The blacksmith's forge was still burning when they arrived.
That was the first surprise. The second was that the blacksmith was still alive—a broad-shouldered woman with soot-streaked arms and eyes that had seen too much in too few hours. She didn't look up when they entered, just kept hammering at something on her anvil with methodical, exhausted precision.
"Class items," Ayger said.
She didn't stop hammering. "Everyone wants class items. Half of them are dead. The other half will be soon."
"We have credits," Fen said.
"Credits." She laughed, but it was hollow. Empty. "The system gives us magic and monsters and calls it currency. Sure. What class?"
"Fighter," Ayger said. "Spearman."
The hammer paused. She looked up then, studying them with the kind of assessment that came from watching people die. "You two look like you've already died a few times."
"More than a few," Fen muttered.
She grunted, set down her hammer, and moved to a rack along the wall. Her hands moved with practiced efficiency, pulling down items wrapped in oiled cloth. "Gloves for the Fighter. Reinforced knuckles, system-enhanced durability. They'll grow with you if you don't die stupid." She tossed them to Ayger.
He caught them, felt the weight. They were heavier than they looked, the leather dark and supple, the metal plates across the knuckles etched with symbols that pulsed faintly.
[Brawler's Grasp - Common]
+2 Strength when unarmed
Durability: Enhanced
"And for you." She pulled out a spear, six feet of dark wood with a leaf-shaped blade that caught the firelight. "Basic. Functional. Won't break on the first goblin you stab. Probably."
Fen took it, felt the balance. It was perfect. Too perfect. The system had made this, shaped it to fit his hands like it had always been waiting.
[Initiate's Spear - Common]
+1 Agility
Reach: Extended
"How much?" Ayger asked.
"Everything you have."
They paid. It hurt. The system deducted their credits with the same cheerful efficiency it used for everything else, and they walked out of the forge lighter in currency and heavier in purpose.
The city gates were chaos.
People were fleeing north, south, anywhere that wasn't here. Some carried weapons. Most carried nothing but terror. The guards had abandoned their posts—or been killed at them. Bodies lay in the street, some fresh, some already being picked over by things that had been human yesterday.
Fen and Ayger walked through it like ghosts.
They'd seen this before. Lived it. Died in it.
It didn't make it easier. It just made it familiar.
"North," Ayger said.
"North," Fen agreed.
They passed through the gates as the sun climbed higher, leaving the burning city behind.
The landscape opened up before them like a wound.
Fields that had been green yesterday were trampled, torn apart by things with too many legs or not enough. A farmhouse burned in the distance, smoke rising in a thin black column. The road was empty except for the dead—people who'd tried to run and hadn't made it far enough.
Fen kept his spear ready. Ayger's hands flexed in his new gloves, testing the weight, the feel.
They walked in silence.
The world had ended, and they were walking through its corpse.
"Do you think it gets easier?" Fen asked after a while.
"No."
"Good. I'd hate to think we were getting numb."
Ayger glanced at him. "You're already numb."
"I'm functional. There's a difference."
They crested a hill, and the land spread out before them—rolling fields, patches of forest, a river cutting through the valley like a silver scar. In the distance, maybe ten miles north, they could see another village. Smoke rose from it too.
"Everyone's dying," Fen said quietly.
"Everyone's always been dying," Ayger replied. "The system just made it faster."
They kept walking.
It happened at noon.
The sky tore.
Not metaphorically. Not symbolically. The blue expanse above them split open like fabric, and something vast descended through the wound.
The Chrysalis.
It was a stadium. A colosseum. A structure of impossible geometry that shouldn't exist but did, hanging in the sky like a promise and a threat. Its walls were crystalline, refracting light into colors that hurt to look at. Symbols crawled across its surface—system language, alien and familiar all at once.
Fen and Ayger stopped walking.
They stared.
"That's where we're going," Ayger said softly.
"In a month."
"If we survive that long."
The Chrysalis hung there, distant but undeniable, and then it began to descend. Slowly. Deliberately. It settled somewhere beyond the horizon, far to the north, and the sky sealed itself behind it like nothing had happened.
And then the system spoke.
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: First Blood]
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Deathless]
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: System Acknowledged]
The notifications bloomed across their vision, cheerful and bright, and for a moment—just a moment—there was peace.
Not real peace. Not the kind that meant safety or comfort.
But the surreal, hollow peace of standing in a graveyard and hearing birdsong.
"It's mocking us," Fen said.
"It's rewarding us," Ayger corrected. "There's a difference."
"Is there?"
Ayger didn't answer.
They stood on the hill, watching the place where the Chrysalis had descended, and felt the weight of what was coming.
A month.
They had a month to become strong enough to survive it.
Or die enough times to learn how.
POV: Amanda
The morning had been perfect.
Amanda had woken early, before the sun, and gone to her garden. The plants were thriving—tomatoes heavy on the vine, herbs fragrant in the cool air, flowers blooming in riots of color. She moved among them with practiced ease, watering, pruning, whispering encouragement.
Her mother always said she had a gift.
Amanda just thought she paid attention.
The sun rose, painting the sky in shades of gold and pink, and she stood there with dirt under her nails and peace in her chest. The village across the river was waking up—she could hear distant voices, the clatter of morning routines.
Everything was normal.
Everything was fine.
And then the sky screamed.
The system arrived like a plague.
One moment, the world was whole. The next, it was infected. Blue screens erupted across her vision, words in a language she shouldn't understand but did. Her mother's voice called from inside the house—confused, frightened.
Amanda dropped her watering can and ran.
She found her mother in the kitchen.
Or what had been her mother.
The woman standing there had her mother's face, her mother's body, but her eyes were wrong. Empty. Hungry. Her mouth opened, and the sound that came out wasn't human.
[Cannibal - Level 1]
The system helpfully labeled her.
"Mom?" Amanda's voice cracked.
Her mother lunged.
Amanda stumbled back, tripped over a chair, hit the floor hard. Her mother was on her in seconds, hands clawing, teeth snapping. The smell was wrong—rot and copper and something chemical.
"Stop! Mom, please—"
But there was no recognition. No humanity.
Just hunger.
Amanda's hand found something—a vine from the potted plant on the counter, knocked loose in the struggle. It was thin, weak, useless.
Except.
Except when she grabbed it, something woke.
The vine thickened. Grew. Twisted around her fingers like it was alive—like it was hers. She felt it respond to her panic, her desperation, her absolute refusal to die like this.
The vine became a rope.
Soggy. Green. Strong.
Amanda wrapped it around her mother's throat and pulled.
Her mother thrashed. Clawed. Gurgled.
Amanda pulled harder.
The vine tightened, leaves and stems crushing windpipe and flesh, and her mother's struggles grew weaker. Slower. Until they stopped.
Amanda held on for another thirty seconds.
Just to be sure.
She sat on the kitchen floor, her mother's body cooling beside her, and stared at her hands.
They were shaking.
The vine was still wrapped around her fingers, still green, still alive. She could feel it. Not just physically—she could sense it. Its life. Its growth. Its potential.
And beyond it, she could feel the garden. The plants outside. The trees in the distance. A network of living things, all connected, all waiting.
[Class Unlocked: Verdant]
[Skill Gained: Plant Manipulation - Level 1]
The system was cheerful about it.
Amanda wanted to scream.
Instead, she stood. Stepped over her mother's body. Walked outside.
The garden was still there. Still beautiful. Still growing.
She'd killed her mother with a plant.
The absurdity of it hit her like a fist.
And then the sky tore open.
The Chrysalis descended in the distance, vast and impossible, and Amanda watched it with eyes that had seen too much in too few minutes.
She didn't know what it was.
But she knew it mattered.
Somewhere out there, beyond the river, beyond the fields, people were dying. Fighting. Surviving.
She could feel them, distantly, through the network of living things that connected the world.
Two of them felt different.
Brighter. Sharper.
Like they'd died and come back and learned something from it.
Amanda looked down at her hands, at the vine still coiled around her fingers, and made a decision.
She wasn't going to die here.
She was going to find out what the system wanted.
And then she was going to make it regret choosing her.
The Chrysalis hung on the horizon like a promise.
Amanda walked toward it.
It was curious to see what they'd do with them.
POV: Fen & Ayger
The road north was a graveyard with scenery.
They'd been walking for three hours when Fen's leg started bleeding again. Not badly—just enough to remind him that the goblin's blade had gone deeper than he'd thought. The system had healed the worst of it during his last death, but healing wasn't the same as fixing. The muscle still remembered being cut.
"You're limping," Ayger said.
"I'm walking with purpose."
"You're bleeding through your pants."
Fen looked down. His brother was right. A dark stain was spreading down his left thigh, warm and sticky. "It's fine."
"It's not fine."
"It's functional. There's a difference."
Ayger stopped walking. Fen stopped too, because that's what they did—moved in sync even when they were arguing. Especially when they were arguing.
"We need to rest," Ayger said.
"We need to keep moving."
"You're going to pass out."
"I've passed out before. It's overrated."
Ayger's jaw tightened. That particular expression meant he was calculating—weighing options, running scenarios, trying to optimize their survival. Fen hated that expression. Mostly because it was usually right.
"There," Ayger said, pointing.
A farmhouse sat maybe half a mile off the road, partially hidden by a stand of trees. Smoke wasn't rising from its chimney. That was either a good sign or a very bad one.
"Could be occupied," Fen said.
"Could be shelter."
"Could be full of cannibals."
"Then we'll kill them and take their shelter."
Fen considered this. "That's surprisingly pragmatic of you."
"I'm learning from the best."
They left the road.
The farmhouse was occupied.
By corpses.
Three of them, sprawled in the front yard like discarded puppets. A man, a woman, a child. The system had been here—their bodies bore the telltale signs of transformation interrupted. Claws half-formed. Teeth elongated. Skin mottled with colors that didn't belong on human flesh.
Someone had killed them mid-change.
"Mercy killing," Ayger said quietly.
"Or murder."
"Is there a difference anymore?"
Fen didn't answer. He was looking at the child—maybe eight years old, face frozen in an expression that was half-terror, half-hunger. A kitchen knife protruded from its chest.
The system hadn't given it a class notification.
It had just... changed it.
"I hate this," Fen said.
"I know."
"I really, really hate this."
"I know."
They stood there for a moment, two brothers looking at a dead family, and felt the weight of what the world had become.
Then Ayger moved toward the house. "Come on. We need to check inside."
The interior was surprisingly intact.
No blood. No bodies. No signs of struggle. Just a normal farmhouse frozen in the moment before everything ended—breakfast dishes still on the table, a kettle on the stove, children's drawings pinned to the wall.
Fen's leg throbbed. He sat down heavily at the kitchen table, breathing through the pain.
Ayger was already moving through the rooms, checking corners, testing doors. Always methodical. Always thorough.
"Clear," he called from upstairs.
"Great. We're alone with our trauma."
Ayger came back down, carrying blankets and what looked like a first aid kit. "Take off your pants."
"Buy me dinner first."
"Fen."
"Fine. But if this awakens something in you, that's your problem."
He stripped off his pants, hissing as fabric pulled away from the wound. It was worse than he'd thought—a four-inch gash along his outer thigh, deep enough to see muscle. Blood welled up, dark and thick.
Ayger knelt beside him, opening the first aid kit. "This is going to hurt."
"Everything hurts. Be specific."
"Antiseptic."
"Oh. That kind of hurt."
The alcohol hit the wound like liquid fire. Fen's vision whited out for a second, and he gripped the edge of the table hard enough to make the wood creak.
"Fuck," he gasped.
"Almost done."
"That's what you said last time I died."
"You didn't die. You got stabbed."
"Felt the same."
Ayger worked in silence, cleaning the wound, applying pressure, wrapping it with gauze from the kit. His hands were steady. They'd always been steady. Even when they were kids, even when everything was falling apart, Ayger's hands never shook.
Fen envied that sometimes.
"There," Ayger said, sitting back. "That should hold until we find a healing potion or you die again."
"Your bedside manner needs work."
"You're not in bed."
"Give me five minutes."
They ate in silence.
The farmhouse had a pantry—canned goods, dried meat, flour, things that would last. The family had been preparing for something. Maybe they'd known the system was coming. Maybe they'd just been cautious.
It hadn't saved them.
Fen opened a can of beans and ate them cold, not bothering with a spoon. Ayger found bread that was only slightly stale and tore off chunks, chewing mechanically.
Outside, the sun was setting. The sky bled orange and red, beautiful and terrible.
"We should stay here tonight," Ayger said.
"Agreed."
"Set watches. Two-hour shifts."
"You take first. I'm bleeding."
"You're always bleeding."
"Exactly. I've earned the rest."
Ayger almost smiled. Almost. "Fine. But if something kills you while I'm on watch, I'm not resurrecting you."
"The system will do it for you."
"That's not the point."
They fell silent again, eating their scavenged meal in a dead family's kitchen, and tried not to think about how normal this was starting to feel.
Fen took the couch.
It was old, lumpy, and smelled faintly of dog, but it was horizontal and that was enough. His leg throbbed in time with his heartbeat—a steady, insistent reminder that he was still alive, still damaged, still human.
For now.
He stared at the ceiling and thought about the Chrysalis.
A month.
They had a month to become strong enough to survive whatever waited in that impossible stadium. A month to level up, to learn skills, to exploit the system's mechanics until they could bend it to their will.
A month to die as many times as it took.
The thought should have terrified him.
Instead, it felt like a deadline. A goal. Something concrete in a world that had become fluid and wrong.
He could work with deadlines.
"Fen," Ayger said from the doorway.
"Yeah?"
"You ever think about what happens if we actually survive this?"
Fen turned his head, looking at his brother. Ayger was silhouetted against the fading light, face shadowed, expression unreadable.
"No," Fen said honestly. "I don't think past tomorrow."
"That's probably smart."
"You're thinking about it though."
"I'm always thinking about it."
"And?"
Ayger was quiet for a long moment. Then: "I think the system wants us to become monsters. I think that's the point. Give us power, give us infinite lives, give us a reason to stop caring about consequences. See what we become."
"And what do you think we'll become?"
"I don't know. But I know what I won't become."
"What's that?"
"Optimized."
Fen laughed. It hurt his leg, but he laughed anyway. "You're literally the most optimization-focused person I know."
"For survival. Not for the system. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
Ayger didn't answer. He just stood there, watching the darkness gather outside, and Fen knew his brother was running scenarios again. Calculating. Planning.
Trying to find the angle that would let them survive without losing themselves.
Good luck with that, Fen thought.
But he didn't say it out loud.
Midnight came with screaming.
Fen was on watch when he heard it—distant, but clear. Human voices raised in terror or rage or both. He moved to the window, peering out into the darkness.
Lights flickered in the distance. Fire, maybe. Or magic. The system had given people classes, skills, power. Not everyone was using it to survive.
Some were using it to take.
"Ayger," he called softly.
His brother appeared instantly, fully awake. That was another thing Fen envied—Ayger could go from sleep to alert in seconds, no grogginess, no confusion.
"What is it?"
"Trouble. Maybe two miles east."
They watched together as the lights flickered and danced. The screaming continued for another minute, then cut off abruptly.
Silence.
"We should check it out," Fen said.
"No."
"People might need help."
"People are always going to need help. We can't save everyone."
"We could try."
"And die. Again. For strangers who are probably already dead."
Fen's jaw tightened. "So we just... what? Hide here and let the world burn?"
"We survive. We get stronger. And then, maybe, we can actually make a difference instead of dying heroically and accomplishing nothing."
It was logical. Practical. Everything Ayger always was.
Fen hated it.
But he also knew his brother was right.
"Fine," he said. "We stay."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me. I'm just too tired to argue."
They stood at the window, watching the distant lights fade, and felt the weight of their inaction settle like ash.
POV: Amanda
The vine was still wrapped around her mother's throat.
Amanda stood in the doorway, looking at the body, and felt nothing.
That was the worst part.
Not the killing. Not the blood. Not the way her mother's face had gone purple, eyes bulging, tongue protruding.
The worst part was the emptiness where grief should have been.
She'd killed her mother.
She should feel something.
Instead, there was just... static. White noise. The emotional equivalent of a disconnected phone line.
The system had done this.
Turned her mother into a monster. Forced Amanda to kill her. Given her the power to do it.
And now it expected her to what? Be grateful? Level up? Participate in whatever sick game it was playing?
Amanda walked back into the kitchen.
Her mother's body was cooling. Already starting to smell. The system hadn't given her a class notification—just transformed her into something hungry and wrong and then left Amanda to deal with the consequences.
She should bury her.
That's what you did with bodies. You buried them. You said words. You mourned.
But Amanda couldn't make herself move.
The vine was still coiled around her fingers, green and alive and hers. She could feel it. Not just physically—she could sense its life force, its growth potential, its connection to the soil and sun and water.
And beyond it, she could feel more.
The garden outside. The trees in the distance. The grass, the weeds, the moss growing on the north side of the house. A vast network of living things, all connected, all waiting.
All hers.
[Plant Manipulation - Level 1]
Range: 50 feet
Control: Basic
Growth Rate: Enhanced
The system was helpful like that.
Amanda looked at her hands. The vine pulsed gently, responding to her attention. She thought about letting it go, but it felt wrong. Like cutting off a limb.
So she kept it.
And walked outside.
The garden was different now.
Not visibly—the plants looked the same, green and healthy and thriving. But Amanda could feel them. Their roots reaching deep into the soil. Their leaves drinking sunlight. Their slow, patient growth.
She knelt beside a tomato plant and touched its stem.
The plant responded.
Not dramatically. Not like in movies where things grew instantly and wrapped around enemies. Just... a subtle shift. The stem thickened slightly. The leaves turned toward her. The tomatoes swelled, ripening faster than they should.
Amanda pulled her hand back.
The plant stopped changing.
"Okay," she said to the empty garden. "Okay."
Her voice sounded strange. Too loud. Too real.
She tried again with a different plant. A rose bush, thorny and wild. She touched it, focused, and felt the connection snap into place.
The thorns grew longer. Sharper. The stems twisted, reaching toward her like they were seeking approval.
She could make them do more. She knew it instinctively. Could make them grow faster, stronger, could shape them into weapons or walls or whatever she needed.
The system had given her power.
And all it had cost was her mother.
Amanda sat down in the dirt and stared at her hands.
They were shaking now.
The static was fading, and underneath it was something worse. Something raw and jagged and too big to contain.
Grief.
It hit her like a wave, sudden and overwhelming, and she doubled over, gasping. Her mother was dead. Her mother was dead. Killed by her own daughter with a plant, of all things, because the system had decided that was funny or interesting or whatever the fuck it was optimizing for.
Amanda wanted to scream.
Instead, she threw up in the tomatoes.
The sun was setting when she finally went back inside.
Her mother's body was still there. Still dead. Still her fault.
Amanda found a sheet in the linen closet and draped it over the corpse. It wasn't burial, but it was something. A gesture. An acknowledgment.
Then she searched the house.
Not for anything specific. Just... looking. Trying to understand what she was supposed to do now.
Her mother had been prepared. There was food in the pantry—canned goods, dried pasta, rice. Water in bottles. A first aid kit. Candles. Matches.
Enough to last a few weeks if Amanda was careful.
After that... what?
She found her mother's journal in the bedroom, tucked under the mattress. Amanda had never read it before—it felt like an invasion of privacy.
Privacy didn't matter anymore.
She opened it.
The entries were mundane. Grocery lists. Garden notes. Observations about the weather. And then, near the end, something different:
"Amanda doesn't know I've been having the dreams. The blue screens. The voice that isn't a voice. It's been three weeks now. I think something is coming. I think we need to prepare. But how do you prepare for the end of the world?"
The entry was dated two days ago.
Her mother had known.
Not everything. But enough to be afraid.
Amanda closed the journal and set it aside.
Outside, the sky was darkening. The Chrysalis was visible on the horizon, a crystalline structure that caught the last light and refracted it into impossible colors.
A month, the system had said.
A month until... what? A contest? A trial? Mass murder dressed up as entertainment?
Amanda didn't know.
But she knew she wasn't going to sit here and wait for it.
She tested her powers through the night.
Not dramatically. Not with grand gestures or declarations. Just... quietly. Methodically. Trying to understand what she could do.
The vine responded to her thoughts. She could make it grow, shrink, twist, harden. Could shape it into crude tools—a rope, a whip, a noose.
The garden responded too. She could accelerate growth, direct it, encourage certain plants over others. The tomatoes ripened in minutes. The roses bloomed out of season. The weeds died when she asked them to.
It was beautiful.
It was horrifying.
It was hers.
By dawn, Amanda had a better understanding of her limits. Her range was about fifty feet—beyond that, the connection grew fuzzy, unreliable. She could control multiple plants at once, but it took concentration. And the more she used her power, the more exhausted she became.
Not physically. Mentally. Like her brain was a muscle and she'd been exercising it for hours.
She sat in the garden as the sun rose, surrounded by plants that had grown too fast and too strange, and felt the weight of what she'd become.
The system had made her a monster.
Just a different kind than her mother.
The village across the river was burning.
Amanda saw the smoke around mid-morning. Thick, black columns rising into the sky. She could hear screaming, faintly, carried on the wind.
The system had reached them too.
She should help.
That's what good people did. They helped.
But Amanda couldn't make herself move.
What would she do? Walk into a burning village with her plant magic and... what? Strangle the monsters? Grow a garden in the ruins?
She was one person.
One traumatized, exhausted, grief-hollowed person who'd killed her mother twelve hours ago.
She couldn't save anyone.
She could barely save herself.
So she sat in her garden and watched the village burn and felt the weight of her uselessness settle like a stone.
But she could feel them.
That was new.
As the day wore on, Amanda became aware of a strange sensation—a network of living things spreading out from her position. Not just plants. Animals too. Insects. Birds. Anything alive, she could sense it. Faintly. Like distant echoes.
And among those echoes, she could feel people.
Most were dim. Flickering. Dying or already dead.
But some were bright. Burning with life and purpose and something else. Something the system had given them.
Two of them were especially bright.
They felt... different. Sharp. Like they'd been honed by something. Like they'd died and come back and learned from it.
Amanda focused on them, trying to understand what she was sensing.
They were north. Maybe ten miles. Moving slowly, deliberately. Resting.
They felt dangerous.
They felt alive.
And for the first time since her mother's death, Amanda felt something other than grief or emptiness.
Curiosity.
Who were they?
What had they survived?
And why did sensing them make her chest tighten in a way that had nothing to do with fear?
She packed that night.
Not much. Just the essentials—food, water, a knife, her mother's journal. The vine stayed wrapped around her hand, a constant reminder of what she'd become.
The Chrysalis hung on the horizon, vast and patient.
A month.
Amanda didn't know what would happen in a month.
But she knew she wasn't going to face it alone.
Somewhere out there, people were surviving. Fighting. Becoming something new.
She could feel them.
And tomorrow, she would start walking toward them.
Toward the two bright points of life that felt like they'd already died a thousand times.
Toward whatever the system wanted her to become.
Amanda looked at her mother's grave—a sheet-covered body in a kitchen that smelled like death—and made a promise.
She would survive this.
She would find out what the system wanted.
And then she would make it regret choosing her.
The garden rustled in the darkness, responding to her determination.
Amanda smiled.
It wasn't a happy smile.
But it was hers.
POV: Fen & Ayger
Dawn came cold and gray.
Fen woke to find Ayger already up, standing at the window, watching the road. His brother hadn't slept. Fen could tell by the set of his shoulders, the way his hands were clenched.
"Anything?" Fen asked.
"No."
"That's good, right?"
"That's suspicious."
Fen sat up, wincing as his leg protested. The wound was better—not healed, but better. The system's passive regeneration was working, slowly knitting muscle and skin back together.
He'd probably be fully healed by tomorrow.
Or he'd die and resurrect with a fresh body.
Either way.
"We should move," Ayger said.
"Agreed. North?"
"North."
They gathered their things—weapons, the remaining food, blankets. Left the farmhouse as they'd found it, minus the supplies. The family in the yard was still dead. Still frozen in their moment of transformation.
Fen paused beside the child's body.
"We should bury them," he said.
"We don't have time."
"We have infinite lives. We have time."
Ayger looked at him. Really looked. And something in his expression softened. "Okay. We bury them."
It took an hour.
The ground was hard, and they only had a shovel from the shed, but they dug three graves and laid the bodies to rest. No words. No ceremony. Just the act itself.
When they were done, Fen felt lighter.
Not happy. Not at peace.
Just... lighter.
"Thank you," he said.
Ayger nodded.
They walked north.
The Chrysalis grew larger as they traveled.
Not physically—it was still miles away. But its presence grew. Like a weight pressing down on the world. Like gravity had shifted and everything was falling toward it.
Fen could feel it in his bones.
"One month," he said.
"One month," Ayger agreed.
"Think we'll be ready?"
"No."
"Me neither."
They walked in silence for a while, following the road as it wound through fields and forests. The landscape was beautiful in a desolate way—autumn colors, clear sky, the kind of day that would have been perfect before the world ended.
Now it just felt like a stage set. Scenery for the apocalypse.
"Fen," Ayger said eventually.
"Yeah?"
"When we get to the Chrysalis. When the contest starts. We might have to fight each other."
Fen had thought about that. Of course he had. The system loved its competitions, its rankings, its optimization through conflict.
"I know," he said.
"And?"
"And we'll deal with it when it happens."
"That's not a plan."
"It's the only plan I have."
Ayger was quiet for a moment. Then: "If it comes down to it. If the system forces us to fight. I want you to know—"
"Don't."
"Fen—"
"Don't. We're not doing this. We're not having the 'if one of us has to die' conversation. We're going to survive. Both of us. Together. And if the system doesn't like it, the system can fuck itself."
Ayger almost smiled. "That's not very optimized."
"Good. Fuck optimization too."
They kept walking.
The Chrysalis waited.
And somewhere to the south, a girl with green eyes and plant magic was packing her bags, preparing to walk toward the same destination.
The system watched them all.