Jake kept barely parrying the punches coming straight at him with his worn gnoll club, controlling his footing as he backed toward the trees.
His breathing was now rough and his chest rose and fell with each breath. Every step crunched in the leaves—loud enough to feel like the whole forest could hear him.
The air was filled with the smell of wet earth and rotting leaves - laced with a metallic suggestion of blood. What had been a quiet wood a minute ago now felt tight—wired, dangerous.
"Why is this gnoll always standing behind?" someone in the group frowned, genuinely confused.
"Who cares? It's almost dead," another voice said lazily, like they'd seen this a hundred times - starter mob panicking and running at low HP.
But just as they made that call there was a slight ripple through the air - so slight it was almost imperceptible, as though something had been disturbed.
It wasn't a sound. More like a system-level reaction - cool, mechanical, the kind of feedback that meant that something had been triggered.
"Shit--pulled another one!"
Jake's mouth lifted slightly.
He didn't look back but he could feel it behind him -- dragging footsteps, low and heavy; rough, animal breathing; and that hazy-but-real presence of something like himself, closing in.
You want to bully the guy with numbers all by himself?
Sorry.
I'm on the mob team now.
He continued to retreat at the same rate. He looked frantic but the distance was deliberate.
He didn't run too fast, he stayed right on the edge of their range, and kept their attention hooked, dragging the fight inch by inch deeper into the woods.
Soon, a second, then a third Gnoll (Frail) turned his head in the direction of the commotion.
Their dull stares gradually came to focus. Nostrils flared and it was as if they could smell the tension in the air. Then they began shuffling closer - slowly, but steadily.
"Spark, hold that one! We kill this one first!" Somebody barked, scrabbling to adjust, urgency creeping into their voice.
At the edge of the image in his vision Jake's status flashed.
Health: 30.
His body was starting to lag. Every movement was now a half-beat slower than it had been and muscles faintly burned between tension and release.
But just at that he suddenly stopped defending.
He whipped around and dashed off straight into the deeper forest.
Leaves exploded under his feet.
Wind tore past his ears.
No more pretending. He hauled Sunny and her team to the thickest mass of mobs, full commitment.
The ground got uglier - roots twisting everywhere, uneven rises and dips but this body seemed to know what to do. Even with the instability, he maintained his pace instinctively shifting his center of gravity as he ran.
A few seconds later--
Everything went terribly wrong.
A minute ago it had been five players beating down one Gnoll (Frail).
Now it was 6 Gnolls (Frail) closing in from different directions, slowly but surely on the five of them in the middle of the clearing.
The air seemed to thicken.
The gnolls - sluggish a second ago - walked with more certitude as they approached their prey. Their breathing grew heavier. Claws scraped the dirt with a low and gritty sound. Something primitive and aggressive shone in their eyes.
Frail gnolls, by base combat power they were already a little stronger than level 1 players.
And after the numbers flipped, that gap didn't just show.
It multiplied.
"Crap, we can't win!" someone yelled, real panic breaking through for the first time;
"Why are there so many all of a sudden?!"
"No--my pots can't keep up--"
The sentence didn't even finish before a heavy whoosh came in from the side.
A gnoll swung a wooden club. It wasn't fast, but it had a dull and brutal weight, and smashed into SunnyBunny's shoulder.
BAM!
The effect shocked through her body. She jolted and her HP bar emptied in a blink. Her legs gave out and she crumpled backward like her strings had been cut.
The final sight she made was a blur of swaying treetops--
And, not far away, a gnoll that was standing there, staring at her coldly.
The ugliest one.
The one they'd picked first.
Something in Jake's chest loosened all at once.
A rush of satisfaction washed through his bloodstream - so sharp it even washed some of the exhaustion out of his limbs.
He stopped backing up and charged right back into the fight, feet tapping out fast on the ground.
This time--
he wasn't running.
He was harvesting.
He swung the club made of gnoll, worn and old, muscles tightening at the exact moment of impact, force traveling down his arm and into the end of the wood.
When the first strike came down, the air was compressed with a dull whump and the club smashed into the back of a player.
BAM!
Their body lurched forward, HP went down like a rock.
Jake didn't pause. He twisted with the motion and the second hit came in from the side. The movement was still a little raw, a little unpolished - but in the melee of the fight, it was more than deadly enough.
One swing after another.
In a few seconds, the fight was barreling toward its end.
When the last player went down, the woods fell back into something like an eerie quiet. Just wind in the leaves, and the low, rough panting of a couple of gnolls, hanging in the air.
Jake stood there, chest heaving.
He slowly straightened up. One clawed hand held on to the club, the other floated to his hip thoughtlessly. For a second he looked ridiculous - like a squat little thug posing for a victory shot - but there was a weird undeniable pride in it too.
"Now you get it."
He snorted softly; there was a threat of laughter leaking into his voice.
"I'm the hottest one here."
Not that anyone could hear him any more.
Then system notifications began chiming away in quick succession.
[Player Kill: SunnyBunny (Lv. 1). Captured 10 Essence. Gained Monster Reputation +1. (Reputation Shop unlocked.)]
[Player Kill: SparkleFox (Lv. 1). Captured 10 Essence. Gained Monster Reputation +1.]
[Player Kill: PurePixel (Lv. 1). Captured 10 Essence. Gained Monster Reputation +1.]
...
Lines of text appeared throughout his vision, peaceful and orderly.
Jake's breathing slowed.
Then he froze.
"...Essence?"
The word caught in his brain like a pebble thrown into still water and ripples went out from it.
"Killing players gets rewards? And reputation?"
His eyes were riveted to those lines as if he might squeeze a hidden rule out of them. The words didn't change but the more he stared the more wrong they felt.
"Reputation Shop?"
His throat tightened.
"Wait... seriously? Players have never heard of this."
A thin chill travelled up his spine.
This did not sound like a normal system mechanic.
And it did not feel like some random bug, either.
On instinct, he brought up the logout interface, prepared to call up Vanguard Interactive and demand some answers. But as soon as the menu opened, a new system prompt crashed down over everything, forcibly overriding his actions.
...Open Reputation Shop.
There was not a voice with it, but it had the weight of an order - you couldn't refuse it.
Jake's fingers were suspended in the air.
He hesitated.
Then, gradually, he gave up the idea of logging out.
If it was a bug...
then at the very least--he wanted to see what it could really do.