He put the cut where the decision had to pass and made the decision his.
The slit gave up more body than it deserved. Shoulder forced through thorn, hide scored white where branches argued and lost. Heat rolled ahead of it. He stayed inside the step he had already chosen and let the Dragon-Slaying Blade live there with him.
First cut bit the seam where neck considers being shoulder - small, unforgiving. It shoved into the pocket anyway, too big for the room, teeth promising law. The glyph cleared leaves with extra points the system reserves for problems.
[Named: Blackhide Boarman | Level: 6]
It came straight - geometry in love. The pallet behind him waited to make footing a rumor. He refused to backpedal. He took the space the head wanted and wasn't there when the head arrived. Second cut removed excess.
[Critical Hit.]
Bristle shed like bad decisions. It tried to pivot; the brush argued for restraint. He rolled weight back and set a third line low, ankle height - a memo to knees.
[Critical Hit.]
It lunged into a space measured to fit exactly one mistake. Hip. Hand. Line. Tenfold Crit made speed redundant if you put the blade where force had to pass. Teeth found thorn and decided to dislike botany. Fourth cut the size of an apology.
[Critical Hit.][No damage taken.]
Breath moved from chest to throat; foreleg stopped making arguments. He finished the sentence quietly, with the word the paragraph asked for.
[Critical Hit.]
Silence arrived like an accountant. Coins chimed tidy.
[Copper +]
He dragged thorn across the entry slit so casual eyes would call it brush, not doorway, and left the pallet alone. Water carries scent better than grass - he waded ankle-cold where bubbles keep secrets.
[Tip][You are outside the starter hunting ground.][Hostile density: high.]
"Good," he told the reed-shadow.
Voices - three or four - argued direction behind. He climbed where roots kept promises and took a limestone shelf under willow. Metal kissed stone below, light and accidental. Whisper insisted on being a secret and failed.
He slid along the upper lip until leaves wrote him out of their grammar, then knuckled a narrow path where air cooled. The ditch thinned to a whisper he could step across. On the far bank, tracks - disciplined spacing. Two people. Quiet team.
A Wilderness Notice perched like a sparrow.
[Wilderness Notice][Area transition available.]
He turned the map under his feet instead - a seam where large bodies must think with joints. Old wind had left a habit of movement. Halfway through, something had wrecked a shoulder and taught plants respect. Heat again, drier. A smell of hair singed once - not fire, friction.
The seam opened to a bowl with a lightning-scarred tree. Fewer bones. No coins. A stain of glyph-shadow on the far side.
He stayed outside it, set befores. When the body came, it would meet decisions, not a man.
It came - range of motion, leverage, mouth honest, one ear gone. Notches in the glyph that aren't jokes.
[Named: Blackhide Boarman | Level: 7]
He made a room in his head for everything that could go wrong and took the furniture out.
First cut - remove the word that makes the sentence stumble. Ankle.
[Critical Hit.]
Second - stop a shoulder from remembering bad habits.
[Critical Hit.]
Third - put a new idea where breath thinks it owns real estate.
[Critical Hit.]
It adjusted two cuts in - smarter than earlier, less theatrical. Tried angle instead of charge, patience instead of speed. Tried to make him talk.
He let the ground speak - tilt, looseness, where to put weight - and gave it a problem only solvable by revealing the next place to cut.
[Critical Hit.][No damage taken.]
Breath ragged now. He finished with a small word. Period.
[Critical Hit.]
He waited one count, then remembered how to move. Coins tidy.
[Copper +]
[Tip][Repeated perfect engagements increase proficiency.]
From Starter Town's direction, a bell - not church. System. Clear. He tested the air like deciding whether rain was a rumor or a plan.
The blade wanted more. The part of him that survives three years from now wanted tomorrow.
He turned toward the seam that let him move wider without getting taller. The bowl held its breath, then remembered it had other things to do. He left it that way.