Agony and Fruit

Ian slept away the pain, both the physical and the emotional agony. He woke up to a notification from his system.

[HEALTH POINTS NOW AT 98/100]

That was not too bad. He went outside to relieve his friends from their duties.

"Everything all right?" Ian asked his mentor.

"Nothing special has happened. One rhino cobra came to see what was happening, but it was behaving in a threatening manner and I had to shoot it. Sorry. I had no time to wake you up."

"So, Mister Tank is awake as well. Good." Ian watched the huge man crawl out of the tent, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

"It will take a lot more than coffee to get me back on track," the tank muttered. "I slept lightly. Frankly, this sucks."

Ian chuckled, amused by the first impression that the big man willingly gave him.

"Tell me about it. Time to complain to you about my awful taste in women."

They sat down, and Ian had to be careful to avoid hurting his foot.

"You want some?" the tank asked him, offering a bottle full of something that was most likely coffee.

They drank the coffee in less than five minutes.

[HEALTH POINTS NOW AT 84/100]

As they waited for the faint rays of dawn, Ian learned more things about the man he was staying up with.

The tank had a real name. It was Tom. Tom had lost half of his family to the very same krobinnuti general that was the main item on Ian's hitlist.

Ian was a grown man now – he had a hitlist, a broken heart and a gym membership.

Tom was a fun guy, nowhere near as crazy as Kortock, but a pretty bad boy nonetheless, and he seemed to like Ian for simple reasons that anyone could have understood. They were two warriors, and there was no reason for them to be wary of each other.

[IT IS NOW 6:00 IN THE MORNING]

[TIME TO WAKE UP KORTOCK]

[HEALTH POINTS AT 100/100}

"All right!" Kortock yawned, but he did not seem to have any real difficulties getting up this early. Rather, he revealed himself to be a scary morning person.

"We are going to travel through the jungle towards the coastline. There is a sizable possibility that Lilac is going that way. Before we fell asleep, Aiden shared with me some crucial information about the rainforest. I will need Ian to be healthy first, though. Along the way, he can kill any rhino cobras that we come across."

"I am at full health," Ian said. "I guess Lilac did something right."

"She has underestimated us," Kortock said. "There's enough batteries for that flashlight to last us to the coast and back. You will need to be using it a lot. It will tell us who is on our side. I have no idea why the Outcast is on our side as well, but we'll take the blessing."

They started hiking towards the coast. A rare treat, being outdoors with a group of friends, soon turned into an exciting adventure when Ian noticed that the flashlight told them which fruits were edible. As they moved to the untouchable, thick parts of the jungle that had not been damaged by the fire, he found out through trial and error that the lemon-shaped fruits that were hanging low just above their heads tasted much like some divine fruit gummies, courtesy of the humanoids, of course.

[GENERAL CHEMISTRY KEY ACQUIRED]

[WOULD YOU LIKE TO APPLY GENERAL CHEMISTRY KEY?]

[TO APPLY GENERAL CHEMISTRY KEY, USE COMMAND: APPLY GENERAL CHEMISTRY KEY]

"This system stuff is so redundant at times," Ian complained. "But I did just get a general chemistry key. Can you tell me what it is all about, Kortock?"

[RHINO COBRAS SLAIN: 3/10]

[QUEST PROGRESS: 30%]

"And…I got two of them cobras with my bait! This is a great day!" Ian exclaimed.

"Congrats, son," Kortock said and slammed his hand on Ian's shoulder. "I hope the thing with Lilac doesn't bother you too much after some sleep."

"I'll get over it," Ian said.

He had no idea why, but the thing he feared the most was looking at his crypto account balance. He found it easy to harden his heart and think of the girl he had a crush on as an enemy.

"I don't know, I just think of her as a worthy opponent," he told his mentor in hopes of siphoning some great advice out of the bodybuilder's head.

"That's a sign of a future ladies' man," Kortock said. "You keep that up and you'll break many hearts. Not sure if that is a worthy cause, though. If it were me, I would take good care of the hearts of the ladies I meet, with an explosive temper and an even more explosive system."

"Don't listen to him, he is married to his gym equipment," Tom quipped, revealing a surprisingly quick-witted side of himself.

Tanks were supposed to be slow and steady.

"Hey, I think I see a cobra lounging on that rock," Aiden said. "You might want to take a look, Ian, right? You still have seven of them to kill?"

Ian took a look. It was a regular Earth snake, most likely a viper of some sort.

It was illegal to kill vipers this far in the tropical area. They were a lucky animal to the population of 13, and besides, these snakes were mostly harmless, unlike rhino cobras.

Ian felt a strange wistful emotion – he would never know Earth the way it had naturally been. Everything had been tainted. Not even snakes were snakes.

"System, can you take a pic of that snake for me? I want to remember this moment."

[TO TAKE PICTURE OF A VIEW, USE STANDARD CAMERA COMMANDS]

"I never got the memo, though," Ian thought with as much snark as he could possibly manage.

[INTELLIGENCE IS NOW 20]

It might have been so that the stat was lagging a bit, but Ian did genuinely believe that the A.I. of the system learned from their interactions. Perhaps, and this was still unsure, perhaps the system did like him back in a way.