Project Necro is an official initiative by Re:Library.

White snowflakes fluttered sporadically through the sky, and the trees were all adorned in white from the accumulated snow—a vast, silvery landscape with no trace of human footprints.
Amid such a pure-white, fairy-tale-like, fantastical natural landscape, I…

“I’m spent…”

With a look on my face as if the world were ending, I sat on a fallen tree of just the right height, feeling utterly lost.

.

I had been heading toward the nearest town, where I was supposed to meet up with the other two, but after walking for about an hour, I was already at my wit’s end.

I’d like to say it was because this body, just as it looked, had abnormally low stamina… but the real reason was that I simply couldn’t walk properly.
Originally, I’d been stuck in a wheelchair due to an injury from when I was not even ten years old. Even back when this was a game, while I could move my avatar as needed, I couldn’t move my legs as well as an average person. Since I was a Celestial with wings on my back, I could compensate to some extent by floating, but as soon as I touched the ground, that weakness became painfully obvious.

At first, I tried to take the front line using the character my sister currently plays, but that’s exactly why I gave up so quickly.
You have to keep your feet on the ground and maneuver in close combat, but I just couldn’t do it.
That said, our two avatars were masterpieces we’d spent a long time perfecting together, so I simply didn’t have the energy to remake them just because I “lacked aptitude.”

Fortunately—though that’s a strange way to put it—my sister, for her part, had initially declared, “I want to play a cute character, act cute, and be fawned over as a support class,” but once she actually started playing, she became frustrated by how heavily the odds were stacked against her character.
To begin with, she’d always preferred to charge into the fray and go wild, so despite her support-specialized stats, she frequently couldn’t resist rushing out to throw punches—which meant both of us ended up in a complete mess.

Rather than deleting our characters, we ended up swapping avatars—and it turned out our personalities meshed perfectly. From then on, I spent seven years taking a mysterious “training course on how to be a GIRL from a girl” from my sister.
Thanks to that, my girly… the delicate, girly behavior that matches this appearance… had been fully approved by my sister. I’d even say I could act naturally now without even thinking about it. It was a bit of a mixed bag for me as a guy, though.

Since I had limited mobility, I was a bit clumsy at times and often tripped while walking, but my sister would say something baffling like, “That’s just another moe trait, so it’s no problem!”

I’ve digressed a bit, but why was I walking on my own two feet despite finding it difficult? Well, I’ve been reincarnated as a member of the “Lightwing.” This race usually looked no different from humans and could only unfurl their wings when necessary.
However, there was also a restriction: “I can only fly when my wings are out.” Those incredibly conspicuous wings.
If someone saw me—especially a villain—I’d be headed straight for slavery, no question about it, and I’d rather pass on that.

Besides, I tried to practice flying, but unlike in the game—where the system’s assist would make my wings move on their own just by thinking about flying—it seemed that here, I couldn’t fly unless I consciously moved my wings myself.
After practicing for a while, I did manage to float a little, but I decided that flying freely through the sky would require a lot of practice, so I’d been walking instead…

.

And then, an hour later.
I’d been walking along, using strengthening magic to make up for my lack of muscle strength and healing magic to numb the pain in my legs, but there was nothing I could do about the accumulated fatigue. Exhausted to the point where my legs and lower back were already shaking uncontrollably, I was now sitting here, at a loss.

“…Come to think of it, isn’t the next town pretty far away…? In the game, even with my legs, it only took about thirty minutes on foot, right…?”

Muttering complaints under my breath, I ate a sandwich that had been tucked away in my magic bag and drank some magic water as a substitute for a drink… It seemed my stomach capacity had shrunk to match my appearance; just one sandwich about the size of half a slice of bread was making me feel pretty full.… I looked back on the journey so far.

I should have walked twice the distance I did in the game by now, but as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but a snow-covered coniferous forest stretching out before me. All I could see were trees, snow, and a desolate path that was barely recognizable as a road, and walking in silence was incredibly grueling.
Now that this had become a real world, the ground beneath my feet was unstable in many places. Several times, my feet got caught in the snow or the tree roots snaking beneath it, causing me to dive headfirst into the snow. My clothes, slightly damp from sweat and the melted snow that had seeped inside, clung uncomfortably to my skin, adding to my growing fatigue.

Fortunately, as befitting a wider world, the density of monsters was low. I had only encountered a few non-aggressive ones leisurely grazing on grass here and there.

.

――One of the selling points of 『Worldgate Online』, the game this world used to be, was the tagline, “Vast fields brimming with adventure that you can never fully explore.” According to those who actually undertook the challenge of circumnavigating all the implemented fields, the area of the fields accessible on foot *alone* seemed to be roughly the same size as Hokkaido.
As a result, the game offered a wide variety of transportation options, including a teleport gate available once a day, but since arriving here, I had lost access to those conveniences.
Now that I was actually here, it was hard to believe this real world was only about the size of a single island. It was highly likely it had become dozens, or perhaps even hundreds, of times larger… or maybe even more than that.

…I realized this an hour after I started walking—which is to say, right now—and I felt like punching my past self from an hour ago for not having thought of it sooner.

.

That said, I couldn’t just sit here forever, so as I stood up to look for a town or at least a place to camp, I heard something in the distance…

“…A scream?”

Yes, I heard someone screaming—a desperate voice. For a split second, I considered dodging the problem and running away, but I couldn’t just ignore it. Thinking that if I helped them, I might be able to ask for directions, I was just about to head that way when—

“…Ow—AAaahh?!”

An intense pain, as if piercing my entire body from head to toe, caused me to collapse.

(It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts! Why!? There’s nothing around me…!)

What…what is this? Was I attacked!? But I didn’t feel like I’d been injured at all. Even as I lay there, the agony tormenting my entire body quickly began to subside, and my consciousness gradually cleared, until all that remained was a throbbing, tearing pain deep inside my head.

“Haa… ha… ha… I’ve… got to go…”

I didn’t quite understand it myself, but for some reason, an impulse welled up from the depths of my heart, telling me I had to go in the direction where the screams had come from. As if guided by something, my feet began to move of their own accord.

.

――I immediately regretted coming here. I instinctively covered my mouth.

I found the source of the scream.
A man who appeared to be middle-aged lay lifelessly on the ground.
The surrounding snow was stained deep red, and near his abdomen was a shapeless, dog-like silhouette—about the size of a large dog and resembling a shadow—with its snout buried in the man’s stomach.
When that black shadow lifted its snout from the man’s stomach, which twitched and spasmed from time to time, a long, slimy object was dragged out from within. My mind refused to process what it was. I felt that if I recognized it, the terror would be too much to bear.

……However, the man’s body was still moving from time to time; perhaps he was still alive.

The sheer horror of being cut open and devoured while still alive was so overwhelming that my body trembled at the gruesomeness of it. If it took an interest in me, I’d be the next to suffer the same fate. My belly—enveloped in this body’s slightly thin yet healthy layer of fat—must look white, soft, and utterly delicious.
Just picturing that scene made the strength drain from my limbs, but I chided myself, knowing that if I collapsed, that prediction would become reality. Ignoring the blood trickling down my lips, I bit down hard to endure it.

That monster—probably what the game referred to as a Phantom—was a mental lifeform. It was a creature that appeared under certain specific conditions, possessed nearby animals, transformed them, and made them act in accordance with their instincts. That instinct…was probably hunger.

Fortunately, I remembered that【Divine Spear】 was effective against mental lifeforms, so I gripped my staff tightly.

To minimize the recoil, I leaned my back against a tree and quietly finished the incantation before it noticed me. Along with the sensation of a considerable amount of something being drawn from within my body, four spears of light—the maximum power I had channeled to ensure success—appeared. I carefully took aim and unleashed them.

The enemy, who had been engrossed in eating, noticed me at that moment and turned around. My body stiffened at the sight of eyes filled with clear hostility—or perhaps just hunger—but the enemy, having only just realized the spears had been launched, had no way to dodge them. Guided by the heightened concentration born of the fear that “if they miss, I’m next,” the spears struck true without hesitation, and with a scream like “Gyaun!”, the shadow was blown away.
Due to a flaw inherent to mental lifeforms—in the game, they vanish when their MP is completely depleted rather than their HP—it let out a single cry of agony before fading away.

I soothed my trembling body and, after confirming there were no other enemies nearby, walked over to the man lying on the ground to check his injuries…but immediately looked away with a start.
Something hot welled up from the back of my throat, and I couldn’t help but vomit onto the ground beside the man. This time, the strength finally left my knees, and I slumped to the ground.

The contents of his stomach were unnervingly sparse.
A yellow layer was the first thing that caught my eye amid the deep red. Behind it were several clumps of different colors and flesh twitching occasionally—I had only seen it for an instant, but the image was seared into my mind and wouldn’t fade. I’m definitely going to have nightmares about this.
But if I just stayed crouched like this, I wouldn’t be able to save anyone who needed saving. Clutching my staff with trembling hands, driven by my quivering throat and the urgency to act quickly, I managed to stumble through the incantation after several failed attempts.

【Ares Heal】— this healing spell, named after the god of war, was designed to restore a large amount of HP while also restoring physical condition and curing status ailments. But perhaps, in this world, it might even be effective against blood loss.
It seemed my hunch was correct. The wound on the man’s abdomen closed before my eyes, as if time were rewinding, and color began to return to his body, which had been gradually turning pale.

After confirming that the spell had worked, I leaned against my staff to steady myself and catch my breath.
A fierce wave of nausea was still churning in my stomach, but since there was nothing left to vomit, nothing else came up.

“……Huh? I was… Wait, nothing hurts at all!?”

The man in front of me seemed to have woken up and sat up.
Once I confirmed that, the tension I’d been holding onto—born of the anxiety of my first battle and the relief of having made it in time—snapped. I slumped down, sliding off the staff that had been supporting me, and lost consciousness—……

***

Iris-chan’s first battle in another world. Since she’s a shut-in from a peaceful country, I’m sure this was actually on the milder side.