Elijah Frank woke up in the System and the first thing that he saw a three-headed snake hydra turning to face him through his driver’s side window. Around the monster, the deserted parking lot of the national parking lot only served to add to the sense of shock the sight brought him. The combination wiped away any lingering drowsiness that he felt.

He remembered falling asleep and then suddenly he was here, in an unfamiliar parking lot.

He hadn’t been in one of the Zones or been stuck in a bubble city; his last memory of pre-System was getting into a bellowing-match with his landlord, packing up all his things into his cramped brown sedan, and driving West with the vague idea that he would live out of his vehicle in camping areas until he had everything figured out’.

He knew, even then, that this goal was a bit of a punt. All Elijah’s life he had been ‘figuring out’ what he wanted to do with himself. He had sailed through his thirtieth and the fortieth birthday without giving this constant question much thought. He bounced between careers with such speed that usually interviewers at his next job were more impressed than concerned. He started in sales at a discount electronics store, but over the course of eighteen years after college he became a political aide, a hairstylist, a non-alcoholic bartender for children’s parties, a janitor at a trade school, an associate professor, and a military surveyor.

This was in addition to his caffeine-fueled, late-night deep dives into the stock market, where he would throw however many fistfuls of cash he could squeeze between his fingers into whatever the hottest stock currently was. His certainly repeatedly led him to emptying out his bank account.

It was a total loss on timber futures that prompted Elijah’s fight with his landlord.

“Why can’t you just pretend like you don’t know me?!?!” Elijah had shouted in frustration. “People who don’t know me love me!”

“Because they just don’t know yet how shitty you are! At least not yet” The landlord had shouted right back. His face was red. “You haven’t paid rent in three fucking months! I’m done with your excuses! Get the hell out!”

So Elijah had packed up his things and left his Uncle Terence’s basement. He drove West toward the unknown. He arrived at the campground, tried to set up a tent he had found in the corner of the basement, but it got dark too quickly and his headlights weren’t as helpful as he thought they were going to be.

Grumbling to himself, Elijah had climbed into the back of his car and tried to get comfortable between a giant pack of toilet paper (which he had also liberated from his uncle’s basement) and a pile of dirty clothes that Elijah vaguely assumed he would be able to wash in a river somewhere. He closed his eyes and laid there without falling asleep for several hours.

Silently, the System arrived. And then the System kept Elijah Frank frozen for months and then years, hidden in a relatively abandoned portion of the continental wilderness. Then, as the Wildlands surroundings the main six Zones rushed outward, Elijah finally, finally woke up to see the world in its new form.

The extra sleep had passed without much of a result; Elijah was still in a very sour mood.

So he sat up in his back seat, wrinkling his nose at the smell of stale sweat from his pile of dirty clothes, and looked out his window to see a three-meter-long, three-headed hydra raising its head to regard the car, and Elijah inside of it, curiously. Above the strange creature’s head hovered the words Hydra Hatchling Level 12.

He was immediately awake.

For all that his first response to being kicked out by his uncle was to go to a national park and camp, Elijah didn’t have much appreciation for the natural world and its wonders. So he rubbed his eyes just to be sure he wasn’t hallucinating and then tumbled forward into the front seat of his car. After twisting until his feet were in the right positions, he started the engine and put the car in reverse. His sedan twisted backward so the front of the car was pointing toward the bewildered Hydra Hatchling.

The monster’s Level ticked upward to 13 just as Elijah stretched his short legs as far as he could, pressing the gas pedal into the floor. The wheels screeched and then the car lurched forward, slightly to the right of the monster so Elijah had to swerve his charge back on target. The thing released a horrible screech as he thumped across its body. Elijah was panting.

Congratulations! You have learned the Skill Machinery Proficiency Lvl 1!

Congratulations! You have learned the Skill Vehicle Force (R) Lvl 1!

Congratulations! You have learned the Skill Burst of Acceleration (Un) Lvl 1!

Elijah decided that he quite liked the feeling of running over animals. But he quickly realized that most of the Hydra Hatchlings in the surrounding area were farther along in their growth than the Level 13 variant he had just crushed. Leaving the parking lot earned him a lot of negative press; Elijah had to conclude that the others could smell the first one’s blood on his wheels. Luckily, an exploratory force from Zone 1 discovered him fleeing in his car from a rampaging Level 39 Hydra Adolescent and rescued him.

From there, his skill with interviews quickly landed him a position working in drone production in one of the larger cities in Zone 1. Which, while enjoyable, didn’t leave Elijah quite as fulfilled as the pulse-pounding high-speed chases he had briefly experienced. He would spend long nights tipping back cheap beer and remembering that rush of speed. Without noticing it, he began an adrenaline junky. He started staying in the factory after the assembly line shut down, tinkering with the spare metal pieces and building the prototypes for his skybikes.

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His hobby rapidly consumed him. And with the advent of the System, his early high-speed crashes weren’t nearly as fatal as they had been in the past.

However, he soon encountered a problem; a lot of the valuable materials he wanted to use in his bike assembly required citizenship in Zone 1 to purchase. Without signing away several years of his life, his company would refuse to sponsor his bid for citizenship. And without an established sponsor backing him, even as a native to Expira, it took years to have your application even reviewed.

As someone who was always on the lookout for a side job, Elijah Frank entered into a new line of business to continue to progress in his hobby: he learned to forge Citizenship papers. It turned out that there was a relatively high demand for such services. Within six months, he had enough money to found a small private firm dedicated to the production of civilian transport vehicles to launder his cash. To avoid paying tariffs on Kharon refined metals, he soon stuck his greedy hands into the business of smuggling valuables across the borders between Zones. When he sniffed out the interest for a similar service in Zone 7, Elijah went on a trip to schmooze and make connections.

Maybe two years after he arrived in Expira, no one knew who he was, but he was the most wanted man in the world. At least on paper, he was. After all, many of his biggest clients were the central figures in those governments that made a big show of hunting down the “King of Expira’s Underworld”.

In the end, he got sloppy and complacent with his commercial success with his skybikes. It all started with an ogre walking into East Providence, waving his forged Tier 3 Citizenship papers like a talisman. When he was detained and questioned, he described the fact that Elijah had arrived at their clandestine meeting riding his personal skybike.

Everything began to unravel after that. He was forced to flee the Zones and seek asylum in the Wandering City. All the connections he had made suddenly became unresponsive to his communications. His bank accounts, even the private ones, were found and confiscated by the governments. Everything he had gathered in the past six years vanished just as quickly as he had obtained it.

But his hasty flight wasn’t all bad; he kept his Skill Levels and a few of his favorite bikes. And honestly, Elijah liked Kharon. The independent nature of the city was exactly what he needed to screen the heat from the Zones.

The specter of the Ghosthound protected Kharon, even setting aside the significant influence the city possessed.

Utilizing that political clout was so tempting to Elijah that he interviewed for a position in the Order Ducis with his typical, winning smile in place. The beetleman had nodded at the end of their talk and told him, “Sure, you seem quite appropriate. You are free to join the Order Ducis recruitment camp; after six months, you will be eligible to apply for full membership.”

Elijah had honestly been a little thrown. His smile became a bit shakier. “But I’m… Elijah Frank.”

“Your name is on your application” was all the response he received.

But that was when Elijah realized the problem; although the Order Ducis was the smallest of the Orders, it was still a relatively influential Order that probably had a massive member count. Even if his typical skill with interviews had won over this Ajax, the beetle man probably didn’t have enough authority to make any decisions besides admitting him into the training camp. What Elijah needed was an individual who could make a sweeping executive decision regarding his peculiar case. Someone who would be only too happy to help a talented individual like Elijah.

And then he heard the rumor that Randidly Ghosthound himself was in Kharon. There were no individuals higher up on the food chain than him.

So Elijah rode his largest and most impressive skybike up toward the island of the Ghosthound, attempting to make a good impression. He hopped off the vehicle and looked around at the misty place. The Ghosthound himself was sitting cross-legged on the ground, with a humanoid animal on his left and a lovely woman on his right.

Elijah ignored the growing sense of trepidation in his chest and smiled. There was something about the air that felt… suffocating, but he pushed through the feeling. “Greetings, Ghosthound! My name is Elijah Frank; I think I’d be a real asset to the Order Ducis, but your recruitment procedures are a real hassle. Can you make an exception and just let me in?”

Maybe should have worded it so I sound a little less desperate… Elijah winced a bit but still remained smiling. But he was only greeted by silence. Three pairs of eyes examined him.

Elijah wasn’t sure what he expected from this famous individual, but Randidly Ghosthound certainly lived up to the hype. He tilted his head to the side, regarding Elijah with obvious amusement. And unlike some of the other ‘powerful’ individuals that Elijah had met while smuggling different specialty items for the Senators of Zone 1, just standing before the Ghosthound was somewhat exhausting.

It wasn’t the air that was steadily tightening around his throat; simply being close to the Ghosthound was difficult.

He released a natural pressure the likes of which Elijah had never encountered before. He felt more like a horrifying monster than a man. Elijah could only lick his lips and reapply his smile to his face as the silence continued to stretch.

Finally, the humanoid animal next to the Ghosthound chuckled. “He thinks he’s a genius.”

The woman to the Ghosthound’s left toyed with her spear, eyeing Elijah the entire while.

Elijah resisted the urge to reach up and feel his face. What’s going on? He isn’t engaging with me at all… well, they say that the Ghosthound is something of a battle maniac… so the strong silent type…? He certainly is… rather muscular looking…

Elijah licked his lips again. “I’m very confident in my abilities. To demonstrate, I’m willing to engage in a spar, as long as I’m able to use my specialty skybike. I think that we-” Elijah looked at the heavy-eyed animal humanoid and hurried moved his gaze to the shapely woman playing with the spear. “Ahem. Perhaps it is appropriate for us two to engage in a spar so I can display my capability.”

The Ghosthound chuckled. “Well. I certainly admire your bravery. How about it, Helen? Do you think you are in the mood for a spar?”

The woman smiled. “As long as you are willing to make it up to me later when he doesn’t last long enough to satisfy me.”