The screaming had stopped.
That was worse than the screaming.
I pulled Vera through the collapsed pharmacy, glass crunching under our feet. Four minutes and thirty-seven seconds since the alley. The tutorial monsters would be spreading now—Feral Hounds claiming territory, establishing pack hierarchies, hunting anything that moved.
"Where are we going?" Vera's voice was steady, but her hand trembled in mine. Shock setting in. Normal response to watching three men die in four seconds.
"Somewhere safe," I lied. Nowhere was safe. Not for the next twenty-four hours.
[QUEST UPDATE: ESCAPE TUTORIAL ZONE]
[SURVIVORS REMAINING: 14,847/30,000]
[TIME: 23:56:12]
Fifteen thousand already dead. The System didn't waste time.
"That's not an answer." She pulled her hand free, stopped walking. "You knew exactly where to find me. You knew about that cable. And your eyes—" Her gaze locked on mine, searching. "You're not scared. Everyone else is losing their minds, but you're... calm."
Too calm. Rookie mistake. I'd forgotten how sharp she was, even at Level 1.
"Adrenaline," I said. "Fight or flight. I chose fight."
"Bullshit." The word came out flat. "I've seen soldiers freeze up with less. You moved like you'd done this before."
Because I had. A hundred times. Cleared this exact route grinding experience in the early days, back when I thought the Tutorial Zone was just bad game design instead of a carefully calibrated slaughter.
I needed to throw her off without lying. Vera had a gift for detecting lies—would develop it into a passive skill by Level 15. Right now it was just intuition, but dangerous enough.
"You're right," I admitted. "I have combat training. Military family. My dad—" The lie came easily, wrapped in enough truth to sell it. "He made me run scenarios. Urban survival. Crisis response. Guess the old bastard was preparing me for something like this."
Her expression softened slightly. "I'm sorry. That sounds—"
A howl cut through the air. Close. Too close.
[WARNING: ELITE ENEMY DETECTED]
[ALPHA HOUND - LEVEL 7]
[RECOMMENDED PARTY SIZE: 4-5]
My blood went cold. Not yet. The Alpha wasn't supposed to spawn for another eight minutes. I'd timed my route specifically to avoid it.
But I'd already changed things. Saved Vera early. Killed three thugs who should have lived long enough to ambush a supply run. Created ripples.
[PARADOX RISK: 0.08%]
The number glowed faintly in my peripheral vision. Not dangerous yet, but climbing.
"Run." I grabbed Vera's wrist, pulling her toward the service entrance. "Now."
"What—"
The Alpha Hound crashed through the pharmacy's front window.
Seven feet of twisted muscle and digital fury. Black fur crackling with blue energy. Eyes like searchlights, scanning, calculating. Its jaw could crush a car engine. I knew because I'd watched it do exactly that in my first timeline.
To my car. With me inside.
[ALPHA HOUND]
[HP: 2,400/2,400]
[ABILITIES: PACK TACTICS, RAGE MODE, PREY SENSE]
[WARNING: THIS ENEMY HAS MARKED YOU AS PRIMARY TARGET]
The last line made my stomach drop.
Impossible. The Alpha's aggro table should be random in the Tutorial Zone. Unless—
Its eyes met mine. Recognition flashed through them.
No. Not recognition. Memory.
"You," it growled. Actually spoke, which shouldn't happen until Level 15. "Temporal signature detected. Paradox meat."
The Regression Core pulsed against my chest, suddenly hot.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[TIMELINE CONTAMINATION: DETECTED]
[CLEANUP PROTOCOL: ENGAGED]
[SENDING: ELITE HUNTER UNIT]
Fuck. The System had flagged me. Not as a player, but as a glitch to be deleted.
"Leo?" Vera's voice was small behind me. "Did that thing just talk?"
"Service door," I said quietly, not taking my eyes off the Alpha. "Twenty feet to your left. When I move, you run. Don't look back. Don't stop. The community center on Fifth—barricade yourself in the basement. Someone will come."
"I'm not leaving you—"
"You are." I shifted my grip on the fire axe. Forty-five durability left. Against 2,400 HP. The math was brutal. "Because if you stay, we both die. If you run, I can buy you time."
A lie and a truth. I could buy her time. Whether I survived doing it was the variable.
The Alpha's hackles rose. Blue energy crackled along its spine—Rage Mode charging. Thirty seconds until it activated. Once that happened, it became a berserker nightmare with doubled stats and reduced damage resistance.
Standard strategy: kite it, wear it down, avoid Rage Mode entirely.
My strategy: trigger Rage Mode immediately, exploit the defense reduction, and pray.
"Vera. Go."
She hesitated one more second. Then ran.
The Alpha's head snapped toward her. Prey Sense activating. Its muscles bunched to leap.
I activated Foresight.
[FORESIGHT ACTIVATED]
[MP: 90/100]
[DURATION: 5 SECONDS]
Five seconds of future streamed into my consciousness:
The Alpha leaps. I dodge right. Its claws rake the shelving unit. Medicine bottles explode. I swing for its hind leg. Miss—it's faster than I remember. It turns, jaws snapping. I backstep into a display rack. Trapped. Claws descend. -87 HP. I'm pinned.
I released Foresight and moved left instead.
The Alpha leaped. I was already sliding under the pharmaceutical counter, glass cutting through my shirt but not slowing me. Heard the crash behind me as it landed where I would have been.
[ALPHA HOUND used POUNCE]
[MISS!]
[RAGE BUILDING: 45%]
I came up throwing. Not the axe—too valuable. Medicine bottles, handfuls of them, aimed not at the Alpha but at its feet.
[IMPROVISED PROJECTILE: 1 DAMAGE]
[IMPROVISED PROJECTILE: 1 DAMAGE]
Pathetic damage. But damage wasn't the point.
The Alpha snarled, shaking glass from its fur. Rage climbing. Good.
"Come on, you digital bastard," I muttered, backing toward the stock room. "Remember me yet? Remember how I used to farm you for that rare pelt drop?"
Its eyes flared brighter.
[RAGE MODE: 78%]
Almost there.
I grabbed a metal shelf support, hurled it like a javelin. It bounced off the Alpha's skull.
[IMPROVISED WEAPON: 4 DAMAGE]
[ALPHA HOUND HP: 2,396/2,400]
[RAGE MODE: ACTIVATED]
The transformation was instantaneous. Its size doubled. Muscles bulged with unnatural mass. The blue energy became red lightning, arcing between its teeth.
[ALPHA HOUND - ENRAGED]
[ATTACK: +100%]
[DEFENSE: -40%]
[HP REGENERATION: DISABLED]
[DURATION: 180 SECONDS]
Three minutes to kill something with seven times my HP and attacks that could one-shot me.
The old Leo would have panicked.
The Level 99 Leo had seen worse.
I ran for the stock room. The Alpha followed, demolishing shelving units in its wake. Its claws tore through metal like paper. Each swipe could disembowel me.
But rage made it predictable.
The stock room was exactly as I remembered: narrow corridor, heavy inventory on roller shelves, industrial freezer at the back. In my first timeline, I'd died here, crushed when the Alpha brought the ceiling down.
This time, the ceiling was my weapon.
I yanked the nearest shelf as I passed. Boxes of supplies tumbled into the Alpha's path. It didn't slow—just plowed through, scattering inventory like confetti.
[RAGE DURATION: 165 SECONDS]
The freezer loomed ahead. I grabbed the door handle, yanked it open, kept running into the sub-zero darkness. Frost bit into my lungs immediately.
The Alpha followed without hesitation. Prey Sense locked on. It couldn't stop itself even if it wanted to.
The freezer was a forty-foot corridor of hanging meat—pre-apocalypse stockpile for the pharmacy's front-end grocery section. Long pig carcasses on hooks, swaying in the disturbed air.
I wove between them. The Alpha charged straight through, meat exploding in frozen chunks.
[RAGE DURATION: 142 SECONDS]
At the corridor's end: the maintenance panel I'd discovered while hiding from a hound pack. Behind it, the building's electrical junction. And running through it, the coolant line that fed the freezer system.
I skidded to a stop, spun, raised the axe.
The Alpha was already mid-leap. Jaws wide enough to swallow my head. Claws extended. Death incoming.
I swung.
Not at the Alpha.
At the coolant line.
[CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE!]
The pipe ruptured with a sound like a gunshot. Liquid nitrogen erupted in a white geyser, catching the Alpha mid-air.
Flash-freeze.
Its roar cut off instantly. The massive body crashed to the floor, encased inice, momentum carrying it into the far wall.
[ALPHA HOUND: FROZEN]
[STATUS EFFECT: IMMOBILIZED - 15 SECONDS]
[DEFENSE: -60% ADDITIONAL]
Fifteen seconds. The only window I'd get.
I charged.
The axe blade caught the light as I brought it down. Once. Twice. Three times. Aiming for the joints where ice met flesh, where armor was thinnest.
[CRITICAL HIT: 89 DAMAGE]
[CRITICAL HIT: 76 DAMAGE]
[CRITICAL HIT: 82 DAMAGE]
Each impact sent cracks spider-webbing through the ice. The Alpha's eyes tracked me, conscious but paralyzed. Rage still burning, unable to express itself.
[ALPHA HOUND HP: 2,149/2,400]
[RAGE DURATION: 118 SECONDS]
Not enough. Not nearly enough.
I activated Foresight again, burning the cooldown.
[FORESIGHT ACTIVATED]
[MP: 80/100]
The ice shatters in eight seconds. The Alpha breaks free. It's wounded, furious, and Rage-boosted. It catches me in three strides. Claws through my spine. -134 HP. I die gurgling blood.
Eight seconds until death. Standard playthrough.
But I knew something the System didn't: coolant lines ran in parallel.
I counted heartbeats while swinging. Six hits. Seven. The Alpha's HP dropping in chunks too small to matter.
[ALPHA HOUND HP: 1,893/2,400]
[FROZEN STATUS: 3 SECONDS REMAINING]
Three seconds.
I dropped the axe and grabbed the second coolant pipe with both hands.
"Remember this in your next regression, you system-spawned son of a bitch."
I yanked with everything my Level 3 Strength could manage.
[DURABILITY CHECK: PASSED]
The pipe tore free. Liquid nitrogen flooded the freezer in a white wave.
The temperature plummeted. My exposed skin burned with instant frostbite. Health ticked down—10, 15, 20 HP lost to environmental damage.
But the Alpha had it worse.
The creature thrashed as ice consumed it. Not surface freeze this time—total crystallization. The Rage Mode kept it conscious, kept it aware as its own body became a statue.
[ALPHA HOUND HP: 1,247/2,400]
[FROZEN STATUS: 45 SECONDS]
[ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE: 25/SEC]
Perfect.
I stumbled back toward the entrance, lungs screaming for warm air. Each breath was razor blades. My fingers had gone numb.
[HP: 63/100]
[STATUS: FROSTBITE (MINOR)]
Behind me, the Alpha's HP bled away. 1,180. 1,094. 987.
I collapsed against the corridor wall, watching through the doorway. The white fog slowly cleared, revealing a nightmare sculpture: seven feet of frozen fury, mid-snarl, eyes still tracking me with impotent rage.
[ALPHA HOUND HP: 342/2,400]
[FROZEN STATUS: 18 SECONDS]
Close. So close.
The ice cracked.
Shit.
[FROZEN STATUS: CANCELLED - RAGE OVERRIDE]
The Alpha shattered its prison through sheer furious force. Chunks of ice exploded outward. It staggered forward, HP critical but still mobile, still deadly.
[ALPHA HOUND HP: 287/2,400]
[RAGE DURATION: 34 SECONDS]
I grabbed the axe with numb fingers. The Alpha limped toward me, frost coating its fur, movements sluggish but determined. Prey Sense still locked on.
Twenty feet. Fifteen.
My legs wouldn't respond properly. Frostbite slowing everything. I raised the axe anyway.
Ten feet.
The Alpha gathered itself for one final pounce, muscles coiling despite the damage.
Five feet.
It leaped.
I swung.
And missed.
The blade whistled past the Alpha's skull by inches. I'd miscalculated, my frozen limbs not responding fast enough.
The creature's jaws opened wide, close enough I could smell the data-flesh of its last kill.
Then.
BOOM.
The Alpha's head exploded.
No—not exploded. Imploded. Crushed from the inside by sudden, catastrophic pressure.
The massive body dropped at my feet, twitching.
[ALPHA HOUND HP: 0/2,400]
[DEFEAT!]
[EXP +800]
[LEVEL UP! 3→5]
[LEVEL UP! 5→6]
I stared at the corpse, then at my hands. I hadn't done that. Couldn't have.
"Jesus Christ, Leo." Vera's voice, ragged with exhaustion.
I spun. She stood in the freezer entrance, one hand extended, fingers still crackling with residual energy. Ice and pressure magic—her signature combination, but she shouldn't have been able to manifest it for another two days.
[VERA CHASE - LEVEL 1→4]
[CLASS UNLOCKED: ELEMENTAL ADEPT]
[ABILITY DISCOVERED: IMPLOSION (LV.1)]
She'd awakened early. Because I'd changed the encounter. Because she'd seen me fight instead of dying alone in that alley.
Another ripple.
[PARADOX RISK: 0.24%]
"You didn't run," I said stupidly.
"Neither did you." She walked forward, unsteady but determined. "You said someone would come to the community center. You meant you."
Not a question. A statement.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. What could I say? That I'd been planning to save her by proxy, keep my distance to minimize timeline contamination? That every interaction increased the risk of paradox cascade?
That I was terrified of getting close to her again because I'd already watched her die once?
"Thank you," I said instead. "For the save."
"We're even." She looked down at the Alpha's corpse, which was beginning to pixelate—the System reclaiming its failed hunter. "That thing knew you. Called you paradox meat. What did it mean?"
Everything. Nothing. The truth that would make her think I was insane.
"I don't know," I lied. "Monsters say weird things when they're glitching."
Her eyes narrowed. She didn't believe me. But she also didn't push.
"The community center," she said instead. "Is it really safe?"
"Safer than here." The building groaned around us—structural damage from the fight. "And we need to move. More will come."
As if on cue, howls echoed in the distance. The Alpha's pack, responding to their leader's death.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[PACK DYNAMICS DESTABILIZED]
[SPAWNING: REVENGE SEEKERS x3]
[ETA: 4 MINUTES]
Vera heard them too. "So. Community center?"
I nodded, grabbing the fire axe. The handle was cracked, durability at 15/50. Needed a replacement soon.
But first: survival.
We emerged from the pharmacy into a city transformed. The sky had shifted to permanent twilight—the System's aesthetic choice for Tutorial Zones. Blood painted the streets in abstract patterns. Bodies lay scattered, some already despawning, others still fresh.
[SURVIVORS REMAINING: 12,203/30,000]
The counter kept dropping.
"Stay close," I said, starting northeast. "Watch for movement. If something glows blue, it's a monster. If it glows green, it's a System cache—supplies, equipment. We see one, we grab it."
"You really do know this," Vera murmured. "Like you've played before."
"Something like that."
We moved through the chaos. Past a burning apartment complex. Around a crater where something large had impacted. Over a bridge where desperate players fought over a green-glowing supply cache.
I steered us away from the fight. Not worth the risk. I knew where better caches spawned.
[QUEST UPDATE: REACH COMMUNITY CENTER]
[DISTANCE: 0.8 MILES]
[TIME: 23:31:45]
Halfway there.
"Leo." Vera's hand caught my elbow. "Movement. Three o'clock."
I looked. A figure stumbled from an alley, clutching their arm. Male, early thirties, blood-soaked shirt. Above his head: [DAVID MOSS - LV.2].
Behind him, two Feral Hounds.
The man saw us. "Help! Please, they're—"
The hounds pounced. Tore into him with savage efficiency. His screams cut off with terrible finality.
[DAVID MOSS - DECEASED]
[SURVIVORS REMAINING: 12,202/30,000]
Vera gasped. Started forward. I caught her arm.
"He's gone. We can't help."
"We have to—"
"He's. Gone." I met her eyes. "We save the ones we can. Not the ones already bleeding out while monsters eat them."
She stared at me, horrified. Not at the death. At my coldness.
Level 99 thinking. Wrong audience.
"I'm sorry," I said, softer. "But if we engage those hounds, we risk not making it to the center. Where we can save dozens. Math is brutal, but it's math."
The hounds looked up from their meal. Saw us. Calculated.
[FERAL HOUND LV.4 x2]
[STATUS: FEEDING - AGGRO REDUCED]
They went back to eating. We weren't worth abandoning a fresh kill.
I pulled Vera away gently. She followed, but kept looking back.
"How many?" she whispered. "How many are going to die tonight?"
In my timeline? Eighteen thousand in the Tutorial Zone alone. Sixty percent mortality rate.
"Too many," I said. "But we'll save who we can."
---
The community center appeared through the smoke: a squat brick building with boarded windows and a heavy door. Exactly as I remembered.
[QUEST COMPLETE: REACH COMMUNITY CENTER]
[REWARD: +500 EXP, SAFE ZONE ACCESS]
[LEVEL UP! 6→7]
The door was locked. I knew it would be. I also knew the window on the east side had a broken latch.
"This way."
Inside: darkness, dust, and the smell of old gymnasium. Emergency lighting cast weak pools of illumination.
And voices. Survivors huddled in the main hall, maybe twenty of them. They looked up as we entered, hands on improvised weapons, fear in their eyes.
An older man stepped forward. Salt-and-pepper beard, flannel shirt, hunting rifle held with practiced ease. [RICHARD TORRES - LV.5].
In my timeline, Richard had been one of the Tutorial's few success stories. Made it to the Wilderness Gates, built a settlement, died defending it in a monster surge two years later.
Here, now, he studied me with sharp eyes.
"You armed?" he asked.
I showed him the cracked axe. "Barely."
"You bit? Infected? System-corrupted?"
"No, no, and maybe." I smiled without humor. "You asking or screening?"
"Both." He didn't lower the rifle. "We got a good thing here. Don't need troublemakers."
"Richard." A woman's voice, coming from deeper in the hall. "Let them in. They're just kids."
Richard grunted but stepped aside.
We entered the main hall. Survivors clustered in small groups, sharing supplies, tending wounds. Most were Level 1-3. A few had reached 4 or 5. Nobody above that.
I scanned faces, matching them against memory. Some I recognized. Most I didn't—casualties in the original timeline, probably.
But one face stopped me cold.
Sitting against the far wall, wrapping a bandage around his massive forearm: a mountain of a man with dark skin, kind eyes, and a smile that could light up the apocalypse.
[MARCUS "TANK" STONE - LV.3]
My brother in arms. The man who'd taken a deletion beam for me. Who I'd watched unrender in the final battle.
Alive. Young. Whole.
He looked up, saw me staring, and grinned.
"Hell of a first day, huh?" he called. "Name's Marcus. You look like you've got a story."
I couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. Five years of grief crashed into this moment.
Vera touched my arm. "Leo? You okay?"
I forced words out. "Yeah. Just... tired."
Marcus stood, walked over. He towered over me—always had. Extended a hand like a bear paw.
"Any friend of Richard's—well, anyone Richard doesn't shoot—is welcome here. You two need medical? Food? Got a little of both."
His hand hung in the air between us. I stared at it, remembering the last time I'd held it. When it had been pixelating. When he'd smiled even as he died.
"Find them," he'd said. "Save them all."
I gripped his hand.
"Leo Carter. And yeah. We could use both."
His shake was firm, warm, alive.
[PARTY INVITATION]
[MARCUS STONE WANTS TO FORM A PARTY]
[ACCEPT? Y/N]
My finger hovered over YES. This was wrong. I needed to keep distance. Minimize changes. Each connection created more paradox risk.
But he was alive.
And I was so tired of losing him.
I selected YES.
[PARTY FORMED]
[LEO CARTER (LV.7) - LEADER]
[VERA CHASE (LV.4)]
[MARCUS STONE (LV.3)]
[BONUS: PARTY SYNERGY +5% EXP]
Marcus grinned wider. "There we go. Safety in numbers, right? Come on, let me show you the supply situation. It's not great, but we're working on it."
He led us deeper into the center, talking easily about rationing, defensive positions, patrol schedules. Exactly the kind of thing he'd become famous for later—the logistical genius behind every successful guild operation.
Vera followed, asking questions, already thinking tactically.
I walked behind them both, watching them move, talk, live.
The Regression Core pulsed against my chest.
[PARADOX RISK: 0.47%]
[TIMELINE VARIANCE: MODERATE]
[SYSTEM ATTENTION: INCREASING]
I was changing too much. Moving too fast. Every saved life created ripples.
But looking at Marcus's broad back, at Vera's determined profile, I couldn't bring myself to care.
Let the System watch. Let the paradox build.
I'd died once trying to follow its rules.
This time, I'd break them all.
[PERSONAL QUEST UPDATED]
[OBJECTIVE: KEEP THEM ALIVE]
[DURATION: FOREVER]
[FAILURE PENALTY: EVERYTHING]
Outside, the howls grew closer. The Tutorial Zone's long night was just beginning.
But inside, for the first time in five years, I had hope.
And a plan.
---
[END CHAPTER 3]
[NEXT: THE SUPPLY RUN]
---
[STATUS UPDATE]
Name: Leo Carter
Level: 7 (1,847/3,200 EXP)
Class: Temporal Hunter [Unique]
HP: 140/140 | MP: 120/120
Attributes:
- STR: 18 | AGI: 22 | VIT: 14
- INT: 25 | WIS: 20 | LCK: 8
Skills:
- Foresight (Lv.2): 7-sec preview | Cost: 12 MP | CD: 25 sec
- Combat Instinct (Passive): +15% reaction time
- Environmental Mastery (Lv.1): Identify tactical opportunities
Equipment:
- Fire Axe [Damaged]: 5-12 DMG | Durability: 8/50
Party Status:
- Vera Chase (Lv.4) - Elemental Adept
- Marcus Stone (Lv.3) - Defensive Vanguard
Regression Core: 3/3 Charges
Paradox Risk: 0.47%
System Alert Level: YELLOW
---
[AUTHOR'S NOTE]
Daily updates continue! The party is forming early, which means major timeline changes ahead. Marcus remembers nothing, but Leo remembers everything—including how this brilliant, loyal man dies.
Next chapter: First supply run as a team. Leo has to balance using his future knowledge without exposing himself. And something's watching from the System's code...
Top comments this chapter get to vote: Should Leo try to save David Moss next regression if this timeline fails? Or are some deaths necessary?