[Current Objective: Exfiltrate]

"Are you woken?" asked the armored warrior.

I nodded, still trying to wrap my head around the chaos of the last thirty seconds. Her gauntleted hand extended toward me, and I grasped it, feeling the unexpected strength of the power armor as she pulled me to my feet.

She examined me with a tilt of her helmeted head, her gaze unwavering. "You are bleeding. We lack the means to provide medical aid."

"No worries," I assured her, relieved by their timely intervention. "Saving me just now is more than enough."

I quickly injected a syringe of U-Clot into my chest wound, wincing at the sting of the medication. Although I didn’t feel immediately better, the bleeding stopped.

"The name’s Jonas," I said, trying to establish some normalcy amid the turmoil.

"I am Meryll Kline, Fourth Company Captain of the Reclaimers chapter," she responded curtly.

"Sorry, I don’t know much about... whatever that is," I admitted, hoping I didn’t come off as completely clueless.

Meryll exhaled impatiently, her gaze momentarily shifting before locking back onto mine. "Are you suggesting the Order of Illumination means nothing to you?"

I shook my head, confusion evident. "Apologies, Captain Meryll. I don’t know anything about that. I woke up today with only the clothes on my back and a Greasy Spatula in my hand. It seems my previous life was meant to be inconsequential, so I wasn’t given any real knowledge."

"That's understandable, Jonas," she said, placing a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. "It's fortunate to encounter other woken so soon, even if their capabilities are limited. Praise the Core Designer."

Her words stung slightly, despite no offense being intended. The flat transmission of her voice through the armor speakers carried a hint of superiority earned from her recent skirmish with the Porcs. It was the kind of superiority that comes from having a clear purpose—battle-hardened and ready to face whatever Apocalypta might throw at her.

As I stood there, grappling with the recent events, I felt an overwhelming sense of insignificance. Here I was, weak and outmatched, confronted by another player who clearly held the upper hand in every respect.

Then, like a grim realization tolling in my mind, clarity struck me. "This is the early game, isn't it?" I mused aloud. "A phase where players gather resources, form alliances, and fortify defenses before moving to the next stage."

Meryll nodded solemnly, her helmet creaking slightly as it inclined.

"That is my estimation as well. What is worse, we have no lore to predict what that next phase will be. Because..."

Her voice trailed off abruptly, the speakers falling silent. Behind the mask, Meryll seemed to be struggling to hold back tears of dismay.

"Because it's all fake," I blurted out, echoing her unspoken thoughts.

Meryll’s stance stiffened in her six-foot power armor. The slow heat of her anger radiated from her cold, emotionless plating.

"I consider such lack of faith in the Core Designer sheer blasphemy, Jonas. You shall not repeat it again. My sacred lore is not fake. There are truths within it."

"The history of our world—our reality—may be a fabrication. There was no technological fall from grace three hundred and sixty-two years ago, but the logic of our existence flows from the stories of our sacred lore, even if they were created by beings from beyond this realm.

We are real, Jonas. You and I.

The unwoken and the beasts are real. That construct you emerged from is not a false mirage because it exists for us. And so, too, are the secrets hidden within it. All intended to be part of our world.

Do you understand me, Jonas?"

In truth, I had no idea what she was talking about. Her intense fervor made me fear she might resort to violence if I disagreed. I nodded, tentatively placing a hand on the cold metal of her armor.

"I understand, Captain," I lied, "And I think this may be of use to you."

Instead of attempting a precarious trade with an unstable warrior, I raised my empty hand to reveal Chief Nurse Carla’s keycard.

"I picked this up inside. Supposedly, there's a boss room on basement floor one. Using this keycard to bypass the doors would be easier than forcing your way through.

There was talk of a secret organ cloning project there, now commandeered by the boss hog. I encountered one Porc in a side room on that level.

You might have already dealt with him if he followed me outside, but he was in quite a frenzied state, so be cautious."

Meryll’s eye lenses tracked the dangling keycard as it swayed in the breeze. After a moment of silence, she spoke.

"Do you not know how to trade items?"

I chuckled good-naturedly and opened the trading screen.

Accepting the trade, Meryll said, "Thank you for this, Jonas. I have no reward to offer that you could use proficiently, but I'll share my codec frequency with you.

If you find a radio, locate my frequency and we can stay in contact."

I expressed gratitude and saved the codec frequency on my message screen. After that, Meryll bid me farewell and silently directed her two armored companions toward the hospital. I assumed they were Notters since neither of them had spoken to me.

"Oh, Captain!" I called out as she marched away. "I forgot to ask, what blood type are you?"

Meryll halted and turned her head.

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"O negative. Why do you ask?"

"I have a working theory about something. There are tasks I need to complete before I can be sure. You make it out alive, and I'll share it with you when I find a radio."

Meryll gave me a sharp salute and continued following her companions.

Trudging back up the hillside, I followed the faint, cherry-red glow of a burning cigar to where Rolland was seated. In the pallid moonlight, he appeared weary and battle-worn, a figure of rugged determination.

His clothes were torn and ragged from the thickets that had snagged him during his solitary clash with the Porcs. He had discarded his damaged body armor, revealing bullet holes peppering his exposed skin.

"That was the worst twenty minutes of my life," Rolland remarked, exhaling smoke from the cigar. "And I've only been alive a day."

The cigar crackled as the embers smoldered. Its acrid scent filled the air, but fatigue dulled my senses too much to care. I struggled to find the right words.

"I found three blood packs," I offered.

"So we got what we came for. One for my wife and one for my daughter. That's all that matters."

I glanced at him, understanding that once his family became Players, his journey with me would end. They would seek to establish a sanctuary, shielded from the unknown perils of this world. While I sympathized with Rolland's resolve, I couldn't discern if it stemmed from programmed instincts or personal choice. Regardless, having a secure home base seemed prudent.

"You took a beating," I observed finally.

Rolland nodded, drawing on the cigar again. "It was rough," he admitted. "Lucky the Porcs couldn't venture beyond the hospital grounds, or I'd have been swarmed. But damn, they were sharpshooters."

"You were better," I assured him. "Especially when you picked off that one in the corner room on the fourth floor."

Rolland eyed me suspiciously. "Jonas, I only fired a few rounds on the first floor. After that, I was occupied with the ground-level Porcs. I never even fired upon the fourth floor."

A breeze stirred around us, swirling cigar smoke and fanning the ember's glow. The realization dawned on both of us simultaneously: there was another Player in the forest, a sniper of remarkable skill.

A chill ran down my spine.

Were we being watched now? Would a silent bullet find its mark at any moment, preempting the looting of our corpses?

Rolland abruptly extinguished the cigar, his actions mirroring my thoughts.

"We need to move," Rolland declared, his voice tinged with urgency. "I'm not up for another firefight tonight, especially against another Player."

Morning greeted us as we trudged back to Nowhere City and Doc Anderson's clinic. Sharing the rat kebabs from my inventory, enhanced by the connoisseur perk to now restore our stamina, we found ourselves able to trek for hours longer.

Anderson’s surgery remained the immutable blend of retro-futurism and sheer, unadulterated chaos. We had briefed her on what we wanted, and she had instructed us to get comfortable in the examination room.

The room was cluttered with an assortment of oddities—medical technology that once promised to revolutionize healthcare now looked as if it had been pilfered from a burning vehicle. The walls were lined with faded, peeling posters depicting cheerful, if somewhat implausible, visions of wellness: How to Live Forever with a Smile and The Wonders of Automated Surgery.

Beneath these relics of optimism lay the rickety examination bed that I had hauled Rolland upon hours earlier. The centerpiece was a blood extraction machine that could easily be mistaken for a malfunctioning coffee maker the size of an industrial printer. It gurgled and hissed with an air of overcompensating efficiency, while a small screen cheerfully informed us that the procedure was going pretty well despite its less-than-reassuring hums and groans.

The machine’s display occasionally flickered between diagnostics and a cartoon of a smiling red blood cell giving a thumbs-up—a feature that seemed to offer little in the way of comfort.

Rolland, ever one to adapt to his surroundings, had made himself comfortable in a pair of creaky, old-fashioned chairs that groaned as he propped his feet up in a manner best described as casual indifference. With an air of practiced nonchalance, he drifted into a sleep so deep it could only be rivaled by that of a hibernating animal.

I reclined on the examination bed, which adjusted itself with a hydraulic sigh, and tried to ignore the way the bed’s artificial leather seemed to be actively resisting any form of relaxation.

Despite the uncomfortable bed, exhaustion hit me the way a typhoon hits the shore, and I quickly drifted off to sleep.

When I awoke, the sight of three full blood packs, each resembling a particularly aggressive jellyfish, was a welcome surprise. The room’s bizarre medical apparatus had indeed performed its task with a certain, if unconventional, efficiency.

Rolland and I stirred from our rest feeling remarkably revitalized, as though we had inadvertently stumbled upon sleep as the secret to post-apocalyptic rejuvenation.

As we readied ourselves to leave, our attentions again turned towards the Order of Illumination. Doc Anderson knew nothing about them and suggested that perhaps we go speak with some librarian somewhere. Not wanting to embark on another side quest so soon, we decided to set aside this mystery for now and focus on the next step of our current mission: to procure essentials that might make our lives slightly less perilous and, with any luck, a tad more sensible.

Our shopping trip through Nowhere City unfolded into a carefully choreographed exercise in distraction and minor theft. I engaged the shopkeepers in idle chatter about trivial matters to keep them occupied, while Rolland skillfully pilfered items from their shelves. We chose low-security targets to minimize our exposure, resulting in a collection of modest but useful loot.

Among our acquisitions was a backpack that, while not visible when equipped, increased my carrying capacity by thirty percent. Rolland also supplied me with a generous stockpile of pistol ammunition, ensuring I wouldn’t run dry anytime soon.

I swapped my worn white t-shirt and blue jeans for fresh, more resilient alternatives. Rolland, unable to repair his damaged flak armor, opted for a new duster but offered me a choice between a dark leather apron and a biker jacket. I chose the apron to take advantage of a five percent enhancement to my cooking skills, despite its dubious slogan, “Enjoy My Meat,” which Rolland found utterly hilarious.

The highlight of our haul was a Master Chef's Knife, a significant upgrade from my Greasy Spatula. The knife offered a ten percent boost to my cooking abilities and an additional five percent enhancement to melee damage when using cooking tools.

“It suits your style,” Rolland said, “and it might come in handy in a pinch.”

I nodded in agreement, appreciating both the thoughtfulness and practicality of the gift.

Heading back to Rustborder Town, where Rolland’s family awaited, we seized the chance to level up. Both of us had reached level three: my list of available perks was staggeringly long, and I eventually gave up scrolling through them all. The Butcher perk caught my eye—it promised to enhance both my cooking abilities by allowing me to gather meat from animals and my melee skills by boosting damage with knives and cleavers by ten percent.

Rolland, however, remained tight-lipped about his perk choices.

“Not to be rude, Jonas,” he said, “but sometimes it’s best to keep things close to the vest. You’re a good guy, trusting. Those are fine traits. But I’d rather not broadcast my business, especially to those who might have ill intentions.”

For a fleeting moment, I thought Rolland was referring to me. Then I realized who he was actually talking about.

“Do you not trust Meryll?” I asked directly.

Rolland shook his head. “Not at the moment. Their armor and weapons give them a clear edge over us. I’m uneasy about that.”

I assured Rolland that I hadn’t disclosed anything about him to Meryll. To her, I was the only other player at the hospital last night, accompanied only by a Notter causing a ruckus in the forest. Rolland seemed relieved by this assurance.

As we passed the scene of our ambush by the Raiders, the aftermath remained unchanged: corpses strewn across the ground and the two surviving mules aimlessly wandering. We scavenged all we could carry. I gathered the remaining herbal components from the mules, my Connoisseur perk providing enhanced insights into their uses and benefits.

After harvesting meat from the fallen mules through butchery, I left their skeletons untouched. The raiders and caravan guards yielded nothing useful, aside from the ammunition and ghillie suit Rolland had already stripped from them. For a fleeting moment, I considered butchering the corpses, but quickly dismissed the distasteful idea.