Chapter 5: Different Gaze

In the vast forest, some places are swallowed by the darkness of night, while others are illuminated by moonlight. The night sky cleared of floating clouds revealed the charm of the full moon accompanied by the glittering stars.

However, as the day wore on, no matter how bright the moonlight was, it wouldn't be able to penetrate the thick fog that appeared throughout the forest. It was at this moment that the animals in the forest became even more savage. Wolves began to roar making their voices echo in the forest, Tigers roared before pouncing on their prey, and a swarm of crows began to chirp after leaving a corpse with nothing but bones. Unmistakably, those are some of the most chilling moments in the forest.

The front of the cave, where Indra was lying now, was no exception. Indra's motionless body like a lifeless person had been covered by a thick gray mist. The thickness of the fog that was several times thicker than that of the entire forest made this place seem non-existent. This special condition was as if something had organized it.

It made the inside of the cave completely dark. In fact, the piled-up burial ground became invisible. However, it was at this moment that something untoward suddenly came.

From within the dark cave, a moving, living figure, meandering on the ground had come out towards Indra. Its body, not too long and not too big, was the only thing that could be seen due to the thick fog. It moved, making sounds as it rubbed against the grass growing there.

It moved slowly and leisurely, but it still only took a few seconds to reach Indra. It entered the armhole of the cloak, wrapped itself around Indra's right hand and stared at the part of the hand that was bound with cloth for a few moments. Then, for whatever reason, his eyes suddenly glowed. At that moment, the living creature immediately opened its mouth wide, two sharp fangs had emerged from its upper jaw, and bit down on the part it had been staring at.

...

A few hours later, the entire fog began to clear. The moonlight and glittering stars were also replaced by the sunlight coming from the east. The gradation of the sky color that was clearly displayed between the yellow color that progressively turned into a dark blue color in the west was going on for a while.

And under such a sky, a black-robed man who had been lying in front of the cave all night, began to open his eyes. That human was none other than Indra. With the surrounding conditions already normalized, that is, there was no fog and the darkness of the night began to disappear, Indra's physical condition could be clearly seen. Especially on his face. In that part, it could be seen that his skin was still pale white and on his right cheek there was a blue and swollen blood vessel. That was very strange, because the blood vessel incident also occurred on the right side of his neck.

On the other hand, Indra's initially blurry vision became progressively better every time he blinked his eyes. And after a few times of doing so, the sky that was graded in yellow and dark blue had become the first thing Indra saw.

"That...That's the sky, isn't it? Sigh, I didn't expect the sky in the afterlife to be this beautiful. But I even less expected that I'd die within hours of being transported to that world."

Sighing once more after thinking that, Indra suddenly heard the voice of an old man.

"Boy, are you awake?"

Immediately Indra closed his eyes again. He instantly stopped moving every muscle on his face, and even breathed very slowly. In other words, at this moment Indra was pretending to be unconscious. However, although he immediately reacted calmly, that was not the case in his mind. It was exacerbated after feeling something other than weakness in his right hand.

"What is that?! What is that sound?! Isn't this in the afterlife? And again, why does my right hand seem to have something wrapped around it?!"

That was all the confusion Indra could think of. But not quite there, suddenly the voice appeared again.

"Why are you silent? Did you become mute after being poisoned?"

While hearing that, Indra felt movement in his right hand. The coils seemed to be disappearing, but Indra felt movement toward his fingers.

"Snake! It must be a snake! And that sound must be coming from it! There's no mistaking it. But, does this mean I'm not dead yet? That thing also said something about poison. Ah well, I'll confirm that later. Better prepare for the worst."

"Since it's moving toward my finger, it probably wants to get out of there. Therefore, I will peek by opening my right eye slightly and will react once I see its form."

By the time he finished thinking about it, the movement of the snake had reached his fingertips. However, as Indra peered at it, of course the figure of the snake was not yet visible. After all, the robe he was wearing was still too big for his size. But, it wasn't long before the snake said something again.

"I'm sure I didn't hear you wrong, you were sighing earlier right? Did you mean to-" As it spoke, it raised its head and wanted to look directly at Indra's face. It was at this moment that Indra immediately reacted by moving his left hand to catch the snake. But, just as the left hand lifted up, it suddenly fell on his chest. This happened because his left hand was too weak and had no energy.

On the other hand, the snake who saw the whole incident burst out laughing.

"Hahahahaha! Your hand, your hand. Hahahahaha!"

Indra, who couldn't cover up his pretense, could only hear the snake's laughter and stare at the sky as if resigned to this situation.

"18 years, 18 years I've lived and this is the first time I've been laughed at by an animal. Sigh, but, putting that aside, it seems like this snake is different from the one I fought yesterday. This snake didn't seem to have any malicious intent at all. But still, the sound of its laughter is really annoying."

Thinking like that, Indra then said in a low voice.

"Hey, what are you really?"

However, instead of answering Indra's question, the snake went back into the sleeve of the robe and continued its laughter.

"Hahahahaha! how could it be his hand hahahahaha!"

Annoyed by that, Indra finally sat down. This made the armhole of the robe tilt downward, which eventually took the snake out of there. The snake was thrown down and ended up on the ground. With that, its annoying laughter disappeared.

It was also then that its physical form became clearly visible. Its body, which was about 2 cm in diameter and 20 cm long, had a black color. Its head, which was slightly larger than its body, was shaking due to dizziness caused by being thrown suddenly. It was because of this that it closed both eyes, but soon it stopped shaking its head and slowly opened its eyes.

Finally, two pairs of eyes had met each other. The white eyes and black elliptical pupils, as well as the calm, non-threatening gaze, had managed to make Indra a little surprised to accidentally say.

"What a completely different gaze."