“Awooo! Awooo! Awooo!”
“Move! Run, everyone! The great fog’s coming!”
“Help! Help!”
“Don’t block me, get the hell out of my way!”
...
The din of shouts and pounding feet hammered Nana Toki’s ears, a swarm of hornets buzzing her skull. She seemed to be on the ground; even her back felt like knives of frost.
Why do I always spawn looking half-dead?
Nana Toki pried her eyes open. The world was black as spilled ink, heavy and wet.
She raised a hand and couldn’t see even five fingers, a darkness thick as tar.
“Hey, you trashy System.”
Flat on her back, Nana Toki blinked weakly and called inward, her voice a thin thread in a sealed jar.
What?
The System arrived fast, like a bell struck in a quiet temple.
Heal me. Chop-chop.
On the ground, Nana Toki wriggled like a lazy cat stretching, playing up the drama with a crooked smile.
System: “...”
Nope.
The System watched her shameless act and refused without a blink, cold as winter stone.
Seriously, does this host have zero danger sense? She treats a disaster like sightseeing.
I’m dying here...
Hearing the refusal, Nana Toki went still at once, face saying, If you don’t heal me, I’ll die right now, see?
System: “...”
So the host has chosen to soar on the path of a skin thicker than city walls?
Personally, I value my life more than my face.
Nana Toki patted her conscience in earnest—assuming she had the strength to lift a hand.
System: “...”
Does she think I don’t dare let her die?
The System sighed inside and opened a healing aura, a warm spring spreading under winter ice.
The halo took hold fast. In under thirty seconds, heat and vigor flowed back, like tea steeping through chilled porcelain.
“Eh~ Funny. Only when you patch me up do I feel a tool-man System can be beautiful.”
Nana Toki rubbed her wrist and climbed up, joints clicking like tiny beads. “Five-star review for you, dear.”
System: “...”
Hopeless host. Fine. Let’s issue a quest.
[Ding! Pre-Quest triggered: Fog City Survival (Prologue)]
[Objective: Survive until the first wave of great fog ends]
“What the hell, where’s the plot?”
Fully restored, Nana Toki stared at the sudden quest, confusion pooling like rainwater in a courtyard.
Weren’t you giving me a fine plane experience?
How come there’s not even a scrap of plot?
That was the last plane. This one’s different.
The System’s tone held smug light, like a cat that stole fish. “Newbie stages are simpler than normal ones. Host, times have changed.”
Nana Toki: “...”
You jerk. He’s definitely settling old scores.
She’d sign on that bet without blinking.
How do I get the plot memory?
Squinting at the quest UI, Nana Toki asked, “You can’t tell me nothing. In this pitch-black mess, what if I trip the male lead and he dies?”
System: “...”
If the male lead can be tripped to death by you, is he still the male lead?
“Due to various irresistible factors, you must complete the pre-quest to obtain the plot.”
The System would never admit it was probing her hidden strength, fishing under moonlight.
“You messing with me?”
She’d been sitting; now her temper flared like a tossed match. She sprang up and jabbed a finger at the quest. “I’m a delicate girl. How am I supposed to survive in a calamity-ridden plane? You’re out to kill me. I quit—send me back!”
Fair point.
Those big, bold letters—SURVIVAL—looked like a pit with teeth.
Not my problem. It’s your business, host.
The System turned shameless, a stone lion at a gate. I only issue quests.
Nana Toki: “...”
Savage. After this, I’m absolutely having my owner swap you out.
“Alright, alright. The plane’s been running almost two minutes. If you don’t hustle, you’ll die.”
With that, the System’s voice fell silent, like a bell muffled by fog.
Even the quest UI in front of Nana Toki dissolved, a paper charm in rain.
Now she was truly alone.
“Tsk.”
She clicked her tongue, sour as green plum. One hand on her hip, swaggering like a little lord, she leaned on a utility pole and took stock.
Moments ago, it was pitch-black. Now shapes bled back—edges like charcoal smudges.
This was a city. The pole nearby and a supermarket down the way sketched a familiar grid.
But not the city she knew. This place was wrapped in a vast shroud of fog, visibility capped under twenty-five meters, a smog capital painted in ash.
How’s this different from walking your room with the lights off?
Nana Toki felt forward with her steps, eyes and ears pried open like shutters.
Minutes ago, noise was a flood. Now the quiet pressed in until she heard her own heartbeat, a lone drum in an empty hall.
Too eerie.
Top priority: figure out what this place is.
From the System’s tone, danger clung here like cold dew. Normal urban planes don’t drown in fog this thick.
She checked the buildings. No one lived inside, and there were no signs of wreckage—no claw marks, no broken glass, like a stage set without actors.
Her doubt spread like ink in water.
In webnovel rules, heavy fog means either paranormal or mutation. Yet she’d been in it almost twenty minutes.
After walking this long, she should’ve seen people. In a ghost or mutant story, an event should’ve already sprung.
But it was empty—so empty not even a ghost would bother. She started doubting herself, wondering if the earlier chaos was a mirage.
Maybe this was an empty city, a shell left by the tide.
“Whooo—”
A sudden cold wind scraped past, thin as a blade. While she peered into a residential building, her body shivered; her hairs stood like rows of needles.
A bad feeling crawled up, a shadow on the wall.
“Sssrip!”
Something tearing—faint, yet in this hush it jabbed the air like a thorn.
“Crunch, crunch.”
Guided by the broken, wet sound, Nana Toki slipped toward a corner, steps light as a cat on tiles.
Under the gray wash of a streetlamp, a slick red puddle spread like spilled wine.
Human blood?
Nana Toki snapped into guard, spine arched like a wary cat in rain.
“Crunch-crack, crunch-crack.”
It sounded like hard bone being crushed, juice squirting from the marrow.
She edged along the wall, inch by inch, breath held like a lantern cupped in both hands.
At the corner, she saw it. A squat, ugly, not-quite-human thing hunched over a dead man, gnawing his flesh like a feral rat at midnight.
