Chapter 1 - Initiallizing

"Good luck, Kyung Min" Was the last thing Kyung Min remembered as he woke up from a strange lucid dream. As he slowly opened his eyes, he felt a cool breeze on his face and his back was strangely damp and numb. As he slowly lifed his body up and looked down, he found he was still in his pajamas and was lying down on a damp patch of dirt with his familiar bed nowhere to be seen. He habitually moved his hands around looking for his glasses that he wore for most of his 26 year life but quickly realized he could see clearly without them. Bewildered, he was finally snapped awake from his stupor and slowly stood up to take a look around.

"What the hell? Where am I? What is going on here?"

It was dark and humid around him, and when he looked up, he saw a humungous dark red tree that looked like it could be more than 30 stories tall and realized he was lying down under its huge shade. He was standing in a small clearing surrounded by those trees with large exotic looking colorful plants nearly as tall as he was. He was in some kind tropical jungle and even with his lack of knowledge in plant biology Hunter realized he was not on earth; or at least anywhere on earth he was aware of. On the ground on his left, he saw a conspicuous looking metallic grey box the size of a mini drink fridge with a strange glass window completely looking out of place in a jungle.

Realizing he was in a strange unknown place barefoot and in his pajamas, Kyungmin suddenly felt a shiver up his spine when he started to hear all the foriegn sounds from unknown animals around him and jumped when he heard a strange feminine mechanical voice speaking in what sounded like giberish in his head.

'Initiallizing........ Welcome user - my model number is GLADT-100020. I am your assigned support AI, How may I be of assistance?'

"Uhhh....What the fuck?"

'Registering command 'what the fuck' - detected language - Earth English - changing system language to 'english' - From your tone user, you seem to be disoriented from waking up from teleportation induced shock. My name is - GLADT-100020 - or - GLADIUS - Terraforming AI from Terra corp assigned to aid new habitants on planet #145012 on orders [classifed not enough clearance]. How may I be of assistance?'

"Where the hell am I and what kind of scifi bs is this? Teleportation, you mean this is not earth? You must be messing with me right?"

'Again user you are on planet #145012 on mission [classified not enough clearance]. What would you like me to call you by user?'

"My name is Ky - , wait a minute hold on. My name is Hunter...... Yeah my name is Hunter"

Realizing he had no idea what was going on, Kyung Min was not willing to answer with his real name to an unknown entity seemingly talking to him in his head. Since the talking voice decided to speak in English, to better hide his identity, Kyung Min decided to come up with a random english name. It was strange for a Korean to be named Hunter, but Kyung Min knew he was always horrible at names so he decided to just roll with it for now. He knew he was overreacting by suddenly going with a new alias but it never hurt to be careful; who knew if it was some alien entity probing his head to find out more about him. He could be abducted by some aliens to study humans behaviour and he was not going to willingly comply.

'Confirmed user name 'Hunter'- I detect that your temperature is starting to drop - I suggest you find a shelter and start a fire immediately'

"Yeah, I guess thats fair. Wait, where the hell are you to talking to me from?'

'I am installed on a biochip in your cerebellum Hunter'

Hearing this, Hunter started panicking inwardly 'Oh shit, I really am in some kind of alien experiment on an alien planet. Last thing I remember yesterday was downing some beer with fried chicken and passing out as usual in my room, what the hell is going on?'

As he brushed his hands around his neck in nervous frustration, he suddenly noticed his neck felt thinner and harder. Feeling something was not right, he looked down to check his body and realized his beer gut from not having much needed excersise was gone and his body was way more in shape; much more in fact, since he was never this fit even during his military service as a tank gunner.

'What the hell, of course they won't just mess with my brain and leave my body alone. They went with the full course and put me in a brand new body! I am not sure, but the ground seems further away too, did they somehow make me taller?'

Deciding to let it go for now, it was time to find some wood for a fire. It was dawn and he was starting to lose a lot of body heat from his damp clothes. Not knowing what kind of valuables were in the box which he assumed the aliens prepared for him, he picked it up to take it with him and found it was surpisingly light. Either the sci-fi box was light or he was considerably stronger now. Carefully walking around the clearing barefoot, he found some sticks but realized that he had no way to start a fire.

' What do I do now?'

'Hunter, that rock over there is flammable when you break it up'

"What? Like magnesium? I don't have a fire steel and a knife though"

'With the material and energy saved on the printer I can print x1 standard terra pattern nano-steel composite combat knife'

"What? You are telling me I am holding a 3D printer?"

'Confirmed Hunter. That was what you requested along with me when you were given this mission.'

"What mission ? ... nevermind, just print me this damn knife, I am freezing here."

'Printing.......' As the box started making the familiar laser printer sound, Hunter placed the machine down on the ground to let it do its job. After a minute he could see a sillouette of a suspiciously familiar looking Kabar sized knife slowly appearing out of nowhere through the glass of the side.

'Woah, that is wicked'

Forgetting his situation, Hunter was mesmerized by the uniform sounds of the printer slowly materiallizing a combat knife out of thin air and after 3 minutes, he had his knife. The full tang combat knife was lighter than it looked and was made out of somekind of greyish alloy that was nothing like he was familiar with and when he tried to do the standard sharpness test by shaving his arm hair, he damn near sliced his forearm open. He decided to be extra careful with the knife and he went to work and broke up the strange alien rock with the pommel of his knife over the small twig pile and finally started his little fire by striking his knife on another rock the AI pointed out.

As Hunter started to warm his body up, he suddenly heard a feminine yell in the distance. Kicking dirt over his fire to quickly put it out, he grabbed his knife and ran towards the direction of the yell. Then, Hunter remembered how exposed and vulnerable he was with only his pajamas on and stopped. He then heard the stranger agin, this time a scream, so Hunter steeled his nerves up and started to jog towards the direction of the scream as quietly as possible. After a couple of minutes he finally came into another clearing just like the one he was in, and Hunter had to stop himself from gasping out loud when he saw a stranger holding a spear, facing against what looked to be a larger more sinister version of earth's jaguar.

The stranger was breathing hard and was bleeding from her abdomen where she had a nasty gash with blood pouring out. The woman of asian decent looked to be in her early twenties and was wearing an out of place looking casual office wear with torn stocking and no shoes. The spear or staff she was holding was comically large compared to her stature and was completely green without a visible blade. On a closer inspection the green stick had what appeared to be magical runes engraved, which were slowly flashing on and off.

'So this is a magical world huh, what the hell is with this setting. Artificial intelligence within a magical fantasy world? What should I do? That Jaguar is gonna maul the shit out of her.'

While Hunter was in a panic, think about a way to help the woman out, the jaguar lost its patience first in the staring contest and finally pounced. With the runes on the staff brimming with light, the woman retaliated by slashing across at lightening speed with a shrill yelp while dodging out of the jaguar's way. It all ended in the blink of an eye and Hunter could not believe his eyes when the Jaguar looking thing was almost bisected in half by the woman who did not even look to weigh 45kg (100lb) dry.

Seeing that the exhausted woman was fine besides the single non-fatal looking wound and some small scratches, Hunter started to go into the clearing to speak to her and maybe help out if he could.

"Hey there...."

Before he could catch her attention and awkardly say hello, Hunter heard a terrifying roar from the forest behind the woman. Before he could even blink or scream at her to look behind to give a warning, the woman's neck was lifed up into the jaws of the largest bear, Hunter has even seen in his life and half of her upper torso was torn in half with a sickening pop. Hunter was horrified to see her head lifelessly dangling from her body with a piece of skin and what remained of her spine and he immediately turned and started running towards the clearing he woke up in, in absolute panic.