Chương 6: Chapter 5: "The Grasslands"

The trek south from Dan's property proved to be a welcome change of pace. The heavy blanket of smoke and ash had mostly dissipated overnight, leaving behind only sporadic, drifting billows. Some distant fields were still smoldering, and the occasional farmhouse showed charred, skeletal remnants of fire. If I had to guess, at least fifty percent of the properties we passed had been touched by the burning embers.

I deliberately pushed away any thoughts of the utter devastation a congested city would be suffering right now. Roughly five miles south of Dan's place, our path was blocked by another winding river. We cut east along the bank, determined to stay far away from the main highway to avoid any unpredictable threats traveling the asphalt corridor. Luckily, we didn't have to hike long. We found a wide, shallow bend where the current slowed, and the water depth dropped to barely a foot.

We hauled off our boots, rolled up our trousers, and waded across the cool shallows. On the southern bank, we used our canvas tarps to dry our feet, laced our boots back down, and pushed on. With the river behind us, the landscape shifted dramatically as we crossed into the local grasslands. This late in the season, the marshes were mostly dry, save for a few low-lying depressions, though a massive drainage canal carved a straight line north-to-south parallel to the highway.

During duck hunting season, these plains would be completely flooded. After a few miles of pushing through the brush, we encountered one of those low-lying marshy basins. The flooded zone wasn't massive, and navigating around it wouldn't take too much time, but the thick, sucking mud of the grasslands seriously bogged down our marching pace. The sun was dipping low again, and the sharp pangs in my stomach confirmed it was officially dinner time. An enormous flock of wild geese had claimed the edge of the water.

And just like the squirrel from the night before, these birds were conspicuously oversized.

"What do you think about harvesting some fresh protein?" I asked, eyeing the flock.

"We're probably closer to my place than we think, and I'm really not keen on sleeping out in the open marsh tonight. If we take a tactical pause, cook up some dinner, and rest our legs, we can smash the final leg of the trip under the cover of darkness. The terrain between these grasslands and town is pretty sparse, so a night march should be easy. What's the play?"

"Honestly? I'm completely on board with that," Frank muttered, leaning heavily on his sledgehammer.

"But I definitely need to brew another batch of that dandelion tea and get some calories in me before my blood sugar crashes again." I frowned, glancing at his worn posture.

"What's your Constitution stat sitting at right now?"

"It's an eight," Frank replied.

"You know," I mused, shifting my rucksack, "I'm willing to bet that if you dump your next few stat points into Constitution, your diabetes symptoms might completely stabilize. Think about it: Constitution dictates your raw vitality. It governs how your body mitigates physical trauma, filters poisons, and handles environmental stress. Isn't a severe blood sugar spike essentially just your body being poisoned by an overabundance of glucose because your pancreas can't clear it out naturally?"

Frank blinked, considering the logic.

"That... actually makes a hell of a lot of sense. I guess only time will tell once we bank some more levels." He glanced at me, a smirk playing on his face.

"What about you? What's your score? And how the hell did it take you half a day to realize you had leveled up after that bandit fight?"

"I brought my Constitution up to fifteen," I said, a grin tugging at my mouth.

"And to be honest, I feel like a million bucks. As for the notifications? I guess I just unconsciously tuned out the flashing icon. For years, whenever I get a severe migraine, I see these weird visual auras in my peripheral vision. I've dealt with them for so long that my brain just automatically filters out flashing lights in my sight line. I just wish there was a way this damn System would feed me critical data without making me pull up a full menu interface every time."

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Frank gave me a blank, exasperated look.

"Have you seriously not bothered to look at your notification settings?" Judging by the complete lack of response and the utterly vacant expression on my face, it was painfully obvious I had absolutely no clue what he was talking about.

"Derrick, did you even look at your status screen for more than sixty seconds?" Frank chuckled, shaking his head.

"I spent my entire watch last night digging through the sub-menus. There wasn't exactly a lot of entertainment out here. I figured you, being the resident nerd of the crew, would have figured that out first thing."

"I guess with all the life-and-death chaos, customizing my user interface wasn't high on my priority list," I grumbled good-naturedly.

"I'll dive into the settings while we take our break. In the meantime, let me go and secure our dinner." I unbuckled my rucksack, letting it drop softly into the tall grass. I retrieved the recurve bow Dan had given me, nocked a field-point arrow, and crouched low into the brush, actively channeling my Sneak ability. I didn't turn invisible—this wasn't a high-fantasy MMORPG, my skill level was barely baseline, and the barren grasslands offered virtually zero shadows for concealment.

Instead, the effect was far more mechanical and grounded. The sound of my footsteps became heavily dampened; the loud, dry crunch of the tall grass beneath my boots muffled into a faint, barely audible rustle. Furthermore, my silhouette seemed to subtly lose its sharp definition, blending into the muted browns and greens of the surrounding topography. I caught myself smiling. If the skill was this impressive at Beginner 1, a Master-tier rogue would be a terrifying phantom.

I slithered through the brush until I reached a distance of roughly fifty meters from the water's edge—well within the effective kill-zone of the thirty-five-pound recurve. Up close, the geese were monstrous. They looked like prehistoric variants, thick-necked and heavy-breasted. It made me wonder if this aggressive scale-up was going to be the new biological baseline for every animal on the planet, and more importantly, how long before the apex predators became completely untamable nightmares.

I raised the bow, executing a slow, deliberate draw stroke to avoid triggering any sudden visual alerts. I anchored the nock tightly against my cheek, hooking the tip of my index finger into the exact corner of my mouth. It was the fundamental muscle memory of traditional archery—ensuring perfect eye-to-arrow alignment and an identical draw length with every single shot. I regulated my breathing, drawing deep, measured breaths to steady my pulse.

Once the target was perfectly framed, I took a half-breath in and held it. In that precise, frozen window where my heart rate slowed and the tip of the arrow stopped vibrating with my pulse, I cleanly released the string. TWANG. The arrow flew true, striking the lead goose squarely in the center of its massive breast. Even with a blunt target tip, the raw kinetic force and velocity easily drove the shaft deep into the vitals.

Between the sudden snap of the Dacron string and the agonized, echoing honk of the dying bird, the entire marsh erupted into absolute chaos. A massive cloud of a couple hundred geese took flight, darkening the pale sky as they beat their wings and fled the area. I stayed perfectly still in my crouch, letting the flock clear the airspace. Once the commotion died down, I walked out into the mud and retrieved our dinner. I jogged back to Frank, hoisting the heavy bird by its webbed feet.

"Dinner is served. Let's circle around to the windward side of the marsh, find a secure copse of trees, and get a fire going." I hoisted my rucksack back into place, scouting the horizon for a defensible spot to butcher our kill and fix the interface settings on my dashboard.