Chương 24: The Boundary

I scowl up at the stars, entirely unconvinced.

"How would one even breed glow-in-the-dark sheep?" I demand.

"Let alone enough of them to use as streetlamps?" A voice answers—deep, gravelly, and entirely too serious for this conversation.

"Magic." My rebuttal dies in my throat. … There is nothing I can say to that. The System turned a normal human girl into a foxtailed ballistic missile powered by malicious intent in four days flat. I suppose glowing livestock isn't where I should be drawing the line. It may be catastrophically bad at level design, but raw power? Yeah. It has that in spades. Which means I am losing this argument. And when one is losing an argument—no matter how stupid the argument is—there is only one correct course of action.

"We are never speaking of this again." I turn away decisively, as if the conversation has already been erased from history. Through the ancient and noble arts of shamelessness—and leveraging my family's blatant favoritism—I immediately escape the debate. A few stars grumble. Several others giggle. Still, my tail flicks with smug satisfaction. Undefeated. As I should be.

I glance around and spot the things I've been aggressively pretending not to see for the past fifteen minutes: the treasure chest, and the ominous, swirling gate that apparently decided to manifest sometime after my bloodlust-fueled encounter with the physical embodiment of laziness. I sigh. My ears flatten slightly. I never thought I'd see the day where I would rather listen to the logistics of sheep-powered streetlamps than open a treasure chest, but here we are.

Braced for disappointment, I walk over and open the chest whose contents I absolutely cannot predict in advance. The lid lifts. I am… mildly surprised. Only mildly. Mainly because the potions changed.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Lesser Health Potion (Uncommon)] x2 Restores 500 Health 20 Minute Cooldown ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Lesser Stamina Potion (Uncommon)] x2 Restores 500 Stamina 20 Minute Cooldown ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Lesser Mana Potion (Uncommon)] x2 Restores 500 Mana 20 Minute Cooldown ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ I nod in approval. Longer cooldowns, but significantly better returns.

Which is good, because one hundred stamina is functionally meaningless when your current pool is hovering around twenty-eight hundred—courtesy of my completely reasonable decision to impulse-dump every available stat point into Dexterity during my previous zone-wide rampage. Unfortunately, that means the gap between my stats has once again become completely unhinged. Tragic. Naturally, the potions go straight into my spatial storage. The old, semi-useless ones? Those stay too. I might need them later.

Tactical planning is one of my many hobbies. And is definitely not a vaguely disguised hoarding problem. Then I move on, inspecting the rest of the chest's contents before the stars can start teasing me about my impeccable inventory management. This time, the loot consists of an arm bracer layered in overlapping bark plates, a matching set of claw-shaped throwing daggers—and… … a large shard of bark. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Canopy Reaper's Bracer (Rare)] A bark-armored bracer designed for defense.

Dense and resilient, it provides strong protection against slashing attacks, but offers reduced effectiveness against piercing strikes. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Runic Patterns: Moderate Kinetic Energy Reflection (20%) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Canopy Reaper Claw Daggers (Uncommon)] x2 A matched pair of claw-shaped throwing blades. Light and sharp, they excel at piercing and slashing, though their durability is limited.

Runic Patterns: Minor Slashing Power (15%) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Canopy Reaper's Bark (Uncommon)] A hardened shard of bark taken from the Canopy Reaper, still infused with residual vitality. Consume to gain +25 Vitality. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ My tail flicks, brushing the notifications aside with casual disdain. One of the items is Rare. Which means the System has—at long last—reached the crafting level I achieved yesterday in a damp hole while bullying moles.

Slowly, dramatically, I lift a hand and pretend to wipe away a tear.

"They grow up so fast," I murmur, voice thick with mock emotion. The stars, naturally, commit fully to the bit—sniffling, reminiscing, making jokes about remembering when it was "just a baby System," voices cracking with theatrical nostalgia. … I tilt my head. Wait. They aren't actually joking, are they? Some of them are billions of years old. That is disturbingly plausible. Hm. I immediately and deliberately unsubscribe from this line of thought.

If the System is this bad at game design now, I don't want to imagine what it looked like back then. I shudder once, then expertly shove my thoughts back onto a safer track. Items. Bracers first. Obviously. A quick study of the rune patterns reveals— Absolutely nothing. As usual. That said, it's still a very solid piece of gear. Thick, layered bark plates, dense enough to suggest actual durability rather than decorative optimism.

I form a thin starlight sleeve along the inside—because raw bark against bare skin sounds like a rash waiting to happen—then strap it onto my left arm. I favor my right hand for offense, which means my left now has a semi-functional shield. Assuming it doesn't explode on impact.... And also assuming I remember it exists when the time comes. We'll find out. Next up. The daggers. They are trying very hard to look useful. I stare at them for a moment, then casually flick them into my spatial ring. I'll keep them.

Just in case. But if I ever find myself in desperate need of a throwing knife, I can fabricate one out of starlight in less time than it takes to be disappointed in the System. Which is saying something. And finally— —the consumable. Which I will obviously not be eating. I inspected it anyway, if only because I now feel morally obligated to be annoyed. And, oh, was I rewarded for my diligence. Let's review. It wants me to eat a piece of bark.

This bark grants Vitality—despite the boss itself being a speed-based stealth hunter whose Vitality stat was likely lower than room temperature. A boss which also happens to be the second speed-based stealth hunter Area Boss. In a row. I inhale. I exhale. And I gently place the bark on the grass, like one might set down an extraordinarily disappointing fast-food burger. Then I turn and walk toward the ominous gate. Zero for three on stat-boosting items. Annoying. Maybe we'll have better luck with the fourth.

I doubt it. I reach the gate, and the prompt politely manifests in my vision like it hasn't disappointed me three times already. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Would you like to exit Zone 3 (The Deepwood) and enter Zone 4 (The Boundary)? Options: Yes / No ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ My ears flick. The Boundary. Yes. That's not ominous at all. Definitely not a name you give to a place where something horrible waits just out of sight.

Deciding to conduct a very serious and extremely scientific experiment, I begin mentally mashing Yes as fast as I can. One. Two. Three— I make it to thirty-four before the fog slams into my face. And—this could be a coincidence—but I swear it hesitates for just half a second longer than usual. I giggle. I successfully made the System lag. Deserved. The fog peels away a few seconds later, and I am immediately confronted with— I blink. Green.

So when they said The Boundary, what they apparently meant was a literal wall of plant life, assembled with malicious intent. Grass tangles around my boots the moment I step forward—thick, uneven, layered over itself like it's competing for dominance. Moss carpets everything the grass misses—stones, roots—soft, damp, and determined to ruin my footing. The trees are larger here. Far thicker than the Deepwood's giants.

Their trunks stretch so high they vanish into the canopy above, bark dark and rough, split by old seams that ooze clear sap in slow, sticky trails. Bushes fill every gap. Thorned. Broad-leafed. Dense enough that there's no clean boundary between bush, grass, and ground—just plant. Vines thread through it all, crawling across the soil as often as they climb. They loop over roots and snag at my ankles like they take my presence personally.

Speaking of roots— They shove upward in thick, uneven arcs, many far larger than I am, forcing the ground into massive rises and dips. Moss clings to them in heavy mats, cool and slick beneath my steps. A large rock blocks part of the path ahead, half-buried beneath grass and vines. Its surface is split cleanly, claimed by smaller plants that have decided it belongs to them now. There is no open ground. No trails. No mercy. Just dense, aggressive growth in every direction.

This looks like a developer smashed The Thicket and The Deepwood together, cranked the foliage slider to eleven, and called it a brand-new zone. I stare at it in silence. Judgmentally. My tail lashes in irritation.

"… Guess we're going full Bear Grylls mode." Honestly? As far as bad design goes, this isn't the worst. Six out of ten. Almost passing. Bonus points for massive trees. I start hacking my way through the undergrowth, my arm a blur as I slash several times per second— While moving at approximately car speeds. Dexterity is the best stat. … Especially when it's higher than all my other stats combined. I take zero responsibility for the actions of pissed-off Lyn.

My gravity sense pings, and—right on schedule—the first monster of the zone makes its dramatic debut, bursting through the foliage with murderous enthusiasm. It's a large elk, antlers tangled with vines and dripping moss like it lost a fight with the ecosystem and refused to admit it. I Inspect it. Nothing interesting. Unfortunate. I relieve it of its head in one clean motion. Problem solved. I grimace slightly. I expected this, but it's still annoying.

My race gives me a frankly irresponsible number of points, and the majority of them go—naturally—straight into Dexterity. At this point, my stats are high enough that if the monsters are scaling the way they should be, I'm flirting with what a level thirty creature would normally be capable of. Despite only being level eighteen. Which means nothing here can seriously challenge me unless I deliberately nerf myself. And I see no reason to do that.

Especially not when someone out there is still daring to have more points than me. Therefore: no stopping. I keep carving my way forward through the thick—borderline rude —bushes and vines that have taken it upon themselves to block my path. Unfortunately, I'm forced to stay ground-bound here. The canopy above is an absolute disaster of branches and leaves, tangled densely enough to make aerial movement more effort than it's worth.

Everything in my way is efficiently converted into experience with minimal thought or ceremony. Some familiar faces return with shinier names—the lynx, the wolves—alongside a few newcomers: giant lizards, oversized tarantulas, and—for reasons completely unknown— —a tortoise. Which is impressive, considering there hasn't been a single drop of water anywhere in the Tutorial. No rivers. No lakes. Not even a sad little puddle. And yet. Tortoise. Incredible.

I spend the next few hours chatting with the stars as I travel, leveling up another three times in the process, until dawn finally creeps over the forest and their voices fade behind the curtain of sunlight. A shame. I was genuinely enjoying the extremely detailed discussion about the tax implications of cloning. I am one hundred percent confident that these mental notes will be relevant someday. I can feel it deep in my soul—like a sixth sense for comedic timing. Briefly, I consider sleeping now that it's morning.

Then I don't. I still feel perfectly energetic, for reasons I do not yet fully understand. Maybe a higher stamina pool lets you stay awake longer? The actual stamina number doesn't seem to matter much—I've gone to sleep with a full bar plenty of times already. Further testing required. I add it to the mental task list. And continue forward.