Harb and a group of 20 Orcs roamed the hills north of their encampment. They were in search of anything that would give him experience, and when they came across the tracks of a giant, Harb was quick to order the two scouts to investigate. The tracks led east and were relatively fresh, so they followed them until they came to a large amount of blood.

“What is it?” Harb asked Narg.

Narg saluted. “Looks like the Giant killed an animal, maybe a moose or elk.”

“Can you tell how long ago?”

“Not long. An hour or less.”

Tollara, the lone Shaman of the group, approached. “Are we to proceed?” she asked.

“Yes,” Harb replied. “I think that we should pick up the pace. I don’t want it to reach its lair, where we would probably have to fight more than one. We would be forced to retreat if that happens.”

They increased their pace to a jog. The tracks were enormous, and even Harb, who lacked the track skill, was easily able to follow them. It didn’t take them long to spot the Giant, who was sitting with its back against a hill devouring a large animal. Their force was hidden by a neighboring hill, and Harb called for a halt while he thought about what to do.

He decided that the best course of action was to have the soldiers charge the creature while it was eating; however, before he could give the order to charge, an armored man with curly hair materialized in front of the Giant. This elicited gasps from Narg and the other scout, who were the only others in a position to see the man.

“Narg, tell them to remain hidden and quiet,” he said. “I want to see how this goes.”

Narg saluted, but before he went off to give the orders, the Giant roared and threw the animal carcass at the newcomer. The man stepped aside and drew his sword, which glowed faintly. He charged the Giant and was able to land two attacks before it was able to stand. The Giant kicked and sent him sliding backward. The kick had lowered the man’s HP by about 10%, but he stood up as if he had felt nothing.

Another form materialized. This one was a brunette woman dressed in pink robes, wielding a staff. She was a few inches shorter than the man, and Harb guessed that they were both Human. He targeted each of them in the attempt to gain more information, and while he could see their status bars, there was no other information available to him.

The woman cast a spell, and a dozen swords appeared hovering over her head before they were launched at the Giant. Two of the swords missed, but the rest sank into the Giant’s flesh and disappeared. The attack put the Giant’s health under half, and the wounds remained after the swords vanished. The spell was powerful but costly; it had used up nearly three quarters of her mana.

Harb desperately wanted the magic items that the two possessed. The Giant would be dead soon, so he had to act fast. He quickly ran back to the rest of the waiting force.

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“There’s a caster and a fighter attacking the Giant,” he said. “We’re going to charge the caster and take her out first. Tollara, do what you can to keep the fighter away from us.” The soldiers all saluted, and the Shaman nodded. Harb ran towards the combat.

Even though none of the Orcs called out as they ran, the caster heard them charging towards her. She spun around and raised her staff, casting a spell. A torrent of flames burst forth, engulfing the oncoming Orcs. She wielded her staff like a flamethrower, sweeping it from side to side to incinerate as many as possible.

Orcs all around Harb screamed and fell, but since it was magical fire, he was unaffected by the flames. He emerged from the fire and activated cleave on the surprised caster. His axe cut through her. Her health bar plummeted, yet there was no blood, no wound. Harb hesitated, taken aback—a face he recognized! The caster stared at him, stunned that he was unharmed by her flames

Harb’s eyes darted to the fighter nearby, who was hacking away at the vines binding him. He recognized that face too. These two had made millions, perhaps billions, in the world of crypto.

The woman started a spell, so he swung his axe at her. Again, it felt like a normal strike into flesh, but no wound appeared. The attack did bring her HP to 0, and she fell to the ground and disappeared. There was nothing there—no loot at all.

He ignored a notification and focused on the fighter. The Giant was dead, the fighter was free, and he was advancing on Tollara. Harb used his flicker spell to get between the Shaman and the fighter. The man was under half health, but he was still formidable, and their force was down to two soldiers, Narg, Tollara, and himself.

Narg attempted to neutralize the fighter with a dart, but every dart bounced off of his armor. Harb did his best to land an attack, but the man was quick to defend. When the two soldiers arrived, the man executed a spinning special attack that cut through the soldiers but bounced off of Harb.

The man frowned, and he appeared to access his interface. Harb took the opportunity to strike. He hit the armor and did some damage, even though he didn’t penetrate the flesh. Harb then used his whirlwind attack, hitting the man three times and dropping his HP dangerously low.

The fighter drew a short sword. He used his glowing blade to block and attacked with the short sword. Harb was struck twice, which dropped his health to under half. That was a ridiculous amount of damage for two basic short sword attacks. Harb was concerned and regretted the fact that he had already used his flicker ability.

As vines sprouted from the ground and ensnared the fighter, Harb took the opportunity to strike. Using the last of his energy, he unleashed his cleave attack. The fighter was too slow to block and was struck down by the attack. He collapsed to the ground and vanished.

“Those Humans were very powerful,” Tollara said. “What happened to their corpses?”

“Why didn’t they bleed?” Narg asked. “Everything bleeds. It was like they weren’t actually here.”

Harb checked his notifications: Congratulations! You have defeated a Heroine! You are the first to defeat a Hero/Heroine and have received twice the normal experience. He had another notification for killing the Hero and a third for reaching level 17.

Harb felt that Narg had the right of it. He believed that the two Humans weren’t entirely present in this world. They behaved as though they were in a video game, where attacks dealt damage without visible effects on their avatars. Recognizing the two from real life, he initially considered the possibility of AI-generated illusions. However, the woman’s genuine shock convinced him otherwise. Harb believed it was more likely that these two were participating in the game virtually, probably from Earth.

“Those were something else,” Harb said. “If we see anyone acting like that again, we should flee.”

“While I would normally call that cowardice, I agree,” Tollara said. “I thought that we were all dead.”

“We nearly were,” Harb said, waving a hand towards all of the Orc corpses. “Come on. Let’s loot that Giant and head back to camp.”