My front door leads to a comic strip

excruciating pain.

This was the only presence that Gu Yuan could perceive when he regained consciousness.

It was as if someone had taken his bones apart and put them back together.

He tried to open his eyes, but they felt like they were made of lead. He struggled four or five times before he could barely open them a crack.

—Stars.

This is the first thing that catches the eye.

On the dark blue sky, countless stars spread out to the horizon like a dense carpet of sand.

Gu Yuan vaguely recalled the Milky Way he had seen in his rural hometown when he was a child, but the starry sky here was even more... unreal.

He had never seen the arrangement of some constellations in an astronomical atlas.

"Well……"

He tried to speak, but could only manage breathy sounds. As his consciousness gradually returned, the pain became increasingly intense.

The crackling sound of a campfire came from not far away, and Gu Yuan tried to turn his head.

When a ball of orange-red flame comes into view, memories begin to piece together.

That tiger—no, not an ordinary tiger, but a monster with spiraling horns on its forehead.

The sensation of being knocked away the moment the crossbow struck its left eye...

"I should die..." This realization instantly brought Gu Yuan to his senses, and cold sweat seeped from his back.

Being thrown from a height of several meters, one's spine should break like a dead branch.

He tried moving his toes—thankfully, his toes responded.

At that moment, he noticed the bandages wrapped all over his body.

"woke up?"

A cool female voice drifted from not far away, and Gu Yuan instantly snapped back to reality, recognizing the owner of the voice.

The figure sitting on the fallen log was shrouded in the firelight, with a pair of fair, pointed ears appearing and disappearing in the shadows.

When the other person bent down to tend the firewood, Gu Yuan got a clear look at that face.

Elf. This word, which I'd only ever seen in fantasy novels, popped into my mind.

He seemed to notice Gu Yuan's gaze.

She raised the crossbow beside her, made a trigger-pulling motion, and then pointed it at the shadows on the other side of the campfire.

Gu Yuan squinted and saw the enormous corpse of the horned tiger lying there.

Although it was unclear why only half of it remained, a crossbow bolt was stuck in its throat.

"I see……"

Gu Yuan smiled bitterly to himself. His weapon had ultimately become the key to killing the monster, and the elf had saved him.

But why?

As if in response to his question, the elf suddenly spoke a string of beautiful syllables.

Gu Yuan blinked blankly, and the other person frowned and changed their approach again.

After four attempts, a sudden realization flashed in the elf's eyes.

—A stranger. No wonder I've never seen this hair color before. The pupils are the same too.

Gu Yuan suddenly remembered something and desperately gestured with his eyes to his left.

He just saw his backpack.

Although his phone was bound to break and become unusable, he had brought a spare phone with him just in case.

It's alright if it flies out; he took protective measures, so hopefully it can still be used.

……

A moment later, the elf returned carrying a backpack.

She sat cross-legged next to Gu Yuan, taking out the items one by one: a waterproof flashlight, a multi-functional military knife, a first-aid kit...

Everything made her look confused.

When Gu Yuan found the black device, about the size of a cell phone, he exclaimed "Ah!" urgently.

The screen was shattered into a spiderweb pattern, but when the sprite pressed the side button as Gu Yuan instructed, a dim blue light still appeared.

Gu Yuan let out a long sigh and laboriously tapped the screen with his left hand.

He mouthed, "Say something."

Then wait for a reply.

The elf hesitated for a moment, then spoke a sentence into the device.

"Miliarde," she said, pointing to her chest, "my name."

"Gu Yuan," he replied after taking a deep breath.

"The sap from a horned tiger can heal fatal wounds." Miliald pointed to the dead beast's forehead. "I used the sap to save you."

Gu Yuan looked at the spiral-shaped horn, its tip now neatly cut off, with amber-colored crystals remaining at the cut surface.

Seeing this, he breathed a sigh of relief; so that's how it is.

"You're strange." Milie Alde suddenly leaned closer, her nose almost touching his face.

"I've never seen these clothes before, this skin color, this hair color."

She reached out and picked up a strand of Gu Yuan's hair.

It was rubbed clean... no, too clean.

At this distance, Gu Yuan could even smell the scent of pine needles mixed with some kind of cool fragrance emanating from her.

"Where are you from? And what is that weapon?"

He noticed two tiny moles under the elf's left eye—it might just be an illusion.

Despite Milie Alde's barrage of questions, Gu Yuan had no interest in answering them.

The dizziness from excessive blood loss returned, his eyelids became heavy, and the edges of his vision began to darken.

In the final moments before darkness fell, he heard the translator's intermittent output:

"Asleep... Never mind."

"In that case, see you tomorrow."

……

When the excruciating pain roused Gu Yuan once more, it was already broad daylight.

Morning dew dripped down the grass beside his ear, and he found himself moved to the embers of a campfire, covered with some kind of animal fur.

He tried moving his fingers and was surprised to find that he had regained feeling in his right arm.

Then he noticed something was wrong—he heard even breathing coming from his left.

Gu Yuan turned his head stiffly. Millie Alde was lying beside him, her silver-white hair spread out on her fur.

Her cheek was almost touching his, and her elfin eyelashes were nearly transparent in the morning light.

Too close...too close.

Gu Yuan could even feel her breath.

In that instant, he quickly turned his face to the side.

My heart started pounding.

Gu Yuan wasn't sure if it was because of fright or something else.

"Well……"

Millie Alde awoke, a languid groan escaping her nostrils, like a feline stretching.

She propped herself up from the ground and first rubbed her disheveled hair—she had drunk too much yesterday and was still hungover.

Then, she turned her hazy and languid eyes to look at Gu Yuan beside her.

Seeing that she seemed to be avoiding her, a faint smile appeared on her lips:

"You're awake."

Millie Alde suddenly leaned closer, and Gu Yuan smelled an even stronger, cool fragrance.

She gently twirled the bandages on Gu Yuan's body with her fingers.

The bloodstains had long since dried.

"hiss……"

"Great, you're recovering very well. You should be fully recovered in about a week of rest."

Gu Yuan gasped for breath, his eyes widening slightly upon hearing the number.

The ambiguous atmosphere I had been feeling suddenly disappeared.

Instead, there was a strong sense of surprise and relief.

A week?

How could such a fatal injury heal in just one week?

This world...

Turn your head.

She met Milield's scrutinizing eyes.

Noticing Gu Yuan's incredulous gaze, she smiled slightly.

The smile should have looked particularly incongruous on her indifferent face, but at this moment it seemed exceptionally comforting.

She reached up and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, her gaze fixed on the horned tiger's corpse in the thin mist, her tone calm and elegant:

"Don't be surprised, because this is a monster."

"A very small percentage will drop materials after death."

"You should continue to rest. We'll set off again in a week."