"One million, four thirty seven thousand, two hundred eighty nine... Gah. This isn't working."

Hero cursed and jumped to his feet. As he did, he noticed that the sky was still dark. Something that should be impossible with how long he had counted unless time itself was frozen.

Seeing the pale moon in the exact same place it had been when Hero first closed his eyes, he let out a long sigh. "Time really does only move when I do, huh?"

It was ridiculous and illogical. After all, it wasn't like the world revolved around him. Just how crazy would that be?

No, no. It must just be that there was some magical formation around that was powered by his movement or something... Or perhaps his movement in space caused distortions in time.

"...And maybe this is all just inane rambling that's completely off."

Who knew?! Definitely not Hero.

He sighed and continued walking. At least this time the surroundings were changing a bit more.

Suddenly, space distorted. The usual sign of a creature... Monster? Ambush.

Hero drew his sword, readying himself as usual. But then he paused when he saw his opponents.

They were still bats and slimes, but something was different. The eyes were glowing, a faint crimson gleam flashing.

"That's new..."

Suddenly, a slime pounced. Unlike before, it moved with rapid speed, twice as fast as usual.

Caught off guard, Hero didn't manage to counter in time and was struck in the chest.

He winced, expecting to feel pain... But nothing. Instead, it just felt like a rubber ball had bounced against his chest.

Hero blinked.

At that time, a bat screeched and lunged down to claw out Hero's eyes.

He turned his head to dodge, but miscalculated the timing again.

Blood splattered. Only a faint crimson line, but Hero clearly felt pain on his cheeks.

Realizing that, his eyes widened... and then a big smile filled his face. "Finally! A challenge!" With a grin, he ran forward, narrowing his eyes in focus.

He had been surprised, but now that he knew they were different, Hero kept close attention to the speed and rhythm of the attacks...

"...And they're dead."

Hero sheathed his sword and frowned.

"Am I just too strong?"

The monsters had seemed dangerous at first, but after a few minutes, Hero was used to them.

"...Maybe there will be stronger ones. That's right. There have to be." Muttering words to try and convince himself, Hero kept walking, his right hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to fight at a moment's notice.

And then...

-{^_^}-

"...Dammit."

Daytime.

The results of walking around in the night? 100 bats killed, 300 slimes killed, and 0 questions answered.

"Argh!" Hero shook his fist at the sky and said, "Damn you god, goddess, or whatever divine being! Why am I even here?! Did I commit a great sin?! Answer me!"

Silence.

Of course, Hero hadn't been expecting an answer.

Hero sighed and continued to walk around the island.

Maybe something else will change if he walked long enough...

The sun. The moon. A brilliant and peaceful day. A subdued and menacing night.

Hero amused himself for a while by just running around the island and staring at the sky as it changed back and forth.

Monsters kept popping into existence as he ran, but a quick swing of his sword was enough to send them back to wherever they came from.

More importantly...

"The stars are the same each time."

Hero slowly came to a stop as the night sky returned.

A bat hissed and flew towards his face.

Hero didn't bother swinging his sword and just smacked it with his head.

The bat squealed and then vanished in a puff of smoke.

When it was gone, Hero shifted his attention back to the sky.

Ever since waking up so suddenly, Hero realized that he was lacking a lot of memories.

Or maybe he never had them in the first place...?

Whatever the case was, the fact remained that he had working knowledge about things and an intuition about how things should be.

And that intuition was telling him that the stars shouldn't be stuck in place like that.

"...The world should be spinning. That much is clear from the sky changing with the sun and moon. But even so, the stars should be changing position with every cycle. And yet..."

They didn't. Despite having run around the island thousands of times and repeating the day and night cycle a hundred or so times, the scene above remained the same just as the scenery below. As if the twinkling stars were nothing more than decorations instead of moving celestial bodies.

"...Maybe there just hasn't been enough time passing."

Right. That had to be it.

With that thought in mind, Hero started running again, determined to test his hypothesis.

And after running around a mind-numbing amount of times and inflicting genocide on the local slime and bat populace...

"...It's still the same."

Hero stood in the middle of the island and stared up at the night sky.

The moon moved. The sun turned. But the stars were frozen in place.

It was wrong. Hero didn't know why, but he just knew that fact was wrong. The stars shouldn't be completely still like that and emerge in the exact same position every time.

Growing panic.

Fighting it off, Hero shook his head and started running again.

Surely it was his imagination... Maybe the stars had moved but he just got it mixed up?

More running. More night and day cycles.

And Hero once again stood in the center of the island, staring at the night sky. But this time, his eyes were bloodshot, as if trying to burn the entire sky into his soul.

The result of that...

"...I'm not crazy."

The stars really hadn't moved.

Hero had done careful measurements and calculations as well as sharpened his memory to the extreme.

But even after the equivalent of ten years had passed from his running, the stars were the same.

With a deep sigh, Hero started walking again since he had nothing better to do.

As always, slimes and bats popped into existence. And as always, Hero casually cut them down, grumbling to himself. "What kind of god is in charge of this world? And what kind of world did that person make?"

It was broken. Hero was sure of it now. This wasn't the result of some grand enchantment or magical bounded field keeping him here. After so much time passed, he was certain that the fact that nothing changing was a result of the world lacking things rather than being cursed or enchanted.

And he just happened to be misfortunate enough to be inside of such a broken world.

Hero sighed and kept walking. It wasn't like there was anything better to do...