Chapter 3: This Is Not A Safe Zone (Patreon)

Zed hid behind a massive tree of verdigris green. He panted horribly, his breath coming labored and heavily. In one hand he held a massive length of wood. Somewhere in the past two hours he’d been forced to pull it out of the corpse of a beast lying dead.

He chuckled lightly. One moment you’re Samson, the next you could be a first born son in Egypt after a great plague. He shook his head and peeked over the corner of the tree. Life comes at you fast.

Pain filled his side and his groan deepened. He looked down at his latest injury, gotten from a fall off a tree, and held on to the piece of wood sticking out from his side.

His grip tightened around it and he rested the back of his head against the tree.

I know it’s supposed to hurt, but why does this seem a bit on the overstimulated side? He pulled against the piece of wood, gasped in pain, and stopped.

Why does this feel a bit exaggerated?

Attribute: [Hypersensitivity] (Physical, mana)

• Your awareness of mana is abnormal and so are your already heightened senses.
• Careful, lest you hurt yourself.

Of course, he looked down at the piece of wood once more, looked around the corner of the tree in search of his hunter, then rested back against the tree. I knew you were trouble when I saw you. Talk about heightened senses.

Alright, Zed, he panted heavily forcing the air in and out of his lungs, preparing himself. His grip tightened around the piece of wood. His muscles contracted. You’ve got this you—He pulled—MOTHERFUCKERRRRRR!!!

He ripped the stick from his side and held on tight. Pain twisted his face into something ugly as he slid down the tree, taking a very necessary sit.

“Oh god, no,” he whimpered, broken somewhere between a chuckle and a sob, staring at the bloody stick. “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

Blood squirted from his side in two spurts before becoming a very slow trickle. The metallic smell of blood filled the air, tainting the soft touch of nature, and Zed knew what would come next.

A slow growl rumbled around him and he held his massive stick in both hands. There was blood on the end of it and he was certain there would be much more soon. He had claw marks that riddled him covered under the red blood of his advancement. He had a feeling he should’ve died from blood loss a long time ago, but he hadn’t.

“Hard to die from blood loss when you don’t bleed long,” he muttered, discarded the piece of stick, then heaved himself back to his feet.

“That’s enough self-pity for the prey.”

He cocked his head from side to side in preparation, listened to the light muffled sound of footsteps like falling paper, then darted out from behind the tree.

He rushed into the open, and met the creature, wood swinging.

While their encounter had left him with enough claw marks to rival a scratch pole, it had left the beast with a limp in one of its hind legs. It kept it from certain leaps and bursts of speed. Not enough that he could out run it but enough that he could hear it coming.

It clawed at his head and he deflected the blow with his stick. He ducked another swipe then swung the piece of wood down. It cracked against the creature’s skull, staggering it for a moment, and Zed struck again.

The animal went down with a trickle of blood crawling down its head in a straight line. Zed raised his weapon, once more, for good measure, and brought it down again.

Its muscles loosened and it looked like a deflated version of itself as it died. He nodded once in accomplishment and turned around.

“Now, where the hell is that safe zone?”

• You have defeated [Mutated Tiger].
• You have gained 15 Exp.

“Yeah, got it,” he said. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

He stared at the new Exp with a touch of concern. The first mutated tiger had given him eight while the one after it had given him two. This one gave him fifteen. The numbers were too random, and while he wanted to believe the rewards varied according to strength, the first mutated tiger had been easier to deal with than the second, though the second had been more difficult than this one.

There was a criteria to how he gained Exp he needed to figure out.

Quest: [This is Not a Safe Zone]

• Hidden objective discovered: Create a [Safe Zone] 0/1.
• Hidden objective complete: Create a [Safe Zone] 1/1.
• You have received additional rewards.
• Objective complete: Find a [Safe Zone] 1/1.
• You have been award [Meat (food, mutated).
• You have received additional reward 3 [Mutated beast core (unranked)].
• Quest complete.
• You have created [Safe Zone(Temporary)].

[Safe zone] (Temporary)

• A temporary geographical location with [ambient mana] and very limited or no hostile non-sentient specie.

“Alright.” He let out a heavy breath and let the stick hang to his side. He turned around, gaze panning from side to side. “I was promised food. Meat to be specific.”

He wasn’t hungry but he could eat.

His injuries hurt but the pain was less, not as bad as when he’d gotten it. He stepped away from the beast’s corpse, still searching.

“I’ve got no idea what a monster core is, and I really don’t care.” He held his arms out on both sides. “But I was promised meat! Mutated or not.”

Item [Meat (food, mutated)]

• A piece of meat from a mutated beast, often used as crafting material.
• Extracted from corpse of a mutated beast.

Zed stared at it, baffled. “You have got to be kidding me. You’re telling me I have to work for my reward? That’s some bullshit.”

He paused, another thought coming to mind. “Wait, don’t tell me,” he rubbed his forehead with thumb and forefinger, suspecting he knew the answer to his next question. “What about the beast core?”

Item: [Mutated Beast core (unranked)]

• The core of a mutated beast, often used as a power source. Mostly used as crafting material.
• Extracted from corpse of a mutated beast.

He sighed, not surprised. “I guess I’ve got to work for that one, too. You know,” he turned away from the beast and started walking in a random direction, “the whole point of a reward is to get it freely after working for it.”

Zed still had one more quest to complete.

He looked at the bloody piece of wood in his hand and decided to keep it. The fact that he had created a safe zone didn’t mean he was necessarily safe. Besides, the notification said it was temporary. How large it was and how long it would last was anyone’s guess.

• You are currently in a [Safe Zone] (Temporary).
• [Safe Zone] radius: 1.6km.
• [Safe Zone] duration: [11:56:28:12].
• Calculation accuracy may vary.

“Do you know what the problem is?” he said to the notification, checking the hole in his side. It hurt less and wasn’t bleeding anymore. “The problem is it’s hard to stay mad at you. It’s like you do it on purpose. One moment you’re useless. Then boom you’re useful.”

He stepped around a tree.

“I mean. Now I know a bit more about the safe zone, which satisfies my curiosity. But,” he paused to remove a strand of hair that strayed into his mouth. It tasted like blood. “That’s disgusting. So, as I was saying, what’s the last part supposed to mean; what do you mean it may vary? Do I have eleven hours left? Do I even have that much space of safety?”

Nothing happened. No notification popped up. He waited longer and nothing happened.

“Don’t know what I was expecting, if I’m being honest.”

He continued walking, increasing the distance between him and a bloody battle field when another notification popped up.

Warning!

• You are leaving reward perimeter.
• Leaving reward area will lead to forfeiture of rewards.

Zed looked back. Over the distance he could still see what was left of the beast. Alive it had looked malnourished, even diseased. In death it looked worse, like age old detritus of spoiled meat and forgotten fish. Flies were already beginning to gather to it. Did the notification really expect him to eat that? And how exactly was he supposed to even get to its core? He had no idea where it would even begin to be or what it would even look like. For all he knew it could be a third testicle or a wart beside its heart.

Warning!

• You are leaving reward perimeter.
• Would you like to forfeit reward [Meat (Food, mutated)]?
• Would you like to forfeit reward [Mutated Beast core (unranked)] x3?

He waved the notification aside. Not all questions deserve answers. Stupid questions, specifically, deserved less. And there’s nothing less than ignorance.

…………………….

It took Zed a while before he was finally free of the woods. Three hours, specifically, if the timer on the duration of his safe zone was to be believed. His hold on his weapon was tight, his knuckles whitening under all the dried blood and whatever else his body had expelled on his advancement.

He’d since gotten a notification he’d spared the littlest attention. Now that he was free of the woods, he pulled it up.

Warning!

• You are leaving [Safe Zone (Temporary)].

He shook his head. “I swear this thing is becoming predictable. Now,” he looked around. “If this is not a safe zone, then where the hell am I?”

The rest of the woods stood behind him, a flowery intimidation of a background. In front of him was a long stretch of black tarred ground that ran as far as his eyes could see from left to right. He stared at it with the detached interest of someone who’d almost lost his life not too long ago and found himself unimpressed.

Zed still stood on soft soil, gentle against the soles of his feet. Unhesitant, he placed a foot on the road and found it—much unlike that of the woods—hard to the touch, and warm. He pressed down on it and it remained firm, resistant.

He frowned and looked back at the woods.

Why is the ground here so different? He wondered.

The distance between the woods and this stretch of land wasn’t that much. Not enough for such a drastic change. Weren’t these things supposed to be gradual?

He turned his head from side to side, watched both sides of the road, then placed his other foot on it. He took a momentary pause, alert, tense. His hand twitched and the wood twitched with it. If there was something hiding in wait, he really hoped it was ready to eat wood.

Quest: [A Breath of Fresh Air]

• Objective complete: Leave the woods 1/1.
• You have received [Pocket memory (incomplete)] (who am I?).
• Quest complete.

He read it once with a touch of suspicion.

“Good to know,” he muttered slowly.