I Start with 13 Hidden Traits Chapter-2

Ch-2 **Hidden Traits — 13 of Them!**

—

“Useless slave bastards! Can’t you walk any faster?”

Crack!

A sharp sting snapped my mind awake.

But before I could regain my balance, my body rolled across the ground, and only after my head sank into the sandy beach did I realize something was terribly wrong.

*‘What… what situation is this?’*

I had been watching the game intro before I blacked out.

And when I came to, *this* was what I woke up to.

It was absurd enough to panic, yet my head stayed unexpectedly cool.

*‘This isn’t my body.’*

Thick hands. Muscles bulging like something that would make even a gym trainer cry.

Not my body. But it felt vividly like my own.

And judging from my bound hands and the present situation, I was being dragged somewhere.

When I lifted my head, I saw hundreds of men also roped in a single line, being pulled forward.

After putting together the man who whipped me and everything around us, I had my answer.

*‘War slaves.’*

Defeated soldiers. Losers of war captured and turned into slaves.

But the more shocking thing was the massive monster leading the procession.

*‘A Hydragon!’*

A monstrous creature with the nine heads of a hydra and the lower body of a dragon—something extremely familiar.

I was seeing it for the first time, yet I instantly knew what it was.

A Hydragon.

The very first hardship every player of the game must inevitably face!

A clump of pixels materialized into reality before my eyes.

I had raised nearly a thousand characters and hunted that thing just as many times. Familiarity was only natural, but to instantly recognize an in-game monster here was still far from normal.

*‘I need to get up.’*

This wasn’t the time to stand around being sentimental.

If I kept sitting, I would die.

The moment I rose, a whip flew at me again.

My hair stood on end from the searing pain, but I forced myself not to groan.

“If you collapse again, I’ll throw you to the Hydragon as feed.”

…So it *was* a Hydragon.

Everything was now certain.

*‘This is Pangaenia. Did I get pulled into the game?’*

Impossible.

I *should* have been confused, but strangely, I was calm.

In fact, I assessed everything and adapted almost instantly.

*‘All sensations—including touch—are indistinguishable from reality.
…If that’s the case.’*

It was a game, but not a game.

As real as life itself—but I remembered the last thing I did.

A random roll.

All random.

I had set everything to random.

If this was the result, there was one thing I absolutely had to check.

“Status window.”

That was when it happened.

Fwip— A rolled-up parchment materialized before me and gently unfurled.

—

## **<Stats>**

**Level:** 1

**Strength:** 12 **Health:** 12 **Agility:** 12
**Intelligence:** 12 **Mana:** 12

### **<Talents>**

【Health】【Constitution】【Intelligence】【Senses】
【Sword】【Shield】【Spear】【Axe】【Dagger】【Archery】
【Light】【Darkness】【Fire】【Water】【Earth】【Wind】【Air】
【Void】
【Art】【Knowledge】【Leadership】【Observation】
…

## **<Activated Hidden Traits>**

【Void】
【Dexterity】
【All Master】
【Weapon Master】
【Giant’s Anti-Magic】
【Druid’s Nature Affinity】
【Iron-Blooded Monarch’s Heart】
【Beast Lord】
【Golden Grace】
【Heavenly】
【Mutant】
【Glutton】
【Great Sage】
…

### **<Time Until Pangaenia Collapse: 6.12%>**

<<As collapse progresses, the boundary between reality and Pangaenia will erode.>>
<<When collapse exceeds 10%, the first rupture will begin.>>

—

—

 

*‘What the…’*

I almost swore out loud.

The status window had appeared—but what it showed made no sense.

First, the stats.

Normally, stats ranged from 1 to 10 depending on one’s talents. Yet mine exceeded that, all starting at a perfectly even 12.

In all five years of playing Pangaenia, I had never seen such a golden start.

But that wasn’t all.

*‘How many talents are there?’*

The scroll extended endlessly downward. Not only did I have over 200 talents, I also had more than 10 activated hidden traits.

A single hidden trait alone was enough to become a mythical hero who could “lift mountains and overshadow the world.”
Yet I had exactly *13* of them.

*‘Thirteen hidden traits?’*

Not even named NPCs who consumed stars and transcended mortality, nor the final boss-tier monsters lurking in the Abyss, had thirteen. At most, they had five.

Unprecedented.

One trait in particular caught my eye.

*‘Iron-Blooded Monarch’s Heart!’*

A linked hidden trait that only appears after maxing out all physical talents—Iron-Blooded Monarch’s Heart.

Roughly speaking, it “keeps you from tiring easily, prevents you from being startled by most things, and helps you accept situations quickly.”

It also boosts two invisible stats—Stamina and Honor—grants better quests, and confers the “qualification of a ruler.”

And I had thirteen such traits.

After taking them all in, I checked the next part.

*‘Pangaenia’s collapse? The boundary with reality? What is that supposed to mean?’*

I had no idea.

What was certain was that things far beyond normal comprehension were happening to me.

But I couldn’t stay lost in thought forever.

“Hey.”

I spoke to the man walking ahead.

He turned weakly, missing his right middle and index fingers.

“What?”

“Where are we?”

“…? Kaltzman Desert, obviously.”

Ignoring the look that said I must have lost my mind along with the heatstroke, I asked again.

“Kaltzman Desert? Don’t tell me we’re headed to Faisalmer?”

The Kaltzman Desert, located in the southeastern continent, was notorious for its three tribes.

All three were madmen who made their living through slave hunts and constant warfare.

And Faisalmer was the midpoint city where captured slaves were sold.

“That’s right. So forget about going back alive.”

That explained the empty eyes in the slaves.

No one who entered Faisalmer as a slave ever returned alive.

*‘A place you should never pick as your starting point. If you spawn in Kaltzman Desert, it’s better to delete the character and start over.’*

The desert was infamous.

I had once tried starting here out of curiosity—and immediately quit.

After that, I never again chose Kaltzman Desert as my starting point.

*‘Damn it.’*

This was the price of making everything random. I had no one to blame.

I asked my last lingering question.

“But did the Kaltzman tribes always handle slaves in such large numbers?”

Even the biggest slavers handled only a few dozen at most. But this line easily exceeded 300.

The man frowned.

“How should I know?”

“Why are we being dragged away like this?”

“Why? Because we’re stragglers from the expedition?”

“Expedition? What expedition?”

“Haah… The Demon Realm Expedition led by the Eight Heroes. We lost, and you and I got caught running away. Did the heat fry your brain?”

Eight Heroes? Demon Realm Expedition?

*‘Ah!’*

…He meant me.

No, technically, he meant the character I played *right before* creating this one.

I had gathered eight unique-grade items on the eight strongest characters and formed an expedition party.

And I spectacularly failed.

I entered the Demon Realm and reached near the Demon God’s Shrine, but couldn’t open the final door and got a game over.

Apparently, that became known as the Eight Heroes and the Expedition.

“Dammit. If not for that infighting, we would’ve succeeded…”

Infighting?

What infighting?

I was about to ask when the ground suddenly shook.

At the same moment—

《Main Quest 1: Survive!》
《Reward: Varies depending on performance》
《Failure: Death — your body in both game and reality will die.》

The quest appeared before my eyes.

Survive? In this situation?

Even more horrifying was the penalty. Did “body in reality” mean my actual real-life body?

I suddenly remembered the intro—the collision between Pangaenia and Earth.

Rumble… Rumble…

But I had no time to think further.

A harsh roar erupted as a massive figure approached from a distance.

“Three Hydragons!”

“Form ranks! Prepare for the assault!”

The slave traders, all seasoned soldiers, pulled out their weapons and froze.

The enemies leading three Hydragons charged in and immediately slaughtered those slavers without a word.

“Snake Princess! It’s the Snake Princess!”

“Snake Princess! Have you forgotten the Non-Aggression Pact?!”

“Aaaagh!”

Screams filled the air.

They ignored all pacts or rules and waged a massacre.

A one-sided slaughter.

*‘If I stay still, I’ll die!’*

My instincts screamed.

They killed slaves without hesitation.

It looked like they intended to wipe out everyone here.

I grabbed the keyring from the dead slave trader—the very one who had whipped me.

I unlocked my shackles and armed myself with a scimitar.

“M-me too!”

“Unlock mine!”

The former expedition soldiers shouted when they saw the keys.

They *were* soldiers who had marched into the Demon Realm.

You could hope they would fight with me… but every one of them was broken somewhere.

【Lv. 1】
【Lv. 2】

Their levels said it all.

Due to physical loss and mental damage, their levels had dropped.

Even so, their levels were far too low. The expedition was now weaker than a militia.

Thump!

“M-me first!”

“No, move!”

I threw them the keyring, and they immediately fought over it.

They had to free themselves on their own—there was no time to unlock them one by one.

The slaughter continued.

Chaos. If hell existed, it would look like this.

*‘I have to survive.’*

 

 

 

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