Roman restrained himself from flinging the collection of nuts and bolts into the distance. Throwing tantrums wouldn’t accomplish much; at most, it might elicit a bit of mocking laughter from the eldritch horrors apparently watching his world’s tribulations.

He stored them back into the spatial bag, which seemed to be the most useful part of the system's windfall. He had to admit the rewards for just continuing to survive were actually all quite useful in their own way. As long as you could accept the fact that it all came from the recycled energy and mass from the rest of the galaxy.

First order of business: restoring himself to good condition. From his satchel, he selected a [ Heartroot Elixir ]. The small decanter held a bright, half-congealed concoction of what could only be arterial blood. His first instinct was to just get it over with, but he had accumulated his fair share of Node Points from his most recent endeavor.

Despite John’s advice earlier about gambling to unlock Nodes and shaping his path to power from there, Roman had his eye on one particular Quirk. [ Bulwark Mind ] promised a boost to one’s mental defenses and promoted focus. While many options presented their own enticing advantages, keeping his head on straight would help him survive in the early, deceptive stages of this new world.

On top of that, increased focus would allow him to work more efficiently and hopefully for longer. The less he needed to sleep, the less time he had to expose such an exploitable weakness to the world. No matter how strong he became, something disintegrating his head while he was taking a nap would be the end of him.

The option required all 7 of his available Node Points. Once he selected the cluster, he gained an additional 12 points in Willpower and +2 to Perception. Immediately the world shone with a touch more clarity, and his thoughts felt smoother, easier.

The [ Heartroot Elixir ], on the other hand, appeared all the more morbid now that he could better discern the individual chunks floating through it. At least it didn’t seem as disturbing as before.

Best not to overthink it. He tilted the vial back into his mouth, trying his best to bypass his tongue to avoid having to taste it. Still, the slightly chunky consistency of the liquid made him gag, and a sharp spike of nausea threatened to make him heave it back out. He forced himself to remain steadfast; as the elixir hit his stomach, the effects began to take root at once.

Fresh skin knitted itself over his deformed limb. Its tumorous growths retracted, smoothing back into healthy issue. The tip of his severed tongue no longer felt like sandpaper against the roof of his mouth. As the various wounds he had accumulated over the past day swiftly recuperated, he reviewed his current stats.

Base Attributes

Strength: 36

Agility: 37

Endurance: 40

Will: 45

Perception: 29

Charisma: 3

The investment into [ Bulwark Mind ] had set his Willpower apart from the others, but he still remained somewhat well-rounded apart from his sacrificed Charisma. He wondered if choosing a particular focus to invest in would be wiser. A specialist could outclass him too heavily in one area for him to overcome them, but they would have their own weaknesses he could exploit.

[ Chaos Touch ] made his Strength obsolete to some extent, depending on what its conditions were to activate; Mixie, for example, had been immune to its transformative effects for some reason. [ Flash Step ] offered a short-range teleport that allowed a surprise opportunity and a quick escape, like a burst of Agility at once. Improving his survivability seemed paramount at the moment.

The defeat of the Gashadokuro had leveled him deep into 6, netting him an extra two free attribute points. He rounded his Perception up to 30--more for aesthetic reasons than anything--and dumped the other point into his Will. A slight tingle suffused his body, but the discomfort was a drop in the ocean compared to some of his prior experiences.

Roman stood and cracked his neck.

Bella appeared to have finished sifting through her own loot, spatial satchel draped across her shoulder. Her phoenix-feather sword had gained a scabbard, an elaborate construction wrought from a rich golden leather branded with lines of infinitesimal scarlet sigils. A gleaming hairpin shaped like a sword held back her greasy hair, lending her something of a martial appearance. A Charisma-enhancing accessory, probably.

Roman suppressed the ridiculous, intrusive urge to pluck it from her hair and claim it for himself. He doubted the effect would be so impressive on top of his own head.

His stomach rumbled. Despite the traces of nausea, he found he was starving. He rarely ate much before a fight, and his natural regeneration probably burned his body’s fat and muscle storage to fuel itself.

“You get any food?” he asked.

“Nah,” she replied. “Nice robe, though.”

Roman grimaced.

John materialized at his side. “Be thankful you didn’t get any basic food. You can hunt or scavenge for yourselves without wasting a potential gift from the system.”

“We can hunt?” said Roman.

John nodded. “Should be edible wildlife around here and the edge of the dark forest. They should give you some experience as well, and won’t be too hard to take down at this point. See if you can convince Mixie to show you the way to the Chaos Gate, but don’t get too close. Even if you don’t enter it, there are bound to be some defensive measures in its proximity. Maybe even guardians.”

Roman relayed the information to Bella, who agreed. They found Mixie in the driver seat of the pickup truck, twitching his head side-to-side jerkily. It took Roman a moment to hear the faint crackle of death metal from his radio and understand that this appeared to be some prototypical dancing of a creature utterly without a sense of rhythm.

“So,” said Roman, “will you show me the way to the Chaos Gate? Since that’s why you drove my truck in the first place, right? A scouting mission?”

Mixie stopped twitching his head side to side and folded his hands across his lap. “For the right price, certainly. I do not perform my work out of the goodness of my hearts, so to speak, Mister Miller.”

Roman sucked his teeth in annoyance but decided to grease the ghoul up a bit. “How about this? All of us got off to the wrong foot. I got a bit greedy, seeing all your uh, really lovely wares. My world just suffered a major cataclysm, so I’d think you of all people should understand trying to be Greedy.”

“A valid enough point,” Mixie admitted with narrowed eyes, sensing he had perhaps lured in a new customer to swindle. Maybe the system--and, admittedly, some of his own actions--had set the system against Roman, but Mixie retained enough agency to overlook such transgressions. For the right price, of course.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“If you like my truck so much, you can have it,” said Roman, gesturing broadly at the run-down piece-of-shit vehicle. There were bound to be a hundred better options littered across the road between here and the next major city.

A complicated expression wrinkled Mixie’s face, distorting it in a way that revealed the underlying musculature in no way resembled a human’s. Roman didn’t even begin to have the foundations to understand what it was supposed to represent.

Mixie grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and nodded. “I shall show you the way, then.”

Roman pointed at Bella. “And you. Seriously, don’t try to fucking kill me for a few coins. There are going to be a lot of people out there worse than both of us. For now, we have better chances sticking together.”

She nodded tersely and looked away.

Before they left, Roman had Mixie back the truck up as close as possible to the gashadokuro. No reason to leave such a valuable corpse behind. He tried to stuff it into his spatial satchel, but its bulk exceeded the limitation of the bag’s threshold.

Seizing the gigantic skeleton by the shoulders, he managed to heave it up to a sitting position. He hooked his arms under both of its axilla and with his prodigious strength hauled the skeleton off the ground. Despite its titanic stature and unnatural density, it was still only a pile of bones. It lifted enough for him to awkwardly stuff it into the back of the truck.

As he shoved its legs enough to close the tailgate behind it, he had to smirk at such an ignominious handling of the bastard. It had been so smug. He’d turn it into a suit of armor or something.

He stayed in the back of the truck, resting his feet on the skeleton’s chest. Bella took the passenger seat while Mixie drove. Despite the likelihood of ghoul flipping the vehicle at some point, it shouldn’t prove much of an issue. Roman could [ Flash Step ] to safety, and despite his little speech earlier, he preferred being at their backs to having them at his.

Instead of taking the road back, Mixie opted to drive across the field. Desecration of the spiritual herbs seemed secondary to the enjoyment the ghoul must have found in making Roman’s jaw chatter from the bumpy ride.

After a minute, the benefit of this chosen route proved itself. As they neared the edge of the dark forest where it met the plain, Roman spotted a pure white buck standing proud among the trees. Its rack of antlers glowed with an ethereal radiance that lent it a noble aura.

Roman rapped on the back window to get the other’s attention and pointed at the deer. The ghoul slammed on the brakes, probably intending to jostle Roman, but he had already activated [ Flash Step ]. While it was somewhat of a shame to kill such a majestic deer, Roman held back his pity.

He appeared beside the creature. Before it could react, he latched on to its antlers. Groaning front he effort, he hauled up and back, arching his spine to force as much of his body into the motion as possible. The buck’s neck snapped from the sudden burst of force. Its body lifted into the air, and Roman rotated and pivoted, suplexing the deer hard enough to make the ground tremble beneath his feet.

Even with its snapped spine, the deer retained some reflex to kick outward, its hind legs catching Roman in the gut. The wind exploded out of him with explosive force. He doubled over, gasping. Nausea finally won out; he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the ground.

A beam of silver and orange light sliced through the air, its heat washing across Roman’s face. The attack severed a chunk from the buck’s throat, and it finally stopped thrashing as golden ichor pumped out onto the floor of pine needles.

[ Puremoon Buck defeated. 75 experience awarded. ]

Bella hopped out of the truck, shaking her head at the sight of Roman.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and pointed down at the buck. “Mind cooking dinner? Please?”

For a moment she looked like she wanted to argue, then she sighed. “Alright, sure. I got a chef class, actually, though it’s also extremely useful for fighting. Just preparing meals helps with my experience gain. I’ve always liked cooking, anyway. Why I became a cook, even if, you know, Applebees might not be the most illustrious place or anything.”

Roman had no idea what to make of her chatter. Over the years he had met a number of women who seemed to freely share their inner life and aspirations in a way that struck him as a little unusual. Not that it was a bad thing--their way of opening up and being friendly, he guessed; Roman was just at the cusp of the generation where men didn’t talk so much about their emotions.

Not that no one did, but at least in his household, resentful stoicism had been the norm. His father had preferred to indulge in the bottle instead of talking things out, a destructive habit that had at least not hit Roman himself too hard.

So, unsure what to say, he simply replied, “Okay, thanks.”

Bella seemed to take this as an acceptable contribution to their conversation. One of her gifts from the system appeared to be a survival knife some ten inches in length. With a deft hand, she skinned and butchered the animal, almost hypnotic in the fluidity of which she executed the motions.

Within minutes, she had laid out sizeable slabs of meat in preparation of cooking them.

In the meantime, Roman cleared out a fire pit and gathered kindling. Bella waved a hand and set it alight with a flare of power from her palm sigil. Once the blaze was properly stoked, she withdrew a bona fide cast iron skillet from her spatial satchel and set to frying the steaks.

The rich, enticing aroma made Roman’s stomach gurgle. He lit up a cigarette while she cooked and appreciated the traces of the golden hour remaining in the sky. A weird fucking turn of events had occurred over the past few days, certainly, but for the moment he found he was rather enjoying himself. As long as he didn’t let his mind wander.

After a few minutes, the meal was ready. Despite the lack of any seasoning or side dishes, it was the best damn thing he’d ever eaten. A deep-rooted hunger that settled into his body after regenerating all the damage he had sustained. The taste was divine, the meat cooked to a perfect rareness that let the marbling and tender meat melt in his mouth, while rare juices dribbled down his chin.

He restrained himself from asking for seconds. Mixie, on the other hand, took full advantage. Once Bella had dangled a slab in his direction, he snapped it from her grip without hesitation and shoved it into his toothy maw. Two more soon followed until he was satiated.

John chose not to join them. Roman wondered about that, remaining silent until the meal was over and his cig had been reduced to a stub.

Loath to litter, he deposited the cigarette butt into his spatial satchel. “Alright, let’s go to the Chaos Gate on foot from here, then. How far is it, Mixie?”

“You shall be able to see it within less than a mile into the dark forest,” said the ghoul. “It is actually quite obvious, though it distorts Perception until one gets close enough."

“In that case, mind telling us exactly what we’re getting into?”

Mixie grinned; it was a horrible thing. “You should see for yourselves.”