The trees flashed past Orion’s eyes as he ran, hoping his agility was high enough to let him get through the area without getting caught. Fighting was out of the question, he thought, knowing just how many players there were chasing after him. He should have known better than to venture that far out from Silver Village alone. For one, he’d heard the rumors of squads of players who ambushed and killed less experienced people. For another, he was so poorly armed that anything less than a short gathering mission would be suicide.

  His foot, already injured from the first interaction with the enemy players, was quickly growing numb from the cold. As such, he couldn’t feel the slick ground hidden under the thick snow, only realizing that the ice was there when he fell face-first into the thick white powder. His world exploded into a white cloud of snow, noise, and - though it was severely deadened by the game - pain.

  Quick as a flash, an arrow appeared out of the thickly growing forest behind him. It missed him by about an inch, and flashed into the snow a few feet away, lost from sight. Orion was quick to get back on his feet at that, and, spurred on by the sounds of shouting voices from behind, he redoubled his efforts to get back to Silver Village. But as he ran, he could hear those shouts getting louder and louder, and knew one thing: they were faster than him. It had only been a lucky stroke that he’d managed to slip away from them in the first place.

  Project Terra, he reflected, was quickly turning out to be a little too hardcore for his liking. The game had promised lifelike, realistic simulation, but it was the sort of thing that all game companies said. But they still let you live out your wildest fantasies, either in some RPG or looter-shooter game. Games where, among other handicaps offered, your avatar already knew how to use the attacks, spells, and combos to which you had access. But in this game? There were no such guidelines. You could only swing a sword, and fighting was a matter of personal skill, not character level.

  Another arrow ripped through the air. He couldn’t help letting out a yelp of terror that time, as the projectile actually scratched his cheek. It burned like a paper cut submerged in rubbing alcohol. Clutching his cheek, Orion rounded a bend in the trail and let out a shout of relief. He could make out the first outpost building of Silver Village! He was going to make it across the invisible line that formed the safe zone of the village, and escape these bandit players once and for all!

  Then, something slammed into the heel of his injured foot, and he was sent sprawling into the thick snow between the trees once more. He could just barely see what had happened. The fastest of the bandits, a skinny figure with red hair and a crazy, bloodthirsty smile, had caught up with him, and taken his leg out with one swing of a staff. Orion slid for several feet before slamming up against a thick tree trunk, grunting in pain. A new warning flashed in his field of vision.

  [You have been afflicted with a moderate Agility Debuff]

  Great, he thought. He’d barely been in the game for two hours, and he was going to die right outside the starting village. Well, he might as well get it over with, he thought. He’d give up on this hardcore game, and go back to Trials of Tribute, where at least he had a fighting chance, with the game’s guidance systems and complete lack of PvP. He closed his eyes, leaning his head back, and waited for the bandits to finish it.

  Then, there was a cry of pain. From the bandits. Orion’s eyes snapped open, though he couldn’t see what had caused it, at least at first. Then another arrow came down from the sky, burrowing itself into the chest of one of the bandits - right beside the first one that had struck. The bandit fell face-first into the snow with a choked cry and didn’t move anymore. The rest of the troupe slid to a clumsy stop, looking all around for the source of the surprise attack.

  For a second, nothing happened, and the bandits started to regain their confidence a little. Seeing nobody nearby to attack besides Orion, they began to move forward once again. He stayed where he was, paralyzed both by fear and by indifference to the game. Even he could tell how clumsy the movements of the bandits were, and he knew nothing about fighting. But they had much better equipment than him. So he stood no chance.

  Something new dropped down from the sky now. Not an arrow, but a person. A tall, olive-skinned man with curly black hair. His chest and arms were bare, revealing a lean but powerful body with plenty of muscles. In his hands, he carried a thick wooden staff. Orion put his hands up, realizing a second too late that the man’s sliding landing was going to make him crash into the tree as well. But instead, the monk - Orion couldn’t think of him as anything else - raised one foot backward, halting himself inches away from Orion’s body. Then, as if the tree trunk his foot rested against were a springboard, he rushed forward again.

  “Come on!” the monk shouted, his voice somehow a perfect mix of annoyance and joy. Was he… looking forward to this? He was outnumbered five to one, but he didn’t seem to care too much. In fact, he seemed pleased. He ran forward on light, perfectly balanced feet. The first opponent, the lead bandit, had the same type of weapon as him, but they couldn’t be any more different.

  As the bandit threw his first strike, a high swing, the monk dropped into a smooth baseball-style slide. Whether he’d known there was a patch of ice there or it had been luck, the effect was still mesmerizing. He shot back up to his feet now completely surrounded, and began striking out in all directions. Orion couldn’t really discern what happened - everything was a blur of movement and whacking sounds of wood on flesh - but in what felt like seconds, the bandits had fallen, groaning and whimpering. One of them tried to crawl feebly away from the half-naked figure that had so easily dispatched them.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” the monk said, laughing in good humor as he stepped forward. He grabbed the heel of the man trying to escape and dragged him back several feet before tossing him into a deep snow berm just a few feet to Orion’s left. “I know you bandits like to attack the feet and knees to slow your prey down. It’s a good tactic, so you shouldn’t be surprised when it’s done to you.”

  Orion’s mind flashed back to that first ambush. He’d wondered why the bandits hadn’t simply killed him right then and there. Now he knew why. They’d targeted his ankle to slow him down and prevent him from escaping.

  “Hey there.” Orion jumped, realizing that the monk had gotten closer without him realizing. He now dropped to a crouch, holding a hand out to help him up. “I’m Riley. You’re part of the second wave, right?”

  “Uhh, yeah,” Orion said, accepting the hand up. “Clearly, you’re one of the original players.”

  “Oh yeah,” Riley said, grinning easily. “But I’ve only got about two months on you. I’m sure you’ll catch up in no time.”

  If I keep playing this damn game, Orion thought, though he didn’t say it aloud. “Has it always been like this? With rogue players hunting stragglers and newbies?”

  “Well, no,” Riley admitted, his grin fading somewhat to be replaced by a troubled expression. “That’s relatively new. But we’re working on doing something about it. We think they came from Dawnbreak.”

  Orion had no idea what “Dawnbreak” was, nor did he care. All he wanted to do now was get into the safe zone of the village and log off. If he tried to do it out here, his avatar would remain in place, vulnerable, until ten minutes had lapsed. It was a common practice in games that featured PvP. Being able to instantly log off outside of a safe zone was a little too much like cheating in fights. Project Terra was no different.

  “Well, come on then,” Riley told him. “The restaurant’s opening in a few hours, you know. You don’t want to miss out on all the freebies they’ll have.”

  “What makes you think they’ll have freebies?” Orion asked. “No business would do that. Isn’t the point of it to make as much money as possible?”

  What was he doing? Why did he care about the business practices of a game he wasn’t going to be playing? Shaking his head, he began to follow Rilely, who was making his way back to the outskirts of Silver Village. He looked over Riley’s head, focusing on the words that were floating there. The first line - Orion assumed it was some kind of title to be earned in-game, said ‘Swift’. Below that was his name, Riley, and below that, ‘The Progenitors’. Orion supposed that was this game’s version of a guild or a clan.

  “Aren’t you cold?” Orion asked, frowning at the man’s bare chest and back. “It’s gotta be below freezing.”

  In fact, Orion was freezing. The numbness in his feet had started spreading to the rest of his legs, and his fingers and face were quickly following suit as well. Riley, however, seemed perfectly comfortable. The monk let out another laugh. “Not at all. My Endurance is almost B Rank now. I can feel the temperature, but it doesn’t really affect me. Especially if I’m getting some exercise.”

  He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to where the bodies of the bandits had lain. They’d vanished from view by now, though there seemed to be a lot of thick pale smoke lingering low in the air, as if a fire had just been extinguished. Orion frowned thoughtfully. “Someone told me that other players drop loot when they’re killed. If that’s true, why aren’t you looting them?”

  “Oh, I don’t bother,” Riley said with a casual wave of one hand. “They’re so poorly equipped that it wouldn’t really be worth my time. If they’re lucky, nobody will touch the loot for ten to twenty minutes, and they can reclaim their stuff. I’m sure they’ll respawn somewhere nearby.”

  Orion’s frown deepened. He knew from reading the Handbook that the typical respawn timer in this game was ten minutes. You also dropped anything you were holding - minus some rare items - and lost ten percent of the money you were carrying. For a moment, he was tempted to run back out there and scoop up the loot that had been dropped. Then he reminded himself that he wasn’t going to be playing this game after today.

  Someone met them at the gates to the Silver Village. Slightly shorter than Riley, he had a longbow slung over his shoulder and two knives sheathed at his waist. He was also a member of ‘The Progenitors’, Orion saw. He had the title of ‘Eagle-Eye’, and his name was Oscar.

  “Sup Oscar,” Riley said.

  His friend didn’t speak at first, only giving a short nod. He peered past him then, studying Orion. Was this player the reason that the first bandit had gone down? The fletching of the arrow, a dull red and black, seemed to match what was in his quiver. “Rescue patrol again, eh? You could have saved some of the bandits for me.”

  “You struck first!” Riley exclaimed, his voice full of mock outrage. “I had to move fast just to get a single one!”

  “Well, you managed to get four of ‘em.”

  “I would have gotten five if you weren’t so damn sneaky.”

  The two of them bumped fists, but Orion frowned. He’d been so sure that Riley was the only one to take the bandits on at close range, and he hadn’t seen any arrows hit the others. When and how had Oscar managed to kill another one? He thought back to the fight, but couldn’t pick out the moment. Seeing his troubled expression, Oscar grinned lazily.

  “Don’t worry about it too much,” he said. “The combat’s tricky, but you get it eventually. Just remember the golden rule.”

  “The golden rule?” Orion hadn’t heard anything of the like.”

  The two friends shared a quick look, then, grinning, spoke in unison. “If you can’t do it, you can’t do it.”

  Strange, Orion thought. Maybe he’d stick around and find out a bit more about this game. It wasn’t like he had a reason to give it up just yet, he told himself. If he didn’t like it, he’d drop it. If it stuck around, well, nothing wrong with that.

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