The wild boars still hadn't seen Mike. They sniffed. They dug in the ground. Perhaps they were looking for the remains of a recent death or people running astray.
Mike thought fast. Valuable ammunition. Useful meat. Heavy animals. Still a tutorial, but tutorials don't forgive stupidity. He adjusted his aim on the larger boar, hoping it would turn its head enough. It wasn't a chest shot. It was a key shot.
The animal raised its snout.
Mike fired.
The shot landed just behind its right ear. The larger boar fell as if the ground had been pulled out from under it, its hind legs buckling first, its snout plowing in a short furrow before stopping. The second reacted instantly, not fleeing, as any sensible creature would do. No. It charged toward the sound, descending the bend in the terrain with absurd speed for something of that size.
"Of course he's coming," the voice said. "Idiot and honest beast. I hate the kind of enemy who limits your options."
Mike was already rotating his sights, but the angle was bad. Too short for the rifle to operate comfortably. The boar was coming in a broken line, kicking up dust and small stones. Mike fired once at its shoulder, more to break its momentum than expecting immediate kill. The animal stumbled, but continued. Closer. Faster.
Mike slammed the rifle against his shoulder, took two steps back, climbed onto the smaller rock to the left, and drew his knife on the way. The boar slammed violently against the base of the rock, shaking everything. The rock held. For now.
"That's it, use it against your own stupidity," the voice growled.
The boar took a step back, furious, blood dripping from its shoulder, hot steam snorting from its nostrils. It turned its head, searching for another angle. Mike saw the eye. Small. Black. Too alive. When the animal lunged again, Mike jumped off the rock sideways instead of retreating, landing half-kneeling less than two meters from the creature. Measured madness. The blade entered the base of the neck with all the force of his arm and body weight, searching for the soft space between skin, muscle, and violence. The boar bellowed, spun, almost tearing the knife from his hand. Mike let go. He retreated the next instant, rolling away from the line of prey. The beast took three crooked steps, spurting thick blood, hit a smaller rock, and fell to its side, still writhing.
Mike pulled the rifle from the ground mid-movement and finished with a short shot through the eye socket.
Silence for half a second.
Then the panel responded.
Confirmed Kills x2.
Edible targets eliminated.
Increased Resource Drop.
LOOT:
CORE x2
Wild boar meat x40
ANIMAL FAT x10
DIRTY WATER x10
.300 WIN MAG Ammunition x10
MONSTER PRESS x2
The voice let out an admiring whistle. "There you go. Now that's a profitable service. Forty units of meat, fat, prey. You can eat it, sell it, trade it, cook it, use it in a trap, whatever. And since it killed so quickly, it didn't even need to play butcher in the mud. The system did the dirty work."
Mike took a deep breath, feeling his shoulder protest from the impact and his forearm vibrate from the strain of the knife. The boar's blood smelled warmer than goblin's, heavier, almost familiar on some primal level. Food. Energy. Survival. All mixed together.
The bodies of the wild boars were already beginning to lose consistency at the edges as well.
"Then even edible animals disappear if I roll them up," he said.
"Sure. The difference is that the program usually compensates for this in the loot if the creature fits into the food resource category. But if you want specific parts, a rare gland, well-treated hide, something outside the automatic package, you have to get your hands dirty right away. The system isn't there to respect the romanticism of traditional hunters."
In the distance, a dry sound of breaking wood. Then a short scream. Then a small chorus of high-pitched, irritating voices.
"Kobolds," the voice said. "I told you. I think those are worse."
Mike turned his head toward the sound. Beyond the depression in the terrain, near an area with low stones and thorny bushes, four small reptilian figures moved in an ugly formation around a fallen man. Different from goblins. More compact. Scaly skin in earthy tones. Elongated heads. Short tails. Some with small spears, others with slings or knives. They didn't have the chaos of goblins. They had method. That irritated him more.
The man on the ground tried to get up. One of the kobolds dodged behind him and plunged his spear into his leg. The man fell screaming. Another lunged for his neck.
Mike watched for just a second. Not because he cared about the man himself, but because the method deserved attention.
"Learn," the voice said, now lower. "Kobolds work best in packs. They use bait, they use routes, they use terrain. And if they see a kobold or elite soldier, things escalate quickly. Noob monsters are still manageable. Ranked monsters aren't here to teach you. They're here to finish you off."
"Soldier, what changes?"
The answer came dry, technical. "More intelligence, better equipment, more coordination, greater resistance. Elite already come with a special trait, local leadership, poison, decent improvised armor, low magic, whatever the program wants. Lieutenant organizes a group. General turns an entire zone into a nightmare. King transforms a biome into territory. At your level, king is a sentence. Remember that."
Mike saw a fifth kobold emerge from nowhere behind a bush, as if the earth had spat it out there. Short spawn rate. Dynamic. The system really didn't let the area become empty.
"Where do they appear?" Mike asked.
"It has a fixed point and a demarcated zone. Some monsters spawn in the same pixel, if you want to use nerdy language. Others can appear anywhere within an area marked by the program. And if the region is full of players, the respawn accelerates. This is an armed amusement park. You can clear a fold of terrain and, if you take too long admiring your own efficiency, it's already full again."
Mike collected all the loot from the boars into his inventory and finally left the initial rock formation. Not running. Carefully descending the opposite side, using the elevation to avoid becoming a silhouette. Rifle in his right hand, his left free. The ground was hard, cracked, sometimes giving way in dry patches. The thin grass scratched his trouser leg. The light seemed more angled now, casting shadows that were far too long for it to be so early. Perhaps that planet was spinning wrong. Perhaps the weather there had the good sense to be as hostile as anywhere else.
"Where to?" asked the voice.
"Far from the concentration."
"Good."
"But with vision."
"Even better."
He passed close to where one of the goblins had died first. The body was gone. Not even the blood remained intact. Only a darker stain and a smell. The machine of the world cleaning the stage between one scene and another.
Further on, he found the low rope Nina had mentioned. Almost invisible between two dry stumps, stretched twenty centimeters from the ground. Attached to a pile of thorns and stones fastened to a taut branch. Simple. And deadly if triggered by a fright during an escape. Mike crouched down, quickly assessed the situation, and cut the rope with his knife. The mechanism fired empty upwards, scattering useless stones into the air.
"You could just leave that there and root for free dead people," the voice commented.
"Could."
"But it was cut."
"I don't want to rush and then forget."
"That's why I like you. Functional selfishness is an art."
Further on, the landscape opened up to a small natural rise surrounded by low black rocks, with a partial view of the dry valley ahead and a line of twisted bushes to the right. A good temporary spot. Not perfect. But good enough. Mike climbed up, knelt down, and once again had the world in his hands and in his sights.
From there, the nascent dance of hell could be seen more clearly. Scattered clusters of people, too small to distinguish faces, but large enough to see panic, haste, or method. A stopped vehicle, probably out of fuel or with a dead driver. A group of three trying to descend a dry slope, attracting too much attention. A brief flash atop another rock, perhaps someone with magic, perhaps a reflection, perhaps a costly mistake. And beyond that, at the line where the valley met the densest vegetation, a collective movement too much to be a simple animal.
"Kobolds in number," the voice said before Mike could ask. "Or goblins. Or a mixture. I never liked mixtures. It gives off a biological slum vibe."
Mike zoomed in with his scope. Now he saw. Small figures going in and out among the rocks and bushes, some carrying spears, others dragging anything on the ground. Setting up a structure. A lair. An ambush point. Basic organization.
"If I stay close to here, will they come up?"
"If they mark you, yes. Not now, maybe. But goblins and kobolds have that. They remember. They test. And if they realize you're worth loot, they come back in a group."
Mike remained silent.
The voice understood. "You liked that, didn't you?"
"I like what you think."
"Of course he likes it. You were paid to think for people who didn't realize when they were being looked at."
Mike did not respond.
The wind picked up slightly, bringing back the distant sound of large wings, very loud, almost out of earshot. The dragon was still patrolling like a living aerial camera, obedient to the program's rules and hungry enough to make a vulture's funeral envious.
"There's one more thing," the voice said, now almost casually. "Pets and environmental challenges. Those little beasts I mentioned—cat, frog, monkey, cute little mouse, tiny bat, that kind of thing. Never ignore them because they seem weak. Sometimes they're just useless creatures. Sometimes they're useful for detecting mana, poison, proximity, routes, treasure, events. Sometimes they're tutorial spawns to distract idiots. And sometimes they're the first piece of a much larger chain. You kill a frog and summon a giant wasp. Step on a monkey and its elite-rank mother appears. If this planet has a sense of humor, it's the bad kind."
Mike looked at a low rock right next to the rise. A small creature was there. So still that he only noticed it because the light hit a moist eye. It looked like a frog. Small. Dark green. Swollen. Quiet.
"Damn it," the voice murmured. "See? I barely speak and the world already wants to agree with me."
Mike didn't move.
The frog didn't either.
"And now?"
"Now you do what you do best. Observe before you act. This could be nothing. It could be a sensor. It could be walking poison. It could be food. It could be a mascot for something else. I don't have a complete picture at this distance without more interaction from you."
Mike lowered the sights slightly, but not enough to aim directly. The frog remained motionless. Perhaps normal. Perhaps too good at being bad.
"Do you see the problem?" the voice asked, amused. "Before it was just people and targets. Now even frogs make you think. Welcome to survival RPG."
Mike lifted his face and looked at the valley, the bushes, the movement in the distance, the double sky of pale moons and the restrained dragon, the dust, the quick death, the loot stored in an absurd inventory, the newly chosen class clinging to his body like a second discipline, the insolent system talking nonstop inside his head, and the entire planet organized to transform humans into entertainment or a resource.
It was no longer Earth. Earth had become too straightforward a memory for this kind of world.
The voice was lower this time, almost serious, which in her case was equivalent to taking the knife out of the game and using the blade for real.
"Listen to this and remember it. You're at the beginning. Noob monster. Beginner area. Cheap blood. It seems like a lot because everything is new and because any bite is still scary. But this is just the floor. The very ground. The universe hasn't even opened the doors to the upper floors for you yet. So don't get too excited about dead wolves, pierced goblins, and boars becoming dinner. This is the base. Survive enough at this base and then the game gets interesting. Or unbearable. Usually, both things come together."
Mike ran his thumb along the side of the rifle stock again. A small gesture. Almost intimate. The gun was still his. The method was still his. But now the game around it was different.
"I understand," he said.
"You didn't understand anything," the voice replied dryly. "But you've already made a good start, which is almost a miracle these days."
The frog jumped.
Mike didn't shoot. He just followed the movement with his eyes as it disappeared between two cracks in the rock and vanished.
Good choice.
Somewhere below, a goblin screech responded to something else. Farther away, a boar bellowed before dying or killing. Still farther, at the edge of the dense vegetation, some larger creature made the trees sway in a line, like a boat cutting through the sea. The tactical proximity map flickered with new red dots appearing and disappearing. Respawn. Pressure. Too alive a world.
Mike took a deep breath. The smell of dust. Blood. Leather. Sun. Death. Potential food. Trouble in every direction.
The dark panel floated discreetly before him, without obstructing his view. An inventory full of resources better than he could have imagined an hour earlier. Meat. Water. Ammunition. Cores. Tools. The Assassin class already silently manipulating the reflections. And that insolent, ancient, and grumpy system, functioning as both a useful parasite and a drunken professor.
"So," the voice said, returning to its usual tone, "do you want some advice for the next stage, or are you going to play the lone wolf, philosophizing on the rock until dark?"
Mike aimed his sights at the line of kobolds organized in the valley.
"Tell me where to cut first."
The voice smiled inside his head like a scalpel being cleaned before use.
"Now yes."