Ryan POV
The monster behind us steps onto the trail fully now.
It’s a ridgeback, same build as the ones from the clearing, but there are more shapes moving in the brush around it.
I count four.
"Back to back," Emily says. "Now."
We move without arguing. Daniel takes the right side, I take the left, Emily anchors the middle where she can see the whole circle.
The ridgebacks close in slow, testing the gaps, waiting for one of us to break formation.
"They’re going to rush at the same time," Emily says. "Don’t chase. Hold your ground and let them come to you."
"That’s the plan?" Daniel asks.
"That’s the plan."
The nearest one lunges first. I meet it the way I met the one in the clearing—plant my feet, watch the dip in its weight before it commits, sidestep at the last second.
My sword catches it across the side as it passes. It yelps and spins back toward me, faster to recover than before.
Daniel’s already locked with his own, swinging wide and connecting, but leaving himself open on the follow-through. One of the others breaks from the pack and goes for that opening.
"Daniel, left!" I called.
He turns in time to block, barely, steel meeting claws instead of flesh. The impact knocks him back a step.
Emily handled two at once, moving between them with short, economical strikes, never standing still long enough for either to land a clean hit.
She drops one with a strike to the throat, then pivots immediately to block the second.
My ridgeback circles wide, trying to get behind me. I turn with it, keeping my sword between us, and focus on something I haven’t tried yet—a skill sitting unused in my interface since character creation.
Basic Slash. A small icon in the corner of my vision, cool down timer reading zero, mana cost listed below it.
I activate it.
The sword moves on its own for half a second, faster than my arm alone could manage, the strike landing with more force than anything I’ve thrown so far. The ridgeback staggers hard, blood spraying across the dirt.
[Basic Slash: Mana -10. Cooldown: 8 seconds.]
So that’s how it works. Power for a price. I file it away and keep moving.
The monster recovers and lunges again, angrier now, and I don’t have the mana cooldown back yet.
I fall back on the basics instead—footwork, timing, the same sidestep I’ve used all day. It works. My blade find its mark again, and this time it doesn’t get back up.
"Two down on my side!" I called out.
"Working on mine!" Daniel shouts back, voice tight with effort. His opponent is faster than he expected, circling instead of charging straight in, forcing him to keep turning.
"Stop swinging so wide," I tell him. "Smaller movements."
He adjusts mid-fight, tightening his strikes, and the next one connects clean. The ridgeback drops.
Emily finishes hers a second later, blade sliding free as the body collapses into the dirt.
That leaves one.
It’s hanging back near the treeline.
"It’s not going to rush us," Emily says. "Not after watching four of its pack go down that fast."
"So what, we just wait?" Daniel asks, catching his breath.
"We finished it," Emily says. "Ryan, flank left. I’ll go right. Daniel, hold center and don’t let it slip past you."
We move together. The ridgeback backs up at first, keeping distance, but the forest behind it narrow into thicker brush, cutting off its retreat.
It make the choice fast once it realizes that—breaks for the one gap it has left, straight toward Daniel.
He doesn’t flinch. He sets his feet, waits for the lunge, and times his strike the way I told him to. Small movement. Clean hit.
It goes down before it reaches him.
The clearing goes quiet. Five bodies dissolving into light around us, drops scattering across the dirt where they used to be. Fur. Fangs. A handful of gold coins. Nothing unusual. Nothing glowing.
"Not bad," Emily says, lowering her sword. "That’s twice now you’ve both adjusted mid-fight instead of repeating the same mistake. That’s rare for new players."
"I’m just trying not to die," Daniel says, grinning despite the scrapes along his arm.
"That’s the right instinct." Emily looks at me. "You used a skill back there. First time?"
"How’d it feel?"
I think about it for a second. The way the strike came out faster and harder than my own arm could manage.
"Different. Stronger than anything I could do on my own. But it cost mana, and now I’m on cooldown."
"That’s the tradeoff every skill has," Emily says. "Resource cost, cooldown timer, sometimes a condition you have to meet to use it at all. Higher tier skills cost more and do more. Learning to manage that is half of combat."
Daniel’s already checking his own interface, scrolling through something.
"I don’t even have a skill unlocked yet. Just basic attacks."
"You will. Usually around level five, sometimes earlier if you complete the right quest." Emily starts walking, waving for us to follow. "Quest objective should be close. This clearing wasn’t it—too easy for what the guard was warning us about."
I fall into step behind her, flexing my hand around the sword grip, still turning the fight over in my head. The ridgebacks reacted to us learning.
Adjusted their approach after watching the first two go down. That’s not normal pack-animal behavior, not the kind the wiki described when I read through it at one in the morning.
I don’t say that part out loud.
We push deeper into the trail, past the spot where the fight happened, the ground still faintly scuffed from the struggle.
The forest thickens here, canopy blocking out most of the remaining light, and the quiet presses in harder than before.
"There," Emily says, stopping.
Ahead, the trail opens into a small hollow, and at the center of it is something that doesn’t belong in a beginner forest at all—a monster twice the size of the ridgebacks, hunched low, fur matted dark, eyes catching what little light filters through the trees.
It’s not moving. Just watching us.
"That’s not on any quest brief I’ve seen," Emily says quietly.
I bring up my status window out of habit, hoping for a name, a level, anything the system can tell me about what we’re looking at.
The window opens.
Where a monster’s information should be, there’s only one line.
[UNABLE TO IDENTIFY TARGET.]