"What's happening?" Julian's body trembled, unable to comprehend the situation.
A massive, hairy-backed hand gripped him as if he were a tiny sandwich.
A giant reddish-brown ape clung to the fruit-bearing branches hanging from the great tree.
"What is this?" Hinako's face turned completely pale, stunned by the sight before her.
The massive, long hand lifted Julian toward the ape.
"Oh my God, what else?" Julian was crying.
He couldn't turn around; all he could see was Hinako, terrified and lying on the ground.
The monkey's hand twisted slightly, allowing Julian to see what Hinako had seen.
A monkey's head with eyes looking in opposite directions, massive fangs, and a suspicious grin.
"I'm done for." Julian's heart stopped beating, leaving his face pale and terrified, but his consciousness lingered a little longer.
Krack!
The giant monkey bit off Julian's head.
"H-He… he… ate him," Hinako spoke in hysterical fear.
Her body went numb, and she no longer knew what to do.
Should she stay still, hoping the monkey would ignore her? Or should she run? But could she even outrun this giant monkey?
She couldn't gamble on staying and waiting to be eaten alive; she knew that.
"Run, run, run!" her mind kept repeating these words.
She gathered her strength and started running away from the monkey.
The monkey twisted its hand and bit Julian's legs, then tossed him into the air, opening its mouth to let Julian's corpse fall into it like a popcorn kernel.
His eyes, which had been looking in opposite directions like a chameleon, suddenly focused straight ahead, staring at Hinako as she ran desperately.
"Heeeeeeee… heeeeeeeeee," the monkey let out a sound and leapt onto the soft ground, creating a hole.
It placed its hands on the ground and began chasing Hinako. Its hands were like plows, turning the earth behind it.
"Oh my God, it's coming!" Hinako looked behind her and felt a greater sense of despair. A monkey was chasing her like a train, about to tear her apart.
"I wish I had stayed in that forest and died from hunger. It would have been much better than being eaten." Tears flew behind her as she ran, knowing she couldn't keep running forever.
It was only a matter of time before her end came.
You flee from death, knowing it will catch you in the end, but you keep running, keep escaping, fighting for just a few more moments.
'777 steps, 777 steps,' Hinako thought with a last bit of hope.
The more she counted her steps precisely, the closer she got to the place she wanted.
"He'll catch me before I finish counting," she looked behind her, and the monkey was still running, but now it seemed to be running more lazily, almost like it was playing with its prey.
"9 steps."
"18 steps."
"33 steps."
"88 steps."
Hinako continued counting her steps. With her rapid pace, the counting sped up, and reaching her destination became faster.
***
Kogan punched the ground with all his strength, and as expected, it broke easily.
'What now?'
The ground beneath him cracked, creating a hole, and he began falling downwards.
Dark black waves collided with each other with an infinite force, looking as though they could crush both the heavens and the earth.
If it weren't for the dark reddish hue, the black waves would have been invisible.
With his body fully penetrating the ground, his fall became slow, incredibly slow, almost approaching complete stillness.
At this almost frozen speed, with the infinite distance between the glass floor and those immense dark waves, it would take billions of years to reach them, or he might never reach them at all.
His body, just as slow as his fall, was unable to move.
Glass shards flew in front of him at an incredibly slow pace, and their reflections showed strange and incomprehensible things.
They displayed high-speed motion clips, so fast that the human eye couldn't comprehend their content.
Kogan moved his eyes, which emitted a faint yellow glow, towards the shards in front of him.
His lips slowly curved, hinting at a smile.
***
"770 steps."
"Surely, the same method won't work forever." Hinako's heart sank, and she felt that counting the steps wouldn't save her this time.
The monkey kept running behind her, enjoying the chase.
"774 steps."
"775 steps."
Finally, the ape stretched out its giant hand, trying to grab the "delicious" Hinako.
"776 steps."
"I can't keep going." Hinako was on the verge of collapsing, and her heart had already fallen into despair.
And as Kogan's smile was about to fully form,
"777 steps."
Kogan suddenly disappeared from his place.
"As expected, nothing changed. To die eaten by a monkey. I'm definitely the worst isekai protagonist in the world."
In the final moments of her life, she thought of the novels and animes she had watched, those being one of her happiest memories.
But suddenly, a tall and naked young man appeared in front of her.
"Is... is this a bait for the monkey to give me more time to escape?" Hinako looked at the naked young man, unable to comprehend what was happening.
The only thought that appeared in her mind was that the 777 steps had thrown a bait for the monkey, giving her a chance to escape.
'What happened?' Kogan turned his head slightly to the left to see what the noise was about.
"It's... it's him," Hinako finally recognized the naked young man after he slightly lifted his head.
"Is he the bait?"
'This girl again.' Kogan glanced at her as she ran past him, then looked toward the giant beast that was extending its hand and rapidly approaching.
'Good.'
The monkey's massive hand reached in front of Kogan, but he jumped at the last moment, avoiding the giant hand and leaping upward toward the monkey's face.
"Heeeeeee... heeeeeee" The monkey grinned suspiciously, preparing its mouth to bite Kogan.
Kogan stared at the monkey's face without any expression, then pulled his right hand back to its fullest extent.
Slap!!!
Boom!!!
The monkey slammed into the tree trunk with the speed of a massive projectile after Kogan slapped it.
Its head cracked, and its lower jaw dropped to the side, its eyes wide open, lifeless and dull.
"I guess I overestimated myself," Kogan sighed as he looked at his hand.
It was broken in the middle, and all of his fingers were twisted outward.
"If I hadn't found that place, she definitely wouldn't have been faster than me." He looked in the direction of Hinako's escape, his face calm.