Thirty minutes after launch, the forest had eaten the noise of the city.
Out here, past the first curve of the path, there were no broadcast screens, no sponsor overlays, no global chat windows flickering in the air. Only the hard rhythm of boots on dirt, the whisper of leaves, and the quiet, relentless sound of people breathing as they realized this was not the kind of game you could play half-asleep.
Alexis had stopped looking back at the city five minutes ago. The gate was gone behind the trees, swallowed by trunks that rose like pillars, bark rough under his palm when he brushed it. The path had narrowed into something that felt less like a road and more like an animal trail, stamped with fresh prints.
Wolf paws. Human shoes. Something with three toes and claws.
He slowed, forced himself to listen.
Birds called somewhere above him. Insects buzzed. A faint trickle of water off to his left. And beneath it all, a lower, rasping sound that hadn't been there near the gate.
Breathing.
Not his.
He lifted his training sword, the weight already familiar enough that his arms did not protest. The weapon was still an insult, a D-grade length of metal with dead balance and a handle that bit into his palm, but at least it felt like a sword and not plastic.
"Come on," he murmured.
A soft chime nudged his attention.
[MISSION UPDATE]: "First Blood in the Green Veil"Forest Wolf (D) defeated: 3 / 5HP: 192 / 300Stamina Load: ModerateSuggestion: Rest before engaging multiple enemies.
His forearms were slick with sweat, breath a little faster than he wanted. The first three fights had been messy. The wolves were not scripted mobs that ran straight at his blade. They circled, feinted, darted in low. Twice he had blocked late and felt the pain feedback line across his calf or wrist like a hot wire.
At twelve percent pain, his brain understood he was not in real danger. His body did not care. Every jolt drained something from him.
He shifted his stance, knees soft, sword held high but not locked. The breathing grew clearer. A rustle in the ferns to his right. A crack of twig.
He did not charge in.
He stepped sideways, away from the path, careful of where his boots landed. The neural aug adjusted his balance, muscles cooperating without that sluggish lag he remembered from old VR headsets. His body felt fully his. The world around it did not.
Green turned into darker green. Shafts of light speared through gaps in the canopy. The smell of earth and leaf mold grew thicker, grounded by something sharper that made his nose wrinkle.
Wet fur.
He saw it then. A patch of grey between two bushes, rising and falling.
Another step, slow.
The wolf lay on its side in a hollow, ribs lifting and falling in shallow pulls. Its fur was matted with dirt, one leg twisted at a bad angle. Yellow eyes flicked open as he came closer, its lip lifting over teeth.
[Injured Forest Wolf (D)]HP: 38 / 120Status: Crippled, Aggressive.
The system text hung above its side like a label in a biology diagram.
Alexis frowned.
This one had not been part of the packs near the path. Those had run in coordinated groups, flanking and harassing. This wolf was alone and broken, half-covered by leaves as if it had been dragged here.
His grip on the sword tightened.
In every game he had ever played, this would be free experience. A quick mercy kill. A calculation: less risk, same reward. Clean numbers.
He stared at the wolf. Its eyes were not the glossed, vacant orbs of a background mob. They tracked his sword, then his face. Breath shuddered in and out. Its ears flattened when he took another step closer.
He could smell the fear on it now, sharp and sour.
The sword felt heavier.
"Are you scripted to be pitiful," he asked quietly, "or is this just how it is?"
The wolf bared its teeth and forced itself half-upright, front legs trembling. It tried to growl and coughed instead.
The system did not answer. It did not offer a morality prompt or a bonus for mercy. It simply left the decision hanging, the same way the quiet beneath his ribs did.
Alexis lowered the point of his sword a fraction.
He remembered Elena's voice. The Tower has teeth.
If he walked away from this, some other player would find it. They would take the free kill, and the wolf would still die. The world would not care that he had stepped aside.
He took one more step forward, enough that he could see the pattern of scars around the wolf's neck, old ones, as if some larger predator had once tried to tear its throat out and failed.
His jaw tensed.
"I am not going to pretend this is noble," he said.
He shifted his weight, brought the blade up, and sent it down in a clean, committed stroke.
The resistance was there. Bone, flesh, the slight jerk at the end of the cut as the pain feedback kicked in through his arms. It wasn't the full horror of real-world violence, but it wasn't the weightless swipe of pixels either.
[SYSTEM]: MONSTER DEFEATED – Injured Forest Wolf (D)You obtained:– x1 Wolf Pelt (D)– 12 Silver(Inventory at 25% capacity.)
A pale shimmer rose from the corpse and sank into him, a soft warmth in his chest.
[EXP GAINED: 20]
He stepped back and let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
"Four," he murmured.
The mission counter ticked.
Forest Wolf (D) defeated: 4 / 5.
He turned away from the body. For a moment, as his guard lowered, he just listened.
Somewhere deeper in the trees, a high, panicked shout cut off abruptly. Not a scripted howl. Human.
He pivoted toward the sound before he could think, feet already moving.
The forest pressed closer as he ran. Branches snagged at his sleeves. Roots snaked underfoot, demanding respect. His lungs burned a little, but not from the stale air of a dorm room after too many hours at a screen.
This, a part of him thought distantly, is what it always should have felt like.
The shout came again, lower this time, more strained.
"Stop moving, you idiot, you are making it worse!"
A snarl answered that. Then the thud of something heavy hitting the ground.
He burst through a screen of low branches and nearly collided with a wolf.
It skidded in a spray of dirt, muzzle bloody, eyes wild. It was bigger than the ones near the path, shoulders higher, fur streaked with darker bands.
[Forest Wolf, Pack Hunter (C-)]HP: 180 / 220Status: Wounded, Aggressive.Pack: 3 / 4 Remaining.
The wolf's head snapped toward him. It hesitated for the space of one breath, judging this new threat. Behind it, two more shapes moved in a wide, circling arc.
In the center of the small clearing, a young man in starter gear lay half-sprawled, one leg bent under him at an angle that made Alexis' own joints ache. His sword had fallen just out of reach. Blood soaked the leather of his pants at the thigh, dark and wet.
"Do not just stand there!" the guy gasped. "They are circling. Left!"
Alexis did not waste time with questions.
He shifted his stance, raising his sword as the first wolf came in low. Its jaws opened, aiming for his front leg the same way it had clearly aimed for the other player's.
This time he was ready.
He stepped back with his lead foot, turning his hips as he brought the blade down in a compact, two-handed cut. The sword bit into the wolf's neck and shoulder. Pain sparked up his arms with the impact, but he followed through, letting the weight carry the cut.
[HIT]Damage: 37Forest Wolf, Pack Hunter (C-): HP 143 / 220
The wolf yelped and twisted away, fur torn, blood spattering the ground.
"Two more!" the man on the ground gasped.
Alexis spun in time to see a second wolf lunging for his exposed back. His muscles screamed a warning before his mind fully caught up. He dropped into a low crouch, bringing his sword up behind him in a rough guard.
The wolf collided with the steel.
The impact jarred his shoulders so hard his wrists flared with pain, but the deflection was enough to shove the animal off line. Claws scraped his forearm, teeth snapping inches from his ear.
[BLOCK – Partial]Damage: 8HP: 184 / 300
Stamina Load: High.
Breath harsh, Alexis pushed to his feet and pivoted, keeping the injured player behind him now. The third wolf was circling, its steps slower, cautious. They were not mindless. They read space the way street fighters did.
A flicker at the edge of his vision.
[HINT]: Use environment. Obstacles can break flanks.
He spared a half-second to take stock. Fallen log to his right, thick enough to force a wolf to jump. A narrow gap between two trees to his left. If he moved…
He backed toward the log, keeping his sword between him and the closest wolf. It watched him, pacing, ears twitching. The wounded one limped, anger in every movement.
"Can you move at all?" Alexis called over his shoulder.
"Not without screaming," the guy hissed. "Got tagged. Pain at twenty percent is a bad idea, man. One more hit and I am throwing up in my room."
"You can log out," Alexis said, eyes never leaving the wolves.
"Not before I get one of the bastards," the guy said. "Look, they do not like their flanks touched. You saw it when you hit the first one, right? They— careful!"
The third wolf blurred toward Alexis' left side, trying to slip through the gap between him and the tree. Alexis reacted on instinct, cutting the angle and driving forward instead of retreating. His shoulder brushed bark. The tree blocked part of the wolf's leap.
He swung in a short arc, almost a shove with the blade.
Steel met skull with a sick crack.
[HIT – Head]Damage: 52 (Critical)Forest Wolf, Pack Hunter (C-): HP 91 / 220
The wolf crashed to the ground, dazed.
Alexis stepped over its neck and drove the point of his sword down. It thrashed under him, claws raking lines in the dirt, but his weight and the angle gave him enough leverage.
Pain feedback flared up his legs in sympathetic reaction, his body reacting as if he were the one pinned.
He grit his teeth and pushed.
[SYSTEM]: MONSTER DEFEATED – Forest Wolf, Pack Hunter (C-)You obtained:– x1 Wolf Pelt (C-)– x1 Wolf Fang (C-)– 32 Silver– 1x D-grade Material Pack
[EXP GAINED: 40]
The two remaining wolves hesitated, their formation broken.
Somewhere behind them, hidden by leaves and shadow, something shifted. A footstep, too soft and precise to belong to a stumbling beginner.
The second wolf's head snapped to the side, eyes widening as if it had heard something he had not. It took a step, then froze.
A glint of metal flashed once, quick as a blink.
The wolf jerked.
For a second Alexis thought it had stumbled. Then he saw the short knife buried up to the hilt in the side of its neck, the blade sunk between vertebrae with surgeon precision.
The wolf's legs folded. It hit the ground without a sound.
[SYSTEM]: MONSTER DEFEATED – Forest Wolf, Pack Hunter (C-)Loot assigned: [OTHER PLAYER]
The last wolf spun toward the source of the attack, hackles lifting.
She stepped out of the underbrush like she had been part of it until that exact moment.
Black hair. Leather starter vest. Short sword in her right hand, second knife reversed in her left. Her stance was low, weight on the balls of her feet. Eyes narrowed, not wide like a lot of the people near the path had been. She had dirt on her knees and a streak along her cheek where something had grazed her before.
The HUD tagged her.
[LYRA]Level: 1HP: 244 / 280Class: UnassignedStatus: Calm.
She did not look calm. She looked like someone in a stairwell who had heard the first bottle break downstairs and decided to move before the second one did.
"Hold its attention," she said, voice flat. "Do not get greedy."
Before he could answer, she was moving.
The last wolf, still uncertain, darted toward Alexis, jaws snapping in a feint. He turned with it, keeping his blade between them. His arms complained at the strain, muscles starting to tremble, but he did not try to rush the kill.
He let the wolf commit.
It lunged. He stepped in, not back, taking half the charge out of its body with the clash of shoulders, bringing his sword up in a tight block that drove the animal's muzzle up.
For a second, its throat was exposed.
Lyra went in, low and fast.
Her short sword arced in a tight cut, catching the wolf across the back of its legs. It stumbled. Her off-hand knife came up in a thrust, sliding in just behind the jaw.
The wolf convulsed. Blood sprayed warm across Alexis's forearm, a muted heat through the haptic feedback.
[SYSTEM]: MONSTER DEFEATED – Forest Wolf, Pack Hunter (C-)Contribution:– Alexis: 41%– Lyra: 59%
Loot distribution:– x1 Wolf Pelt (C-) [Lyra]– x1 Wolf Fang (D) [Alexis]– 28 Silver [Split]
[EXP GAINED: 32]
The clearing went very quiet.
Alexis realized he was breathing hard. Not the panicked, shallow gallop from the first fight near the path. This was heavier, deeper, his body fully invested.
His HP panel floated in the corner of his vision.
HP: 176 / 300Stamina Load: Very High.Recommendation: Rest, hydrate, or return to city.
He took a half-step back, letting the tip of his sword drop a little. The injured player behind him whimpered once, then cursed under his breath.
"Oh, that hurt. Okay. Pain at thirty next time is a terrible idea."
Lyra wiped her knife on the wolf's fur with absent efficiency, eyes already scanning the tree line.
"No more movement," she said. "For now."
She finally looked at Alexis.
Up close, he could see the faint shimmer of a status window reflected in her eyes as she checked him. Her gaze flicked to his sword, then to his hands. He realized he was gripping the hilt so hard his knuckles had gone pale.
"Thanks," he said, still a little winded. "For the last one."
"You did not freeze," she said. "That is more than most."
Her attention shifted to the man on the ground. "Let me see."
He bristled slightly as she approached, then seemed to remember this was a game and let himself relax a fraction. His name tag floated over his head when Alexis focused on it.
[RAOUL]Level: 1HP: 112 / 280Status: Heavy Bleed, Leg Injury.
Lyra crouched, putting her sword down within easy reach.
"Where did it hit?" she asked.
"My thigh," Raoul said. "It latched and shook. I tried to shake back. Did not end well."
"Show me the wound description," she said.
He hesitated, then flicked a window open and shared it. A small overlay appeared in Alexis's vision as well.
[Wound: Deep Bite – Thigh]Status: BleedingPain Level: 22%Movement Penalty: Severe (Limp)Risk: Increased if untreated within 10 minutes.
Options:– Use bandage (Minor)– Use potion (Moderate)– Seek Healer (City)
Lyra made a small sound.
"You did not bind a bandage hotkey?" she asked.
"I was reading chat," Raoul said weakly. "They were telling me to pet the wolf."
She closed her eyes for a second, clearly reconsidering her life choices.
"Any bandages at all?"
He nodded and flicked open his inventory. Alexis saw it too when Raoul configured the share. Three basic bandages, one minor health vial, some silver, starter mats.
Lyra held out her hand.
"Give me two."
Raoul sent them over with a guilty look.
[SYSTEM]: TRADE ACCEPTED.You received: 2x Basic Bandage (D).
She worked quickly, tearing game-world cloth and pressing it to the virtual wound. The system let her hands clip through the pants, adjusting the visuals to show a gash with jagged edges. Blood had already soaked the area, staining the leather darker.
"Hold that," she said, pressing Raoul's own hand over the bandage.
He hissed when pressure applied, pain feedback spiking. His real body, somewhere on a couch or in a chair, flinched.
"Good news," she said. "You are not dying. Bad news, you are slow. Can you stand?"
He tried, then cursed as his leg gave out.
"Not without falling on my face."
Alexis watched the numbers on the wound slowly tick.
Bleeding Status: Stabilizing.Movement Penalty: Still Severe.
"We can escort you back to the gate," Alexis said.
Lyra shot him a look. "We?"
He met it evenly. "You saved our backs. I am not going to leave you carrying extra weight alone."
"Chivalry," she said. "That is new."
"Practicality," he answered. "If he faints and logs out here, are you carrying him alone back through wolf country?"
Her mouth quirked, just a little.
Fair point.
She rose, brushed her knees off, and picked up her sword again.
"Fine. I wanted to circle back toward the city anyway." She glanced at Alexis. "You look half-drained."
"Two C-grade wolves will do that," he said. "I am not used to… this."
He gestured around them, at the shadows and the way his shoulders still tingled from the blocks.
Raoul tried to lever himself up again and managed to get to one knee. Alexis stepped in on reflex, offering an arm. The other man took it without protest this time, hauling himself upright on one foot.
He wobbled.
[SYSTEM]: Party option available.Nearby players: [Lyra], [Raoul].Create temporary party? [YES] [NO]
Alexis blinked at the prompt.
"Party up?" he asked.
Lyra hesitated. He saw it. The way her eyes shifted a fraction, weighing. Playing with strangers in launch windows was a good way to get stabbed for loot in older games.
Then again, this forest was not exactly forgiving to solo runners yet.
"Temporary," she said.
He selected [YES].
A faint ring of light flickered around the three of them, connecting their feet for a heartbeat.
[SYSTEM]: PARTY CREATED – [No Name]Leader: AlexisMembers: Alexis, Lyra, Raoul
Party Benefits:– Shared minimap (short range).– Shared basic monster info.– Shared proximity combat log.
A small compass appeared at the edge of his vision, marking his party members as blue blips.
"Okay, Leader," Lyra said, the title dry. "Your call. Straight shot back, or slow loop to pick off one or two more stragglers?"
Alexis glanced at his mission counter.
Forest Wolf (D) defeated: 4 / 5.Bonus goal: HP not below 50% – intact.
His HP hovered just under sixty percent. One bad hit could ruin the bonus and maybe push him into lockout danger if they stumbled into another pack.
"Straight shot," he said. "We have enough drama for one trip."
Lyra nodded once.
"Smart. Keep Raoul between us. I will watch the flanks."
They moved.
The path back to the city was less clear from this angle. Trees pressed closer; the ground sloped and then rose again. But the party compass adjusted, showing a faint, translucent line toward Green Veil Gate. It wasn't a glowing arrow pushing them like cattle. Just a suggestion.
The forest felt different now.
On the way out, it had been a promise. Green and endless and full of potential.
Now it watched.
Every shadow looked like it might hold eyes. Every rustle of leaves made Alexis' grip tighten. His legs felt heavy, the earlier exertion still dragging at his joints.
"Do you think they planned that?" Raoul asked after a while, voice tight but trying for casual. "An injured wolf alone like that."
"The one you tried to pet?" Lyra said.
"It was not the same one," he protested.
Alexis thought of the wolf in the hollow, breathing shallow, eyes bright with pain. He thought of the pack hunters here, well-fed, coordinated.
"I think the world does not reset just because we walk in," he said finally. "Maybe something bigger mauled it. Maybe it limped off after losing a fight last floor cycle."
"Last what?" Raoul asked.
Lyra glanced back at him. "You read any of the design articles?"
"Watched the trailers," Raoul said. "Same thing."
"No," she said. "It is not."
"There are activity cycles," Alexis said. "The devs called it a layered simulation. Monsters have behaviors even when players are offline. Pack leaders push weaker ones out. Predators fight. Sometimes we walk in halfway through something that started before we logged."
Raoul stared at him, then winced as another step jarred his leg.
"You memorized the wiki," he said. "You are one of those people."
"Reading is free," Alexis said. "Dying is not."
Lyra's eyes crinkled very slightly.
"So you are a theorycrafter," she said.
"I am someone who cannot afford to waste chances," he answered.
She studied him for a moment longer as they walked, then looked away, scanning the undergrowth.
They were quiet for a while after that.
Jakobs birds called overhead, three-note whistles that some audio designer had probably obsessed over for months to get right. Light filtered through intermittent gaps in the canopy, striping the path. Once, they passed a bush shaking with small, frantic motion. A window popped into view.
[Forest Hare (D)]Status: Skittish, Non-aggressive.
"Tempting," Raoul muttered.
"Do not," Lyra said.
He did not.
As they approached the area where the forest thinned toward the city, more players began to appear. Some in twos or threes, laughing with the brittle high of people who had survived something scary and wanted to make it funny before it settled into them. Others alone, faces pinched, moving faster than necessary.
A pair of them hauled a third between them, each with an arm over their shoulders, his feet dragging.
"Lockout in ten minutes," the dragged player groaned. "I am going to puke all over my room when I jack out."
"Better your room than my carpet," one of his friends said.
System announcements pulsed overhead occasionally, glimpsed through breaks in the branches.
[SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT]:First D-grade Field Dungeon discovered on Floor 1: "Mossfang Hollow."Discoverers: Party [Glade Runners].Minor EXP bonus granted to all party members.
Another, louder one:
[SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT]:First player death from HP reaching 0 on Floor 1 registered.User: [Hiro-Alpha]Penalty: 15% Silver, 2% Gold, minor EXP reduction.Reminder: Death twice within 12 hours will trigger a 24-hour lockout.
Raoul winced.
"Poor guy."
Lyra made a small sound. "Someone had to be first."
They reached the line where trees fell back, giving way to the open strip of ground in front of Green Veil Gate. The walls loomed, stone dark, guards watching.
As they stepped into the open, Raoul sagged with visible relief. His HP had crawled up a little from the passive regen outside combat, but his face still looked washed-out.
[SYSTEM]: "Warm Meal, Cold Woods" – Mission Update.Wolf Pelts: 2 / 2 (Shared between players.)Return to Mara in Green Veil Gate for reward.
Lyra's eyes flicked to that prompt, then to the city.
"Go straight to a healer," she said to Raoul. "Do not get distracted by the stew."
"I can multitask," he said weakly.
She arched an eyebrow.
"Fine. Healer first," he conceded. He gave them both a quick, awkward nod, nearly losing his balance again in the process. "Thanks. Seriously. I thought I was going to log back in at the city with chat spamming skull emojis."
"You still might," Alexis said.
Raoul grinned, then limped toward the gate under his own power, system markers guiding him toward the main square.
Their party window flickered.
[RAOUL has left the party.]
The line connecting his marker on the compass faded.
The space he left behind felt oddly large.
Lyra watched him go, then glanced at Alexis. Their party still existed, just the two of them now.
"You are heading back in?" she asked.
"Not yet," he said. "I should bind to a healer, check my gear, maybe learn how to patch a bite before it happens to me."
"Practical," she said again.
At the edge of his vision, his mission counter ticked.
Forest Wolf (D) defeated: 4 / 5.
The system had not counted the C-grade pack hunters toward it.
He almost laughed. Of course it had not.
"I still need one more," he said.
"Then we are going back out," Lyra replied.
He blinked.
"You do not have to babysit me," he said.
She shrugged, a small roll of one shoulder.
"You swing straight," she said. "You do not rush in yelling. You listen when people talk about not dying for soup. That is a better partner than most of what I have seen so far."
Her eyes flicked to the open gate and the people still pouring out, some with their weapons drawn already.
"Besides," she added, "I do not like working alone all the time."
It was said casually, almost offhand. He heard the weight under it anyway.
A prompt appeared again.
[SYSTEM]: Maintain current party?Duration so far: 00:19:32.Parties gain bonus EXP and improved drop chance over time.
[YES] [NO]
He didn't have to think long.
[YES].
A faint pulse of light linked them again for a second.
"Then let's gear up," Alexis said. "Do the stew quest. Maybe buy a bandage or two."
"Now you are learning," Lyra said.
They stepped through the gate together.
The city swallowed them in noise, the smell of food and smoke and metal, the press of bodies. System windows jostled with market stalls for visual space. A player argued with an NPC over the price of a whetstone. Someone else bragged loudly about their first critical hit.
[SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT]:First player party to reach Level 2 on Floor 1: [Zephyrus].Minor global recognition.Party members receive Title: "Early Blade."Title effect: +1% ATK, +1% Stamina efficiency (Floor 1 only).
Alexis glanced up at that.
Somewhere out there, early adopters were already pulling ahead, stacking tiny advantages. Guild tags began to appear beside some names. Not many yet. It was early. But the seeds were there.
Lyra saw his expression.
"If you want fame," she said, "you can chase the announcements."
"What do you want?" he asked.
She thought about it, eyes following a group of players in heavier armor as they marched past, their steps already too sure.
"A way up," she said. "Without relying on people who see me as a number in their roster."
He nodded.
"Then we start with one more wolf," he said. "And see how far that takes us."
For the first time, a ghost of a smile touched her mouth.
"Fair enough."
The Tower listened as their names passed across the city's small, local network.
Two more markers on its endless board. Two more threads in the pattern.
Above Floor 1, sigils shifted again, a fraction of a degree. Not for them. Not yet.
For the moment, the Tower simply watched as they walked toward the market square, toward a steaming pot under a canvas awning and a cook with sharp eyes, toward bandages, toward a healer's lecture on blood loss, toward their next step into the green.
The first breath had been taken.
The next would be deeper.