Leveling Up By Surviving Alone - L.U.B.S.A Chapter 3
&3
The first thing to do was to check his surroundings and take stock of what he had.
Naturally, his tent was intact. All the gear he’d left scattered around it was safe as well. He hadn’t noticed earlier, but the ground around the tent was a different color compared to the rest. It was as though a 10-meter radius of land, with the tent at its center, had been pulled into the rift all at once.
“Thank goodness,” he murmured.
He began by examining his supplies. He was wearing his hunting suit and carrying ten throwing knives, which comprised his primary weapon set, since he’d been a ranged dealer. He didn’t really have anything else.
He could almost hear the voice of the tanker guy he used to work with:
> “Hey. You hardly do anything anyway, so store some of this stuff. You’ve got the extra capacity, right? What’s that? Seasoning box? Cooking tools… a sleeping bag? A mini tent…? Are you out of your mind? Did you come here to go camping or something? Ugh… you can’t even serve as a pack mule properly. Where am I supposed to use you, huh?!”
“That was exactly what started our fight,” Ji Yeonwoo muttered.
Thinking about it, maybe if he hadn’t snapped back at that jerk who’d mocked his gear, he wouldn’t have ended up here. After all, by Hunter standards, his gear truly was sparse. But aside from weapons, he did have plenty of other items: a tent wide enough for two adults to sleep in, a sleeping bag made from “lightning goose” down, a lantern, strong rope, a fire steel, and so on—all the things you’d want for surviving in a place like this.
He also had enough food to last at least three days. There was still most of a bundle of green onions, a single ginger, two bulbs of garlic still inside their skins, plus three bananas, three oranges, and 150 grams of watermelon cubes in a small square container—leftover fruit he’d planned to eat as dessert. There were even two unopened 1.5-liter bottles of water (he’d bought them in a 2+1 deal), and just looking at them made him smile. Between those and five packs each of ramen and instant rice, he figured he could last at least five days if need be.
Of course, there was one thing he probably wouldn’t need: half a bottle of soju. Normally, soju was for occasional sipping when in a good mood. But now, he was stranded.
Would he ever want to drink again in a situation like this?
“Someday I will!” he decided.
He dug a hole and carefully buried the soju. He also buried his small bag of shrimp crackers—about the size of his palm—right beside it. He told himself that, if he ever made it out of here, he’d unearth it and enjoy it as a celebration.
Come to think of it, he was lucky. Had he come up the mountain unprepared, he’d already be starving. Instead, having spent a bit of money, he was at least in a decent spot—if one could call being stranded in another dimension “decent.”
(Though, if he hadn’t been so determined to save money by going to the Taebaek Mountains in the first place, none of this would have happened… but let’s ignore such useless details for now.)
*Grrrrumble…*
He’d woken up with an empty stomach, and now ten hours had passed, so of course he was hungry. He looked for something to eat. He had ramen and instant rice, but he chose to start with fruit.
“Gotta eat what’ll go bad first,” he reasoned.
So he devoured three bananas, three oranges, and the 150 grams of diced watermelon. They weren’t high in calories, so there was no need to ration them out. The ripe bananas were soft to the bite, while the oranges filled his mouth with a sweet-sour tang. The watermelon, despite not being chilled, was surprisingly sweet and satisfying.
He didn’t just chow down mindlessly, though. Every time he ate a piece of watermelon, he saved any seeds that looked healthy. He did the same with the orange seeds. As for bananas, he only ate two out of the three, then buried the uneaten one alongside the orange and watermelon seeds in the ground. He did the same for the whole green onion, ginger, peppers, and garlic bulbs he’d purchased—he planted them.
Of course, he wasn’t crazy enough to plant them in the sand by the shore. He did it in that circular patch of solid ground within a 10-meter radius around the tent, which remained a different color amidst the white sand. It was clear that when the rift pulled him and his tent over here, it had brought that chunk of soil as well.
He only had two bottles of water left, but he didn’t mind sparing some to water his newly planted “crops.” If even one of them grew properly, it could become a future food source. He gave a little extra to the green onions and the watermelon patch, glancing around to see if the other plants would “judge” him for playing favorites.
Among what he jokingly called the “fruit squad,” watermelon seemed the most promising, and among the “vegetable squad,” green onions had potential.
“Grow big, alright? I’m counting on you,” he said, then gulped down some water himself. By then, he’d used up an entire 1.5-liter bottle. Of the original three bottles, he’d already gone through two, leaving him just one remaining.
“This is the sea,” he muttered. “I can’t just go looking for fresh water somewhere else.”
But he decided to leave tomorrow’s problems to tomorrow.
“It’s getting cold again,” he noted as the sun went down.
He wasn’t too worried, though. He had a sturdy tent and a sleeping bag. Still, there was one nagging concern:
*What if monsters show up?*
This was a rift, and there was no telling what creatures might appear. So he decided not to take off his hunting suit. He only half-zipped his sleeping bag so he could react quickly if he needed to. Feeling the cold steel of the knife strapped to his thigh, he drifted off to sleep, ready to pull it out and fight back at a moment’s notice.
*I guess I’ll just have to make do with catnaps,* he thought.
It would be tiring, but that was the fate of a stranger in a strange land.
*Kkuhrr…*
The giant moon sank in the sky, and a giant sun rose. Thus ended his first day stranded in a rift, in peace.
> **- You have successfully survived the first day (1/7)**
Of course, Ji Yeonwoo was asleep and didn’t hear that announcement.
—
Some time later:
“Hup!”
He jerked awake, springing to his feet with a start. He held a hunting knife in a reverse grip, ready for any threat. After confirming that nothing was out there, he relaxed. When had he even drifted off? He glanced at his lightning goose down sleeping bag.
“That thing’s a real piece of work… seriously.”
Outside, the sun was high in the sky. He could hear gentle waves breaking on the beach. If he’d come here on vacation, this place would be perfect. But for him, this was a never-ending survival game with no clear end in sight.
“First, let’s secure some drinking water.”
This was the sea—he couldn’t drink saltwater. But Ji Yeonwoo knew a method to turn it into fresh water.
*Splish!*
He took his empty plastic bottles down to the beach and filled them with seawater. His plan was to distill it into drinkable water.
He recalled a memory of his father teaching him:
> **“Yeonwoo, watch this. You dig a pit in the ground and line it with plastic. Pour in saltwater, then cover it so the vapor stays in. Put a small stone on top so the condensation collects and drips down into a container in the center. It’ll take advantage of the sun’s heat. That’s what we can drink.”**
> **“Wow, that’s so cool!”**
> **“Heheheh.”**
> **“But how long does it take?”**
> **“Hmm… if the sun’s strong, maybe four hours? Otherwise eight?”**
> **“…Couldn’t we just go buy water at a convenience store? I’m thirsty…”**
> **“Can’t you wait a few hours? …No, I guess not.”**
> **“No!”**
In the end, his father had still bought him bottled water, but he’d stubbornly insisted on drinking the solar-distilled water himself, acting all excited about it. That was twenty years ago, when young Ji Yeonwoo had turned his nose up at the “dirty” makeshift water. Now here he was, about to do the same thing, praying he could drink whatever he gathered.
Ji Yeonwoo flopped down on the sand, not because he’d given up already but because he needed to use his hunting suit’s special feature. His hunting suit had reinforced armor plates to protect vital areas from monster attacks. One of the largest, thickest plates was the triangular back-plate to protect his spine. Incidentally, that same plate could also be detached and used as a shovel.
He shifted his body left, then downward, then right, in a series of twists. Anyone watching might have thought he was doing some weird dance, but finally, with a *click*, the back-plate came free. Sure enough, it looked just like a shovel head, complete with a fold-out handle inside.
*Thud! Thud, thud! Thud!*
He shoveled into the sandy beach. Even without military experience, he was adept at digging, since burying monster corpses on hunts was a frequent chore. Often it fell to whoever was deemed “least crucial” for direct combat, which was usually him. As a result, he was pretty good with a shovel and made quick work of digging a decent-sized pit.
If he just poured seawater in, it would seep right out again. He needed something watertight, like plastic. Good thing he’d brought along 40-liter garbage bags to avoid littering in the Taebaek Mountains. Had he chosen not to buy that bulk pack (he only needed one, but the supermarket sold them in packs of five), he wouldn’t be able to attempt this at all.
“Guess living responsibly does pay off!” he laughed.
He cut one of the 40-liter bags in half: one piece to line the pit, another piece to serve as a “ceiling.” He poured in the seawater, put a cooking pot in the center, and used a hunting knife as a weight to keep it from floating. Then he covered the pit, sealed it off, and placed a small stone in the exact center so the plastic sagged above the pot. As sunlight heated the saltwater, the vapor would collect on the plastic “ceiling” and drip into the pot.
The sun here was bigger than on Earth—so bright it was almost painful on the skin. It was bad for him but ideal for evaporating water. Since he still had two more garbage bags and a few more pots, he simply repeated the process two more times.
After finishing these three solar stills, Ji Yeonwoo scanned the area. Maybe he’d missed something yesterday that could help him survive. The beach itself was roughly the size of a school sports field. Behind it rose a towering cliff. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any noticeable vegetation around—just some shade where the cliff created a slight overhang. The ground by the cliff wasn’t sandy, so he scooped up a handful of dirt and rubbed it between his fingers.
It felt slightly damp.
“There might be an underground water source,” he said, thinking he could try digging for it later.
Evening arrived.
…
He checked on his three pits. Condensation had built up beneath the plastic, and he carefully tipped it so it dripped into the pots. Doing this for all three pits, he managed to fill his 1.5-liter bottle to about 70% capacity—roughly a liter of water total. That was a triumph.
He didn’t worry about whether it was safe to drink. He figured vapor-distilled water should be fine; and if not, well, he’d die anyway. The water was lukewarm, but—
“Ahhh,” he sighed contentedly after taking a swig.
It tasted neutral, with no hint of saltiness or any other off-flavor. Encouraged, Ji Yeonwoo decided to share some with his “fruit squad” and “vegetable squad.” Of course, none of the seeds in the soil were even close to sprouting yet.
“Well, no plant grows in a single day,” he said with a shrug.
*Grrrrowl.*
Time to reward himself with a meal. Luckily, he had ramen, instant rice, and now fresh water to boil them with. Eagerly anticipating dinner, Ji Yeonwoo headed back to his tent with a spring in his step.
That slight bounce in his gait proved costly.
*Thud!*
He tripped over something.
“…What in the world?” he grumbled, turning around in annoyance. His face twisted.
“What… is that supposed to be…?”
There was indeed a plant that had grown in just one day—something he definitely hadn’t planted. And it was a type he never could have expected.