"Listen up, idiot."
The voice entered Mike's head the instant the colossal shadow disappeared behind the high clouds and the sky once again seemed like just sky, although nothing on that planet deserved that name without an asterisk the size of a building. He remained kneeling behind the dark stone, his rifle firmly supported, his eyes darting back and forth between the line of trees, the dirt field, and the survivors who still hadn't figured out if running was a good idea or just the shortest path to dying of exhaustion. The wind blew hot, carrying dust, the smell of fresh blood, and that dry taste of a hostile world that already clung to his tongue like rust.
"Did you see the dragon? It didn't attack."
Mike didn't answer right away. He just kept his eyes on the horizon, calculating distance, movement, and escape route. In the distance, a woman in a light coat tripped over the body of someone who was no longer moving and almost fell. A large man in a black shirt dropped what looked like an iron bar to pull a backpack from the ground and almost lost his arm to a small monster that emerged from behind a rock. The man screamed, retreated, and another person stabbed the creature in the side with an improvised knife. The planet was already teaching him fast.
"I failed at that too," the voice continued, now in a tone of someone grumbling because they'd been caught making a silly mistake. "My mistake. I forgot you have the mindset of someone who works with reality, not games. So let's organize this properly before you keep looking at everything as if every shadow is the end of the universe. This place works like a beginner's camp. Yes, beginner. Noob. A bloody tutorial. The monsters here are all level one. This bunch of rabid creatures, these malnourished wolves with too many teeth, these freaks jumping over rocks, all entry-level garbage. That big creature flying up there, it really wants to use you to pick its teeth. Really wants to. But it can't."
Mike moved the rifle's muzzle an inch. A figure moved near a dry bush. Small. Quick. Maybe just another low-level butcher. Maybe not. He didn't take his finger off the trigger.
"It's a program rule," the voice said. "And it's not out of kindness. It never is. Imagine level 1000 monsters showing up here on the first day. The show's over in twenty-four hours. The audience plummets. The sponsors get bored. The managers go hysterical. And you know how TV is. Except here, the TV is from the universe. Multiverse. Multiple universes. Too many viewers, too much money, too much ego. The same garbage, just on a cosmic scale."
Mike exhaled a little through his nose. It wasn't laughter. It was more like accepting that the absurdity would continue to escalate until his brain gave up calling it absurd.
"So this is a playpen," he murmured.
"See? When you want to, you learn fast. Yes. Little enclosure. Farm for newcomers. Warm-up area. Fool's camp. Call it what you want. Here the program lets you breathe enough to become a better product. If half die in the first five minutes, the other half doesn't even make for a good narrative. And the audience, however disgusting they may be, likes growth, rivalry, overcoming obstacles, slow betrayal, alliances breaking at the worst possible moment. They want to invest emotionally before seeing guts spill out."
A gunshot rang out in the distance. It wasn't as clean as Mike's. A dry, nervous, poorly controlled sound. Some other lucky or unlucky person had come armed too. Soon after, a second shot, more crooked, followed by someone shouting something incomprehensible. Mike didn't look in that direction. He just registered it. Armed people. People wasting ammunition in panic. People probably already condemned in the medium term.
"Who built you..." Mike began.
The voice interrupted immediately, reveling in being dramatically inconvenient. "In your world, you'd call him Jesus. Or God. Or the Messiah. Or any other comfortable label to explain an intelligence far beyond your reach. But the truth? He was a cyberpunk nerd. The kind of mind that looks at an entire civilization and thinks, 'This system could be improved with less blind faith and a cleaner interface.' But that's a conversation for another time. If I tell you half the story now, your head will fry, and I'll lose what little respect I've earned."
Mike looked up for a second. Thin clouds moved slowly. Where the dragon's shadow had crossed, the blue seemed even darker. The planet had this irritating habit of remaining beautiful while explaining, in detail, why it wanted to kill everyone.
"And stop wasting ammunition, idiot," the voice snapped suddenly, changing the subject with the delicacy of a wrench to the back of the neck. "Have you realized you don't have a convenience store here to buy ammunition? There's no 24-hour gas station. There's no logistics truck. There's no supplier sweating to replenish your ballistic luxury. Every shot that comes out of that rifle is an investment. And you're shooting as if the city still exists on the other side of the hill."
Mike clenched his jaw a little tighter. "I'm alive."
"For now. And it's largely thanks to me, who decided to like you early on. If it depended on your adaptation rate, you'd still be trying to kill level one wolves with incendiary AP ammunition worth more than the annual salary of many a backward planet."
Another figure appeared on the left flank. Mike was already turning his weapon, but quickly realized it was a person. A young man, too thin, with a torn shirt at the shoulder, carrying an empty plastic box as if it were a shield and looking in all directions at once. The man's eyes met Mike's for a moment. They saw the rifle. They saw his posture. They saw trouble. The young man changed course immediately, like an animal that recognizes a predator and decides to be prey elsewhere. Good choice.
"I forgot to tell you another little trick," the voice said. "I also sell ammunition. This damn thing is expensive. One mana crystal is worth one hundred rounds of ammunition. A more valuable mana crystal, one thousand rounds of ammunition. And yes, it's outrageous. Pornographic inflation. Institutionalized robbery. But I can't change that. It's tied to the program's economic structure. The most I can do is reduce other fees, open shortcuts, circumvent the bloodsucking manager's commission, and prevent you from buying like an idiot when the excitement hits. If ammunition drops, then you're in luck. Celebrate shamelessly."
Mike glanced briefly at the inventory status. Water. Bread. Antiseptic. Apples. Morphine. Rusty knife. Cores. No ammunition. The system noticed his look and laughed inside his head.
"See? I know you fast. You already checked. Good. Keep it up and maybe you won't end up as fertilizer in the next two days."
A crackling sound came from behind the larger rock. Not high up. On the ground. Mike moved before his hearing could even complete its work. He turned to the right, lowered his center of gravity, pulled the rifle from its holster, and found a creature crawling between two cracks in the ground, almost dragging itself, grayish skin clinging to its bones, sunken eyes, a mouth too narrow to open. When it did open, it looked like a needle-filled slit. It leaped low, wanting tendon. Mike took a half-step back, calculated the angle, and instead of firing, struck the side of the creature's head with the butt of his rifle with clean violence. The impact made a damp crack. The creature spun on the ground, disoriented, and he plunged the rusty knife he had just dropped into the base of its throat before it regained its balance.
The blood came out dark, thick, almost black for a second under the harsh light. The creature barely struggled. It died an ugly death.
Slaughter confirmed.
CORE x1
MILK x10
Salty crackers x10
.300 WIN MAG x20 Ammunition
The voice chuckled as if watching a gambler hit an improbable number. "There! See? When the universe wants something, it smiles. Twenty rounds. Multiplier already applied. Considering the type of rifle you have and the crappy market, this is practically a divine kiss. I can't get used to it, but I accept it."
Mike collected everything for his inventory and cleaned the knife on the dirt before putting it away again. His head registered two pieces of information at the same time. First, it was possible to conserve shots on small monsters. Second, the difference between dying and continuing to breathe might be precisely that fine line between reacting like a trained man and not like a desperate player.
"Later on," the voice continued, now in the tone of an enthusiastic salesman who forgot all modesty ages ago, "I'll show you how you can modify your weapon. A lot. A lot, really. Until one day it becomes a plasma rifle, who knows. I think I gave away a spoiler. But if you don't tell me, I won't. And let's be honest, you don't seem like the type to gossip."
Mike raised a slight eyebrow. "Plasma rifle."
"Yeah. Don't give me that professional skeptic face. You've already been teleported, heard a system cursing the universe, and seen a dragon patrolling because it can't eat interns. Plasma doesn't even make the top five strangest things today."
In the distance, a pickup truck finally sped off, kicking up thick dust behind its tires. There were at least four people clinging to the metal, two in the truck bed, one half hanging from the door. Motorized collective despair. Mike also saw two monsters chasing the vehicle for a few meters before giving up. Low intelligence. Average persistence. Good note.
The dark panel opened again on its own, more firmly now, as if it sensed that the moment called for a decision. A vertical list appeared before Mike's eyes with crisp letters and a subtle glow at the edges.
AVAILABLE CLASSES:
WARRIOR / FIGHTER
BARBARIAN
LADIN / ROGUE
WIZARD / SORCERER