By midday, Evelyn had begun to understand just how little she knew about surviving in the wilderness.
She knew that certain berries were poisonous. She knew that untreated water could carry parasites. She knew that hypothermia was dangerous, that exposure could kill, and that people who became lost in forests sometimes walked in circles without realizing it.
None of that knowledge told her where to find lunch.
She stood between two trees, looking at a cluster of small red berries growing beneath a hedge.
They looked edible.
That was the problem.
Plenty of poisonous things looked edible.
Evelyn crouched and examined them.
She had absolutely no idea what they were.
A week ago, that would have been enough reason to leave them alone.
Now, however...
She opened her Status window.
Toxin Resistance Lv. 1
Evelyn stared at the entry.
She'd acquired the Skill by being poisoned to death.
It seemed only fair that she got some use out of it.
"Might as well use it," she muttered.
She picked a single berry, hesitated, then put it into her mouth.
She bit down.
Her face twisted.
"Oh, that's disgusting."
The berry was bitter.
Not pleasantly tart. Not slightly underripe.
Bitter in a way that made her tongue recoil and her stomach threaten immediate rebellion.
She spat it out.
For several seconds, she stood there trying to get the taste out of her mouth.
No System notification appeared.
No sudden increase in resistance.
No reassuring message informing her that the berry was harmless.
Just an absolutely vile taste.
Evelyn stared at the remaining berries.
"Well, that was worth it."
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stood.
She was still hungry.
And now she was hungry with a horrible taste in her mouth.
Wonderful.
She turned away.
The forest had seemed almost peaceful when she'd left the abandoned shed that morning. Birds moved through the branches overhead, sunlight reached the ground in scattered patches, and a light breeze carried the smell of damp leaves.
Now the same trees seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction.
She'd been walking for hours.
Or perhaps only two.
Without a phone or a watch, she had no reliable way of telling.
Her legs ached. Her borrowed boots were too large, and the thick leather rubbed against her heels whenever she walked downhill. She'd tried tightening the laces, but that only made the pressure across the tops of her feet worse.
Her left wrist hurt too.
The burn she'd inflicted while escaping Northstar had darkened overnight. The skin was red and swollen in places, with several angry-looking patches where the leather restraint had been closest to her flesh.
It wasn't getting better.
Not quickly, anyway.
Evelyn turned her wrist carefully.
She could still move her fingers.
That was something.
She'd considered using Ember to sterilize the wound, then dismissed the idea almost immediately.
She'd already burned herself once.
There was no reason to make it worse.
She adjusted her grip on the short spear she'd taken from the dead guard.
The weapon was becoming a nuisance.
At first, carrying it had made her feel marginally safer. It was something she could put between herself and an attacker. Something that might discourage an ordinary person from approaching.
But the longer she carried it, the more obvious its disadvantages became.
It caught on branches. It made climbing over fallen trees difficult. The shaft was awkward to hold while protecting her injured wrist, and she had no idea how to use it properly.
She'd never even held a spear before yesterday.
A kitchen knife, perhaps. A stick.
Not a weapon designed to kill people.
She stopped beside a tree and rested the spear against its trunk.
For a moment, she considered leaving it there.
Then she imagined meeting another adventurer.
Someone with a sword.
Someone who recognized her.
She picked it up again.
The spear might not save her.
But having nothing felt worse.
***
The first sign of civilization was a fence.
Evelyn almost missed it.
A length of weathered wire stretched between wooden posts, partly hidden by nettles and brambles. Beyond it, the forest thinned into a patch of uneven grassland.
She followed the fence for several minutes.
Then she heard something.
A low mechanical rumble.
An engine.
She stopped.
Listened.
It came again, followed by a metallic clatter.
Not a car.
Farm machinery, perhaps.
Her pulse quickened.
People.
Buildings.
Food.
She moved cautiously through the trees until she reached the edge of the woodland.
Below her, a narrow valley opened between two wooded slopes.
A farmhouse stood beside a cluster of outbuildings. There was a gravel drive, a vegetable garden and a large barn with faded red doors.
A tractor was parked near the barn.
Smoke drifted from the farmhouse chimney.
Evelyn stared.
The sight was so ordinary that it almost hurt.
Someone lived there.
Someone who had a kitchen, a bed and probably a refrigerator full of things they didn't have to think twice about eating.
Her stomach tightened.
She looked down at herself.
An oversized navy shirt. Grey trousers. Black boots that didn't fit. Dirt on her clothes, scratches along her arms and a burn on her wrist.
And a spear.
She looked like someone who'd escaped from a particularly unpleasant dungeon.
Which, she supposed, wasn't entirely inaccurate.
Evelyn crouched behind a low bush.
She needed to think.
Walking up to the front door and asking for help would have been the obvious choice a week ago.
Perhaps even two days ago.
Now?
Her name was attached to a reward worth more than most people would earn in their entire lives.
She didn't know whether the farmer watched the news.
She didn't know whether he had Identification.
She didn't know whether he might recognize her face from the photographs circulating online.
And she couldn't afford to find out.
She studied the buildings.
The farmhouse stood closest to the road. The barn was farther back, beside a smaller stone structure with a sloping roof.
A narrow path ran between them.
Near the smaller building, several plastic crates had been stacked against a wall.
Evelyn couldn't tell what was inside.
But there was a possibility.
Vegetables.
Fruit.
Something edible.
She swallowed.
She was seriously considering stealing food from a stranger.
The thought made her uncomfortable.
Not because she imagined herself morally superior to thieves.
She'd simply never stolen anything more significant than a pen she forgot to return.
And now she was crouching in a bush, studying somebody's property and wondering how much food she could take without being noticed.
She looked toward the farmhouse.
No movement.
A curtain stirred in an upstairs window.
She ducked lower.
You could ask.
She knew that.
She could knock.
Explain that she was lost.
Say she'd been attacked.
Most people would help someone in her condition.
Wouldn't they?
Evelyn remembered Catherine Reed offering her food.
A bed.
Safety.
Then ordering someone to poison her.
She remembered Daniel telling her everything would be all right.
Then pushing a knife into her chest.
Her hand tightened around the spear.
She wasn't ready to trust another stranger.
Not yet.
She waited until the distant engine noise faded.
Then she climbed over the fence.
***
Crossing the field took longer than she'd expected.
The grass was uneven, and the ground was soft in places. Twice, her oversized boots nearly came off when she stepped into patches of mud.
She kept low whenever possible, moving from one patch of cover to another.
It was ridiculous.
She knew it was ridiculous.
She wasn't infiltrating a military installation.
She was sneaking toward a farmhouse because she wanted something to eat.
But the knowledge didn't make her less afraid.
Every sound made her stop.
A bird taking flight.
The distant clatter of machinery.
The creak of a wooden gate shifting in the breeze.
She reached the back of the smaller stone building and pressed herself against the wall.
From there, she could see the crates.
Three of them.
One empty.
One filled with what looked like gardening tools.
The third—
Apples.
Evelyn stared.
Several red and green apples lay inside a plastic crate, some bruised, others apparently fine.
Her mouth watered.
She hadn't eaten a proper meal since before Northstar had taken her.
She'd been given food during her captivity, but the tests, sedation and subsequent escape had left her with no clear sense of how much time had passed.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten until she was full.
An apple wasn't much.
But it was something.
She glanced toward the farmhouse.
Still no movement.
The barn doors were closed.
She edged along the wall.
Her heart was beating hard enough that she could feel it in her throat.
Ten steps.
Five.
She was almost there.
Then the spear caught against the corner of the building.
Evelyn felt the shaft jerk backward.
She turned instinctively, trying to free it.
Pain flashed through her burned wrist.
Her grip loosened.
The spear slipped.
She lunged for it.
Too late.
The metal-capped butt struck the stone paving.
CLANG.
Evelyn froze.
A door slammed open.
"OI! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"
She spun around.
An elderly man stood in the farmhouse doorway, wearing muddy boots and a thick work jacket. His grey hair was untidy, and his face had already turned red with anger. Read the latest chapters at novelping dot com.
His eyes went from Evelyn to the crate of apples.
Then to the spear in her hands.
"GET OFF MY PROPERTY!"
Evelyn stumbled backward.
"I—I'm sorry—"
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING SNEAKING AROUND MY FARM?"
He stepped outside.
Evelyn's mouth went dry.
"I just—"
"GET OUT!"
The farmer reached toward a pile of equipment beside the doorway and grabbed a thick wooden handle.
Evelyn flinched.
He raised it, pointing it toward her.
"YOU HEAR ME? GET THE HELL OUT!"
"Please, I just need something to eat—"
"I DON'T GIVE A DAMN! GET OFF MY LAND!"
He advanced a few steps, swinging the wooden handle sharply through the air.
Not at her.
But close enough that Evelyn recoiled.
"GO ON! GET!"
Something cold seized her chest.
For an instant, she wasn't standing beside a farmhouse anymore.
She remembered Daniel stepping toward her.
Catherine ordering the guards to restrain her.
The moment just before someone hurt her, when she still had enough time to understand what was coming but not enough to prevent it.
The farmer raised the handle again.
"I SAID GET OUT!"
Evelyn's fingers opened.
The spear clattered onto the stones.
She turned and ran.
"AND DON'T COME BACK!" the farmer shouted after her.
She didn't look back.
She scrambled across the yard, nearly lost a boot in the mud, and stumbled toward the fence.
Behind her, the farmer was still shouting.
She couldn't make out the words.
She didn't care.
She hauled herself over the fence, caught her trousers on the wire, tore them free and plunged into the trees.
Only when the farmhouse had disappeared behind her did she realize she was crying.
***
Branches struck her face as she stumbled deeper into the woodland.
She didn't stop.
Not when her boots slipped.
Not when her injured wrist caught against a thorny branch.
Not when her lungs began to burn.
She kept running until the trees had closed around her completely.
Then she tripped over a root.
She hit the ground hard.
For several seconds, she lay there, gasping.
Her heart hammered against her ribs.
Her hands shook.
She pushed herself onto her knees.
Listened.
Nothing.
No footsteps.
No shouting.
No pursuit.
The farmer hadn't followed her.
Of course he hadn't.
He'd wanted her gone.
And she'd gone.
Evelyn sat back against a tree.
Her breathing gradually slowed.
She stared at the ground.
Then she looked at her empty hands.
The spear.
She'd dropped it.
She'd left it behind.
For a moment, she couldn't quite believe what she'd done.
The only weapon she possessed.
Gone.
She'd carried it through the forest for hours, struggled with it over fallen trees, and worried about losing it.
Then an old man had shouted at her.
And she'd thrown it away.
Evelyn pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.
She felt sick.
Not just from hunger.
From humiliation.
She'd escaped Northstar.
She'd survived Idris Al-Nasir.
She'd died five times.
And a farmer had frightened her so badly that she'd abandoned her weapon and fled.
The comparison was unfair.
She knew that.
Those earlier encounters hadn't made her brave.
They'd simply left her with no choice.
She'd run from Idris too.
She'd screamed during the tests.
She'd begged Catherine to stop.
She'd never been particularly courageous.
She'd just been unfortunate enough to keep surviving things that should have killed her.
Evelyn lowered her hands.
Her eyes stung.
She was tired of crying.
Her stomach cramped again.
She hadn't even managed to take an apple.
Not one.
She looked back through the trees.
The farmhouse was somewhere beyond them.
She could return.
Wait until the man went inside.
Retrieve the spear.
Perhaps even take some food.
The thought made her pulse quicken.
What if he was waiting?
What if he had a weapon?
What if he'd called someone?
Evelyn stood abruptly.
No. She wasn't going back.
The spear could stay there.
She'd never been trained to use it anyway.
It hadn't helped her.
If anything, it had made the situation worse.
She wiped dirt from her trousers and started walking.
Slowly this time.
Her hands were still shaking.
***
It took another twenty minutes before the fear began changing into something else.
Suspicion.
Evelyn stopped beside a narrow stream.
She crouched, splashed water over her face and stared at her reflection.
Dark hair, tangled and dirty.
Pale skin.
Tired eyes.
She barely looked like herself.
But perhaps that wasn't enough.
The farmer had been angry.
Very angry.
What if he'd recognized her?
What if he'd seen her photograph on the news?
What if he'd been trying to frighten her into running so he could follow her?
Evelyn looked back over her shoulder.
Nothing.
The forest was quiet.
She forced herself to think.
If the man had recognized her, why hadn't he tried to capture her?
Why hadn't he used a Skill?
Why hadn't he shouted her name?
He'd called her a thief.
He'd told her to leave.
He hadn't seemed interested in anything except getting an armed trespasser off his property.
That was the reasonable explanation.
The obvious explanation.
But reasonable explanations hadn't protected her lately.
She remembered Daniel's face.
His expression when he'd realized she was alive again.
The excitement beneath his concern.
She remembered Catherine smiling at her across a table.
Offering reassurance.
Making promises.
Evelyn rubbed her face.
She couldn't keep doing this.
She couldn't spend the rest of her life assuming every stranger was about to murder her.
Except—
They had a reason to.
A very good reason.
One hundred thousand gold.
Legendary equipment.
An additional reward nobody understood.
She stared at the water.
Her face was everywhere.
News reports.
Photographs.
Probably videos from university.
Someone had undoubtedly found her old social media accounts.
She hadn't exactly been careful about privacy before.
Why would she have been?
She'd been an ordinary student.
She'd never expected the entire world to start hunting her.
Evelyn touched her hair.
Dark brown.
Almost black in certain light.
Long enough to reach past her shoulders.
She'd worn it that way for years.
A thought occurred to her.
She could change it.
Not just tie it back or hide it beneath a cap.
Actually change it.
Cut it.
Dye it.
Blonde, perhaps.
Something completely different.
She pictured herself with light hair.
It was difficult.
She'd never been blonde.
Her mother had once joked that Evelyn inherited her father's stubbornness and her grandmother's dark hair.
She'd always liked it.
But liking her hair wasn't a good enough reason to keep it if changing it might help her survive.
She looked down at the water again.
Blonde.
A different style.
Ordinary clothes.
Shoes that actually fit.
Without the oversized boots and the stolen shirt, she might look like any other young woman walking down the street.
Perhaps someone would glance at her and keep walking.
Perhaps she'd stop flinching whenever she heard footsteps behind her.
The thought was almost painfully appealing.
Not because she believed a bottle of hair dye could solve everything. Enjoying the story?
It couldn't.
But she wanted to do something.
Make a decision.
Change something about her circumstances that wasn't dictated by the World Quest, a guild master or someone holding a weapon.
Her hair was hers.
At least that much still belonged to her.
Evelyn straightened.
She needed a shop.
A pharmacy, perhaps.
A supermarket.
Somewhere that sold hair dye.
She'd also need scissors.
And food.
And money.
That last part was going to be a problem.
She had no wallet.
No bank card.
No phone.
No cash.
Everything she'd owned was either lost, destroyed or sitting in a Northstar facility.
She could hardly walk into a shop and explain that she intended to pay later.
She could try begging.
She could try stealing again.
Neither option appealed to her.
But hunger was becoming difficult to ignore.
Evelyn looked toward the trees.
Somewhere beyond them, there had to be a road.
And roads led to towns.
She stood, adjusted her uncomfortable boots and began walking again.
***
The forest gradually changed.
The trees grew farther apart.
The ground became less uneven, and patches of grass replaced the thick undergrowth.
Evelyn found a narrow track.
It was little more than two muddy ruts running between the trees, but there were tyre marks.
Recent ones.
She followed them.
The track curved uphill.
Her legs protested.
She kept going.
At one point, she stopped to catch her breath and looked back.
The forest stretched behind her.
Somewhere in there was the abandoned shed where she'd spent the night.
Somewhere beyond that lay the ruined Northstar facility.
And somewhere much farther away was Manchester.
Home.
She wondered what Lucy was doing.
Whether her parents were safe.
Whether Oliver was frightened.
Whether they'd managed to get away from the adventurers surrounding their house.
She wanted to call them.
The desire came so suddenly that it hurt.
Just one phone call.
A few minutes.
She didn't even need to tell them where she was.
She wanted to hear Lucy complain about something ordinary.
She wanted her mother to tell her to eat properly.
She wanted her father to ask whether she needed money.
The thought nearly made her laugh.
Money.
Yes.
She could certainly use some of that.
But the amusement vanished almost immediately.
Her family had already been hurt because of her.
Calling them might expose them again.
And she didn't even have a phone.
Evelyn continued uphill.
The track grew steeper.
Her boots slipped on loose stones.
She caught herself against a tree, wincing as pain shot through her wrist.
For a moment, she stood there, breathing hard.
She was so tired.
Not the kind of tired that a good night's sleep could fix.
Something deeper.
Her body had been rebuilt five times.
Her wounds had vanished after each death.
But the memories hadn't.
She still remembered Daniel's knife.
The fire.
The poison.
The electricity.
Catherine's expression when Evelyn begged her to stop.
She remembered all of it.
Every sensation.
Every moment of helplessness.
She wondered whether that would ever change.
Whether she'd eventually become accustomed to dying.
The thought frightened her more than she wanted to admit.
She didn't want death to become ordinary.
She didn't want to stop caring.
She didn't want to become someone who could suffer something terrible and simply shrug afterward.
But she was beginning to understand that surviving wasn't the same as recovering.
Her body could return to life.
The rest of her was considerably less cooperative.
She closed her eyes.
Breathed.
Then pushed herself away from the tree.
One step.
Another.
She kept walking.
***
The track ended near the top of a hill.
Evelyn emerged from the trees and stopped.
Below her lay a village.
A real village.
Not a single farmhouse or a collection of abandoned buildings.
There were houses clustered around a narrow main road, a church with a square stone tower and several shops lining what appeared to be a small high street.
A few cars moved through the village.
People walked along the pavements.
Someone was pushing a pram.
Evelyn stared.
She'd found civilization.
Actual civilization.
She could see a small supermarket near the centre.
A pharmacy sign farther along the road.
There was even a clothing shop, though she couldn't tell whether it sold anything suitable from this distance.
Food.
Clothes.
Hair dye.
Everything she'd been thinking about for the past several hours.
All of it was down there.
She almost smiled.
Then she remembered the problem.
Money.
And the other problem.
Her face.
And the much larger problem.
The entire world wanted her dead.
Evelyn looked at the village again.
People were going about their lives.
Nobody appeared to be searching the streets with weapons.
There were no guild banners.
No armed checkpoints.
No obvious adventurers.
Perhaps she could simply walk in.
Keep her head down.
Find somewhere to hide.
Work out what to do next.
She adjusted the collar of her borrowed shirt.
Her hair was a mess.
Her trousers were dirty.
And the boots were far too large.
She'd attract attention.
But perhaps not the right kind.
Or the wrong kind.
She wasn't sure which distinction mattered anymore.
She followed the track downhill.
It joined a narrow road bordered by hedges.
The road curved toward the village, passing several detached houses and a small field where sheep grazed behind a wooden fence.
Evelyn kept close to the hedge.
Every time a car approached, she lowered her head.
Most drivers didn't seem to notice her.
One elderly woman slowed briefly, looked at her clothes and continued driving.
Evelyn's heart raced until the car disappeared around the bend.
She was getting closer.
The first houses were only a few hundred metres away.
She could smell something.
Bread.
Fresh bread.
There must have been a bakery nearby.
Her stomach cramped so sharply that she stopped walking.
She pressed a hand against it.
Soon.
She would find something soon.
Somehow.
She straightened and continued along the road.
Then she noticed someone standing ahead.
A man.
He was leaning against a low stone wall near the entrance to the village.
Dark jacket.
Dark trousers.
Hands in his pockets.
At first, Evelyn barely paid attention.
Just another person.
Someone waiting for a bus, perhaps.
Or enjoying the afternoon.
She lowered her gaze and kept walking.
Then the man straightened.
Evelyn looked up.
Her steps slowed.
Something about him was familiar.
The way he stood.
The shape of his shoulders.
The dark hair.
No. Her stomach dropped.
No, that wasn't possible.
She stopped.
The man turned fully toward her.
He wasn't smiling.
Not yet.
But he was looking directly at her.
As though he'd been waiting.
Evelyn couldn't breathe.
Daniel Mercer tilted his head slightly.
"Evie."