The forest grew thick as twilight sank, branches knitting overhead until the road felt like a tunnel. JP and Lyra had pushed farther than planned, both wary of stopping too close to the city.
JP squatted by the roadside, muttering to himself as he scratched equations into the dirt with a stick. "Okay, if I rig two quartz cores into a pulse loop, and ground the current through—"
"JP." Lyra's voice snapped him out of it. She was crouched low, eyes gleaming like a cat's. "We're being watched."
The Ambush
The words had barely left her lips when a shape darted between the trees—then another. Dozens of glowing yellow eyes blinked out from the underbrush.
"Wolves again?" JP whispered.
"Too many," Lyra hissed, unsheathing her blades. "And they don't look hungry. They look… pushed."
The first beast lunged. JP yelped and slapped one of his pulse stakes into the ground. The stake buzzed—and promptly shocked him.
"Gaaah!" Sparks danced up his arm as the wolf skidded back, more confused than injured.
"Really?" Lyra shouted, cutting through two wolves in a clean arc.
"It's calibration issues!" JP wheezed, shaking his hand.
Improvised Brilliance
But panic had its perks. JP's eyes darted to the satchel-turned-beltbag. His upgraded appraisal flared, showing him faint threads of mana along the wolves' spines. Instinctively, he hurled a quartz pebble into one's path.
The stone detonated in a crackling shockwave, sending two wolves yelping into a tree.
"…Did you just throw a rock?" Lyra blinked.
JP grinned, still half-panicked. "A scientifically enhanced rock!"
Her deadpan stare lasted only a second before another wolf tried to flank her. She spun and gutted it, muttering, "Only you would invent a rock that explodes."
Level Up
By the time the last wolf limped off into the dark, the campsite looked like a battlefield of singed fur and broken stakes. JP collapsed against a log, panting.
A familiar shimmer filled his vision:
Level Up!
Level: 17 → 18
HP: 260/260
MP: 200/200
Strength: 34
Endurance: 39
Dexterity: 22
Intelligence: 52
Luck: 17
JP stared at the glowing panel and burst out laughing. "All it took was frying myself like bacon to gain a level. Perfectly balanced."
Lyra dropped down beside him, wiping her blades clean. "Balanced? You nearly fried me too."
"Details, details…"
For a moment, their laughter pushed back the forest's shadows. But as the embers of battle faded, Lyra's ears twitched. She tilted her head toward the deeper woods.
"They were driven at us," she said softly. "Someone sent them."
JP's smile froze. The thought of guild merchants pulling strings even out here tightened his gut.
Freedom wasn't going to come easy.