Gene stood up in the office and took a moment to check his legs, where those crazy white rabbits had chewed through his jeans back in the park.
His new black and gold uniform was pressing snugly against his skin, and he could actually feel the deep bite marks closing up.
The pain was already fading away into a mild itch as his newly upgraded cells went to work, healing his body much faster than any normal human biology ever could.
It was a nice perk to have, especially since he knew he was going to take a lot more damage before this day was over.
He walked out of the dusty office space and pushed his way through a stairwell door to head up to the top of the building.
Gene walked over to the ledge and looked up, watching dozens of tiny black dots falling rapidly through the clouds.
He squinted his eyes against the light, trying to see if he recognised anyone specific dropping into his immediate area.
Few decent people had helped him figure things out when he first landed in this flooded nightmare ten years ago.
Building a solid team was pretty much mandatory if he wanted to complete this specific stage quickly and grab all the hidden rewards before the time limit expired.
He was one hundred percent sure Elena would not be in the same stage as him right now, and that thought still brought a feeling to his chest.
The system had a very specific way of handling the influx of players from their home planet.
A single stage instance only contained exactly a thousand people at a time.
For all the other millions of players entering the game, the system simply created an identical copy of this same flooded city and dropped another thousand people into it, and so on.
It was a clever design that made these places fully explorable for everyone without the hindrance of overcrowding or millions of people fighting over a single sword.
But it also meant there were only so many people in your instance you could actually trust to watch your back.
While Gene was busy doing the math on his survival odds, a completely terrified scream echoed from above.
He looked up just in time to see someone falling right past the edge of his building.
It was a guy with blonde hair wearing the same black starting uniform, and he was dropping like a stone with his arms flailing wildly in the air.
He was screaming his lungs out because he was heading straight for the deep water flooding the streets below, and hitting that surface from this height would be like crashing into cement.
Gene did not even have to think about his next move.
He immediately summoned the Enchanted Rope from his inventory and threw it straight over the edge of the roof.
The rope shot down like a guided missile and wrapped tightly around the screaming guy's ankle just a few feet above the water's surface.
Gene planted his boots hard against the ledge and leaned back, his muscles straining heavily as the rope snapped taut and took the full weight of a grown man.
He gritted his teeth and held the rope tight, trying his best not to tip over the edge himself.
"Climb up," Gene grunted loudly, leaning over the ledge to look down at the dangling player.
His voice did not reach the blonde guy over the sounds of his own panicked screaming.
But then the dark water below the guy's head started rippling in a really unnatural way.
Gene saw a shadow moving incredibly fast just under the surface, making a direct line for the easy meal hanging in the air and immediately started pulling the rope up hand over hand as fast as he could.
A creature burst out of the water right beneath them.
It looked like a horrifying mix between a great white shark and a giant crab, snapping huge, thick claws in the air.
Its jaws slammed shut right where the blonde guy's face had been a second ago, and one of the sharp claws actually scraped against his leg, almost tearing right through the protective fabric of his new uniform before the monster fell back into the deep water with a splash.
Gene quickened his pace and used his strength to haul the gasping guy all the way up the side of the building.
He grabbed the back of the guy's uniform and dragged him roughly over the ledge, letting him collapse onto the safe floor of the rooftop.
"Ah, what the fuck is that?" the blonde guy shouted in terror, scrambling backwards away from the ledge like a frightened crab.
He sat there hyperventilating for a minute before he finally looked up at Gene with big, grateful eyes.
"Thank you so much, bro, you literally just saved my life," the guy said, jumping to his feet and reaching out to tightly clasp Gene's hand with both of his own.
Bro?
Gene just stared at him and immediately pulled his hand back from the overly friendly grip.
"Did you get a compass?" Gene asked directly, completely ignoring the emotional gratitude.
"A compass?" the guy's face screamed in confusion, blinking his eyes as if Gene had just asked him for the winning lottery numbers.
Gene cursed quietly in his head.
So the guy did not have it.
Whenever players entered the first stage, they were always given two mandatory things to help them out.
Everyone got an Infinite Bottle to satisfy their thirst because drinking the monster-infested water was a terrible idea, and they got one completely random starting item.
Gene had rolled the rope, so he was really hoping he could quickly find someone who got their hands on the magical compass.
That specific item would help him navigate these identical flooded city blocks much more easily and save him days of wandering around looking for the hidden weapon caches.
"I'm Aiden, by the way," the blonde guy said, moving in for a proper handshake again despite Gene's cold attitude.
"So what did you get from the system?"
"I got a water bottle and this," Aiden continued before Gene could even answer, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his random item to show it off.
It was a metal shuriken.
'Ah, totally useless in these parts,' Gene thought, staring at the tiny throwing star.
A little piece of sharp metal was not going to do anything against giant aquatic monsters with scales and massive crab claws.
'Tch. Off to a bad start, I guess,' Gene muttered to himself, turning his back on Aiden to look up at the sky again.
Before Aiden could ask what he meant by that, a series of loud thuds echoed across the flat surface of the rooftop.
Seven more people dropped right out of the sky and landed hard on the building.
Most of them fell completely face-first onto the concrete, groaning in pain and rolling around in confusion while their upgraded bodies tried to figure out what just happened.
Gene walked back over to the ledge and looked down at the streets below.
He saw several splashes in the water where other players were not lucky enough to land on a solid roof.
The water was already starting to churn and bubble as the aquatic monsters woke up and swam toward the fresh meat.
A blue screen appeared in the sky directly above the flooded city, glowing brightly so every single person could read it clearly.
[All the players have joined the stage.]
[Re:Genesis begins now]