A fire seemed to be burning inside his abdomen, scorching his internal organs. Hunter Carter, terrified, tore off his shirt and saw that the skin on his lower abdomen had turned blue, with a faint glow emanating outward.

The raindrops became finer, and a strange blue radiance enveloped Hunter Carter's entire body. The glow grew stronger and stronger, shooting out from every pore of Hunter Carter's body. In an instant, he was plunged into the agony of being torn into thousands of pieces. The rainwater began to swirl around him, weaving a thin, transparent curtain of water. Blue light radiated in all directions, and from a distance, Hunter Carter looked as if he were wrapped in a blue, transparent cocoon.

Hunter Carter panicked, his vision blurring. He vaguely heard the whistle of a passing ship. Hunter Carter was filled with regret—he had just made his choice, only for a ship to pass by, but now he had no chance to turn back. Suddenly, everything went black before his eyes, and Hunter Carter's body seemed to be sucked into an endless black hole...

After a brief moment of blindness, his vision returned to normal. Brilliant, seven-colored lights flashed rapidly behind Hunter Carter. He felt as if he were flying, unable to hear any sound, surrounded by a deathly silence. Hunter Carter had no idea when—or if—this ordeal would end, and his heart sank into a painful, torturous wait...

He didn't know how much time had passed when darkness once again enveloped Hunter Carter's vision. A faint point of light quickly tore through the dead blackness, and his hearing returned.

With a heart-wrenching scream, Hunter Carter plummeted from the sky. His clothes, scorched in several places by the friction with the air, had caught fire.

“I'm done for—if I don't burn to death, I'll be smashed to pieces!” Hunter Carter shouted inwardly.

Before he could brace himself, his body plunged into a warm pool. The tremendous impact sent water splashing in all directions. Hunter Carter sank to the bottom before slowly floating back up to the surface.

The joy of surviving made him temporarily forget his predicament. After confirming that he was uninjured, Hunter Carter climbed out of the pool onto the shore. His clothes had been completely burned away, but the satchel given to him by the white ape was still hanging intact around his neck. Apparently, the material of this bag was quite special. He felt inside—the contents were still safe. If only he had known, he would have stripped and put his clothes inside; then he wouldn't be in this naked state now.

A tempting fragrance drifted into Hunter Carter's nostrils. He turned his head and saw, not far from the pool on the grass, a fair and glistening female body lying there.

Judging by the water stains around her, the young woman had just been bathing when she was splashed out of the pool and onto the shore by the falling Hunter Carter, and had fainted.

The woman remained motionless, apparently still unconscious. Hunter Carter gently turned her delicate body over.

The woman opened her eyes in pain. In terror, she saw a man with bloodshot eyes about to launch a full assault on her body.

Chapter 4: [Toward a New World] (Part 2)

“Pervert!” the woman cried out angrily. Her strong, powerful legs easily broke free from Hunter Carter's grip and delivered a heavy kick to his lower abdomen, sending Hunter Carter flying backward and crashing onto the grass more than ten meters away.

Hunter Carter's bones felt as if they were about to fall apart from the impact. He screamed in pain, but his mind cleared somewhat. Not daring to look back at the woman, he scrambled to his feet and fled desperately into the forest ahead.

The woman flicked up her bathrobe with her toes, a rosy cloud rising around her. Her graceful body spun into the air, and by the time she landed on the grass, she had already put on her red bathrobe. Her blue, beautiful eyes stared coldly in the direction Hunter Carter had fled, a trace of a cruel smile appearing at the corner of her mouth.

Hunter Carter, gasping for breath, ran a good distance. In his haste, the soles of his feet were cut in several places by sharp stones. Only after he was sure the woman wasn't chasing him did he stop, leaning against a tree to rest.

Suddenly, he remembered that in his rush to escape, he had left the satchel given to him by the white ape by the pool. The rest of the items weren't important, but inside was a pistol and eleven bullets. He couldn't help but feel regret—he had just arrived here and already something so unlucky had happened.

After thinking it over, Hunter Carter finally gave up on the idea of going back for the satchel. He picked a few broad, unknown leaves from a tree and wrapped them around his waist, front and back. At first glance, it looked like he was wearing a green skirt, but it was still much better than running around bare-bottomed.

The forest was dense, the canopy overhead blocking out the sun. Hunter Carter walked through the dim light for more than half an hour and still saw no sign of leaving the woods.

His stomach began to growl with hunger. Fortunately, there were plenty of fruit-laden trees in the forest. The fruit looked somewhat like peaches, but tasted neither sweet nor pleasant—bitter and astringent. Still, Hunter Carter was too hungry to be picky. He ate six of them in a row before his hunger eased a little, but then his stomach began to ache.