Last Man in the Death Game

Chapter 2: Scrapper

[Class assignment complete.]

The wheel lit up again. Kael let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

[Class: Scrapper.]

[Rarity: Common.]

"Scrapper," Kael said out loud. It sounded like a job title at a junkyard.

He pulled up his status screen and read it twice. Then he read it a third time, in case the numbers would change.

[HP: 60]

[Attack skills: None]

[Skills: Salvage, Pack Rat]

[Description: Collects what others leave behind.]

It read like a sign on a dumpster. Salvage broke items down into Scrap. Pack Rat gave him five extra bag slots. That was the whole class.

The average starting HP was about 120. He'd heard a guy in line say so. Kael had exactly half.

At the bottom of his skill list, he noticed a third line. It was so faded he almost missed it. When he tried to read it, the letters slid away, like water off a plate.

He blinked, and it was gone.

Warden Zero's whisper brushed his ear. "Every class has a purpose, Player Brandt."

Kael didn't answer. He didn't trust anything that spoke that kindly.

His bag held four things: a loaf of bread, a water flask, a cloth pouch, and a hammer with a chipped handle. [Scrapper's Hammer. Damage: 2.] Most people around him had been handed swords or staffs. Kael had been handed the tools of a man who owned a shed.

"Hey. What'd you get?"

A man in heavy steel armor was grinning at him. He looked about thirty, with a square jaw and a shield on his arm. The name over his head read Dorn.

"Scrapper," Kael said.

Dorn's grin got wider. "You're joking. That's the troll class. My buddy said the devs put it in as a prank in the beta. You can't even hit anything."

"I've got a hammer," Kael said. "Damage two."

Dorn laughed so hard his armor rattled. "Damage two! Buddy, a rat has more bite than that. Good luck out there." He clapped Kael on the shoulder, hard, and walked off, still laughing.

Kael rubbed his shoulder. It stung a little. He decided that was fair. Everyone had a right to laugh on the worst day of their lives.

A line of small text appeared in front of him.

[Processing complete. No anomalies found.]

Kael stared at it. No anomalies. He had watched his wheel go dark with his own eyes.

He didn't know much about computers. But he knew the sound of someone saying "everything is fine" when it wasn't. He'd heard it from every manager he'd ever had.

"Class?"

A woman had stopped in front of him. She had a shaved head, a scar across her chin, and a spear on her back. The name over her head read Sable. She held a glowing list in one hand. A silver crown was stitched on her chest.

"Scrapper," Kael said. He was getting tired of saying it.

She looked at him for two seconds. She didn't blink. Then she tapped something on her list and moved on.

"Wait," Kael said. "Do I get a name on that list, or—"

"No." Her voice was flat, like she was reading from a receipt. "Crownfall doesn't carry dead weight. Don't follow us."

Kael watched her go. She didn't look back. In ten seconds, he had learned two things about Crownfall. They were fast, and they were cold.

Being left out wasn't new. He'd been the last pick in gym class and the last guy anyone thought to invite anywhere. He had survived all of that. This felt the same, except this time the cost was his life.

Out of curiosity, he opened the Standing board.

[#1: Dominic Vex. Sword Saint. Legendary.]

[#2: Sable Kord. Spear Warden. Epic.]

Vex hadn't lied about being good. Kael found that annoying.

By then the plaza was emptying. Boots scraped stone. Somebody was praying out loud. A few players just stood with their arms wrapped around themselves, staring at nothing. Vex's people formed rows near the north gate, hundreds of them in matching silver. Two other guilds did the same on the east side. The gates had swung open while nobody was looking, and past them a green field ran all the way to the horizon.

Vex stood on the fountain steps again. "Rule one," he called. "Stay in formation. Rule two, loot goes to the guild. Anyone who falls behind stays behind."

Nobody argued. Kael noticed that too.

He opened his status screen again and found a line he had missed.

[Standing: 9,812 / 9,999]

[Next Purge: 29 days, 23 hours]

[Quota: 500]

9,999. Not ten thousand. Ricky was already gone from the count.

Class rarity decided the starting order. Common classes sat near the bottom. Scrapper, being Common and useless, sat almost at the floor.

Kael did the math again, and this time it wasn't calm. The Purge would delete the bottom five hundred. His Standing put him at 9,812. Only 187 people stood below him. He was inside the line by more than three hundred spots.

"Thirty days," he said. "I have to climb more than three hundred places in thirty days."

He read the small print under the number. Standing went up from kills, quests, and Arena trials. Every one of those needed a weapon.

"Sure," he muttered. "Easy."

He tried the only skill he had. A wooden bench sat beside the fountain, cracked at one leg. Kael put a hand on it and whispered, "Salvage."

The bench folded into nothing, like paper in a fire. A small pile of gray flakes dropped into his palm.

[Wood Scrap x3 acquired.]

Kael turned the flakes over in his hand. They felt warm. "Well," he said. "At least I can wreck furniture."

He tucked them into his pouch. Free stuff was free stuff.

He tried one more thing. A group of four stood near the fountain, arguing about who should tank. Kael walked over. "Room for one more?"

A girl in a green hood glanced at his class tag, then at her friends. "Sorry," she said, and she sounded like she meant it. "We're full."

They were not full. Their party bar had two empty slots, and Kael could see them from where he stood. He nodded anyway. "Good luck."

A stone golem the size of a dog rolled up on tiny wheels. Runes glowed on its chest, and a name tag floated over its head: Cradle Guide.

"Hello, traveler!" it said in a cheerful voice. "Oh, a Scrapper! I have never met one. They are very rare."

"Rare?" Kael said. "Everyone keeps telling me it's a joke."

"Scrappers break things down and make use of the pieces," the golem said. "There are not many left."

"Left?" Kael said. "What do you mean, left?"

"Monsters in the Cradle Fields are level one to three," the golem said, as if it hadn't heard. "Stay west of the river. And please do not die. It makes the Warden cranky."

"Do you know how to log out?" Kael asked.

"I do not understand that question," the golem said brightly, and rolled away.

Kael let out a long breath. "Yeah. Figured."

Left. As in, once there were more. Kael added that to the list of things he didn't understand yet, and the list was getting long.

A bell rang across the plaza. Warden Zero's voice followed, calm as ever. "The Landing Plaza will close in sixty seconds. Remaining players will be moved to the Cradle Fields."

Kael looked around one last time. The plaza was almost empty now. Only one person still stood there, near the west gate: the woman in the gray cloak.

She was looking straight at him. She didn't look scared or lost. She looked tired, like someone checking off the last item on a very long list.

"Hey!" Kael called, and lifted a hand. "You—"

She turned, walked through the west gate, and vanished into the tall grass.

Kael stood still for a moment. Then he did what he always did when something didn't add up. He filed it away and picked up the next box.

He made a plan, because plans kept him steady. One: don't die in the first hour. Two: find out what Salvage could do besides wreck benches. Three: find that faded line on his skill list again.

Lena would say it was a terrible plan. Lena was usually right about things like that. Kael almost smiled.

He ate half the bread standing there. If he was going to die, he wanted to do it on a full stomach. Then he gave the hammer a practice swing. It felt like swinging a wrench at a bear.

He gripped it tighter and walked through the north gate.

Behind him, the plaza gates slammed shut with a sound like a coffin lid. Ahead, the Cradle Fields rolled out under the gray sky. The air smelled like cut grass and copper. Somewhere in the tall grass, something began to howl.