Chương 11: Apparently, Ohio Has Fire-Breathing Birds

Twenty minutes after crossing into Ohio, Matt had learned something. State lines were considerably more dramatic on maps than through a windshield. The sky hadn't changed color. The pavement hadn't suddenly improved. There had been a green sign, a river, and then more America—gas stations, fast-food chains, farmhouses at the ends of long gravel driveways, cornfields, soybean fields, and occasional industrial buildings rising inexplicably between them.

The dense mountains of West Virginia had gradually softened into rolling hills and broad stretches of agricultural land, but there had been no moment when Matt could point out the window and say, Yes. This is definitely Ohio now. He glanced at the GPS mounted on the dashboard. ASHFIELD ORCHARD 52 miles His phone buzzed in the cup holder. Matt waited until the road straightened before glancing at the screen.

BLACK HOLLOW GROUP Ethan: have I mentioned the birds Matt: yes Ethan: good Matt: you have said it repeatedly Ethan: and yet you remain insufficiently concerned Chloe: He's enjoying this too much. Matt: what do they actually do A long pause followed. The typing indicator appeared, vanished, then appeared again. Finally: Ethan: bird things Matt stared at the message.

"I hate him." He put the phone back down. An hour later, he left the interstate and merged onto a two-lane county road. The scenery became even more aggressively rural. A rusted tractor sat beside a weathered barn, a sprawling greenhouse complex occupied one side of the road, and a pickup passed in the opposite direction with what looked like an entire stack of farming equipment strapped into the bed. If Matt hadn't known where he was going, he would have assumed he was heading toward a farm supply store.

Then a large modern sign appeared beside the road. ASHFIELD ORCHARD DELVER ACCESS NEXT RIGHT"There it is." Matt hit the turn signal. The access road was new enough that the pavement still looked darker than the county road behind him. He followed it between two huge fields for almost a mile before cresting a low hill. Then the landscape changed. Hundreds of pickups, RVs, vans, and travel trailers filled a broad gravel grid below.

Beyond them stood several low commercial buildings—a clinic, Camp office, Gear Shop, maintenance building—and beyond all of it stood the Gate. A towering blue vortex in the middle of perfectly ordinary Ohio farmland. No cliff. No ruins. No cave mouth. Just an enormous piece of impossible geometry sitting between fields. Matt slowed.

"That looks weird." Black Hollow had been strange, but the environment had helped sell the illusion. A Dungeon portal carved into a mountain felt appropriate. A Dungeon portal surrounded by cornfields looked like somebody had installed a tear in reality beside a county fairground. Matt followed the signs toward the campground entrance. Compared to Black Hollow, Ashfield was compact. Black Hollow had felt less like an RV park and more like a temporary city that had forgotten it was supposed to be temporary.

Ashfield Orchard had maybe a hundred and fifty occupied sites—large by ordinary campground standards, but small enough that Matt could see almost the entire place from the access road. The infrastructure matched: one small clinic, one Gear Shop, one Mana Stone Buyer, laundry and showers, an outdoor training yard, and instead of The Last Flask Diner— three food trucks. Six picnic tables. Matt looked at them. Black Hollow had a diner. Ashfield had three food trucks and six picnic tables.

Apparently civilization was negotiable. He parked the truck and trailer in the designated check-in area and entered the Camp Office. The man behind the desk barely looked up.

"Hayes?"

"Yeah." Matt handed over his ID.

"Ashfield first time?"

"Yeah." The clerk finally looked directly at him, then immediately noticed the silver chain and crystalline pendant against Matt's chest.

"Beginner Set?" Matt sighed.

"Apparently everyone can recognize it."

"About half the people here are wearing one." The clerk smiled.

"Good choice. Fire resistance actually matters here."

"That was the idea." The clerk tapped at his monitor.

"Site C-87. Full hookup. Connections are on the left side of the pad."

"Got it." He handed Matt a laminated site placard and temporary Camp access tag. Matt turned toward the door.

"Hey." He looked back. The clerk pointed at him.

"Secure anything small before you enter." Matt frowned.

"Why?"

"Crows." Matt slowly looked at the ceiling.

"…Of course." The clerk smiled.

"You'll understand." Matt left. Right outside the office stood a large safety board. ASHFIELD ORCHARD SAFETY NOTICE FIRE RESISTANCE RECOMMENDED KEEP CLEAR OF ACTIVE NEST TREES DO NOT PURSUE FLYING MONSTERS INTO TREE CANOPIES SECURE DROPPED MATERIALS PROMPTLY Matt narrowed his eyes at the last line.

"Secure dropped materials?" He stared at it for another moment. Then kept walking. He was beginning to suspect Ethan had undersold this. ◆ Finding C-87 was easy. Parking in it was not. Matt pulled past the site, checked both mirrors, and shifted into reverse. A week ago, watching the trailer rotate behind him had felt like a physics problem designed specifically to humiliate him. This time, he corrected before the angle became disastrous. The first attempt drifted too close to the edge of the gravel.

Matt pulled forward, adjusted, and tried again. The second was better. Still crooked. On the third attempt, the trailer rolled backward and settled almost perfectly between the site markers. Matt stared into the mirrors.

"…Huh." He put the truck into park and stepped outside. Centered. Straight. Plenty of clearance. A man sitting in a lawn chair at C-88 raised a beer can toward him.

"Good enough." Matt nodded.

"I'll take it." Progress apparently came in many forms. Some involved Levels. Some involved not embarrassing yourself with a twenty-foot trailer. Matt chocked the wheels, lowered the stabilizer jacks, and connected power, fresh water, and sewer. A week ago, he'd needed a tutorial open on his phone for every step. Today he still checked the list, but mostly as confirmation. Fifteen minutes later, everything was connected.

Matt stepped into the trailer, turned on the A/C, checked the refrigerator, put his laptop on the desk, and stored a few pieces of loose equipment. Then he stopped. The view through the windows had changed. Different trucks and trailers. Different people walking past. Different landscape beyond the campground. Inside, almost nothing had. Same desk. Same bed. Same coffee maker. Same cramped bathroom. Matt sat down.

"Home." He considered the word. Then smiled.

"Again." He liked that. The address changed. The walls didn't. ◆ Matt did not immediately go to the Dungeon. He wanted to. The Gate was visible from half the campground, and every few minutes somebody passed his site carrying weapons. But his old logistics instincts had survived becoming a Delver. First, establish where everything was. Then do something stupid. Preferably in that order. Matt spent the next hour learning the Camp layout and locating the places he'd actually need.

By the time he reached the picnic tables, he could probably have navigated the entire place without a map. A man in light armor sat alone eating a burger. The leather guard over his left shoulder was blackened around the edges, with soot coating several metal rivets. The man noticed Matt looking, then took in Matt's considerably cleaner Gear.

"First run?" Matt blinked.

"Is it that obvious?"

"You're clean." Matt looked down at his armor.

"Fair." He ordered a burger from the nearest truck, then sat across from the Delver.

"What should I be worried about in there?" The man swallowed.

"It's F-rank."

"That doesn't answer the question."

"Nothing's going to rip your head off."

"That answers it slightly better." The man smiled and started counting on his fingers.

"Ash Rabbits. Fast, scatter everywhere, don't hit particularly hard. Briar Husks. Walking trees. Slow, tougher, root attack can mess with your footing." He stopped. Matt sighed.

"There it is."

"What?"

"Birds." The man laughed.

"Cinder Crows."

"They breathe fire?"

"Yeah." Matt waited.

"That's it?" The man smiled into his burger.

"No." Matt closed his eyes.

"…Of course not." He waited for more. The man kept eating. Matt stared at him.

"You people are enjoying this way too much." The Delver laughed harder. ◆ By mid-afternoon, Matt had run out of reasons to delay. The Gate was right there. He returned to C-87 and equipped his armor, longsword, three Beginner Life Flasks, Portal Scrolls, AR contacts, Pure Element, and Elemental Ring. Then he opened COPY. Matt had learned enough during the previous week not to treat his two active copied Skills like permanent fixtures. Black Hollow had favored certain tools. Ashfield might favor others.

His normal STR was already 43 after allocating Passives, so he didn't need Overmuscle merely to kill F-rank monsters. The local warnings had mentioned roots, and Ash Rabbits were supposed to be fast. Matt selected his loadout. ACTIVE COPY SLOTS Slot 1: Anchored Step — C Slot 2: Quick Frame — C Stability and speed. No additional raw power. Matt closed the interface.

"Let's try being sensible twice in one week." He headed for the Gate. The terminal displayed dozens of active Instances. Several still had living Bosses. Matt paused over one. A live Boss still triggered the memory of Instance 241, the sprint through Black Hollow, The Old Foreman, and a twenty-thousand-dollar Unique pickaxe. The part of Matt's brain responsible for bad financial habits immediately became interested. He selected another listing instead. Instance 63 — 37/64 — Boss Defeated Ordinary. Crowded.

Boss already dead. Exactly what he needed. Matt selected it.

"Learn first." The Gate swallowed him. ◆ The environmental transition hit before Matt opened his eyes. Dirt instead of stone. Warm air. A faint breeze carried the smell of dry grass, woodsmoke, and something sweet—almost like roasted fruit. Matt opened his eyes. And stopped.

"…Oh." There was a sky. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Not a low cavern ceiling pretending to be darkness. A sky. It stretched from horizon to horizon in an eternal late sunset, burning orange fading into deep crimson beneath purple clouds. Light poured through them from a sun Matt couldn't actually see. Matt tilted his head back.

"There's a sky." His AR contacts insisted he remained inside an isolated Dungeon space associated with the Ashfield Orchard Gate in Ohio. The information did not make the sight less strange. Rows of perfectly spaced trees stretched around him. Their trunks were almost black, their leaves rustled in the warm artificial breeze, and fist-sized fruits glowed faintly among them as though embers had been buried beneath their skins. A dirt road disappeared between the rows.

Low stone walls divided sections of the orchard, and farther away stood the dark silhouettes of old barns. Black Hollow had never allowed Matt to forget he was underground. Ashfield almost made him forget he was in a Dungeon.

"That's unfairly pretty." He started walking. The longsword rested lightly in his hand. Matt lasted less than two minutes before the grass to his right exploded. A creature about the size of a terrier shot out, gray fur mottled with soot-black patches, long ears flattened behind it, and sharp teeth visible beneath its muzzle. ASH RABBIT Matt positioned himself and waited for the charge. The rabbit darted right. Cut left.

Then snapped back the other way, accelerating in a sharp zigzag across the open ground instead of approaching him cleanly. Matt stared.

"Stop doing that." The rabbit ignored him. Naturally. Matt adjusted and waited until it finally darted into reach. He swung once. The Ash Rabbit vanished into pale ash.

"Okay." Durability wasn't going to be the problem. Rustling came from both sides. Two more Ash Rabbits emerged, one from the grass and another between the trees. Matt instinctively started positioning for Cleave. He needed both inside the arc. The first ran left. The second cut right. They spread farther apart. Matt lowered the sword slightly.

"Oh." That was different. Black Hollow's tunnels had constrained enemy movement, and Ethan had compressed packs even further. Ashfield had nothing forcing monsters together. Cleave still worked. The monsters simply had no interest in cooperating with it. Matt canceled the Mana pull. The first Rabbit darted toward him and died in one swing. The second immediately sprinted away. Matt chased it twenty feet between the trees.

"Come back." The Rabbit changed direction. Matt followed. It tried to bite him. Matt killed it. He stood over the ash.

"I can kill you." He looked toward where it had made him run.

"I just don't enjoy catching you." He continued down the road. ◆ A few hundred yards farther in, Matt saw what looked like a person standing beside a tree. He almost raised a hand. Then the shape moved. Bark, roots, and thick vines separated from the trunk and assembled into something vaguely humanoid, almost six feet tall. BRIAR HUSK"That makes more sense." The monster lumbered toward him. Slow. Very slow. A huge wooden arm came around in a clubbing swing. Matt stepped inside the motion and attacked.

The longsword bit into bark. CRACK. The Briar Husk staggered, but remained standing. Matt raised an eyebrow.

"…Okay." One hit had been enough for every normal Black Hollow monster after his Passive allocation. Not this. The Husk swung again. Matt moved, landed a second strike, and the creature broke apart into smoking chips and gray ash.

"Two." Not dangerous. But tougher. Good. At least Ashfield wasn't going to be a complete repetition of yesterday. Another Briar Husk appeared several rows later. Matt approached more confidently. The creature didn't swing. Instead, it stopped, bent forward, and slammed both branch-like hands into the soil. Matt felt something move beneath his boots.

"What—" The ground burst open. Thick roots snapped around his ankles, tightened, and pulled hard enough to shift his balance. Matt reacted. Anchored Step. Resistance flooded through his stance, turning the sudden yank into something he could fight. His boots scraped backward less than an inch, then held. Matt smiled.

"Nice." The Briar Husk was still committed to the attack. That was unfortunate for it. Matt leaned as far forward as the tangled roots allowed and struck twice. The Husk dissolved. The roots lost their unnatural tension. Matt kicked the dead vines away. COPY had passed its first Ohio test. Then something cawed overhead. A harsh sound. Too deep for an ordinary crow. Matt slowly looked up. A large bird perched on a branch perhaps twenty feet above him.

It resembled an oversized crow, but its feathers were black-red and almost metallic, with faint orange light glowing between them and tiny embers drifting loose whenever it moved. CINDER CROW Matt stared.

"There you are." The Crow tilted its head. Then opened its beak. Matt narrowed his eyes.

"Wait." A ball of fire launched downward.

"Really?" WHUMP. It struck his left shoulder. Elemental Shield flashed around him for a fraction of a second as heat washed across the armor. Life: 137 → 132 Matt stared at the number. Five Life. The resistance was working. Master of the Arena immediately started returning what little damage got through. Above him, the Cinder Crow prepared another fireball. Matt raised his longsword. Then stopped. The Crow was twenty feet up. His sword was not. They stared at each other. Matt slowly lowered the weapon.

"…I see the problem." The Crow spat another fireball. Matt stepped aside. It struck the dirt.

"Come down here." The Cinder Crow hopped onto a higher branch. Matt sighed. The next fireball missed. The one after that clipped his arm, shaving away a few Life before regeneration began replacing it. The bird itself wasn't particularly dangerous. Matt was increasingly convinced the main threat was irritation. Finally, the Crow changed behavior. Its wings spread. It launched from the branch and folded into a steep dive. Matt raised his sword. There. The Crow accelerated. Matt swung. Too soon.

The blade passed beneath it. The Cinder Crow shot past his shoulder and raked burning claws across his backplate. Three Life vanished. Matt turned.

"Too early." The Crow banked and climbed again. Matt activated Quick Frame. DEX: 23 → 43 The world didn't literally slow, but Matt's ability to process it sharpened. The Crow's wing angle, the shift into its turn, the moment gravity and momentum committed it to the dive—all became easier to read. Matt waited. The bird came. Closer. Everything in him said swing. He didn't. Master of the Arena's extra melee reach meant he didn't need the physical blade practically touching the Crow.

But he still needed the bird to commit. It crossed the threshold. Matt stepped and swung. The sword connected. The Cinder Crow vanished in a burst of ash and dark feathers. Matt lowered the weapon.

"There." Not difficult. Just annoying. A sharp crack sounded several orchard rows away. Matt turned. Through the trees, another Delver was fighting two Cinder Crows. Light armor. No obvious bow. One Crow circled overhead. The man lifted a hand. Blue-white Mana condensed, and a narrow projectile shot upward. The bird vanished. COPY remained silent. The Delver immediately fired again. The second Crow disappeared. Matt watched.

"…Right." Skill Gem. Some kind of projectile ability. Exactly the sort of thing COPY couldn't provide merely by watching somebody else use it. COPY was absurdly versatile. It was not the entire game. Matt looked at his longsword, then at the branch twenty feet overhead.

"I need something that reaches." ◆ The problem became clearer over the next half hour. Ashfield's monsters weren't particularly threatening. They simply refused to cooperate. Rabbits scattered across open ground. Briar Husks stood there and accepted the concept of melee combat like reasonable people. Cinder Crows made Matt wait for them to descend. His damage was excellent. Applying it efficiently was not. Near an old wooden fence, five Ash Rabbits scattered in five different directions.

Matt killed one almost immediately. The rest became a small footrace. By the time the final Rabbit vanished, more than a minute had passed. Matt rested the sword against his shoulder.

"This is inefficient." The word bothered him more than the monsters did. Rick's voice came back to him. Walking is wasted time. Matt looked across the open orchard.

"Yeah. I get it." Movement Skills had looked useful in Black Hollow. Here, they looked expensive not to have. Matt kept walking. Then he found his first genuinely complicated fight. ◆ The clearing looked quiet at first. A low stone wall. A collapsed shed. Several orchard trees. Then the grass moved. Three Ash Rabbits appeared. Two Briar Husks emerged near the shed. Matt heard wings. He looked up. Two Cinder Crows. Matt stopped at the edge of the clearing.

"Okay." Seven enemies. Still F-rank. Still individually manageable. But this was the first group that made him think before entering. Black Hollow had taught him to compress a fight. Ashfield was already spread out. Matt stepped forward. The Rabbits reacted first, all three scattering in different directions. One ran toward him while two veered away, the Briar Husks began their slow advance, and both Crows started screaming overhead. Matt ignored the distant Rabbits and moved toward the nearest Husk.

A fireball came from the left. He sidestepped. Another came from above and hit his shoulder. Life: 137 → 132 The nearest Rabbit lunged. Matt killed it with one swing. The first Husk was close now. He stepped inside its heavy arm and struck, splitting bark from shoulder to chest. The second Husk slammed its hands into the ground. Roots erupted beneath Matt. Anchored Step. His boots shifted, then held. But the first Husk was still alive. Matt turned and finished it. A small Mana Stone rolled into the grass.

Matt saw it. He also saw one of the Cinder Crows change direction.

"Noted." He scooped the Stone into his pouch immediately. The Crow aborted its dive. Matt laughed.

"Oh, no." The second Rabbit rushed his side. Quick Frame sharpened the movement enough for Matt to pivot and catch it before it escaped again. Ash. The remaining Briar Husk had closed while Matt handled the Rabbit. Its wooden arm crashed against his chest. Life: 132 → 122 Matt staggered one step. Anchored Step wasn't active anymore. He had released it when the roots died. The hit was a useful reminder that Ashfield enemies could still hurt him if he stopped paying attention.

"Right." He backed away while regeneration started working. The Husk followed. Matt struck once. It remained standing. A fireball came. Matt moved. Another Crow entered a dive. Too many directions. Ethan and Chloe hadn't merely added damage. They had reduced the number of directions Matt needed to think about. With Ethan holding the front and Chloe controlling the flanks, pressure had been predictable. Alone, every angle belonged to him. The Crow committed.

Matt waited, let Quick Frame sharpen the timing, then swung. Ash. The Briar Husk attacked immediately after. Matt turned and landed the second hit. The creature disappeared. A bundle of fibrous plant material dropped. Matt grabbed it before looking anywhere else.

"Learning." The last Rabbit was running circles around the stone wall. Matt stared at it.

"Seriously?" He started after it, then stopped chasing directly and cut across the angle instead. The Rabbit turned. Entered range. One swing. Gone. One Crow remained, still circling overhead. Matt's Life had already recovered into the 130s. He stood in the middle of the clearing and waited through two fireballs. Then it dived. Matt killed it. Silence. Seven F-rank monsters. No Flask used. No real danger. Not particularly difficult.

But unlike Black Hollow, he'd had to make decisions almost continuously—target priority, positioning, which copied Skill to activate, whether to collect a drop immediately, when to pursue, and where the next attack was coming from. Matt looked around the empty clearing.

"One at a time, you're all terrible." He glanced at the ash, scattered drops, and open sky.

"Together, you're work." He liked that. Actually liked it. Solo was quieter. It was also busier. Every decision belonged to him. ◆ Ten minutes later, Ashfield taught him why everyone hated the birds. Matt found three Ash Rabbits and two Briar Husks clustered between rows of trees. One Cinder Crow watched from above. He handled the ground enemies first. One Rabbit died immediately. The second crossed in front of a Husk, giving Matt a rare clean Cleave angle. Mana: 53 → 49 The Rabbit vanished and the Husk staggered.

Matt finished it, then cut down the second Briar Husk in two strikes. A Mana Stone dropped onto the dirt. Matt turned toward the final Rabbit. Wingbeats rushed downward. Matt grinned.

"Got you." He raised his sword. The Cinder Crow dived. Matt prepared for the swoop. The bird did not attack him. It changed angle just above the ground. One claw snapped around the Mana Stone. The Crow climbed. Matt remained frozen with his sword halfway raised. The glowing blue Stone disappeared toward the canopy.

"…Excuse me?" The Cinder Crow settled on a branch and shifted the Mana Stone from its claw into its beak. It looked down at him. Matt stared up. The Crow cawed. A deeply obnoxious sound. The Camp safety notice, the review about the stolen "apple," and Ethan's repeated warnings all connected at once.

"Oh." Matt pointed his longsword at the Crow.

"I hate you." The bird tilted its head.

"Put that down." Caw.

"That's mine." The Crow shuffled farther along the branch. Matt frowned.

"I paid taxes on that." He stopped. Technically—"I was going to pay taxes on that." The bird remained unconvinced. Matt could wait for it to attack, but the Crow seemed perfectly happy sitting twenty feet overhead with his loot in its beak. He needed a reason for it to come down. Matt looked around. The last Ash Rabbit was still nearby. He found it in the grass and killed it. A small bundle of Ashvine Fiber dropped. Matt stared at the material. Then at the Crow. The Cinder Crow stared back.

Matt deliberately left the Fiber on the ground. He stepped away.

"Come on." The Crow shifted. Matt moved another step.

"There's more." The bird spread its wings. It kept the Mana Stone firmly in its beak. Its talons were free. Matt understood.

"Greedy little—" The Crow dived. Not at Matt. At the Fiber. Matt activated Quick Frame and waited. The Cinder Crow extended its claws. Closer. Matt swung not at the bird's current position, but at the space directly above the loot. The extra 0. 3 meters of melee reach caught it. The Crow exploded. Ash. The Mana Stone dropped from its beak. The Fiber bounced beneath it. Matt lunged forward, picked up both, and immediately shoved them into his secure pouch.

"Mine." He looked up at the empty branches.

"Stay away from my money." A faint caw answered somewhere farther into the orchard. Matt glared in that direction.

"This is going to be a long week." He laughed despite himself. Black Hollow offered Cave Rats. Ohio apparently offered high-stakes fetch with fiery pigeons. Worth the drive. ◆ Later, Matt encountered the projectile user he'd seen earlier. The man stood beside another Delver near a low stone wall. The second carried a shield and short sword. A Cinder Crow circled above them. The projectile user raised one hand. Blue Mana gathered, and a compact bolt shot upward. The bird vanished. Matt stopped. The man noticed him.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." Matt glanced at his longsword, then at the place where the Crow had been.

"I'm reconsidering some choices." The Delver followed his gaze.

"Longsword?"

"Yeah."

"First day here?" Matt frowned.

"Is it that obvious?" The other man laughed.

"Everyone with melee-only complains about the birds on Day One."

"That appears to be the local tradition." Another Crow appeared. The man flicked his hand. Projectile. Ash. COPY remained silent. Definitely a Skill Gem.

"What are you using?"

"Projectile Gem." The Delver gave him the name. Matt filed it away without worrying about every detail. The important part was what it did: a cheap, low-Level ranged attack. It didn't need to be powerful. A Cinder Crow didn't require massive damage. It required something that reached twenty feet.

"If you're staying here," the man said, "get something that reaches." Matt nodded.

"That's becoming clear."

"You've got movement?"

"Not from a Skill Gem." The man's eyes moved briefly across Matt's equipment.

"Then you'll feel it with the Rabbits too."

"I already do."

"Welcome to Ashfield." Matt looked toward the trees.

"I've been welcomed repeatedly." The other Delver smiled.

"Birds?"

"Birds." They went their separate ways. Matt did not immediately open the market and buy the first ranged Gem he could find. He wasn't going to make a reactionary build decision based on one afternoon. But the problem had a name now. Range. ◆ Matt spent another couple of hours learning Ashfield. His build was comfortably strong for the Dungeon. Ash Rabbits died in one proper hit, Briar Husks usually required two, and Cinder Crows vanished the moment he managed to connect with them. The problem remained efficiency.

He spent too much time moving between scattered targets, waiting for Crows to descend, and making sure loose drops entered his pouch before something with wings noticed them. At one intersection between four orchard rows, Matt stopped and studied the explored territory on his AR map. A group of monsters moved somewhere northeast. Another pack showed faint signs farther west. In Black Hollow, a branching tunnel usually meant choosing between a few corridors. Here, he could simply cut across the orchard.

Which sounded better until there were a dozen possible directions and no obvious reason one was more efficient than another. Matt looked at the map. ClearSpeed suddenly made much more sense in an open Dungeon. Ashfield wasn't asking only how quickly he could kill something. It was asking how much time he wasted getting to it. An Ash Rabbit disappeared behind a stone wall. Matt sighed.

"I understand now." He chased it.

"That doesn't mean I forgive you." One hit. Ash. A small crafting material dropped. Matt picked it up immediately. A Cinder Crow screamed somewhere overhead. Matt looked up.

"No." He continued. ◆ The loot itself was different too. Black Hollow had produced stone, mining materials, physical equipment, and endless variations on things that looked like they belonged underground. Ashfield gave him Ember Bark, Ashvine Fiber, Cinder Feathers, and several unfamiliar plant components. Mana Stones remained Mana Stones. But the secondary loot gave the Dungeon an entirely different character. Matt examined a bundle of reddish fiber.

It wasn't especially valuable according to the rough market estimate. Still. New loot. That alone was satisfying. A Briar Husk eventually dropped a pair of gloves. The AR identification populated. ASH-WOVEN GLOVES Rarity: Magic Requires Level: 5 Increased Evasion Fire Resistance Matt compared them with his current Gear. Close. Not better. He turned them over.

"Almost." Sell pile. That felt familiar. Not every Magic item needed to transform his build. Most wouldn't. Finding something that almost worked was part of why the next drop remained interesting. Matt packed the gloves away. He checked the Instance information. Boss already dead. The Orchard Keeper's area lay farther toward the center. Matt considered continuing anyway. More monsters. More loot. More experience.

Then he looked at the time and what he had already learned about Rabbits, Husks, roots, Crows, fire attacks, loot theft, open terrain, and route selection. That was enough for one first run.

"Good." He didn't need to squeeze every possible dollar from the Instance. He needed to understand where he was. Matt took out a Portal Scroll and snapped it. The orchard vanished. ◆ Late-afternoon sunlight greeted him. Actual sunlight. Matt stepped into Ashfield Camp and looked west. The real Ohio sun was descending toward the horizon in orange, purple, and gold. He blinked. He had just spent hours beneath an artificial sunset. Now he had returned to a real one.

"…That is confusing." He headed toward the Mana Stone Buyer. His haul was modest: around a dozen F-rank Mana Stones, the Magic gloves, several bundles of plant material, Ember Bark, Ashvine Fiber, and Cinder Feathers. The Buyer processed the Stones normally. Then the clerk looked at the plant materials.

"I can buy those too." Matt started pushing the pile forward. The clerk didn't take them.

"But?"

"You'll get a better price at the crafting booth." Matt paused.

"The one near the food trucks?"

"Yeah. Local buyers pay more for Ashfield organics." Matt looked at the materials.

"So I shouldn't sell everything here?"

"You can." The clerk shrugged.

"Should you?" A pause.

"Depends how much you enjoy money." Matt stared.

"… Where's the material buyer?" The clerk pointed. Matt gathered everything back up. That was new. At Black Hollow, he'd become used to taking the day's haul to one obvious buyer and moving on. Ashfield had a small local crafting economy built around its native materials. The difference might not be enormous. Matt's former profession had permanently damaged his ability to ignore price differences anyway.

Ten minutes later, the woman at the crafting booth sorted his Ember Bark, Ashvine Fiber, and Cinder Feathers by grade and quoted prices. Matt compared them with the generic Buyer estimate. Better. Not absurdly better. Enough to matter. He sold. Roughly one hundred and forty dollars for the materials. Not a jackpot. Good money for things he'd collected while learning. Matt pocketed the receipt.

"I should probably stop dumping everything at the first counter I see." The woman looked up.

"You're new."

"Is that obvious everywhere?"

"Yes." Matt accepted the answer. Different Dungeon meant a different Camp, different buyers, and different local demand. There was probably an entire layer of Road Delver economics hidden inside knowing what to sell where. Matt's logistics brain immediately started turning that into spreadsheets. He stopped it.

"Later." He was here to kill monsters. Mostly. ◆ Back at C-87, Matt removed his armor. Several small scorch marks covered the left shoulder and upper back. His actual body underneath was untouched. Life had protected him. The equipment had still spent the afternoon being hit by fire. Matt set the chest piece on the bench.

"Birds." He opened the refrigerator, got a drink, sat at the small desk, and pulled out his phone. BLACK HOLLOW GROUP Matt: I understand the birds. The answer came instantly. Ethan: HAHAHAHAHAHA Chloe: What did they steal? Matt froze. He looked at the message. Then typed. Matt: how did you know they stole something Chloe: Because everyone loses something the first time.

Matt: mana stone Ethan: TAXED BY THE SKY Matt: that isn't how taxes work Matt: I got it back Ethan: capitalist victory Matt put the phone down and opened his build notebook. Yesterday's page: SOLO WARRIOR BUILD Today needed another. Matt created a blank page. ASHFIELD — PROBLEMS 1. Flying enemies 2. Enemies don't group themselves 3. Open terrain = more time chasing 4. Need a ranged option 5. Movement would help Matt stared at the list. Something was missing. Or rather— something wasn't there. Damage.

He had not written: Need more damage. Because he didn't. Damage wasn't the problem. Delivery was. When his sword hit a monster, the monster generally died. The problem was making his sword hit something twenty feet overhead or sprinting through an orchard. Matt opened the National Skill Gem Market. He filtered for his current Level and Warrior-compatible movement and projectile options. Leap Slam appeared at around three hundred dollars.

Several simple ranged attacks appeared too—cheap, low-Level solutions used by beginners who had encountered exactly Matt's problem. He clicked between them. Then checked his Skill Gem interface. Active Skill Gem Slot: 1 Cleave That was the real constraint. If he replaced Cleave with movement, Ashfield's open terrain became easier but he lost his best option when enemies actually grouped. If he replaced Cleave with a ranged attack, Cinder Crows became trivial but scattered ground packs became slower.

Matt leaned back.

"I need more slots." Not more damage. More options. Until another active Skill Gem slot opened, Cleave and any movement or ranged solution competed for the same space. That made the decision less obvious. His choice of Anchored Step and Quick Frame, at least, had been right. One handled Briar Husk roots; the other made Ash Rabbits and Cinder Crow dives easier to manage.

Overmuscle would have increased his raw physical power, but STR 63 still wouldn't make his sword reach a branch twenty feet above him or convince an Ash Rabbit to run into Cleave. Matt thought about the Archive. More stored Skills would always be useful. But two active slots meant the important question was not simply what he owned. It was what he brought. Fifty tools in storage didn't matter if he brought the wrong two. Matt smiled. That sounded familiar.

Logistics had followed him into the Dungeon business after all. ◆ Matt went outside for dinner. The real sunset had deepened, purple and gold spreading across the horizon behind rows of trailers. People sat at picnic tables. Someone cleaned a spear, two women compared loot beside an open SUV, and a kid barely older than eighteen carried three food containers toward a camper. Nobody knew Matt. That felt strange after Black Hollow. There, people had started recognizing him. Here, he was just another new arrival.

Matt ordered a burger and looked toward the distant Gate while he waited. If he'd stayed in Black Hollow, he knew exactly how the day would have gone: enter, kill familiar monsters, Cleave the packs, collect familiar loot, sell it, repeat. Safe. Efficient. Easy. Instead, he'd driven four hours to Ohio and spent the afternoon being bombarded by incendiary birds that stole rocks. Matt accepted the burger.

"Yeah." He smiled.

"This was the right call." He ate outside and listened to other Delvers talk. One complained about a Crow stealing a low-Level Gem the previous week. Another insisted The Orchard Keeper was easy if everyone stopped chasing adds. Someone at another table discussed a completely different Ohio Dungeon. Matt didn't join in. He simply listened. This was what he'd wanted. Not one Dungeon. Not one solved routine. A country full of places he hadn't seen. Matt returned to C-87 after dark. Laptop. Notebook. Tomorrow's plan.

TOMORROW Ashfield second solo run Practice against Cinder Crows Check local Skill Gem prices Find movement/ranged solution DO NOT LEAVE LOOT ON THE GROUND Matt stared at the last line. Then bolded it. His phone buzzed. BLACK HOLLOW GROUP Ethan: btw Matt: what Ethan: boss has birds too Matt stopped chewing. He typed. Matt: how many The typing indicator appeared. Disappeared. Appeared. Disappeared again. Finally: Ethan::) Matt closed his eyes.

"…I hate him." Another message. Chloe: More than one. Matt looked at the ceiling.

"I hate both of them." A few seconds passed. Chloe: You'll be fine. Matt smiled.

"Probably." He opened the Ashfield Dungeon page and scrolled toward the Boss section. THE ORCHARD KEEPER Ashfield Orchard — Instance Boss His cursor hovered over the detailed guide. Everything he needed—mechanics, abilities, add phases, drops—was probably one click away. Matt considered it. Then closed the page. Not tonight. He'd learned enough today. Outside, somebody suddenly shouted.

"HEY!" Matt looked toward the window.

"DROP THAT!" Rapid wingbeats. He stood and walked over. A few campsites away, a Delver in heavy armor was sprinting across the gravel while waving a wrench. Above him flew a completely ordinary Earth-native crow. A shiny metal bolt was clenched in its beak. Matt watched the bird disappear toward a cluster of trees. He stared.

"…Okay." A pause.

"That one's probably unrelated." The Delver continued swearing. Matt turned off the lights and climbed into bed. Black Hollow had taught him that getting stronger could make old problems disappear. Ashfield Orchard had taken less than one afternoon to give him entirely new ones. Matt found that he liked that. Except for the birds. The birds could go to hell.