Kael stared at the words, his mind struggling to process.
'A trading post, and it's even automated. Still functioning after however long this place had been dead.' He thought to himself while stopping the trembling of his hands.
And that number. There were over a million survivors who had used this system before him. Where were they now? Had they escaped? Died? Found a way home?
More text appeared:
[CORE EXCHANGE AVAILABLE]
[EQUIPMENT VENDOR AVAILABLE]
[INFORMATION DATABASE AVAILABLE]
[PLEASE SELECT SERVICE]
A menu, options, and many more to choose from. Civilization's ghost still serving its function despite having almost no one left to serve. Well, aside from him.
Kael's hands shook slightly as he reached for the console. This changed everything. He wasn't alone in the ruins. Or rather, he was alone, but the infrastructure of whoever had lived here before still existed. Still worked.
He touched the Information Database option first. Text scrolled across the holographic display:
[INFORMATION DATABASE ACCESSED]
[AVAILABLE QUERIES: UNKNOWN]
[MOST COMMON QUERIES: LISTING...]
[1. HOW TO RETURN TO ORIGIN DIMENSION]
[2. TIME DIFFERENTIAL CALCULATION]
[3. SAFE ZONES AND SHELTER LOCATIONS]
[4. MONSTER CLASSIFICATIONS AND BEHAVIORS]
[5. LEVELING STRATEGIES AND OPTIMIZATION]
Kael's breath caught. How to return home. That was the first query—the one everyone asked. He selected it with trembling fingers.
[QUERY: DIMENSIONAL RETURN PROTOCOLS]
The text that appeared made his stomach sink:
[RETURN MECHANISM: VOLUNTARY EXIT PORTAL]
[LOCATION: NEXUS CORE - CENTRAL DISTRICT]
[DISTANCE FROM CURRENT POSITION: 847 KILOMETERS]
[ESTIMATED TRAVEL TIME: 6-8 MONTHS (ACCOUNTING FOR MONSTER TERRITORIES)]
[WARNING: MINIMUM RECOMMENDED LEVEL FOR SAFE PASSAGE: 50]
[CURRENT USER LEVEL: 6]
Eight hundred and forty-seven kilometers. Six to eight months of travel. Level 50 recommended.
He was level 6.
The distance between where he was and where he needed to be was immense. Almost impossible. However, at least there was a path. A way home. It existed.
Kael forced himself to breathe, to think logically. Six months. That would be... he selected the time differential query:
[QUERY: TIME DIFFERENTIAL - NEXUS REALM VS. CONNECTED DIMENSIONS]
[TIME FLOW VARIES BY DIMENSIONAL ANCHOR POINT]
[AVERAGE RATIO: 10:1 (NEXUS:ORIGIN)]
[10 HOURS IN NEXUS REALM = 1 HOUR IN ORIGIN DIMENSION]
[NOTE: RATIO MAY FLUCTUATE ±2 HOURS DEPENDING ON DIMENSIONAL STABILITY]
[CURRENT ESTIMATED TIME ELAPSED IN ORIGIN: 4.7 HOURS]
Four point seven hours. He'd been gone maybe two days here, which meant less than five hours had passed at home. Alice and Elise probably weren't even worried yet. The job at District Four had been scheduled for a full day.
Six months here would be... eighteen days there. Maybe three weeks accounting for fluctuations.
Three weeks where his sisters would think he was dead. Three weeks where they'd be alone, vulnerable, probably reassigned to another guardian who might not care about them the way he did.
But if he went back now, at level 6, barely able to survive against Scuttlers? He'd be useless. Another porter, another unawakened nobody. He couldn't protect them like that.
If he stayed, if he reached level 50, if he became strong enough to actually make a difference back home? Three weeks of uncertainty would be worth it for a lifetime of safety.
The logic was sound. But logic didn't make the guilt hurt less.
Kael closed the information database and opened the Equipment Vendor, trying to focus on immediate needs. Text scrolled across the display:
[EQUIPMENT VENDOR ACCESSED]
[CURRENT BALANCE: 0 NEXUS COINS]
[AVAILABLE CORES FOR EXCHANGE:]
[- 47 MINOR MANA CORES (470 COINS)]
[- 1 LESSER MANA CORE (100 COINS)]
[TOTAL VALUE: 570 NEXUS COINS]
Five hundred seventy coins. Two days of fighting had earned him that much. The vendor menu expanded:
```
BASIC EQUIPMENT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Survival Knife - 50 COINS
Basic Leather Armor - 200 COINS
Reinforced Boots - 150 COINS
Simple Cloak - 75 COINS
Waterskin (Enchanted - Self-filling) - 100 COINS
WEAPONS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Iron Sword - 300 COINS
Combat Axe - 350 COINS
Steel Spear - 400 COINS
Reinforced Club - 200 COINS
CONSUMABLES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Healing Potion (Minor) - 50 COINS
Antidote - 30 COINS
Stamina Elixir - 40 COINS
SKILL BOOKS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Basic Weapon Mastery (Select Type) - 500 COINS
Survival Basics - 300 COINS
Monster Identification - 200 COINS
SPECIAL
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Map of Local Area (5km radius) - 100 COINS
Emergency Beacon - 1000 COINS
```
Kael stared at the options, his mind calculating. Five hundred seventy coins. The combat axe cost 350, which would leave him with 220. Enough for basic armor and some potions, but not enough for the skill book that might teach him how to actually use an axe properly.
Or he could save everything, grind more cores, come back when he could afford multiple items. But that meant continuing to fight with improvised weapons, continuing to rely on luck as much as skill.
The claw in his hand suddenly felt heavier. It was the only crafting material he had. The vendor had listed equipment but mentioned nothing about crafting. Maybe there was another option.
[QUERY: CRAFTING SERVICES]
New text appeared:
[CRAFTING STATION AVAILABLE]
[LOCATED: ADJACENT ROOM]
[MATERIALS REQUIRED FOR CRAFTING VARY BY ITEM]
[SIMPLE RECIPES AVAILABLE - COST: 50 COINS TO UNLOCK RECIPE DATABASE]
Fifty coins to see what he could make. Kael touched the option before he could second-guess himself.
[RECIPE DATABASE UNLOCKED]
A new menu appeared, filled with weapon schematics. Most were grayed out—insufficient materials or level requirements. But one glowed available:
[SCUTTLER CLAW KNIFE]
[REQUIRED: 1x SCUTTLER CLAW (HUNTER VARIANT)]
[CRAFTING COST: 20 COINS]
[DAMAGE: 15-20]
[DURABILITY: 60/60]
[SPECIAL: +10% DAMAGE VS SCUTTLERS]
Twenty coins to turn his claw into a proper weapon. Kael looked at the claw in his hand, then at the vendor menu. A knife was less reach than an axe, but it wouldn't break as easily. And that bonus against Scuttlers...
He made his decision.
[PURCHASE: SCUTTLER CLAW KNIFE - CRAFTING INITIATED]
A section of the console opened, revealing a slot. Kael placed the claw inside. The slot closed, machinery hummed, and thirty seconds later, the console chimed. The slot opened again, and a knife lay within.
The blade was the claw itself, somehow refined and sharpened to an even keener edge. The handle was dark metal, wrapped in leather, perfectly weighted. It fit his hand like it had been made for him specifically.
[SCUTTLER CLAW KNIFE OBTAINED]
Kael tested the grip, the weight. It felt good. Reliable. The kind of weapon that wouldn't snap the first time something fought back.
Five hundred coins remaining. He bought the basic leather armor, reinforced boots, the self-filling waterskin, and two healing potions. That left him with fifty coins—enough for another knife recipe unlock if he found more claws.
The items materialized on a platform beside the console. The armor was simple but well-made, hardened leather with metal studs at vital points. The boots were heavy, reinforced with steel caps and ankle guards. The waterskin looked ordinary except for the faint glow of enchantment along its seam.
Kael stripped off his torn porter's harness and pulled on the armor. It fit well enough—clearly designed to accommodate a range of sizes. The boots were heavy but comfortable, offering the kind of protection his old worn footwear never had.
For the first time since arriving in the Nexus Realm, he looked like someone prepared for survival rather than someone stumbling through it.
He checked his status again:
```
[STATUS]
Name: Kael Morrigan
Level: 6
Class: None
HP: 360/360 (Regen: 9 HP/min)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
STATS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Vitality: 36
Strength: 11
Agility: 10
Intelligence: 9
Available Points: 0
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
RESISTANCES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Slashing: 8%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
EQUIPMENT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Weapon: Scuttler Claw Knife (15-20 DMG)
Armor: Basic Leather Armor (Protection to nature)
Boots: Reinforced Boots
```
Better. Not strong, but better. Level 6 with proper equipment and a clear goal: reach level 50. Survive the 847 kilometers to the Nexus Core. Find the portal home.
Simple. Impossible. Necessary. Overall, it'll be a crazy ordeal nonetheless.
Kael turned toward the exit, then paused. The console still hummed behind him, patient and eternal. One more query. He had to know.
[QUERY: SURVIVOR SUCCESS RATE]
The response was immediate and brutal:
[TOTAL SURVIVORS REGISTERED: 2,000,000]
[CONFIRMED RETURNS TO ORIGIN: 50]
[SUCCESS RATE: 0.0025%]
Fifty people out of two million had made it home.
Kael stared at the number, feeling something cold settle in his chest. Less than a rounding error. Almost zero.
But not zero.
Fifty had done it. Had survived. Had reached the Nexus Core and gone home. If forty-seven could do it, so could he.
He had to. Alice and Elise were waiting.
Kael walked out of the trading post into the fading light of the twin suns. The ruins stretched endlessly around him, filled with monsters and death and a thousand ways to become statistic number 2,000,000.
Eight hundred forty-seven kilometers.
Level 50.
Three weeks(origin time).
He hefted his new knife, testing the balance one more time. The blade caught the amber sunlight, gleaming.
Somewhere in these ruins, there were more Scuttlers. More fights. More levels. More steps on a path that might—might—lead home.
Kael started walking. Not toward his camp. Not toward safety.
Toward the sound of chittering in the distance.
He had a long way to go.