“Okay,” he said into the silence of the city.

  “I’m in another world. It has orcs. Orcs think I’m food. I killed them. They gave me EXP. Combined with the title and floating screens, I feel like it’s safe to assume that this is a game. Or something like it, at least. That divine boon I almost got mentioned a Respawn Point, which means that respawning is not normal. I can die here. I can…” he shifted his head, glancing at the corpses. “Yep, I can definitely die here. I gained a level, and I got AP. Attribute Points, right? How do I access them, though? They’re what my title boosts, so it’d be nice to see what I’m working with.”

  He looked down. The whip was still embedded in his arm.

  “First, this,” Jack decided.

  Groaning, he forced his body to sit up, thin striations of red rimming his vision. First, he gingerly removed the barbed whip from his forearm and wrist. The moment he extricated his arm, blood gushed from his dozens of wounds. He moaned at the pain, but even as he watched, he felt something shift inside of him. A wave of warmth emitted from his chest and spread across his arm.

  The blood slowed. It wasn’t an instantaneous healing, but whatever the warmth was, it brought with it some mending powers. After a few minutes of sitting there, the blood eventually clotted and he was able to take his first full breath unencumbered by agony. His arm was far from fully restored, but at least it was still functioning, if barely.

  So, I either have a passive healing skill I don’t know about, or maybe one of my stats has something to do with healing? I wonder what the exact healing rate is for that? Jack wondered.

  Knowing he wouldn’t get any answers here, he rose to his feet.

  “I really need to leave this place before more of those monsters show up. I don’t care how much of a boost I have to fighting them. I’m in no shape to take more of them on,” Jack said.

  He strode over to one of the orc corpses. With a nauseating squelch, Jack unsheathed the makeshift sword from the orc’s neck. It was as he stood up that more notifications started to deluge across his vision.

  “Wait, is it because I’m out of combat, or did I miss something?” he wondered.

  That was a common enough function of video games. They waited until after the danger had passed before giving you all your updates. The fact that this system did that was helpful, even if it just raised more questions. Could it be trusted to actually indicate that he was safe, or was it just based on his perception of his surroundings? In other words, was the system omniscient, or localized to his experience?

  That sent another worrying thought through his already rattled psyche:

  Can the system perceive the world through me? Is it inside my head?

  He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer.

  Ignoring his existential crises, he focused on his notifications. With each one, his sweat-stained eyebrows rose further and further up his forehead.

  [Skill Learned: Sword Mastery]

  [Sword Mastery: Level 1. Rank: Novice]

  [Skill Learned: Pugilism]

  [Pugilism: Level 3. Rank: Novice]

  [Skill Learned: Relentless Spirit]

  [Relentless Spirit: Level 1. Rank: Novice]

  [Banisher Unique Skill Learned: Cleansing Light]

  [Banisher Unique Skill Learned: Soul Fusion]

  The final notification tasted bitter on Jack’s tongue. He had been so close—so close—to an actually beneficial boon. If he’d had Respawn Point during that fight, he could’ve fought with total abandon. Even if the price for using it was steep, nothing was costlier than death, right?

  “How do I even use it?” Jack asked. “It had said I failed because I had insufficient attributes. Well, I have more attributes now! How do I use them?!”

  He tried focusing on the notification, but nothing happened. Squinting really hard didn’t work either.

  “System,” Jack said, hoping it might be verbally activated. Thinking for a minute, he said, “Character Sheet.”

  A thin rectangle of light crackled into existence in front of Jack for a split second, but then fizzled away. It was eerily like the odd rectangles he noticed above the orcs. If he had to guess, those had to be gamertags or something similar—identifiable marks that probably displayed levels, name, and possibly even their HP.

  Why those didn’t work properly, and why his character sheet wasn’t appearing either, sent a fresh wave of frustration coursing through his mind.

  “No! Character Sheet!” he said again.

  Another crackle. Another fizzle, this one glitching even harder than the first time. All he managed to see on it was the first word at the top: “Jack.”

  “Okay, that kind of works, but I don’t even know where to allocate my new points, much less how the rest of this damned system works.” He cursed, looking for any clues. “There’s got to be a way to fix this.”

  Jack took in a sharp breath, tasting dust and sulfur on the wind.

  “Don’t games usually start with a tutorial?!” he shouted, tightening his grip on the makeshift hilt.

  In fairness, he had received an introductory course of sorts to this world. Kill or be killed.

  What a welcome party.

  He peered around, feeling the weight of the darkness pressed down on him. “I… I gotta get out of here,” he realized.

  Shifting the leather grip of the sword in his hand, Jack turned left. His boots padded softly on the chipped cobblestone. He wended his way across a few overturned crossbeams and other bits of debris, scanning for any other orcs. He watched the dark recesses of window sills, which pocketed the buildings that had retained their footing after whatever cataclysm had caused this destruction.

  Jack passed several more alleyways as he followed this larger street toward the wall of darkness. It eventually led to a much larger thoroughfare. He was about to step out into the comparatively open air when he spotted movement by a large fountain set in the center of this large intersection of seven main streets, his included.

  Five orcs waded through the rank fountain water, splashing as they attempted to fish something out of the dark liquid. One of them squealed and raised a worm the size of Jack’s torso. Two of the orcs screeched in rageful disappointment. They shared a look, then tackled the triumphant worm-catcher. More splashing. It was hard to tell in all this damnable darkness, but Jack thought he saw the biggest amongst them hold his fellow orc beneath the surface of the fountain’s pool.

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  The creature thrashed while the others chanted something.

  “Grakh, grakh, grakh,” they breathed rhythmically, a few of them stomping in time with the repeated word.

  It grated against his hearing, making him scratch his fingernails against the rough expanse of his palm as if to clean himself of the sound. It didn’t work.

  The one who was drowning sputtered a few more times, then fell still.

  “Grakhar!” the others shouted while the drowner roared incoherently into the air.

  They tore into orc and worm alike, feeding and reveling in blood and sinew.

  Jack felt sick and ducked back into the corner afforded to him by the street he was on. He breathed heavily.

  “They… They…”

  He couldn’t say it.

  They ate their own.

  Cannibals.

  The dark and pragmatic part of his mind amended the list of what he knew of this world.

  Orcs are cannibals, he added with tired, if imaginary, hands. That same voice in his head told him to steel his nerves and get a move on.

  He listened, if barely.

  Crouching low, he slunk around the edge of the large intersection, doing his best to stick to the thickest shadows. He never took his eyes off the four orcs and their feast. When he made it a full 180 degrees around, he slipped down the street and ran headfirst into the back of a large, pale, and long-armed orc.

  The orc beserker stirred, swiveling faster than should be possible to face whoever had inadvertently shoved it off its perch on a body. Jack spluttered briefly, taken aback by the size of this creature in comparison to the other berserker he’d just faced. As if drawn by strings, his eyes slid from the monster to the corpse beneath its reddened feet.

  A woman. A human woman, at that.

  She wore a threadbare dress and what could be considered an apron. If it had been white once, Jack knew those days were long past the article of clothing. She was barefoot, much like her killer.

  The berserker tilted its long neck to one side and clicked its tongue a few times deep inside its mouth. To Jack’s growing horror, the click was taken up by several more orcs whom he’d missed when turning down this street. Like the whisper of an unsheathing blade, they took up that God-awful chant.

  “Grakh.”

  “Grakh.”

  “Grakh.”

  “Dammit,” Jack muttered while he raised his makeshift sword between himself and his foe. It felt awkward and top-heavy in his grip. Behind the seven orcs impeding his path, he could see the shadowy wall loom. “I’m so close.”

  “Ak Zul-Khor nokh zulgath-eth tholkuog,” the berserker stated in what might’ve been a reverent tone, looking up briefly to gaze at the sky. It spread out its arms as if to embrace the clouds.

  Jack didn’t hesitate.

  He dashed forward, taking two great strides within a single heartbeat. As he rushed, he pulled the sword hilt in toward his body only to uncoil his arms right as he reached inside the guard of the berserker. Jack lunged upward, stabbing the jagged tip of his blade into the soft spot just beneath the creature’s jawline.

  The orc’s head shot downward to track Jack’s movement, but that ended up sealing its fate. Jack’s sword impaled his target. It had worked so well that he paused for a brief moment, watching the berserker twitch a few times before its eyes rolled back and it went limp.

  [Level 5 Orc Berserker slain - 900 EXP gained]

  The monster started to fall on top of Jack, but the notification distracted him for a second too long.

  “No!” he yelled right as he felt its weight begin to crash down on him. He kicked the carcass in the chest with all his might.

  The body blasted away and collided with two of the remaining six orcs.

  Four orcs. I can do that. He looked up at his goal. I can still fix this.

  Jack Thatcher was not going to die here. He would make sure he didn’t die here.

  Behind them, Jack heard the undeniable clomp of heavy footsteps rushing toward them. He spared a glance behind the street and saw the four from the fountain lumbering toward his location, fresh blood staining their lips and teeth and hands.

  I will not die here! The warm sentiment aside, Jack knew he couldn’t take on all these creatures.

  Not without better gear, much less getting a handle on what in the hell was actually going on. He needed to prioritize goal 1. He needed to get out of this accursed darkness.

  His chest burned, and he thought he saw a flash of light pulse from within his tunic. The orcs took a step back, and even the ones running toward him seemed to hesitate for a brief moment.

  He didn’t waste the gift presented to him. Leaping over the dead woman, Jack ran for the four orcs, brandishing his weapon and yelling as loudly as he could. He let all of his rage and panic enter that warcry. Three of them backed away. Whatever that pulse of light was, it had apparently startled them enough to put some teeth behind his bark.

  One orc, however, was either too brazen or too stupid to notice it met his charge alone. Jack watched it raise its nail-studded club.

  “Grakh!” it shouted with a surprisingly nasally voice.

  Jack didn’t slow down. The orc swung diagonally down at Jack’s right shoulder. Without dropping speed, he dodged to the right. As he did, he extended his left arm and let it crash into the creature’s neck. There was a crack, a snap, and an honest-to-God pop as the creature’s neck met Jack’s clothesline attack. Its head whiplashed back, cracking then snapping, then a disgusting burst of viscera as it landed headfirst against the cobblestone.

  [Level 2 Orc Scout slain - 300 EXP gained]

  He felt the rush of EXP entering him, but didn’t stop to appreciate it. The other three orcs—once cowed by his mad charge—were reemboldened at the arrival of the fountainside orcs.

  And we’re back to seven orcs who want to eat me, Jack thought morosely as he dashed down the street, his makeshift sword growing heavier in his grip by the second. He glanced back. Make that nine.

  The two orcs knocked down by the berserker’s corpse had extricated themselves and were now joining the hunt.

  He stopped looking back. It was just slowing him down. He sped down the street, which had leveled out. A small mountain of bricks stood between him and his exit. He jumped, moving swiftly through the air. The strength behind the leap must’ve been supercharged by his adrenaline, as he flew up nearly half of the large hill in a single bound.

  His boots scrambled for purchase against the soft footing. Bricks slipped and turned beneath his weight, and he lost some of his progress sliding down.

  “Kro lakthur’ul vorgol Zul-Khor Flakerash zhulgulkh-eth-ek!” the biggest orc bellowed as it reached the base of the brick mountain.

  “Yeah, well, I hate you too!” Jack retorted a bit lamely. He had no idea what they were saying, but couldn’t stand their grating remarks a moment longer.

  Struggling to keep his distance, he made it to the top of the brick pile. There! He saw the wall of darkness where it met the ground. It was just two more blocks down this street!

  Pain exploded in his left side.

  Jack screamed, clutching at the wound. He felt cold metal and warm blood. He shakily looked down. There, a spearhead of uneven bronze was wrapped to the end of a long brown pole. The weight of the pole pulled him backward, down toward the side of the hill that held the hungry orcs.

  Merely thinking about what would happen if he let the spear drag him down gave him the strength he needed. With a defiant cry, he snapped the spearhead off. It jostled the pole and pain exploded across his entire body as his nerves were briefly overloaded. He felt the pain in his toes, his hair, his fingernails.

  Breathing raggedly, he fell.

  But either out of sheer will or dumb luck, he couldn’t say, but what he did now was that he fell in the right direction. His right shoulder caved in from taking the full weight of his fall, and he turned with the collision, feeling the pole exit his wound even as he accumulated a dozen more cuts and bruises as he fell down the overturned bricks.

  Screams and screeches burst from the top of the debris right as Jack rolled to the bottom. He tried to breathe in, but his ribs were on fire. The wound in his side bled profusely, but he forced his mind to focus. He gritted his teeth and extended one hand forward, dropping the sword in favor of using both arms. He pulled himself forward.

  The screeches grew louder, their rhythmic chanting at pace with his pounding heart.

  He crawled forward again.

  And again.

  And again.

  The wall of shadows loomed ahead, silently reproachful at his pitiful speed.

  Jack felt razor-tipped fingers grip and turn him over. His world swirled dangerously at the rough movement, but he managed to swing at his attacker. His fist barely nudged the ghoulish features of the massive orc. It was undoubtedly masculine and seemed to enjoy Jack’s vain attempts at escaping his fate.

  He must’ve weighed over 400 pounds. His pupilless eyes were like squeezed marbles in the rolls of his meaty face. He grinned. Jack counted two rows of teeth. The first row were all incisors, like sharks, while the back row was composed of a more diverse assortment. All of them were stained red from his earlier meal.

  And they were about to be stained again.