Nathan clasped his hands together in prayer. "Thalassa, I want you to know that you're a total douchbag."

The wind continued to be against them. Five seconds. It was now or never.

Chad growled. "Fine, I guess it's up to me!"

They were heading straight for the roof of the building. Chad reared back his katana—swiped from his inventory—and slashed out right onto the roof. A powerful wave of energy emanated from it and crashed through the top, drilling down and hitting several floors.

"Nice going," Nathan said. "You bought us five more seconds, I’d bet.”

Unfortunately, Chad couldn’t respond because he was too busy opening up his streaming apparatus using his system. He gave a thumbs up to the window.

"What's up, chat? Your boy Chad here with what might be my final stream. Don't forget to like and subscribe if I make it!”

Nathan's mind raced. Water? No, water was infamously bad for breaking falls at this speed. Could he take advantage of his tree arm, swing, and convert his fall? No, his arm could extend quickly, but not that fast.

Well, I did get a new class today, and it did mention something about wind. No better time to try it than now.

Nathan held his hand out. He narrowed his eyes.

Inside, his stomach tugged. In an instant, wind burst out from below them, smashing into them like a freight train. Nathan and Chad were sent careening off to the side and slammed into the wall of the building. Their speed broke a hole straight through the concrete, and they flew out in a tumble. After a few seconds of freefall, they crashed into a sloped roof and rolled their way into a fabric awning covering someone's window. They ripped a hole straight through that, then fell onto the next awning, and onto the next, before finally crashing onto the hard asphalt.

Nathan groaned. Every part of his body hurt.

"Remind me never to do that again,” he muttered.

Chad sat up, touching his nose which had taken the worst of the impact. "Think I broke my face," he managed. "Chat's going to love this."

Eventually, both of them had gathered themselves enough to stand up straight. Nathan looked around and blinked slowly.

They were in the middle of a giant, sprawling urban cityscape. Skyscrapers reached up to touch the sun, while the lesser buildings around them were made of brick. A metal fire escape stairway ran along an alleyway just to Nathan's right, while to his left was a metal bench. The air was cold and stale, almost a little smoky.

Yet, despite this…

Nathan couldn't hear a single sound.

----------------------------------------

"Last I checked, New York was back on Earth. How did they transport an entire city into a circle?"

Nathan looked out over the landscape, waiting for a response. When he heard nothing, he blinked and turned back toward where Chad had been… only to see him talking into the air about 20 feet away.

Nathan rolled his eyes and walked over to where Chad was speaking.

"—and don't forget to smash that like button, fam! That building-smashing sequence? Pure fire! Your boy Chad coming through with that main character energy—"

Nathan coughed pointedly. Chad glanced at him and smiled awkwardly.

"I'll see you guys later," Chad said. "I've got a buddy of mine I need to catch up with."

Chad shut off the camera and turned toward Nathan. "So, it's been a while."

"Not that long," Nathan said. "Really only a couple of weeks."

"It felt like a long time. Let me tell you, I've had the craziest adventures. You wouldn't even believe some of the stuff I went through."

“Yeah?” Nathan said. "How about you tell me about them?"

Chad smirked and shoved his hands into his pockets, his blue mullet shaking in the wind.

"I saved a few damsels in distress. Restarted my streaming career. Twice."

Nathan nodded. That sounded impressive.

"I'm glad for you. Just don't let the streaming thing get in the way of a fight or something, okay?"

"I would never do that!"

Nathan raised an eyebrow.

Chad averted his gaze. "I would probably never do that."

Nathan was about to respond when he heard the crow of a bird in the distance. He flinched and reached into his inventory, pulling out his trusty fishing rod. At the same moment, Chad grabbed his katana. Both of them tensed their legs, their eyes scanning the skyline for any possible threat. After a few seconds, they both relaxed and lowered their weapons.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Chad looked at Nathan’s weapon of choice. “I see you got a new fishing rod."

"I think you made some modifications to that katana, from what I can tell."

"I had a blacksmith take care of it for me. I'm pretty sure he was an NPC—he just kept repeating, 'Please bring me the loot from the mummy's tomb!' Like, on repeat. Over and over. It was his only dialogue. Still, he did a good job."

"It cut through a concrete building with a single slash. I'd say it's pretty good."

Nathan's eyes wandered toward the setting sun. They had a few hours till nightfall, but Nathan was already starting to get antsy. "What do you say about getting out of here and finding somewhere that might be safe?"

They wandered through the open street. Nathan's eyes darted at every unusual sound, every flicker of the wind, every rustle in the alley. He let out a breath and tried to relax. It wouldn't do for him to wear himself out before any fight began.

"What have you been up to?" Chad said. "I mean, I know you were talking about defeating the Dustend or something, but that was a joke, right?"

"No, that wasn't a joke. I killed it yesterday. That's what triggered the drop to the next circle, I think."

Chad's face twisted up as if he had just been told that a relative had died. He reached up to his head and pressed his palms against it. "Literally every time. You've been involved in the end of a main quest for every circle up to this point. Last time, you were one-hundredth of the key. Now you just single-handedly defeated the boss. Bro, you need to chill."

Nathan reached up and scratched the back of his head. "Well, it wasn't on purpose."

Chad's face fell even further.

"That just makes it worse! You do know that makes it worse, right!?"

Nathan was about to respond when he heard something. It was just at the edge of his ability to hear, but still—he could instantly identify what it was.

Footsteps.

His shoulders tensed, and he stopped in place. Chad looked back at him with a confused expression. He opened his mouth, but Nathan put his finger to his lips in a shushing motion. Chad instantly shut up and reached into his inventory, pulling out his katana again.

They both took up positions at the sides of the alley where the footsteps were coming from. Nathan's hands wrapped around his fishing rod. His heart slammed in his chest. Perhaps it was just paranoia—perhaps this was just a normal person here to conduct perfectly normal business. It might even be a fellow delver. But Nathan had been through a bit too much to respond to such things in the normal way.

They both waited with bated breath as the footsteps got closer and closer. A figure appeared out of the alley—Nathan's hook stopped right in front of the person's face, while Chad's katana rested on the person's neck.

"State your intentions," Nathan said.

The figure was silent. He slowly took off his hood and looked between the two of them.

"Uh, why are you attacking me with a fishing rod?"

Nathan slowly lowered his weapon. Chad did the same. The three of them stared at each other for a moment before the man coughed awkwardly.

"Cool, that was interesting. Nice to meet you all,” the man said.

----------------------------------------

The three of them set up camp in one of the abandoned buildings. They awkwardly stared at each other for several seconds before the men broke the silence.

"So, I assume all of you are fellow delvers?”

"Yeah, we are," Nathan said. "It's nice to finally see another normal human from Earth in this mess."

"Hey, I'm human," Chad said.

"But are you normal?"

Chad raised a finger to interrupt, then paused and awkwardly lowered it.

The man chuckled.

"Should we exchange names?" he said.

Nathan shrugged. "Sure."

The man reached out his hand for a handshake. "The name's John."

"I'm Nathan, and this is Chad."

The man's eyes flickered at Nathan's name. Nathan internally groaned.

I can already see where this is going...

Nathan stood up abruptly. "Excuse me, me and my friend have to go… powder our noses."

Chad turned his head and squinted his eyes at Nathan. "I'm sorry, did you just say—"

Nathan grabbed Chad's arm and heaved him to his feet. "We'll be back in just a second."

The two went to a far corner of the room, and Nathan lowered his voice to a whisper.

"He's totally going to try to kill us," Nathan said.

"Oh yeah, 100%. You saw that little—"

"The glint? Yeah, it was the same look those guys from the Harrowed Hand had."

A small smile lifted on Chad's face.

"Poggers, character development! You're getting better at this!” he said. “Anyway, he's probably either an ax murderer or working for an organization."

"Do you think it could be the Harrowed Hand? I didn't see much of them in the last circle."

"It could be," Chad said, licking his lips. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Knock him out, tie him up, and demand information?" Nathan asked.

"I was thinking more like we hit him while we have the element of surprise. Let him think we're sleeping, then when he goes in for the attack—"

"He's definitely going to be on guard if we hit him right now. I see your point."

Nathan's eyes flickered over toward John. The man raised his arm and waved at them.

"My bet's on ax murderer," Nathan said.

“I think he’s some kind of cultist.”

The two wandered back over to John and sat down adjacent to him.

"Are you finished?" John said.

"Yeah, it was a very productive nose-powdering session."

John took a cup from his satchel. He poured a drink from a canteen strapped to his belt and offered it to Nathan.

"Thirsty?"

"No, I'm good."

Nathan suppressed a smirk.

Water is the one thing I never have in short supply.

John shrugged and pulled the cup back, tipping it toward his throat and taking a gulp.

"Do you all plan to go after the main quest?" John said.

Nathan's eyes widened. "Oh, we didn't even take a look at that, did we?"

John shrugged.

"It doesn't look like anything we haven’t done before,” John said. “There are going to be four dungeons, and then you have to take the materials to some kind of Queen of the Forest to get the portal activation item. The only tricky part is this new thing—the Tree Wrath."

"Tree Wrath?"

"Yes, it's all the rage at the survivor camps."

Chad perked up at that. "Survivor camps?"

"Yes, yes. One of the top ten has decided to organize efforts in this pocket. She's tired of the unnecessary loss of life that's been occurring due to the scattered, disorganized nature of the approach thus far. She's fed up with the organizations that have simply sought to take control rather than attempt to actually help people get through the circles. It's quite amazing—in only a few hours, she's already made sure that hundreds of people are getting running water and a regular source of food."

“Hundreds?” Nathan said.

“Yeah.”

There was a beat of silence.

"Where is this camp?" Chad said.

"Right now… to the north. Unfortunately, they're dealing with a little… infestation. They'll probably have to move soon."

Nathan leaned back against the concrete floor. He looked pointedly out the window.

"It's already evening. I think we better turn in,” he said.

A too-perfect grin appeared on the man's face. "Shall we take turns on watch?"

Nathan shrugged nonchalantly. "That's fine with me."

"Do you mind if I take first watch?"

Chad waved him off. "Go ahead."

After a few minutes of preparation, both Nathan and Chad laid their heads against the hard ground. Nathan shut his eyes but kept his consciousness awake, carefully waiting for when John would make his move.

An hour passed by. Another hour.

Then, Nathan heard a bone-chilling scream.