Chương 5: Chapter 4: “Halfway home”

The remaining miles south toward Dan's property were traveled in heavy, brooding silence. None of us felt much like talking; the sensory details of the blood-splattered grove and the grim confessions of the dead archer still hung over us like a shroud. We were ordinary working men adjusting to a world that had rewritten its laws overnight, and the realization that murder was now an optimized method of progression was a hard pill to swallow. We reached the outskirts of Dan's property just before midday.

Anxiety spiked in my chest when I noticed the dirt driveway leading to the house was completely empty—there was no sign of his wife Trisha's vehicle. But just as we crossed the property line, the front door flew open. Trisha stepped out onto the porch, followed immediately by Dan's twenty-something daughter and young grandson. The moment they recognized his dust-covered frame, the three of them sprinted down the path, throwing their arms around Dan in a desperate, weeping embrace.

"We were so terrified," Trisha sobbed, burying her face in his neck.

"We didn't know where you were, or if you could even make it out of the city."

"I was worried sick about you guys too," Dan said, holding them tight. He pulled back, looking toward the empty driveway.

"Where's your car?"

"I was down the road at the neighbors' when the sky opened up," Trisha explained, wiping her eyes.

"After the pulse, none of our trucks would turn over. We abandoned them and walked back here. We didn't want to go looking for you in town for fear you'd come home to an empty house." Dan let out a breath, giving her a reassuring squeeze.

"Well, I made it back, thanks to these two. We ran into a bit of trouble with a few highway bandits along the way, but we managed. And I'll tell you what, Derrick here can roast a mean squirrel." At the mention of squirrel for breakfast, both women immediately scrunched their noses in synchronized disgust, breaking the tension and causing the three of us to burst out laughing. Trisha looked over Dan's shoulder, her expression softening into profound gratitude.

"Thank you guys. Thank you for bringing my husband home to us."

"No worries, Trisha," I said, offering a small, tired smile.

"We take care of our own. We weren't about to leave him stranded up north."

"I know you two are desperate to get back to your own families," Trisha said, gesturing toward the house, "but please, come inside. Let me get you something real to eat." Frank shook his head gently, adjusting the grip on his sledgehammer.

"We appreciate it, Trisha, but we need to keep moving while we still have daylight. We've got plenty of rations left in our rucks to make this trek twice over if we have to." Frank and I said our goodbyes to the family and began cutting a path south across the remainder of Dan's property. He owned about ten acres on the fringe of a tiny local town—the kind of place that was barely a speed bump on the highway between major valley cities.

I took note of his small head of cattle and the large chicken coop bustling with laying hens and a single, territorial rooster. It was a goldmine of self-sustaining protein. As long as Dan could defend it from roaming raiders, his family would be set for food. We were near the back fence line when Dan's voice cut through the afternoon air.

"Hold up, guys! Let me walk with you a bit." He jogged out to meet us. Once we were well out of earshot from the house, his posture shifted, growing heavy and contemplative.

"I wanted to talk to you guys about what went down back there. With the bandits." I had been anticipating this. We had worked under Dan for years and knew the man's core values inside and out. He was deeply religious, a man who actively avoided conflict and firmly believed that judgment belonged to a higher power. Yet, I also knew his history working corrections, and I knew there wasn't a single line he wouldn't cross to protect his flesh and blood.

He didn't condone violence for violence's sake, but he wasn't naive. I held up a hand, cutting him off gently before he could struggle through the wording.

"I already know what you're going to ask, Dan. You want to know if I executed that archer because I was playing judge and jury for his crimes, or if it was pure self-defense." Dan went quiet, nodding slowly.

"I've been chewing on it for the last few miles," I admitted frankly.

"Back when I was in law enforcement, my field training officers hammered a vital rule into my skull: a cop cannot have a personal, vested stake in a case once the cuffs are on. Your job isn't to pass judgment or mete out punishment. Your job is to collect evidence and effect a lawful arrest based on what you can prove. The court system handles the rest."

"So what changed with the archer?" Dan asked, his eyes searching mine.

"At that exact moment, I didn't know what to do," I confessed.

"On one hand, he had just confessed to cold-blooded murder. If we released him and let him walk, he was just going to find a new weapon and butcher the next isolated family he came across. On the other hand, I refuse to become a self-appointed executioner roaming the wasteland. I was stuck in a moral paradox. But in the end? He made the executive decision for me the second he reached for that hidden blade behind his back." Dan let out a long, slow breath, the tension leaving his shoulders.

"Well... I suppose that's the plain truth of it. I just want you to watch your step going forward, Derrick. We are staring down some incredibly dark times, and I'd hate to see this world turn you into someone who feels entirely comfortable taking a human life." I looked him dead in the eye.

"I hope to God I never get comfortable with it. But the only thing I know for certain right now is this: if someone threatens my wife or my kids, the safety is off. It's game on."

"I can respect that," Dan nodded solemnly.

"Godspeed, you guys."

"What's your plan here?" I asked, looking back toward his farmhouse.

"For now, we fortify the property," Dan said.

"We have the cattle and the chickens for meat and eggs. There's a deep irrigation canal cutting across our east border, and as long as the water districts don't shut the gates permanently, we have a reliable water source." I thought back to the equipment I'd seen near his shed.

"What about that classic square-body truck you've got parked behind the barn? Does it run?"

"Not at the moment," Dan said.

"But it's old enough that it shouldn't have any modern computer components to fry. If I can scrounge up a working twelve-volt battery from a dead tractor, I reckon I can get the engine turning."

"If the valley gets too dangerous out here in the open country, I want you to drop a battery into that old rig and come find us," I told him flatly.

"If you can hook up a cattle trailer and bring a few heads of cattle with you, even better. By the time you get to us, Frank and I should have a permanent, fortified perimeter set up." Dan reached out, giving my hand a firm, crushing shake.

"You've got a deal, son." The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. As we stood by the fence, I caught a familiar amber flicker pulsing in the bottom right corner of my vision. I had become so accustomed to the visual static over the last day that I had unconsciously tuned it out. I blinked, looking over at Frank.

"Hey, did either of you actually review your System notifications after the fight?" Frank snorted, shaking his head.

"Of course we did. Didn't you?"

"Guess I'm the only idiot who forgot to check the dashboard," I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck.

"I hauled in a massive chunk of experience from that skirmish," Frank said, a hint of awe in his voice.

"It actually pushed me over the threshold. I leveled up."

"That's the other reason I wanted to bring it up," Dan added quietly.

"The mathematical payout for terminating those three men was... disturbingly high."

"Well, damn. Give me a second to see what the ledger says," I muttered, focusing my mind and expanding the blinking notification icon. The text unrolled across my retinas in a stark, cold cascade. [You have defeated a Human (Level 5 Bandit). Moderate EXP gained.] [You have defeated a Human (Level 5 Bandit). Moderate EXP gained.] [You have defeated a Human (Level 4). Moderate EXP gained.] [Notice: You have advanced to Level 2 and Level 3. You have 6 Attribute Points and 4 Skill Points currently held in reserve.] [Skill Progression: Blunt Weapons has increased to Beginner 9.] [Skill Progression: Daggers has increased to Beginner 8.] I stared at the readout, completely stunned by the sheer volume of experience deposited into my pool, especially considering I had only personally delivered the killing blows to two of them. It seemed the System calculated combat encounters mathematically as a unified party threat, splitting the total pool across our group.

Curious about the mechanics of the combat, I dug deeper, expanding the raw combat logs to see exactly how the physics interacted with the UI. [Combat Log Summary:] Target: Human (Level 5 Bandit) — You inflicted 12 points of Blunt Damage to the cranium (Critical Hit). Target succumbed to a 5-second Stun Debuff. Target suffered an additional 10 points of Kinetic Fall Damage to the cranium upon impact with the earth.

Target: Human (Level 5 Bandit) — You inflicted 6 points of Crushing Damage to the thoracic cage (Assisted). You inflicted 15 points of Slashing Damage to the left carotid artery (Critical Wound). Target suffered an active Bleeding Debuff inflicting 10 points of continuous damage per second for 120 seconds or until medical mitigation. Target: Human (Level 4) — You inflicted 15 points of Piercing Damage to the cranium. Structural compromise determined: Catastrophic Brain Trauma. Target terminated instantly.

I lingered on that final line, a chill running down my spine. This was a vital piece of information. Even within a rigid framework of hit points and stat pools, a catastrophic injury to a vital organ like the brain resulted in instantaneous, script-skipping death. I assumed the same absolute rule applied to a direct puncture to the heart. This wasn't like a standard fantasy video game where an enemy could take an axe to the skull and keep fighting just because their health bar was full.

The system was bound by grim, physical reality. I closed the combat logs and looked at my core attributes. Wanting to balance out my physical baseline for the remainder of the forced march, I allocated three points directly into Strength and three points into Constitution, bringing my lowest physical traits up to par.

I decided to hold onto my four unassigned skill points for the time being; until I knew exactly what kind of specialized class options would unlock at Level 5, investing points blindly felt like a tactical mistake. Before committing the changes, I pulled up the finalized layout to verify the sheet.

STATUS: Name: Derrick Miller Race: Human Level: 3 ATTRIBUTES Strength: 15 Dexterity: 15 Constitution: 15 Intelligence: 17 Wisdom: 12 Charisma: 18 VITAL POOLS Health: 150 / 150 Stamina: 150 Mana: 170 Carry Capacity: 150 lbs.

Armor Class: 3 ACTIVE SKILLS Hand-to-Hand: Beginner 6 Blunt Weapons: Beginner 9 Axe Mastery: Apprentice 3 Sword Mastery: Beginner 5 Bow Mastery: Apprentice 3 Daggers: Beginner 8 First Aid: Apprentice 9 Building: Journeyman 5 Crafting: Journeyman 5 Wilderness Survival: Journeyman 2 Sneak: Beginner 5 Herbalism: Beginner 5 Alchemy: Beginner 5 Inspect: Beginner 1 ARCANE Minor Heal: Beginner 5 Tame Animal: Beginner 9 Unassigned Attribute Points: 0 Unassigned Skill Points: 4 I focused on the [CONFIRM] prompt.

The moment the selection cleared, a sudden, electric rush of vitality surged through my nervous system. My muscles tightened, the lingering ache in my lower back vanished, and a profound wave of raw, physical stamina settled deep into my chest. I felt lighter, stronger, and significantly more grounded. As I stepped out of the menu, Dan held up a hand, telling us to wait right there.

He jogged over to his garage, rummaged through the interior for a few minutes, and returned carrying a beautiful, traditional wood recurve bow and a side quiver containing a dozen arrows.

"Here," Dan said, handing the kit over.

"It's nothing fancy, and the arrows are fitted with basic target field-points. But it'll give you a silent option for harvesting small game, and some much-needed ranged deterrence if you cross paths with anyone else on the road." I accepted the weapon, immediately running my eyes down the clean grain of the limbs and triggering my passive skill. [Item: Traditional Recurve Wood Bow. Rarity: Common. Quality: Good. Damage: 8–12 physical.] A wave of satisfaction washed over me.

This bow was leagues ahead of the poorly maintained piece of junk the bandit had been carrying. I gave the string a test pull, estimating the draw weight at a solid thirty-five pounds with a standard draw length of about twenty-eight inches. It was a fraction shorter than my personal preference, but my Bow Mastery skill would easily compensate for the variance. I strapped the quiver securely to the right flank of my rucksack for a clean, over-the-shoulder draw stroke, and hoisted the heavy pack back into place.

"Thanks, Dan," I said sincerely, checking the limbs one last time.

"This means a hell of a lot." Frank and I offered our final nods to our boss, turned our faces toward the southern horizon, and stepped back onto the dirt trail. One more leg of the journey behind us. One step closer to my wife and kids.