The week passed with a terrifying lack of drama.
On the seventh day, exactly as the contract stipulated, the ground near the mine entrance rumbled. A stone slab slid open, pushing up a wooden crate. Inside were 100 bars of crude, pig-iron ingots. Beside them lay a bundle of discarded bronze tools such pickheads, shovel blades, and rusted breastplates.
There was no ambush. No poison gas. The Molekin delivery crew simply left the goods, glared at the watching Kobolds with their milky eyes, and retreated underground.
Krug, true to Red's orders, left a basket of dried swamp-berries and smoked fish in return. It wasn't in the contract, but it was a "soft power" move Red had insisted on.
"They kept their word," Red muttered, hovering over the stockpile.
The iron was low quality, full of slag, but for the Kobolds, it was a treasure trove. Krug was already barking orders, having the tribe haul the metal to the new Smithy—a crude mud-brick kiln they had built using the [ METALLURGY ] blueprint.
Red watched them work. The tension in his chest should have eased. Gorr had mentioned "Honor" in his messages. The Molekin were disciplined. By all accounts, this was a stable trade partner.
'He won't betray us,' Red thought, the logic of the situation soothing him. 'He's a Rank 4. He has a reputation. Screwing over a neighbor for 100 iron bars isn't worth the bad PR.'
Red nodded to himself. It made sense.
Then, the darker, older part of his brain spoke up. The part of him that had grown up in the slums of a dystopian Earth, where a handshake was just a way to check if you had a knife up your sleeve.
'Honor is a luxury for people who can afford to lose,' Red corrected himself, his spectral eyes narrowing. 'I can't afford to lose. I will never trust anyone again.'
He looked at the small tribe. Twenty-four Kobolds. Even with iron spears, they were one bad day away from extinction.
"Numbers," Red whispered. "I need bodies."
He couldn't manage a zoo. The system penalties for mixing incompatible species (like Ants and Oozes) were catastrophic. He needed synergy. He needed things that liked mud, humidity, and violence.
Red tapped Krug's mind.
CHIEFTAIN.
Krug dropped the iron bar he was inspecting and knelt. "Ka-lam-tee?"
THE IRON IS GOOD. BUT IRON DOES NOT BLEED. WE NEED MORE BLOOD.
Red pulled up the Sector Map. He highlighted the unexplored grey zones to the West and South, deeper into the swamp and the rocky marshlands.
SEND YOUR FASTEST RUNNERS. TWO OF THEM. SCOUT THE WEST AND SOUTH.LOOK FOR YOUR KIN. LOOK FOR THE SCALED ONES. LIZARDMEN. TROGLODYTES. MUD-STALKERS. IF THEY BREATHE WATER AND EAT ANYTHING, I WANT THEM.
"We find," Krug grunted, his eyes gleaming. "We bring to God."
"Don't bring them yet," Red warned. "Just find them. If they are hostile, run. If they are hungry, tell them we have meat."
Krug nodded and barked at two younger Kobolds, "Swift-Tail" and "Moss-Eye." They grabbed dried meat rations and vanished into the fog.
With the scouts gone and the tribe busy smelting, Red was left alone in the void.
He floated before the obsidian slab. He had been so focused on survival that he hadn't really explored the OS of his new existence.
"System," Red said. "Tutorial mode?"
Nothing happened.
"Help?"
A small window popped up.
[ SYSTEM ASSISTANCE: ADAPTIVE LEARNING ]
→ The System learns as you do. Information is unlocked upon encounter or query. There is no manual. There is only experience.
"Useful," Red muttered sarcastically. "So you're making it up as we go along."
He started tapping through the sub-menus of his profile. He found tabs he hadn't noticed before.
[ DIVINE AESTHETICS ], [ PANTEHON RANKINGS ] (Greyed Out), and [ SOCIAL ].
He clicked on [ SOCIAL ].
The screen shifted to a layout that looked disturbingly like a mix of Discord and a majestic runic scroll. It was a list of nearby Deities. Most were "Unknown" or hidden by "Fog of War."
But one name was lit up in Amber.
[ GORR - THE STONE EATER ]
→ Status: Online.
→ Location: Sector 6 (Subterranean).
→ Relationship: Hostile / Trade Agreement.
Red tapped on Gorr's profile.
It was sparse. The "Bio" section was empty. The "Follower Count" was rounded to the nearest thousand (3k+). Everything else such Combat Power, Resource Stockpile, Special Traits was blocked by a shield icon.
[ ERROR: INSPECTION BLOCKED BY USER ]
"Paranoid," Red noted. "Good. I'd hide my stats too."
He looked at the top left of the profile. There was a circular portrait frame. Inside, there was no face. There was no goblin or mole-man.
It was a spinning, 3D render of a massive, cracked Stone Hammer, wreathed in amber light.
[ AVATAR: SYMBOL OF AUTHORITY ]
"An avatar..." Red touched his own face. He felt the semi-solid features like the nose, the eyes. But what did they see?
He quickly checked his own profile. His avatar circle was just a default grey silhouette with a question mark.
"Lame," Red muttered. "I look like a bot account."
He went back to Gorr's profile. He wanted to see if there was a log of their chat history, to re-read the contract details.
His spectral finger hovered over the interface. The buttons were small, crowded together in a bad UI design.
[ MESSAGE ] ... [ FRIEND REQUEST] ... [ VIDEO CALL ].
He meant to hit [ MESSAGE ].
He didn't.
His finger brushed the [ VIDEO CALL ] icon.
The screen instantly changed. A loud ringing sound like a hammer hitting an anvil blasted through the void.
CLANG... CLANG... CLANG...
[ CALLING: GORR... ]
"Oh shit," Red hissed.
He scrambled to find the cancel button.
"Hang up. Hang up!"
He tapped the red "End Call" icon. It flickered.
[ SYSTEM LAG: CONNECTING... ]
"Come on, you piece of junk!" Red shouted. It was the universal nightmare: accidental interaction. He looked like a stalker checking a profile at 3 AM.
The ringing stopped.
The screen flickered as the static cleared.
Red froze. He expected to see a cave. He expected to see a monster.
Instead, the screen was filled with the Avatar. The massive Stone Hammer floated in the center of the feed, rotating slowly against a background of dark, rocky walls lit by torches.
There was no face. The Hammer was the persona.
Then, a voice came through the speakers. It wasn't the tectonic grinding he had heard in the text-to-speech translation earlier.
It was female.
It was heavy, deep, and raspy like someone who had been smoking gravel for fifty years, but undeniably female. And she sounded irritated.
"What?" Gorr snapped.
Red stared at the floating hammer. "Uh..."
"You called me, demon," Gorr's voice boomed, the audio visualizing as amber waves around the hammer. "I am busy stabilizing the ventilation shafts you clogged with shit. Speak."
Red's mind raced. He couldn't say 'Sorry, I was stalking your profile and fat-fingered the call button.' That was weak. He was Calamity. He was the Terrorist of Sector 6.
He cleared his throat.
"Inspection," Red said, his voice dropping into his cold, indifferent persona. "Checking on the shipment. The ingots were... acceptable."
The Hammer stopped rotating. It seemed to lean forward into the camera.
"Acceptable?" Gorr scoffed. "Those were top-grade pig iron. My Molekin don't make trash. Unlike your lizards who pay in dried berries."
"The berries were a courtesy," Red countered smoothly. "I could have sent more smoke."
"Hmph." The sound was a rumble of grudging respect. "You have gall, calling me face-to-face. Most spirits in the Graveyard hide in their holes."
"I don't hide," Red lied. He was absolutely hiding.
"Fine. The trade holds. I supply metal. You keep your filth out of my air," Gorr said. Her tone shifted, becoming slightly less hostile, more... bored? "Is that all? Or did you just want to stare at my hammer?"
"Your avatar," Red deflected. "It's... unique."
"It's a Rune of Privacy," Gorr replied. "You think I'd show my true face on an open channel? There are Rank 6 Deities scanning these frequencies. You wander around with a default silhouette... you're asking to be targeted, Newbie."
Red blinked. She was giving him advice.
"Noted," Red said.
"Don't call me again unless the payment is late," Gorr grumbled. "I have a mine to run."
[ CALL ENDED ]
The screen went black.
Red stood in the silence of his void, letting out a breath he didn't need.
"She's a woman," Red whispered. "And she thinks I'm a newbie."
He looked at his own grey silhouette avatar.
"She's right," Red admitted. "I need to look the part."
He opened the [ DIVINITY AESTHETICS ] tab. It was time to stop looking like a ghost and start looking like a God.