The Druid Who Devoured the Great Nature

Creak! Creak!

The sharp screech of twisting metal parts rang out.

The air was thick with the stench of sweat, while the heat soaked through the ragged clothes clinging to my body.

I wiped the sweat trickling down my forehead and caught my breath for a moment.

‘Three more hours.’

That was the time left until the day’s factory work ended.

I gave a hollow laugh at the thought that I had already grown used to such a life.

‘It’s been a week already?’

When I opened my eyes, I had found myself inside this strange factory.

It took only a moment to realize what had happened.

The logout button was gone, and above all, the sensations were far too vivid to believe this was just a game.

I had been trapped inside the game.

And worse, in the body of a factory laborer treated as little more than disposable.

“…Huuuuh.”

I cut off my wandering thoughts and returned to work.

We had started at dawn, and now it was already evening.

My limbs trembled, my vision blurred, but I had to keep my mind sharp.

This was the time of day when, as fatigue set in, the overseers’ watch became most merciless.

Nod… nod…

But it seemed I was the only one who remembered that.

I had noticed the flow of parts slowing, and sure enough, the worker beside me was nodding off, his head bobbing back and forth.

‘Tsk.’

I clicked my tongue inwardly.

That was going to be trouble.

I was just wondering how to warn him when—

“You worthless bastards!”

“Move your fingers instead of flapping your mouths!”

“You idiots! You think you can rest when you haven’t even finished your quota?!”

It came, right on cue.

The overseers had arrived.

“U-uaaagh!”

“S-sorry! Sorry!”

“Sorry?! Then why the hell did you do it?!”

The drowsy workers jolted awake, but it was too late.

The overseers shouted and rampaged without the slightest mercy.

An old worker was kicked to the ground, and a young one shrank and trembled as curses rained down by his ear.

Against such brute violence, resistance was unthinkable.

The relationship between the pitiful workers and the burly overseers was no different than that between rabbits and wolves.

“You don’t understand unless it’s beaten into you, huh?!”

Smack!

“Aaagh!”

The whip lashed down mercilessly, drawing blood across a worker’s back.

The others turned their eyes away, desperate not to attract that flame themselves.

“These idiots only listen after a good beating.”

The lax atmosphere inside the factory instantly tightened again.

The overseer, satisfied with this scene of violence and fear, nodded.

“Don’t even think about slacking. I’m watching you all, so keep moving sharp—”

In the middle of his tirade, his brow twitched.

Snorting, he strode forward.

Straight at me.

“What are you staring at! You think this is a show?!”

Of all times, the trouble had landed on me.

I quickly shook my head and answered.

“No, sir.”

“No? The hell do you mean no?!”

He had never intended to hear my answer.

His face flushed red, he snorted hot breaths in agitation.

“Take that hood off and look up, you damned bastard—!”

He moved faster than I could.

With rough hands, he yanked off my hood and grabbed my hair.

“…Ah, shit. So it was you, Allen.”

Just like that, the strength left his grip, his energy deflated.

“I’ll let it slide this once. Put your hood back on before I puke from the sight!”

He was the one who ripped it off, yet he barked at me to cover up.

I swallowed down the resentment that rose to my throat.

I knew this humiliation was the greatest mercy an overseer would grant.

“Ptuh! Damn it, ruined my mood.”

He spat on the floor like he’d touched filth and walked away.

Though my pride was shredded, I didn’t show it.

I was already somewhat accustomed to this treatment.

“Ugh…”

“Ah…”

As I felt the stares around me and turned my head, people quickly looked away.

From the fleeting expressions I caught, the emotion was disgust.

“…Damn it.”

They were treating me like some kind of monster.

It wasn’t as though I’d ever been called ugly before.

But I could hardly blame them.

I touched my face with my oil-stained hands.

“……”

The sensation beneath my dull fingertips was hard, like tree bark.

Deep wrinkles and a thick, calloused layer, as though not human skin at all.

Even without a mirror, I could picture it clearly.

A face covered in burn scars.

Wounds untreated in time had festered into chronic scars, from which pus sometimes oozed.

At a glance, my features were barely recognizable.

When I first saw it, I had recoiled, even knowing it was my own face.

No wonder everyone felt unsettled when they saw it.

The overseer’s spit hadn’t been restraint—it was simple disgust, a refusal to even touch me.

“Allen.”

I murmured the name the overseer had spat out.

It should have been unfamiliar, yet it felt oddly natural.

Of course—because it was the name given to this body.

‘Allen. A lowborn child burned head to toe in an accident. Kidnapped by traffickers and forced into factory labor. Has been working here for three years.’

I muttered inwardly.

That was the past of this body, pieced together from the whispers I had overheard.

And I had never set such a backstory for my game character.

‘The system did say a new game was starting. Since I passed out, it must have all been randomly assigned.’

An automatic setting forced by the AI after a certain amount of time.

A feature meant to help indecisive players.

But to me, it was a curse.

Not only was my appearance hideous, but I had also started with one of the worst possible roles—a factory laborer.

‘In this game, factory workers are practically slaves.’

Workers’ rights were nonexistent. Insurance, benefits? Not even as concepts.

They were treated as expendables, used until they broke, then replaced.

‘And the ordinary fates awaiting them are just two.’

To die from overwork.

Or to be beaten to death by the overseer.

Death was the same either way—practically identical.

‘I need to find a way.’

I had no intention of simply waiting for death.

If only out of sheer resentment at this situation, I refused to let it end that way.

‘What weighs on my mind is…’

The message that never left the corner of my vision.

「You are a Druid!」

「As the last Druid, revive the great nature!」

‘…That message must be there for a reason.’

When one chose the mage class, they naturally awakened to the laws of mana. Warriors awakened to the ways of controlling their physical energy.

Each class had its own distinct trait.

But what the Druid’s trait was remained a mystery.

Revive the great nature… it sounded roughly connected to plants, but…

‘There should at least be some plants around.’

All that could be seen near the factory were weeds and ivy vines.

Even those were so withered and dry they would crumble at a touch.

‘Anyway, I’ll have to uncover this slowly.’

After all, it was because I had changed class to Druid that this whole phenomenon had occurred.

If its secret were easily revealed, none of this would have happened in the first place.

‘At least my condition isn’t as bad as the other workers, who are beaten day and night.’

Though my mind was worn thin by vicious curses, my body was in better shape than most.

Too disgusting to touch, I was spared the overseers’ whips.

That was the only advantage of this cursed face.

Ssshhht!

“Hhngh.”

A wave of heat rushed over me, and I instinctively held my breath.

The blast furnace’s fiery wind was so hot it felt as though I might melt on the spot.

It was the work of tilting the furnace to pour out molten steel.

Even from far away, the aftereffects reached us here.

“Don’t zone out, move faster!”

The overseer wiped his sweaty forehead and barked.

Our assembly line’s work was to fit the cooled steel blocks into molds and assemble them.

The work was simple, but there was so much of it that our muscles ached every day.

And now that the furnace work had begun, that meant even more work would pile up.

If we didn’t want to fall behind, we had no choice but to hurry.

Clack! Clack!

My hands sped up on their own.

If I wanted any time left to sleep at all, I had to finish my quota fast.

I was next in line to be thrown into furnace duty.

Not only was it dangerous, but the physical toll was brutal.

The first time I had done it, I had been in so much agony afterward I couldn’t even sleep.

Yet even then, the overseers hadn’t given me a moment’s reprieve—they worked me just as hard.

If I didn’t want to die from overwork, I had to carve out my own rest time.

The only way was to finish my quota early.

‘Before the next furnace duty, I have to make an escape plan.’

It was a job that steadily destroyed the body in real time.

If I repeated it too many times, I wouldn’t have the strength left to attempt escape.

Difficult or not, it had to be done.

If I wanted to get out of here.

Another week passed since I began planning my escape.

In that time, I had made considerable progress.

‘The incinerator behind the factory is the best way out.’

Workers had the duty of disposing of the factory’s waste, so on their assigned days, they were allowed to enter and exit the incinerator area.

And since it was tucked away in the back, surveillance there was lax.

Compared to the heavily guarded main gate, the escape difficulty was much easier.

‘I’ve checked the layout. But completely slipping past the watch won’t be easy…’

If I escaped only to be caught immediately, it would be worse than never trying.

That was why I hadn’t yet dared to attempt it.

‘Damn it, if only I could use magic.’

With just basic spells, I could have taken down a couple of overseers.

But as a Druid instead of a mage, that was just a faraway dream.

I was still turning these thoughts over in my head as I returned to the dormitory when—

“Hey, did you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“They say the factory manager’s office has gotten another pile of gifts.”

The chatter of workers walking ahead caught my ear.

“What excuse does that bastard have for accepting those?”

“They say it’s because he met the quota and quality standards for the latest contract…”

“Ha. And at what cost? How many people died for that? The factory manager and overseers line their bellies while we rot.”

The factory manager was the epitome of an exploitative boss.

He wrung lives dry to meet contracts, and not a single coin of the profit ever reached the workers.

Forget welfare—if the overseers didn’t beat you, you were considered lucky.

So while working conditions grew ever more miserable, the manager grew fatter, and his office more extravagant.

Complaining about him had become a routine, almost a habit, for the workers.

Had I any close comrades among them, I probably would have joined in too.

Just idle chatter shared among fellow sufferers.

But the next part of their conversation made me prick up my ears.

“But apparently, this time, among the gifts, there was something strange.”

“Strange?”

“One of the factory manager’s lapdogs said… it looked like some kind of rare seed.”

“A seed?”

The other man sounded puzzled.

“What good’s a seed? Nine times out of ten it withers quick and ends up in the trash.”

“Exactly because it’s not ordinary, it was given as a gift. Think about it—how do you think the corporations grow their crops? They use different breeds altogether. Stuff like that isn’t something you can even buy.”

Plants. Seeds.

A spark flashed before my eyes, and my body moved before my head did.

“…Wait a second.”

I stepped in front of them.

“What the—who are you?”

“Hey, that’s Allen.”

“Oh… him?”

I didn’t need friends to be famous.

The man who had been talking scowled deeply.

“What do you want?”

“Tell me more about what you were just saying.”

“And why the hell would I—!”

He tried to push past me, but I grabbed his shoulder.

“If I cause a scene here, how do you think the overseer will react?”

“…!”

The color drained from his face.

The overseers never bothered sorting right from wrong.

They whipped everyone equally—victims and perpetrators alike.

“Talk.”

I wouldn’t be the one whipped anyway.

I’d be cursed at, sure, but that was better than being beaten.

At my threat, the man’s eyes darted around before he finally let out a sigh and gave in.

“Damn it… fine. But once I’ve said it, you get lost.”

“Fine.”

That was all I wanted.

‘A plant’s seed.’

It wasn’t just longing for the scent of greenery.

The Druid who was to revive nature, and a rare plant seed.

That uncanny connection flashed across my mind like a powerful omen.

(End of Chapter)