Thirty-One Days to Die

The tranquillity of it all was the first thing he noticed. No wind, no movement, no sound. For the first time since waking up in this world, he wasn't being hunted, wasn't being tested, wasn't fighting to survive. The nest was a wreck, blood pooled in the shattered wood, soaking into the splinters, thick in the air. Some of it was his. Most of it wasn't.

He was still breathing.

His hands, coated in half-dried blood, pressed against the ruined floor as he pushed himself up. The motion felt smooth, too smooth, no stiffness in his muscles, no pain in his bones. He should have been sore, exhausted, barely able to move after what he had just gone through. But his body felt… fine. More than fine.

It felt new.

That wasn't normal.

He flexed his fingers, rolling his shoulders, feeling out every part of himself. No cracks, no hesitation, no tightness in his joints. His lungs filled effortlessly, his heartbeat is too steady, stronger than it had ever been. There was no leftover ache, no reminder of the damage he had taken, just the quiet hum of a body operating at full capacity—like a machine. And that was the problem.

This body wasn't supposed to be at full capacity.

He remembered what had happened when Berserk wore off. The feeling of his insides rupturing, the sensation of his own blood pouring from every inch of him, the burning agony of a body tearing itself apart from the inside out. His heart had stopped. His body had collapsed. He had died, and yet here he was, whole again.

No. Not whole.

Better.

It felt unnatural.

His body was always healing itself, but this time was different. His insides, the weak, malnourished remnants of the beggar's life, should have come back the way they were. That was how it had always worked before. But something had changed. He wasn't just healed—his body had rebuilt itself differently. It had repaired everything. Not to how it had been, but to how it should have been.

That was why he felt stronger.

He wasn't actually stronger. His muscles weren't bigger, his frame hadn't changed, but inside? His organs, his blood, his bones—everything was finally working the way it was meant to. His body had thrown out every defect, every flaw, and given him back something better.

He wasn't sure what to do with that information yet.

His gaze drifted to the last chick. It was still asleep, oversized and bloated, twitching occasionally in its dreams. It had no idea what had happened. No idea it was alone now. The thought came and went, passing through his mind without settling. He didn't need to kill it. It wasn't a threat. It didn't matter.

The fight was over.

And yet, he didn't feel like it was.

His hands still felt restless, like they were waiting for something to do. His body still carried a lingering energy, a sensation that refused to fade. The battle had ended, but his body didn't seem to realize it yet.

The wind shifted.

It wasn't coming from the nest.

Slowly, Reich looked down.

The Magic Forest stretched below him, its canopy thick and dark, layered with twisting branches and shadows that ran deeper than they should. It looked the same as before, but it wasn't.

It was alive in a different way now.

Something was moving.

He couldn't see them yet, but he could hear them, rustling in the trees, shifting through the undergrowth, careful and deliberate. They weren't just passing through. They weren't just watching.

They knew.

They had heard the fight.

They had felt the moment the Queen of the Sky had fallen.

The balance of this place had changed, and now, something else was coming to see what had taken her place.

Reich's fingers curled slightly, an unconscious reaction, a readiness that hadn't left him yet. He had stayed here too long, focused too much on himself. The nest was too open, too exposed. Whatever was moving down there, it wasn't wandering. It was coming.

And he was still standing in the open.

He exhaled slowly, trying to shake the feeling of lingering adrenaline from his system. His body was healed, stronger than before, but his mind was worn down, stretched too thin after everything that had just happened. He didn't need rest, not physically, but mentally? He needed time. He needed space. He needed to figure out what the hell had just happened to him.

But he wasn't going to get that time here.

○●○

Now that the adrenaline was fading, now that he had a moment of stillness, he finally noticed it.

He was still naked.

From the very beginning, from the moment he woke in this world, he had nothing but his own body. Clothes had burned away, torn apart, left behind in the wreckage of his survival. He had fought like this, killed like this, stood over corpses like this.

It had stopped mattering at some point. He had been too busy surviving, too busy pushing forward to care.

But now, as he looked down at himself, bare and bloodstained, standing atop a ruined nest filled with bones and shattered remains—he cared.

He needed something.

Not just for the sake of comfort, but because the next fight could be different.

He had survived because of Berserk, because of luck, because nothing had required anything beyond raw endurance.

That wouldn't last forever.

His eyes swept across the ruined nest, taking in what had been left behind.

With the mother bird's rampage, much of the nest had been ripped apart, exposing everything she had hoarded. Bones, shattered weapons, rusted pieces of armor, tattered cloth—remnants of past kills, past battles, past lives.

There had to be something useful.

A dull gleam caught his eye.

Half-buried beneath splintered wood, a shield rested in almost perfect condition.

It stood out immediately. Everything else in the nest was worn, broken, weathered by time. This shield? Untouched.

Reich stepped forward and bent down, reaching for it—

And froze.

A hand was still attached to the grip.

Gauntlet and all.

He dropped the shield immediately, stepping back on instinct, the motion so sudden it almost made him laugh. He had ripped through a monster's throat with his own hands, but this? This made him hesitate?

His heartbeat steadied, and after a moment, he stepped forward again.

The hand was long dried, nothing more than bone inside the metal casing of the gauntlet. Whoever this had belonged to had been dead for a long time.

Still, as he bent down again, he hesitated, then muttered a quiet thought in his mind.

"For the fallen." The words left his mouth without meaning. Or maybe they did. He wasn't sure anymore.

Not a prayer. Not really. Just a moment of respect.

He gripped the dead fingers and peeled the gauntlet free. It slid off easily, leaving behind only brittle bones. He placed it aside, then picked up the shield properly.

It felt solid. Sturdy. Maybe even magic. He would have to test it later.

The gauntlet might also be useful, so he tucked it beside him.

Further in the wreckage, something thick and dark caught his eye.

A large patch of animal skin, still intact, folded beneath a mess of shattered bones.

Reich grabbed it and pulled.

The material was surprisingly clean, or at least not rotting, which was better than most things here. He ran a hand over the fur, inspecting it for anything that would make it unusable.

Good enough.

He wrapped it around his waist, tying it securely. It was rough, but it did the job. For the first time since arriving in this world, he wasn't completely exposed.

It felt better.

Not perfect, but better.

Another glint of metal drew his attention.

A helmet.

Reich pulled it free from the nest's remains, turning it in his hands. The design was clear—a frog-mouth helmet, the kind knights wore in jousts. And it was pristine.

That was odd.

Most things here had been broken, worn down, left to decay. This? It looked almost new.

Carefully, he lifted it and placed it on his head.

His vision didn't change.

There was no obstruction, no limitation in sight, despite the helmet's structure.

It was magical.

That alone made it worth keeping.

A worn leather strap lay half-buried in the remains, the kind an archer would use to carry a quiver across their back. The leather was cracked in places but still functional.

He pulled it free and slung it across his torso. It fit well enough.

There was nothing else here that looked useful.

Reich took a step back and looked down at himself.

He still looked odd.

The fur wrap around his waist, the frog-mouth helmet, the shield slung against his arm, the archer's strap, and one lone gauntlet tucked at his side.

A mess of armor, scavenged from whatever was left behind.

But some armor was better than none.

And the helmet alone made it all worth it.

He rolled his shoulders, letting the weight settle over him, feeling the difference that even a few pieces of armor made. He was still mostly exposed, but now?

Now he felt less like prey.

This was good progress. He wasn't just surviving anymore. He was equipping himself. Preparing.

For what? He didn't know yet. But something below did.

○●○

He turned back toward the ruined bodies of the mother bird and her chicks.

One dead.

One alive.

One at the bottom of the ravine, where he had thrown it before the fight started.

His gaze lingered on their remains, not out of pity or guilt, but for something else entirely.

Their cores.

He had read about it before.

In birds, magical cores didn't form in the stomach or spine like in some creatures. They grew next to the heart, nestled deep inside the ribcage.

Reich glanced around the wreckage of the nest. There was no proper tool for this.

After a moment of searching, he pulled half of a broken sword from the wreckage. Unfortunately, it wasn't the side with the pommel. Just a jagged blade, snapped at the middle, but better than nothing.

He moved to the massive corpse of the Queen of the Sky and got to work.

The first few stabs into her chest were a struggle. Her bones were thick, built for battle, built to withstand impact. He had to wedge the broken blade in and twist, forcing it between the ribs before prying them apart. The stench was overwhelming.

But he kept going.

Blood coated his hands, still warm, as he reached inside. His fingers dug through flesh, past ruptured organs, deeper, searching—

Then he felt it.

Hard. Smooth. Larger than his fist.

The core.

He pulled.

It came loose with a wet sound, thick and heavy with residual heat, still pulsing faintly with the remnants of its magic.

It was big.

Bigger than what he had expected—just a bit larger than what could fit in his mouth.

Nobles and knights had a method for this.

A special concoction, a mixture designed to dissolve the core into something drinkable, bypassing the need to swallow it whole.

But Reich had nothing like that.

Even if he wanted to consume it now, he physically couldn't.

Instead, he tore some leather scraps from the wreckage of the nest and fashioned a makeshift pouch. It wasn't pretty, but it would work. He secured the mother bird's core to his chest, tying it tight.

Then, he turned to the next body.

His eyes settled on the dead chick.

It looked like a baby, oversized and grotesque, bloated from the unnatural growth its mother had forced upon it.

Would it even have a core?

Only one way to find out.

Reich repeated the process, cutting into the smaller body. It was easier this time, the bones not fully hardened, the flesh giving way with less resistance.

And then—he found it.

Slightly smaller than the mother's, but still a solid core.

He wiped the blood from its surface and added it to the pouch.

That just left one.

The last living thing in the nest.

Reich turned.

The final chick was still there. Still blind. Still oversized.

And still alive.

This bastard had been trying to eat him earlier.

Now, it was the only thing left.

It was still blind, still bloated, twitching in its sleep, unaware that everything had changed.

He could kill it.

Its core would be smaller than the others, but it would still be something. Another step toward power. Another piece to add to his collection.

It had tried to eat him earlier. It wasn't innocent.

But it was also defenseless.

His fingers flexed at his side, restless, uncertain.

Did it matter?

He didn't hesitate to carve the core from its sibling. Didn't blink when he dug his hands into the mother bird's chest. But now, standing here, completely in control, something about this moment felt… different.

Maybe it was because it wasn't a threat. Not anymore.

Maybe it was because he had already won.

He exhaled sharply and stepped forward.

If he was going to kill it, he needed to do it now.

Then he heard it.

A sound far below.

Not rustling, not shifting, not the quiet stirrings of something creeping through the undergrowth.

A patterned sound. Rhythmic.

Like footsteps.

But wrong.

His instincts snapped to attention, his body turning before his mind could process it.

He stepped to the edge of the ruined nest, peering down over the jagged cliffside.

The forest stretched below him, endless and dark, the canopy shifting slightly in the wind. But he wasn't looking at the forest.

Something was climbing the cliff.

His breath stilled.

A massive shape moved along the sheer rock face, walking sideways, perfectly balanced, like gravity meant nothing to it.

Long, jagged limbs, covered in thick, spiny hair, curled and uncurled with perfect precision, each step careful, deliberate. Its body was low against the rock, chitin gleaming faintly in the dim light.

A spider.

A massive spider.

And it was coming straight for him.

And then it stopped.

It turned its head toward him—though it looked like it had no eyes. Yet he knew, in that moment, it had seen him.

And it was still climbing

[AN] Hey there, readers!

You probably noticed that this chapter is longer than usual. That's because, for the first time while writing 31 Days to Die, I simply couldn't find a place to end it. Every moment—Reich's awakening, his body's unnatural evolution, the unsettling quiet of the aftermath, the scavenging, the decision to take the cores, and finally, the arrival of something worse—all of it felt too connected to break apart.

So instead of forcing an artificial stopping point, I let the chapter flow naturally. The result? A denser, more immersive entry that marks a major turning point for Reich.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as I did writing it! Let me know your thoughts—especially about Reich's evolution, his choices, and of course, the new threat lurking below. 👀

And again, if you really enjoyed it , please vote with your stones, ad it to your library or even leave a review even if it is a bit early in the story.

Thanks for reading! Your support means a lot.

– Kuroganne