It was sunny again, and Noah could now see that the ring around the world was a gray rock color. He was pretty sure it was actually a huge number of tiny asteroids, like Saturn’s ring.

Noah biked along the 35, once again headed toward Kansas City. Every time he looked down he almost laughed. George’s laughter had been incongruous at the time, but he understood now why George had thought it funny when Noah asked him for a bike.

Because Noah was riding a bike, all right—one that was bright pink and covered in glitter that sparkled in the early morning light. The bike had the dipping bar that implied it was meant for a woman. It had been George’s granddaughter’s bike, from before she left for college.

It still beat the hell out of running hands down.

Noah now wore a hiking backpack—also pink—with a built-in water bottle. Carefully tied to that was a Springfield 2020 Waypoint Long Action rifle. Noah had been briefly tempted to get a semi-automatic, but had decided that ammo concerns, the need to hunt, and other considerations weighed in favor of the hunting rifle—plus, this one came with a tripod, in case he wanted to accurately shoot something from far away. He had a new Glock-17, which he personally preferred over the Sig Sauer, in a new holster around his waist for faster, closer fire if he needed it.

Noah was still tired, despite getting four hours of sleep in a bed at the Washingtons’ farm. Mentally, socially, and physically exhausted, really.

His previous day had started with finding out he was going to be a father, the middle had been taken up with buying a ring and helping his dad with legal stuff related to his mom’s death, and then the world had ended. He’d been slashed by a burning snake, then learned everything he could about a new magical world and system, all while worrying about his endangered girlfriend and unborn child.

His side still hurt, although far less than it had. Over his rest, he had restored to a twenty out of twenty-five health. He still had an injury penalty, however.

Although, at least I got some decent food at the Washingtons’ place. George’s wife, whom he referred to only as Mrs. Washington, had served Noah a heaping plate of bacon and eggs. Noah also had more supplies—mostly canned goods and a bunch of ammo—in the backpack, along with a single change of clothes. As much as he could reasonably carry. Everything else he’d had was left behind with the Washingtons to save on room.

Despite his good fortune and new goods, Noah was sill utterly exhausted, deep in his soul and bones.

He had been heading toward Kansas City for the last hour on the bike, pedaling moderately hard, hoping to make it to Hope before the sun set. He had wanted to keep RED Seven out, in case of monsters, but the companion hadn’t been able to keep up.

So far, Noah hadn’t encountered any monsters. He had found what he thought was the exploded remains of a gas station, mostly burned away. But he hadn’t found any people.

He hadn’t found any corpses, either, so he was hopeful.

But only slightly hopeful. Noah had seen massive tracks in the grass next to the road in the false twilight provided by the rings before dawn broke. Each footprint had been eight feet long not counting clawed toes, and Noah would have bet that whatever they belonged to could swallow a person whole.

Other than the gas station, he had passed a couple abandoned cars, but that was it for civilization. Noah had been briefly tempted to stop and turn those cars into Scrap Tokens for his deck, but the need to press on weighed on him heavily. For the sake of both Hope and George’s granddaughter.

As Noah was biking the road, he happened upon a crazy sight.

A giant tree, which looked to be a hundred-foot-tall, nearly hundred-foot-wide weeping willow, jutted out of the fields of the Flint Hills, utterly incongruous to the usual flora of the region.

Noah slowed the bike as he stared at it, then came to a stop. He pulled his deck out touched RED Seven’s card.

The steel gray flowed from the card to the ground, near where Noah was standing.

“You called, fleshloaf?” RED asked.

“That’s one way to put it,” Noah said with a tired chuckle. “What do you make of that tree, there? Compared to a giant snake it’s subtle—but only compared to that.”

“It might be worth checking out. Like the snake you referenced, it might give us cards if we murder it. Which I support.”

“Murdering the tree?” Noah asked.

“You can’t save your girlfriend, who is important to Mechos’ mission, without being the best you can be. Not that I care for you, hashtag shudder at that thought, but as a tool to save her, you do have some tiny importance. You need to gain experience and more cards to achieve that.”

RED had been derisive of everything about saving Hope until Noah had revealed the whole double major in pre-med and computer science thing while they were picking what to take with them from George’s stash. Then RED had agreed saving her might be a good idea. When Noah mentioned that she was doing additional studies in cybernetics with one of the graduate professors, he had become enthusiastic about saving her. In fact, he was positively aggressive about it now.

Although the robot had not been optimistic about her chances of being alive when they reached their destination. He had, in fact, been downright pessimistic, and the renewed worry that tore at Noah’s guts drove him onward.

“You’ll die if you try and save her without being better. I’d bet two actuators on that. Your unimproved body is simply not as wonderful as mine. Sorry, not sorry.”

How does he know old internet slang?

“Your body looks like it was assembled by a two-year-old from parts he found in a landfill,” Noah returned. It was a weak shot, he knew, but all he had in him.

“Droll,” RED said, his synthetic voice conveying overwhelming sarcasm. “The point, however, is that you need to be better. A lot better.”

A piece of Noah wanted to simply push on and slightly regretted stopping for the tree. But he suspected that RED was right, and had been thinking along those lines himself for some time. He’d wanted more information about the tree, and less lecture, when he pulled RED out.

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But the ornery droid had helped him make the decision to stop, the main thing he had wanted.

Noah stepped off his bike, put the kickstand down, and exited the 35. With RED next to him, he walked over to the tree, across grass almost knee high. When he got near, he reached out to push aside the branches.

The tree rustled, and Noah froze.

Ah, shit. Of course this place would be a nest for monsters, and not just a weird tree. I’m an idiot.

Noah pulled his hand back and slapped it to his chest, desperately trying to pull his deck before whatever was in the trees ate his face.

A blur from the tall grass beneath the overhanging branches revealed itself into a two-foot-long rabbit with thick porcupine quills on its back and a long, more cat-like tail that extended from its backside—also with spikes.

Noah took his hand from his chest before he could summon his deck and back-armed the creature as it leapt at him. It was an autonomic response that turned out to be a terrible idea. The quilled rabbit punctured his arm as he swept it hard into the ground, and Noah howled in pain.

The spiky rabbit lay on the ground, stunned. Noah briefly stared at it, seeing its card before he stomped it, hard, on the head.

Origin Rattletail

Beast [Rattletail] Creature

Overland Monster

Health: 4

Attack: 3

Defense: 2

Magical Attack: N/A

Magical Defense: 2

Special: Thorns [Physical 3]: Anyone attacking this creature with a brawl or melee attack takes 3 true damage.

Special: Rattletail Drop: When this monster dies, it drops a single common card. That card has a 50% chance to be rattletail.

“The Rattletail infestation was first discovered in the Ashtae Woods near the Copper River tributary of the World River, where the bunnies are no longer cute.”

The rattle died of neck trauma, providing twenty experience, and dissolving to reveal a card.

Before Noah could reach for it, four more of the demented spike-bunnies ran from beneath the branches. Noah stepped back as fast as he could, backpedaling through the grass, waving one hand and reaching for the gun in his pocket with his other.

Just before he got mobbed four-to-one by the rabbits of the mutant warren, RED stepped up beside him, plasma knife in hand.

The bunnies flinched back for a second, giving Noah breathing room.

Then they attacked. Two of the bunnies turned from Noah to fight RED. He slashed the first bunny, and Noah, who knew how the cards interacted after talking to RED earlier, did the math in his head—RED’s attack of five, plus one for Noah’s perk, squared, made thirty-six damage over fifteen seconds, against the defense of two, for eighteen net damage. Which was way more than four health.

But he didn’t have time to watch, as his own bunnies were on him.

Noah had his newly acquired Glock out and fired rapidly, trying to avoid the spikes he would encounter if he punched another one. He missed the first shot but managed to hit with the second, dodging the whole time. His one shot was enough to bring the rattletail down, however.

But while he was dodging and firing on the first one, the second one managed to bite his leg, and he saw that his own health had plummeted to sixteen between the bite and spikes from earlier.

On top of that, he was now suffering wound penalties of one to both his attack and defense.

“Thanks, chart. I couldn’t tell that my burns, bites, and bleeding were slowing me down till you helpfully informed me,” he muttered sarcastically at the world.

But he didn’t stop moving, and somehow managed to shoot the second spike bunny in its head with his next shot.

He turned to see that RED had left burning holes in both of his own lagoform xenomorphs, although he, in turn, had normal holes—from the spikes, presumably—in his own armor.

“You good?” Noah asked.

“Just peachy. I had just been sitting here thinking that I really needed some redneck air conditioning in my chassis. Lo-and-behold, you went and—”

“Alright, I get it. How do I fix you?”

“Use your head. You fixed me once, already. Just unsummon me, and then bring me back out.”

“Right. As soon as we’re sure we’re clear.”

“At least you got experience and cards, bringing us closer to recovering what was lost. That’s worth some pain, right?” RED asked. Then, slowly and extra-sarcastically, “Pain for you, I mean.”

“Heh.”

Noah checked the notifications from the fight. He had gotten another eighty experience, pushing him to thirty-three into the next level—forty to make it to Level Six, and then he got five-sixths of the remaining forty to go to the next level after that.

Plus, all four rabbits had dissolved into cards. RED wasn’t wrong about the benefits.

Noah just wished he hadn’t paid with quite so much blood.

Red walked over, picked up one of the cards, and passed it over to Noah. “How hard is it to keep your hand on your chest for two seconds while fighting, by the way? Is that too much to ask of a human?”

“I was surprised—” Noah began.

Red cut him off. “You have to remember the new world you’re in—if you can pull your deck, you’ll be far more likely not to muck up your missions.”

Noah rolled his eyes. “Sure. So, should we head out now?”

“Let me check the tree, leaky, since you’re wounded and generally incompetent.”

This guy. Card. Whatever.

RED pushed aside the branches and walked in as Noah grabbed the remaining cards, taking the remaining four.

RED’s synthetic voice floated from within the overhanging canopy. “You need to see this.”

Noah crawled under the giant tree, and found RED staring at the trunk. The trunk was covered in a spikey growth, and as Noah stared at it, a card semi-imposed itself over his view.

Node of Infection and Mutation, First Tier

Nature Building

Overland Structure

Special: This building is considered to have a Defense of 25 and a Magical Defense of 10. If a physical attack does less than 10 actual damage, its damage is reduced to zero. It has 250 health. It can be killed.

Special: Rattletail Node: Can support up to fifty power equivalent of overland monsters. It will slowly mutate the surrounding wildlife into rattletail monsters.

Special: Strong Rattletail Drop: When destroyed, this will drop an uncommon card at tier-1, which has a 50% chance of being a rattletail card.

“While not the heart of the infection, this node will continue to create rattletail monsters, and as they kill, both it, and the origin creature, will gain experience and grow to new tiers.”

“Well, shit,” Noah said. “How do we kill it?”

“We shouldn’t kill it,” RED responded.

“What?” Noah asked. “Why not? Are you insane, or is this just part of your general misanthropy?”

“How droll,” RED said. “But I’m not an irrational hormone bag, if that’s what you’re asking with your usual eloquence. Think this through. If we leave it, we know where it is, and after it’s killed a few of the weaker members of your sad little species, you can come back and harvest the new monsters for cards—or kill the now more powerful node for a single stronger card.”

That’s not the worst idea… except for the fact that it requires killing a bunch of people.

“That’s… evil,” Noah said.

“You fail to grasp the philosophy of utilitarianism. This is Jeremy Bentham at its purest. The gods aim to cull ninety percent. With me so far?”

Noah started to answer, but RED just talked through him. “Pro-tip—You can’t oppose the gods. So why not let this plant be part of their harvest, and then you harvest the benefits in turn? You having powerful cards is sure to be more important to recovery than making sure different humans than whoever happened to wander this way are the ones to die.”

Noah gave it brief honest thought—when stated as if the gods would hit ninety percent, disarming local monster traps seemed less important. But… They said they were aiming for ninety, not hitting ninety. Plus, treating our people like disposable resources isn’t how we’re saving humanity or winning this damn game the gods set up. I’d bet money on it.

“No, I’m not letting it sit here and make a pile of monsters to murder my fellow Kansans. Now, how do we kill it?”

“Well, if you want to be a giant crybaby about this, I can always kill it with fire,” RED said, holding up his plasma knife. “Fire is considered an energy attack, not a physical one. It won’t be able to resist, which means this is just a matter of time.”

“Do it.”