Last Man in the Death Game

Chapter 3: Two Damage

[Players remaining: 9,981.]

Kael read it once and kept walking. He had been in the Cradle Fields for eleven minutes. Eighteen people had already died.

He tried not to think about who they were. Somebody's brother. Somebody's roommate. Somebody who woke up that morning and thought today would be fun.

The number dropped again while he watched. [Players remaining: 9,979.]

"Stay west of the river," he muttered. "Don't die. Stay west. Don't die."

The field was bigger than it looked. Tall grass brushed his knees, and the river ran on his right, wide and slow and the color of tea. Far ahead, small figures fought small monsters. Sometimes a figure stopped moving. Kael looked away from those.

He kept to the edge, near the water. It was slow. But it was quiet, and he had learned long ago that quiet jobs were safer jobs.

A few minutes later, he found the first one. A glowing brown sack lay in the grass beside a crushed patch of flowers. A name floated over it: Tomas_R. Next to it, a short sword lay in the dirt, its blade still shining.

Kael stopped. He looked at the sword for a long time. Then he picked it up. [Cannot equip: Scrappers may only use hammers and tools.] He held on to it anyway. It felt like a key to the wrong door.

Then he looked at the bag and understood what he was seeing. Tomas had been a real person, with a real mother somewhere, and this was everything he had left. Salvage would turn it all into gray dust and a few Scrap. Kael's hand hung over it for a long moment. He put the sword back where he'd found it. "Sorry, man," he said, and walked on.

Then the grass behind him moved.

Not the wind. The wind blew everything the same way. This was one long line of grass, bending toward him.

Kael turned around. A gray wolf stepped out of the field. It was the size of a large dog, with yellow eyes and a scar over one ear. A name tag hung above its head. [Cradle Wolf. Lv 2. HP 45.]

"Nice dog," Kael said. His voice cracked on the last word.

The wolf lowered its head and growled.

Kael did the math. He had 60 HP and a hammer that did two damage. The wolf had 45 HP and, apparently, no interest in a conversation. He would need to hit it twenty-three times. It would need to bite him maybe five. That wasn't a fight. That was an obituary.

"Okay," Kael whispered. "Okay. I'm going to run now."

He ran.

The wolf ran faster. Of course it did. Kael could hear its paws in the grass, closer with every step, and his back started to burn the way it did after a double shift.

He needed a door. He needed a wall. He needed anything.

Then he saw it, just off the river path: an old barn. Half the walls had rotted away. The roof sagged in the middle like a tired mattress.

He almost ran past it. Then he looked at the roof again.

Years at the warehouse had taught him to read a load. Every heavy thing was held up by something, and the good ones had many supports. This roof had one. A single thick beam in the middle, black with age, and every other board leaned on it.

Pull out the one thing holding everything up, he thought, and everything comes down.

It was a terrible idea. It was also the only one he had.

He ran inside. Dust puffed up around his boots. He stopped beside the beam, put his right hand flat against it, and turned to face the door.

The wolf came through the doorway low and fast. Kael swung the hammer by pure reflex. It clanged off the wolf's ribs. [Cradle Wolf HP: 45 → 43.]

The wolf looked more confused than hurt. Then its teeth closed on his left arm. [HP: 60 → 46.]

Pain shot up to his shoulder. Kael screamed. He couldn't help it. It felt real, all of it, the heat and the crushing grip.

"Salvage!" he yelled.

[Salvaging: Support Beam. 4 seconds.]

Four seconds. He had only ever salvaged a bench, and the bench had taken one. He'd forgotten that big things took longer.

[3.]

The wolf shook its head. Its teeth ground against his arm. [HP: 46 → 33.]

[2.]

The wolf let go and lunged for his throat. Kael jerked his head back, and its jaws snapped an inch from his chin.

[1.]

"Come on," he hissed. "Come on, come on—"

[Support Beam salvaged. Wood Scrap x9.]

The beam turned to gray flakes under his hand. For one strange second, nothing happened. Then the whole roof groaned.

Kael threw himself sideways through a gap in the wall. Wood cracked. Boards crashed down. The wolf yelped once, and then a cloud of dust swallowed the barn.

He lay on his back in the grass, coughing, staring at the gray sky. His arm was on fire. His heart was going like a drum. His hands shook so badly he had to press them against his chest to make them stop.

Then a low sound came from the wreck. A whimper.

Kael sat up slowly. Under a pile of boards, one yellow eye looked back at him. The wolf was pinned. It was breathing hard, and it was still alive.

[Cradle Wolf. HP: 2 / 45.]

Kael stared at the number. Then he started to laugh. It came out ragged and a little crazy, and it hurt his ribs.

"Two," he wheezed. "You're kidding me. It's two."

He crawled over to the pile with the hammer in his hand. The wolf's yellow eye followed him. It almost looked like it understood.

"Sorry," Kael said. "Nothing personal."

He swung. The hammer tapped against the wolf's head with a small, sad sound.

[Cradle Wolf defeated.]

[EXP +25. Level 2 reached.]

[Standing: 9,790 / 9,946.]

Kael read the last line twice. Then another message slid in underneath.

[Skill upgraded: Salvage Lv 2.]

Warden Zero's voice came soft and close. "Creative, Player Brandt."

Then it was gone. Kael's skin crawled all the way up his neck.

He lay back down for a moment and let the pain in his arm settle into a dull throb. His HP bar sat at 33. One wolf had taken almost half of it.

Then he sat up and looked at the ruined barn. Then at his Salvage skill. Then at the barn again.

The wreck was full of wood. Old boards, rusty nails, a bent hinge. Junk to anyone else. He put his hand on the biggest pile.

[Wood Scrap x14. Iron Scrap x6.]

Kael checked his bag. Twenty-six wood. Six iron. He counted them the way he used to count stock at the end of a shift, and it calmed him down.

It also made him think. He had just been chased, bitten, and nearly killed, and the thing that saved him hadn't been a weapon. It had been an old roof.

Everyone else gets a weapon, he thought. I get a warehouse.

A scream cut across the field.

It came from the river, maybe two hundred yards away. It was high and sharp, and it didn't stop. Then a second voice joined it, and a third.

Kael got to his feet. His arm hurt. His HP was barely half. He had a hammer, a bag of junk, and a plan that had worked exactly once.

He saw them through the grass, a small group backing toward the water. Four players. Six wolves. A boy with a cracked shield was trying to hold the line. A tall girl swung a staff at nothing, crying. And near the back, a green hood.

The girl who had said sorry. The girl who had said they were full.

Every smart thought in Kael's head said the same thing. Walk away. He was two bites from being a name on a list.

He looked at the barn wreck. He looked at the wolves. He looked at his own two shaking hands.

Then he thought about Lena, and how she'd never forgive him for walking away from a scream.

He'd never been good at listening to smart thoughts.

[Players remaining: 9,931.] The number was falling faster than he could count.

He grabbed a fistful of Iron Scrap from his bag as he ran. He had no idea what for. It felt better than running empty-handed.

"Hey!" he yelled at the wolves, which was easily the dumbest thing he'd done all day. "Over here!"

Six yellow eyes turned toward him. Then all of them charged.