Kael stared at the rusty sword fragment protruding from the dead goblin's chest. The air smelled of metallic blood, wet leaves, and an acrid, musky odor that was probably just Goblins. His hands were shaking, and he felt a wave of nausea.
This isn't a loading screen.
That was the first coherent thought that broke through the panic. In the game, death was a mild inconvenience, a few gold coins lost, a fast travel back to town. Here, that feeling of cold dread as the club swung—that was real. And the club had been stopped not by skill, but by an improbable slip onto a conveniently placed piece of discarded scrap metal.
He took a slow, deep breath, forcing himself to move. He had to loot the corpses. It was standard operating procedure, even if the thought of touching the stiffening green skin made him want to vomit.
His hands rummaged through the small leather pouches. One carried three copper pieces. The other, four. The third, the leader, held a crudely drawn map showing a nearby stream and a cluster of symbols labeled "Goblin Den."
Kael leaned against a rough tree trunk, ignoring the low-level loot and staring at his HUD. The golden Lv 2 glow was reassuring, but his focus was entirely on the skills panel.
Core Skill:
[ERROR: Unidentified Skill Code (0xDC4F3B)]
Description: Unknown
Affinity:
CRITICAL CHANCE: 100%
"It's not a skill," he whispered, running a dirty hand through his hair. "It's a universal constant. I didn't get lucky three times; I was guaranteed to succeed three times. The universe just used the stupidest, most convoluted path to get me there."
He was a gamer. He understood probability. A 100% Critical Chance meant every single offensive action, whether it was a heroic sword swing or a clumsy trip, would result in a critical hit, a fatal blow, or a game-changing success. But his action wasn't the critical part—the environment was. The stone hitting the branch, the splinter hitting the eye, the impalement. The world was actively manipulating itself to ensure his survival.
This realization was more terrifying than the goblins themselves. He wasn't playing a game with dice rolls; he was in a simulation where the rules of chaos bent to ensure his prosperity.
I have to test it.
He spotted a discarded, weathered wooden chest half-buried in the soil—the kind of randomized loot drop Aethelgard used to scatter across the map. He knelt beside it. The metal lock looked heavy, corroded, and utterly impenetrable without a decent Dexterity score and a set of master tools.
Kael had a Strength of 10, a Dexterity of 10, and no tools but a twig.
"Okay, universe," he muttered, picking up a dry, fragile stick no thicker than his little finger. "I attempt to pick this lock. Critical Success is 100%."
He stuck the tiny stick into the tumbler, expecting it to snap. It didn't. Instead, the wood, which was already rotten, crumbled instantly. As the dry dust from the twig fell into the keyhole, a massive, black, biting insect that had been crawling along the chest lid suddenly panicked and stung Kael on the back of his hand.
"Ow! Son of a—" Kael yelped, pulling his hand away quickly. The pain was sharp and immediate, leaving a throbbing red mark.
He watched the beetle. Annoyed by the disturbance, the insect scuttled across the chest and then, in a stroke of utter misfortune for itself, dropped directly into the keyhole, getting instantly stuck. It struggled violently, its tiny, six-legged frantic movements acting on the internal pins with impossible precision.
CLACK.
The lock mechanism gave way with a decisive thunk. The lid popped open an inch.
— Lock Picking Critical Success! (Insectoid Lockpick Intervention) —
Kael stared, first at the stuck beetle, then at his stinging hand, and finally at the open chest. His stomach turned over. It wasn't just luck; it was a cruel, beautiful mockery of probability. He realized two things: first, that he must always define his intended action clearly, and second, that the cost of the success was unpredictable. He'd just sacrificed a tiny insect to a painful, suffocating metal tomb just to open a rusty chest.
He opened the lid fully. Inside was a single, tarnished silver ring.
Ring of Minor Healing
Restores 1 HP every 30 seconds.
It was the most basic loot item imaginable, but Kael felt a profound, chilling sense of destiny.
"I need to get out of this forest and find people," he decided, slipping the ring onto his finger, which immediately tingled with a pleasant warmth. "And I need to figure out exactly how much chaos I can unleash."
He looked at the small map and the cluster of Goblin Den symbols. He needed a direction, and a cluster of enemies meant potential experience. He also saw a small, stylized icon next to the den—a crumbling tower.
The Tower of the Silent King. A major early-game landmark. If he could reach that, he could find out more about his predicament.
Kael turned toward the west, the direction of the tower, and started walking. After ten minutes, the ground began to slope sharply down, and a low, distant roar reached his ears. He realized he was approaching a deep river gorge. The only way across was a single, terrifying rope bridge, swaying violently in the breeze, hundreds of feet above churning white water. It looked like it could snap any second.
Kael stopped dead. This was a save-or-die scenario for any low-level character.
He looked at the broken rope bridge, then at his trembling hands, and then, a faint, metallic glint caught his eye, buried beneath the roots of an ancient tree right next to the path—a heavy, intricately carved stone pedestal. An altar. And on top of the pedestal, there was a single, dusty, bronze Ancient Key.
The inscription on the altar, written in the archaic language of Aethelgard, read:
"The Way is Sealed. Only the Fated may use the True Passage."
Kael felt a grin stretch his lips. An impossible obstacle, and a hidden shortcut, both guaranteed to be there for him. He reached for the key, but as his fingers brushed the bronze, the very ground beneath the pedestal shuddered, and a low, monstrous scraping sound began to echo from the depths of the gorge, heading straight for the rope bridge...
Now he's faced with a choice: use the guaranteed critical luck on the terrifying rope bridge, or investigate the newly revealed True Passage?