The system stayed silent, just pulsing that mocking blue light. It wasn't interested in her complaints. It was a survival game, and it was currently winning.
Hana gritted her teeth.
This felt like the apocalypse all over again—trapped in a corner with no supplies, forced to make a move she hated just to see the next sunrise.
She looked at her empty hands, then at the forest. There was no iron knife coming from the sky. No rations. No clean water. Could she make do with the things in the environment?
At least, she wouldn't eat a poisonous plant by accident with her eyes that could spot medical and dangerous herbs.
She turned her gaze toward Caspian. He was standing now, his massive frame blocking the light. He looked at her with a look that was far too protective, his black obsidian scale-covered tail sweeping the grass behind him.
"What is it, Hana?" he asked, his voice low. "You look like you want to kill the air."
"I want to kill a lot of things," she snapped.
She couldn't buy a weapon, so she would have to make one. She couldn't buy food, so she would have to hunt for it. She was back to zero—actually, far below zero. Negative. And the negative was a lot.
"Caspian," she said, her eyes narrowing as she looked him up and down. "You said you're mine now, right? That you owe me your life?"
The dragon nodded, a sly, confident grin playing on his lips. "My life, my fire, my strength. It is yours."
"Good," she said, a sharp, unpleasant smile touching her lips. "Because I'm a million points in the hole and I'm not dying because of some cosmic debt. You're going to be my weapon. You're going to be my pack mule. You're going to be my everything. And if this system wants me to be 'good,' then we're going to find the biggest, baddest problems in this forest and we're going to 'solve' them until my balance hits zero."
She didn't care about being a good person. She cared about the timer. If the system wanted her to save lives, she'd do it like a mercenary.
"Now let's move," she commanded, stepping past him. "We're wasting daylight."
Caspian watched her for a second but then smiled, following from behind her. He didn't know what she was saying, but she was letting him go with her, so that was enough.
And for some reason, he didn't seem to mind being talked to like a servant, even if she was just a female and he was the apex of all predators in these lands; if anything, the Primal Bond made him look even more satisfied to follow her lead.
> [29 days left.1,246,500 points to go.]
As she walked, she kept her eyes on the shadows of the trees, cautious of whatever would jump out and threaten her life.
Even if she was in a new world, the Wicked Survivor wasn't gone. She was just playing a new, more annoying game. And she intended to win, even if she had to drag a dragon through hell to do it.
The forest thinned as they climbed a steep, rocky ridge. Hana didn't slow her pace, her lungs adjusting to the crisp, clean air that felt like a luxury after years of breathing ash and fake oxygen. When she finally reached the crest of the hill, she stopped.
For the first time, she didn't look for a threat. She just looked.
Below her, the Northern Emerald Forest stretched out like an endless sea of living jade. Massive waterfalls cut through distant cliffs, looking like silver threads draped over the stone. There were no crumbling skyscrapers, no rusted husks of cars, and no grey fog of radiation.
The sky was a piercing, violent blue, stretching over a horizon that felt infinite.
It was beautiful.
It was the kind of world she had only seen in tattered, pre-apocalypse picture books as a child. Perhaps, even more beautiful.
"This is my territory," Caspian said, stepping up beside her. He didn't look at the view; he looked at her profile, his golden eyes reflecting the sunlight. "The Fire Dragon clan rules the peaks, and the forest below pays us tribute. Everything you see... I can give to you."
Hana didn't move. She felt a small, traitorous ache in her chest. She was a human, and no matter how much she had buried her heart in the wasteland, she couldn't completely ignore the raw majesty of a world that wasn't trying to rot.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, lizard," she said, her voice regaining its edge as she pulled her gaze away from the horizon. "Beauty doesn't pay the bills. And right now, I'm a million points in debt."
She turned her back on the view and scanned the immediate area. Her herbology knowledge flickered, highlighting a patch of jagged, flint-like stones near a dried-up stream bed.
"There," she pointed. "Those rocks. They're sharp enough to skin a kill if I can find a way to knap them. And that wood over there—it's iron-bark. I can make a spear out of it."
Caspian frowned, his tail lashing the grass. "You have me. Why do you need a stick and a stone?"
"Because you might not be around when something tries to eat me," she said, walking toward the flint. "And I don't trust anyone to be my only line of defense. Not even a dragon."
She knelt by the stones, picking one up and testing its weight. It was heavy and cold. As she looked at it, a small notification popped up in the corner of her vision.
> [SKILL PROGRESS: Primitive Crafting Initialized]
> [Current Task: Create a Hunting Tool]
> [Reward: +50 Karmic Points upon completion]
"Fifty points," she muttered with a dry laugh. "At this rate, I'll be debt-free in about two hundred years."