The journey was a slow, agonizing torture.
Because of the 1.5x gravity, every mile felt like three. Matheo's hands were roped tightly behind his back, the fibers biting into his skin until his circulation numbed. On top of that, Vance had forced a heavy, grease-stained leather rucksack onto his shoulders. The straps dug into his collarbones with a weight that felt like it was trying to shove his spine through his ass.
"Move, you useless stray," Kael hissed, shoving Matheo's shoulder. Matheo stumbled, the extra weight nearly sending him face-first into the dirt. "One more stumble and I'll drag you by the fucking neck."
As they trekked, Matheo forced his eyes to stay open. The world was a vibrant, alien nightmare. The plants weren't just green; they were pulsing with bioluminescence even in the daytime, looking like veins of glowing neon. Some trees had bark as black and sharp as obsidian, while others had leaves that twitched like reaching fingers as he passed.
Everything is bigger. Everything is more alive, Matheo thought, his tongue feeling like a piece of dry leather in his mouth.
Suddenly, the group stopped. A Rank-G Thistle-Wolf—a lean, skeletal creature covered in needle-like fur—leaped from the brush. It was a low-level threat, and Vance killed it with a single, bored swing of his mace that flattened the creature's skull with a sickening squelch.
"Fucking pests," Vance muttered, wiping a drop of black blood from his cheek.
Matheo watched the "Processing." Elara, the mage, knelt by the carcass with a look of pure annoyance. She held a small, glowing crystal over its chest. A faint blue mist rose from the wolf and was sucked into the crystal like a vacuum.
"Why?" Matheo croaked, his voice cracking. "Why take the mist... before putting it in the bag?"
Vance looked back, his eyes narrowing. "The fuck did you just say, rat?" He seemed genuinely surprised the "baggage" had the balls to speak.
Elara didn't even look up, her voice dripping with condescension. "You really are a blank slate, aren't you? That 'mist' is raw mana. If you put a monster with an active mana signature into a Spatial Bag, the energy fucks with the bag's enchantments. It causes a mana-leak. The bag would explode, or worse, the monster's flesh would rot into toxic sludge in seconds. We'd be carrying a bag of hot shitting poison."
She pulled a small, silken pouch from her waist. Despite its size, she began stuffing the entire wolf carcass into it. The bag swallowed the beast as if it were a bottomless pit.
"We take the mana to stabilize the corpse," she added coldly. "And because the mana itself is worth more than the meat of this mangy bitch."
Matheo's mind whirred. It's a battery. You remove the power source before storing the hardware. But the logic was quickly replaced by a stabbing pain in his gut. The hunger was no longer a growl; it was a physical fire. His vision began to swim. The giant trees seemed to tilt and spin.
"Water..." he whispered.
"You get water when we hit the checkpoint, you pathetic prick," Kael grunted. "Keep walking or I'll give you something to actually cry about."
Matheo tried. He took one step, then another, but the gravity was a relentless thief. He saw the ground rushing toward him. He felt the rough sand hit his face, and then darkness.
He didn't wake up until he felt a splash of cold, metallic-tasting water on his face. He was slumped against a rock. Vance was standing over him, holding a waterskin and looking at him like a broken tool.
"Don't die on me yet, Porter," Vance growled, forcing a piece of dried, salty monster meat into Matheo's mouth. "We're only a day away from the settlement. If you die now, I've wasted three days of food and water on your worthless soul."
Matheo chewed. The meat was tough and tasted like rusted iron, but as it hit his stomach, a surge of heat radiated through him. He didn't know it, but his body was greedily converting those nutrients into mana, fueling the "itch" in his leg as it silently stitched muscle and skin back together.
By the third day, the forest thinned. In the distance, Oakhaven appeared.
It wasn't a village; it was a goddamn fortress. The walls were massive, sun-bleached logs topped with iron spikes. Guards stood on towers, wielding heavy crossbows that looked large enough to bring down a dragon.
As they reached the gate, two guards in iron-reinforced leather stepped forward.
"Vance," the lead guard nodded, his eyes sliding over to the bound, blood-stained Matheo. "Back from the Coast? Who's the baggage? Looks like he's got one foot in the grave."
Vance gave the rope around Matheo's wrists a sharp, painful tug, pulling him forward. "A stray we found in the Deep Zone. No ID. No mana. Just a lucky little shit. We're taking him to the Union for processing."
The guard looked at Matheo—his rags, his bound hands, and the dead, calculating look in his eyes. The guard laughed, a harsh, mocking sound. "Another one for the labor mines, then. Level one clearance. Move the trash along."
Matheo looked up at the massive gates. The horror of the jungle was gone, replaced by the horror of a civilization that saw him as a line item in a ledger.
I'm inside the walls, Matheo thought, his heart turning to ice. Now, the real game begins.