. I approached, pointing to my mouth and shaking my head, pretending to be mute so he wouldn't suspect anything. The old man seemed to take pity, sighed, and gestured for me to climb into the back, next to the potatoes.

As I climbed up, a wave of calm washed over me. I curled up between the baskets. As we moved forward, I saw a fork in the road in the distance with two signs containing strange letters. The old man took the right route. I closed my eyes, exhausted by the mental toll, and fell asleep.

How stupid I was.

I woke up suddenly from a violent tug on my wrists. I tried to move, but an iron chain burned my skin. I was lying on the floor of a damp, dark underground dungeon, surrounded by dozens of people in rags and heavily beaten.

"Slaves. The damn old man sold me as a slave," I thought, feeling my stomach churn.

I wasn't going to go through this. I had a power, right? I could restart. I stood up as best I could, ignoring the chains, and with all the strength of desperation, I charged head-first against the stone wall of the cell to break my skull and return to the forest.

PAM!

The impact was brutal, but the frontal bone is hard. I didn't kill myself. I only managed to fracture my forehead, split my eyebrow open, and fall backward onto the floor, dizzy, with blood blinding my right eye. I lay there, groaning, unable to stand up for a second blow. The pain was unbearable, and my vision shut down into a thick blackout.

When I opened my eyes hours later, the headache was pure torture. I felt something damp and cold on my forehead. Blurring my vision, I saw a young female slave, about my age, wiping away the blood with a piece of damp cloth. She had sad but deeply human eyes.

I pushed her away, crawling toward the corner of the cell, breathing heavily.

"Get away! Don't touch me!" I screamed at her in Spanish. I didn't trust anyone. The sweet old vegetable man had smiled at me before shackling me. This girl definitely wanted something from me.

She backed away, frightened, raising her hands in peace. Before she could say anything, the cell gate opened with a metallic creak. Two burly guards walked in, looking at me with rage. They had seen the trail of blood on the wall.

"Pre... ti... kahn?!" one roared, giving me a tremendous kick to the ribs that knocked the wind out of me.

They beat me with batons. They beat me until my back was bloody and my lips were split. I learned the lesson the hard way: to the guards, I was expensive merchandise; trying to damage myself was damaging their property, and that was paid for with pain.

When the guards left, leaving me lying on the floor as a mass of bruises, the girl approached slowly again. She didn't speak to me; she just left a bowl with a little clean water near my hand.

I lay there staring at her, chewing on my own blood. I wasn't going to stay here and be anyone's toy. I waited until the deep night fell and everyone was asleep. Careful not to make noise with the shackles, I crawled toward the bars. I forced my own neck into the space between two iron tubes, blocking my trachea, using my body weight to suffocate myself.

The process was slow, agonizing. My lungs burned, my brain begged for oxygen. I held on. I held on until darkness swallowed me completely.

"Now... I wake up in the forest..."

A violent tug shook me. I snapped my eyes open, letting out a wild gasp.

I expected to see trees, the morning sky, to smell the moss. But the first thing that filled my nostrils was the stench of sweat and urine. My hands weren't touching dirt; they were touching cold stone. I looked up. The same iron bars. The same cell.

Horror froze my blood. I touched my forehead; there was no wound, no bruises from the beatings. I had returned in time, yes... but only a few hours. The damn "Save Point" had updated the exact moment the guards threw me into the cell.

I was trapped. Death's escape no longer worked to flee captivity.

Months passed. Time became a gray mass of hunger and abuse. After accepting that I couldn't escape by dying, my paranoia toward the girl disappeared out of pure exhaustion. Her name was Mila. She was the only one who didn't let me starve to death. She shared her bread crusts with me and, at night, began to teach me basic words by pointing at things.

"Ua..." she would say, pointing to the puddle of water in the cell.

"Water..." I would repeat, my throat dry.

She taught me the language to survive. Mila became my only link to the real world, my only friend. Until that rainy afternoon.

Mila couldn't take the hunger anymore. She managed to get an old lockpick from forced labor and tried to pick the gate to the courtyard during the guard shift change. I begged her with my eyes to stop, but desperation had driven her mad. She didn't even make it three meters.

A guard discovered her. I heard the man's shout, the sound of boots, and before I could blink, a long iron spear pierced her back, exiting through her chest in a red explosion.

Mila fell to her knees, looking at me with wide eyes, losing her life under the rain.

Something inside me snapped forever. I grabbed the rusty dagger I had managed to keep hidden in my rags for months, and before the guards could catch me, I plunged it straight into my heart.

"I'm going to save you," I thought. "I have to go back before you step out into the courtyard."

The tug of the restart shook my soul. I snapped my eyes open.

But I wasn't in the cell at night. I was lying in the mud of the courtyard. The rain was hitting my face. And just a meter away from me, Mila's body was falling to the ground with the spear driven through her chest, looking at me with dying eyes.

"No... no, no, no..." I stammered, crawling toward her, taking her head in my hands. Her warm blood stained my fingers. "Go back! I have to go back sooner!"

Desperate, I grabbed the dagger from the ground and slit my own throat right there before the stunned gaze of the guards.

Reset.

I open my eyes. The mud. The rain. The sound of the spear piercing her flesh. Mila's body falling into my arms.

Reset.

I open my eyes. I feel her last spasms. Her body turning cold in my hands under the