"Back to work!" yelled the excavation boss.
Everyone got up from their so-called "beds" — basically pieces of cloth tossed on the dirt floor — and shuffled off to whatever miserable task they had for the day.
I tried to stand, but the pain was so overwhelming I had to be dragged to my station by two other orcs. Due to my absolutely wrecked physical condition, I was assigned the easiest job: stacking corpses.
At least for today.
Over the last two days since I reincarnated into this grotesque thing, I'd had so many panic attacks and anxiety spirals that I basically spent most of the time passed out.
Don't judge me — it's not every day you go from a luxurious life in one world to waking up in the body of a green, ugly abomination because some sadistic god thought it'd be funny.
And God, was I ugly.
I had reincarnated as a half-human, half-orc.
How did I know that?
Well, while I was hauling strange, half-rotted bodies from the mines and tossing them into a pit of fire — with great difficulty and incredible pain — a weird screen appeared in front of me, telling me I had gained a level in physical strength.
| ATTRIBUTES |
Strength: 3 → 4
Dexterity: 5
Constitution: 6
Perception: 8
Intelligence: 10
My strength increased from 3 to 4, whatever the hell that meant. I looked around, cleared my dry throat, and asked with my gravelly, awful voice:
"Can… can anyone else see this?"
I sounded like a rock gargling broken glass.
"See what, Noodle Hands?" asked a goblin next to me.
Yeah. That was the nickname they gave me: Noodle Hands.
Because I couldn't hold a pickaxe properly. Not that it was heavy — I was just too damn weak to carry it for more than a few seconds.
Since I was forced to walk around with the thing all day anyway, I ended up tying it to my back with a rope like some sad makeshift backpack.
"This screen… the one telling me my strength… You guys really don't see it?"
"Hey, guys! Noodle Hands is hallucinating again! Someone get ready to catch him when he faints! Kyakyakyakya!"
"Noodle Hands!" shouted one of the task supervisors. "If you pull that crap one more time, I swear I'll throw you in the fire! Or better yet — I'll eat you piece by piece!"
He raised the whip in his hand like he meant it, but didn't strike.
Last time he did, I really did collapse.
I just nodded in obedience and went back to tossing monster corpses into the fire. In silence, I studied that weird screen.
The first window showed my name — or rather, the idiotic nickname I'd been given — a weird negative level I couldn't make sense of, and my rank. Which, by the way, confirmed exactly where I was.
| NAME: Dante
| TITLE: Noodle Hands
| LEVEL: -1
| RANK: Subterranean (Social Class: Bottom Tier)
| RACE: Orc/Human (Social Class: Bottom Tier)
So yeah — I was a half-orc.
That explained the beastly appearance, but with a slightly familiar — almost human — face.
Compared to the other walking vomit piles around me, I was arguably the best-looking.
Relatively speaking.
Still had a huge head, short neck, and a face like a dropped potato. I was green. And that alone felt like a permanent state of nausea.
Looking in a mirror was like watching myself trying to throw up from existence.
Back then, I had no idea being half-human would be a problem.
At that moment, I was more focused on something else the system told me:
I was underground.
It made sense, in hindsight.
I thought I'd just spawned in some basic cave near the surface, but the hole went deeper than I imagined.
Since arriving, I hadn't seen daylight once. And now I knew why:
There was no daylight to be seen.
| ABILITIES |
[Inverted Arcana: Rune Extraction] [Lv.1]
→ Absorb latent magical residue from the environment using basic catalysts.
[Trash-tier Improviser] [Passive]
→ Bonus when crafting runes, traps, or magical effects using junk or unconventional materials.
[Survival Instinct] [Passive]
→ Small chance to detect hidden dangers before they happen.
I thought those abilities were ridiculous.
They just felt like common sense.
Like seriously — Survival Instinct? In this death trap of a world, everything was a danger. You didn't need special powers to feel like you were about to die.
| STATUS |
Health Points (HP): 43 / 70
Stamina: 29 / 40
| CONDITIONS |
[Malnourished] – Constitution reduced (-1)
[Locally Hated] – Social penalty when interacting with nearby inhabitants
[Quiet Determination] – Increased resistance to humiliation or emotional manipulation
Wait. Village?
There's a village nearby?
Apparently, yeah.
The system said there was a village somewhere — which meant I must've been stuck under it this whole time.
It really was an interesting system. It told me exactly how I felt, like some kind of extremely detailed emotional diagnostic.
Not that I needed a glowing screen to tell me the obvious — I knew how I felt. I was living it.
But then something on that screen actually surprised me.
| EQUIPMENT |
[Broken Pickaxe] – Can be used as an improvised weapon or a crude scoria-channeling tool.[Crystallized Coal Chunk] – Stores up to 2 charges of residual energy.
[Old Cloth Bag] – Holds up to 4 small items or magical catalysts.
Inside my bag there really was a strange chunk of... something I couldn't identify. It had been with me the whole time. Apparently, this energy meant something important.Or not. Who knew.
I figured I'd have to study more about all this. And it's not like there was a library nearby, or anyone with enough of a sense of humor to explain what "residual energy" even was.Maybe they didn't even know it existed.
I kept stacking corpses into the furnace for at least another four hours. With great difficulty, of course. Eventually, someone called for lunch.
"FOOD TIME!" screamed the head boss of that damned place.
We were all herded into a separate area. It looked like a massive canteen carved into the cave, but the "tables" and "chairs" were all jagged natural stone.There wasn't enough seating, so most of us had to eat sitting on the floor.
And the food?
Worms.
They served me a bowl of live worms. Still wriggling.It looked… nutritious, I guess. Would definitely explain why none of us had dropped dead yet — insects tend to be high in protein.But what I needed was calories, not just squirmy nutrients.
Against my will, I had to eat worms just to stay alive.
And let me tell you — eating live worms is one of the worst sensations on Earth.They squirm in your mouth while you're still chewing them.
| STATUS |
Health Points (HP): 43 → 49 / 70
Stamina: 32 / 40
At least I recovered a few points. That meant my body was stabilizing.That was good. I needed to get better if I had any hope of escaping this hellhole.
During our little food break, I noticed something strange: no one wanted to sit near me.Not that I cared — to be honest, I didn't want to be near them either.
But what I didn't realize back then was that their distance had nothing to do with preference.It had everything to do with the fact that I was half-human.
"Hey! Ugly freak!" one of those creatures shouted at me. "Why don't you die?! More food for us!"
His little group of friends — just as hideous as he was — burst into laughter.
"I'll sleep with your mother," I replied flatly.Yo mama jokes tend to work in most cultures.
They only laughed harder.
"Mother? We got no mothers!"
"Yeah! We born from dirt!"
"Unlike you," said one with an irritatingly high voice. "You're filth. You don't belong here — or up there. Dirty mutt."
Ah. So that's the issue.Mixed blood, huh?
Not accepted by either side. Not orc, not human.Even in a magical world, racism finds a way.
"So you guys were born from the earth?" I asked.
"Yeah! You idiot!" they yelled back — and laughed like it was the best joke in the world.
"So that makes you nothing but worms," I said, right as I dropped another one of those disgusting wriggling bastards into my mouth, chewing it with the most exaggerated expression I could muster.I was definitely making an even uglier face than usual. "Damn worms, straight from the dirt."
They stopped laughing.
"What did you just call us?"
"I think he called us worms!"
"Yes," I said. "That's exactly what I said. You're worms."
"You little—!"
And before I could blink, they lunged at me.I wasn't expecting that. They were faster than I thought — unpredictable little creeps.
I didn't have much time to think. I hadn't figured they'd get that aggressive. With the pickaxe still strapped to my back, I just grabbed it and held it out in front of me — like that was going to help.
The nasty goblin that leapt at me impaled his own face on the tip of the pickaxe… and died.
His head exploded.Green goo splattered everywhere.
It was one of the worst things that had ever happened to me.The impact of his body hitting my pickaxe knocked me flat on my back. I couldn't believe it — I hadn't even swung the damn thing. The goblin literally killed himself by launching into it. I barely did anything.
Then, as the shock settled into silence, a new screen popped up in front of me.
| LEVEL UP |
| LEVEL: -1 → 1 |
| CONGRATULATIONS! |
Normally, I'd be happy to be congratulated for something.
But right then?
The goblins were not feeling very congratulatory.
"Murderer! Murderer!"
They started screaming and rushing at me.
Instant chaos.
But goblins are... goblins.
So naturally, they started fighting each other for reasons only goblins understand.
And somehow, chaos saved me.
At least for a while.
"Noodle Hands!" It was the boss. The head orc of this wretched pit. Big, loud, and tall enough to see over the chaos like a tower of muscle and hate. "Where are you, you little bastard?!"
He spotted me. Snorted.
Grabbed me by the collar of my rags and hurled me across the room like a sack of rotten potatoes.
"You piece of shit!"
I hit the wall hard and slid down to the ground like a damp rag.
| STATUS |
Health Points (HP): 49 → 39 / 70
I lost ten points just from that?!
"Slaves!" the boss roared, and his voice alone was enough to freeze the entire room.
He pointed directly at me and growled: "Time for dessert!"
I didn't wait.
I forced myself up — everything hurt — and ran.
Anywhere. Any direction.
"He is running!"
"Get him!"
"Fresh meat!"
I could feel the ground shaking behind me as the mob gave chase.
In that moment, only one thought echoed through my head:
How the hell am I supposed to outrun a stampede of goblins?