System 002

Karen had crossed over into this world three days ago, and by now, he had a rough understanding of its workings. First and foremost, this world bore some resemblance to the Western medieval era of his previous life. The difference, however, was that this world teemed with magical beasts, goblins, orcs, dwarves, and all manner of exotic races.

Of course, Karen had yet to witness any of these with his own eyes; all his knowledge came from the memories of his body’s former owner and the tales told by that girl, Nieve. The reason she knew so much, aside from the proximity of the Goblin Forest to their village, lay in the simple truth that in this world, humanity was not the dominant race.

It was the orcs, elves, dragons, and other such races who held true power, while humans were among the weakest, consigned to the exploited classes of this realm.

The strong had the right to erase the traces of the weak; the weak could only survive in the shadows of the strong.

Naturally, for Karen as he was now, the hardships of human existence were concerns for the distant future. His immediate priority was to solve his own survival issues—and to deal with the so-called “golden finger” he had been blessed with.

For his daily needs, Karen planned to hunt for food. This wasn’t some wild fantasy: though he had been a shut-in and overweight in his previous life, he had nonetheless taken a keen interest in hunting. Of course, he knew that with his rotund physique, relying on skill alone was not realistic.

He was self-aware enough to spend countless hours online learning about hunting traps. Unfortunately, the world he’d come from was one where even accidentally shooting a sparrow could land you in court. So, despite all his hunting expertise, he’d never found a place to use it—until now. In this new world, his knowledge would finally serve a purpose.

With these traps, Karen believed he had a decent chance of securing his livelihood here.

And so, his attention also turned to activating his “golden finger,” for this, truly, would be his lifeline in this strange new world.

Karen’s golden finger was a system—a Territory System.

As to what this Territory System could actually do, Karen was still in the dark, for he had not yet fully activated it.

Even so, the unactivated system wasn’t entirely useless; at the very least, Karen could view his own attributes and the requirements to activate the system.

…

Karen (Wu Qi)

Age: 16

Race: Human

Strength: Tier 0 (Trash) (00/10)

Skills: None

…

Territory Panel (Unactivated)

Activation Condition: Personally construct a cemetery (requires burial of at least ten Tier 0 corpses)

…

This was all Karen could currently see regarding his own and the territory’s attributes.

From the activation conditions alone, Karen could already guess what company he might be keeping in the future.

If he had a choice, he would never willingly consort with the undead. However, a system was not a bargain-bin item you could haggle over, and Karen had no room for negotiation. All he could do was accept his lot.

“Sigh, let’s test out those traps first. If they work, at least I won’t have to worry about food for now. If not, I’ll have to look for odd jobs in the village. As for the territory panel’s task… I wonder if beast corpses will count. If so, that’d be ideal. If not…”

Here, Karen paused, leaving the thought unfinished. Truthfully, he knew of a simpler way to fulfill the task, but in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to go through with it. He couldn’t even bear to count it among his hypothetical options; after all, his mindset hadn’t fully adapted to this new world yet.

“If worst comes to worst, I’ll think about it then. For now, I’d better focus on hunting!”

With that, Karen busied himself at the edge of the Goblin Forest.

He didn’t know much about the forest, but he did recall that every time he mentioned the place to the little girl, her face would pale with terror. Coupled with the villagers’ aversion to the forest, as if it were a nest of vipers, Karen surmised it was no benign place—perhaps goblins truly did dwell within, as legend suggested.

So, Karen wasn’t foolish enough to charge straight into the depths on his first outing. Instead, he set small traps along the forest’s outskirts, designed for catching small animals.

If all went well, small game would be enough to sustain him. As for larger traps, while his theoretical knowledge was sound, his practical skills left much to be desired. Best to set those aside for now.

As it turned out, this was a wise choice.

The combination of a lazy, gluttonous shut-in’s former life and his current frail, slender body meant Karen’s hands-on skills were sorely lacking. It took him an entire day just to set up three small hunting traps.

Yet Karen’s luck seemed to hold. As he finished the third trap, a system prompt chimed in his ears:

[Ding! Your trap has successfully caught a prey. You have gained 0.5 energy!]

The message was easy enough to understand. “Killing monsters for experience points”—a setup Karen was well used to.

Having grasped the situation, Karen paid little mind to the paltry 0.5 energy. His real attention was on his first successful hunt.

He made his rounds and found his prey in the first trap: a rabbit, weighing about two or three pounds.

Not especially plump, but for Karen at this moment, it was a fine catch.

Elated, he picked up the rabbit, reset the trap, and seeing that it was getting late, decided to head home with his prize, whistling all the way.

However, it seemed his luck had run out after the rabbit. As he reached the village entrance with his catch, he ran into the one person he least wanted to see.

At this moment, the last thing Karen wanted was to face the uncle who had killed this body’s original owner three days ago.

Instead, what he saw was a small figure squatting at the village gate—a little girl who had clearly been waiting there for quite some time. When she saw Karen, her eyes lit up, and she dashed toward him, not even bothering to wipe away her tears, and landed a swift kick on his leg.

“You liar! You said you were just going to chop wood!”

Seeing her tear-stained face, Karen felt a warmth in his heart and was just about to ruffle her hair when the one person he truly dreaded appeared before him.

“Well, well, if it isn’t my heartless nephew—the one who repaid three years of care by raising a hand against his own uncle.”