Wright hiked for six days straight just to watch the world end.

  Very soon, the Hero would break through the ranks of monsters below and stride into the Demon King’s palace. Once inside, he would strike down the bane of humanity and free all of Parthena from evil.

  At least, that’s what the Parthenan soldiers hoped would happen. They were mostly right, in fact.

  It was what came after that would surprise them.

  Wright lay atop a mossy ledge on the east side of the battlefield. It was warm there, with Thelar’s Sun shining on his back and the dark rocks gently roasting him from below. He fished around in his pocket for some of the dried meat he’d stashed there, then popped it in his mouth. With any luck, it would dissolve by the time the End came. He hated to waste good food.

  The soldiers nearest him battled on despite their obvious weariness. He watched a Gold commander leap an inhuman distance, his blade flashing with Arcana as he sailed over a wave of ghoulish Fearmongers, their claws reaching up to swipe at the potential prey. The Gold landed behind them, spinning to decapitate the monster closest to him before—

  Oof.

  Wright could only watch, slowly chewing his dried meat as the Gold’s body sank into the knee-deep mud with a gnarled weapon protruding from his back. The offending monster wrenched its weapon back before searching for another foe. Wright hadn’t seen anything like it before, and didn’t have a name for it. All he knew was that wherever one of them showed up, death swiftly followed.

  He sighed, picking another soldier to follow. It was a shame that the Gold died so quickly — humanity’s army was mostly made up of Leads, Coppers, and Silvers, so finding such a powerful soldier was a rarity.

  But what Wright really wanted to find was a Quartz.

  The Quartz.

  He felt a spark of adrenaline as the deadline drew nearer. Thelar’s Sun teetered on the border of the Fifth Zone, edging closer to Rhigor’s. The Hero had to make an appearance soon, or else it would be too late.

  Could it be? Maybe I changed something by being here, and now he won’t make it? Maybe the Hero has been claimed by the mud already, his body unknowingly trampled by those fighting in his name.

  Maybe my task is done.

  His wistful thinking was cut short by a figure falling from the sky, plumes of light trailing behind it. The Hero hit the ground in a cascade of stinking mud, though none of it tarnished his grand white cloak. Soldiers rallied to him; their efforts redoubled by the sight of their leader. The tide of the battle wavered as the Hero’s sword gushed with Arcana, splitting monsters into pieces as if dicing an apple-onion. Only the strongest of monsters caused any delay in the Hero’s advance, though they were little more than distractions before his flickering sword.

  Just like that, the Hero charged through the barricaded doors to the Demon King’s palace, and the world came one step closer to its demise.

  Wright rolled onto his back, holding up an elbow to shield his eyes from the suns. He scratched some moss from the rock, rolling it into two balls and shoving them in his ears. It wasn’t perfect, but the cacophonous battle became a bit easier to handle.

  How will I ever defeat him? He appears for all of three minutes, eluding me as if he knows that I have it out for him.

  He laughed at himself. If the day ever came that a Quartz-rank like the Hero felt threatened by a Tin like Wright, then he would know that the world had already ended and his Endless Dream had begun.

  The seconds ticked along. Thelar and Rhigor were so close that a flea would’ve had to hold his breath to squeeze between the two suns. Wright scrambled to his feet, raising his arms to the sky and gathering a lungful of air.

  This was his favourite part.

  Somewhere in the palace, the Hero and the Demon King fought. The walls of the palace trembled, debris falling from the parapets as their battle shook the earth. Both had the survival of their species at risk, and for that reason they could hold nothing back. Despite everything, however, the Hero’s sword would find its way to the enemy’s cold, black heart.

  Poor guy, Wright thought. He never even had a chance.

  The Release came right on cue, and Wright let out all his breath in a long scream of exaltation. In his mind, he began counting.

  One.

  The monsters froze, as if stunned.

  Two.

  The lower-ranked soldiers felt the invisible Weight lift from their shoulders as the Release washed over them.

  Three.

  Those soldiers still in their battle-craze continued to cleave apart their enemies, until suddenly realising that their blades met no resistance.

  Four.

  The Corrupted Fields fell silent, save for the strange young man to the east whose eerie scream rang out across the battlefield.

  Five.

  Across the Fields, the surviving monster army turned towards the palace and slumped to their knees, heads bowed.

  Six.

  A pillar of blue flame erupted from the palace, immediately radiating outwards in a wall of fire so hot that the mud dried around the soldier’s feet like cement boots. The End would reach Wright’s village fourteen seconds later, covering the distance of his six-day hike in moments and claiming the lives of his entire family.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Wright, however, was the victor.

  He beat them to it by thirteen and a half seconds.

  *******

  His bed was warm. The straw was comfortable. If he didn’t have to eat or drink or piss, he’d probably stay there forever. He loved his bed.

  Unfortunately, the massive brown lugrat scurrying up his leg felt the exact same way.

  “Pulrag’s bastard!” Wright yelled, shimmying out from under his blanket and rolling onto the cold wooden floor. He jumped to his feet, swiping at his leg and dancing about. Luckily, the lugrat had remained in his bed. There was a tiny lump under his blanket, zipping about for a few seconds and then remaining ominously still. He hated that about lugrats. It seemed like even they didn’t know what they would do next, and their unpredictable nature freaked him out.

  Also, the venom part didn’t help. He’d been bitten by one as a boy, and although not life-threatening, for three days he couldn’t go anywhere if it was more than two minutes to the closest latrine.

  He got dressed, keeping an eye on the lugrat’s inert form. He had half a mind to go over there and thump it a few times.

  “Nope,” he murmured to himself. “Got that out of my system the first time around.”

  A voice pinged in his mind.

  {You summoned me?}

  Wright sighed. “No. I said system, not Sis-Tem.”

  {You are aware that my name is not Sis-Tem, correct?}

  Wright ignored the voice. Perhaps he’d gone mad, or perhaps it was real. Either way, he’d learned through experience that talking to Sis-Tem only encouraged it. And that voice could talk for hours. He’d wasted two days of his first Reset trying to coax information out of it.

  Instead, he exited the small bedroom that he shared with his two brothers, then traipsed into the communal area. Inside, the boys wrestled on the floorboards, grunting and warbling at each other. His mother, Therma, knelt at a low bench, slicing onion-apples.

  Always onion-apples.

  “Morning all,” he said, crashing onto a worn-out cushion. “Lovely day for harvesting, isn’t it?”

  “Always,” Therma murmured, not looking up. “It is always a lovely day for harvesting, Wright. You know that.”

  Wright nodded, waiting for her to shove the mound of onion-apples into the pot of boiling water next to her. The fruit needed a good boil or steam before it became appetising, though after twenty years of having it for breakfast, he could barely taste anything when he ate them. It was like his tongue had become so used to the mushy, sweet flavour that it didn’t bother tasting it anymore.

  The fruit went into the water, then he counted to four. Once finished, he spun around on his cushion, hand outstretched ready to catch—

  The onion-apple that smacked him right in the nose.

  Too slow. Half a breath earlier, next time.

  “Why, Reggie?” he yelled, rubbing his nose and blinking away unwanted tears. “Why are you like this?!”

  His little brother — the more annoying one — cackled, loading another onion-apple into his hand, ready to throw. “You looked like you needed waking up! I was just trying to help my big bro!”

  Wright shook his head. “You throw another at me and you’ll be carrying the tall ladder today, you hear me? Actually, you’ll be carrying both ladders. Pol and I will get to do all the climbing.”

  “You’re too fat for the high branches,” Reggie argued.

  “I wish I was fat, Reggie. Then I would sit on you whenever I want you to be quiet. Which is all the time.” Wright waved him away. “Go annoy your brother. He’s too quiet over there.”

  Reggie turned, a smile growing on his lips as he trained in on his next target, Pol. Wright watched them tussle for a moment, chewing his lip.

  Do they come looking for me when I disappear? he wondered. How quickly do they accept that I’m gone?

  He imagined his brothers going out to harvest, each carrying their own ladder. Pol would struggle with the heavier one, tiring himself out before he’d even started picking. When Wright disappeared, did they even bother harvesting at all? Did they spend the whole week searching for him? He hoped not.

  The aroma of cooked onion-apples wafted through the room as Therma served up the first batch of breakfast. Wright dug in, trying to get the task over and done with as soon as possible, for multiple reasons. He had plans for this Reset — plans that would demand all the time available to him.

  Plans that would bring him one step closer to his goal.

  Sis-Tem’s goal, he reminded himself. And the poor thing chose the least capable person in Parthena to help him achieve it.

  For some reason, the voice remained after each Reset, silently accompanying him through the same week, again and again. It didn’t complain about his lack of skill, mental fortitude, or Rank. It was just there, simmering away at the back of his mind and throwing out the occasional sarcastic remark.

  Oh, and it tracked his Levels. Not that there were many to track.

  Wright rose from the cushion, taking his plate outside to flick the chewy, bitter seeds to the two rockchickens by the front step. He didn’t like talking to Sis-Tem around his family. He didn’t want them to think he was going mad, even if they’d forget about it in a week.

  “Alright, spit it out,” he said. “How’d I go last Reset?”

  {You performed well. For a Tin, of course.}

  “Thanks. Any Levels?”

  There was a pause, as if Sis-Tem was flipping through a ledger, counting up Wright’s progress.

  {Two Levels in Endurance, and one in Speed. You should notice minor improvements in your stamina and agility, especially while running or walking.}

  Wright considered his progression, trying to decide if he was happy with it. At his feet, the rockchickens inched toward the onion-apple seeds. Their rotund, hard heads were nearly too heavy for their necks, so they couldn’t be too hasty in their quest for food. They probably wouldn’t move much more for the rest of the day.

  The chickens would be proud of me, he decided. And it’s good to know that I’m advancing. Maybe I’m getting close to Lead.

  {You are approximately three percent of the way to acquiring the Lead rank.}

  Wright ignored Sis-Tem — he had better things to do than listen to a liar. Instead, he strode out onto the thin path that his family’s boots had worn in the dirt over countless years. It went in two directions, and two directions only. One went north-east, to Ghari Village’s market district. The other led west, where roughly fifteen-thousand onion-apple trees dominated the landscape — a thirty-foot tall tsunami of leaves and fruit.

  He followed the path into the village. This was the quickest way to the main roads that the traders and merchants used to come to Ghari. The roads never became overgrown, as the onion-apple trees grew year-round, meaning that there was always a product to be bought or sold, and carriages zipping by to carry it. In fact, Ghari was something of a merchant hub for surrounding villages, as it allowed the city traders and military stockmen to access multiple wares in the same place.

  Perhaps the fact that the military liked to feed onion-apples to their packbeasts said something about Wright’s diet.

  Once he arrived on the outskirts of the village, he picked the trade route that seemed to stretch closest to the horizon. He could see trading caravans in the distance, gently meandering their way toward Ghari for the morning market. It would be easy to stay here, to turn around and go back home. He could place a ladder on each shoulder, maybe yell at Reggie and Pol to get their asses to the Orchard. It would take three hours to pick one of the trees, then they could reward themselves by sharing one of Melville’s pastries at his stall.

  It would be easy. So much easier than chasing this ridiculous quest Sis-Tem had granted him. How was he supposed to reach the heights that the Hero had crested? Most soldiers spent decades honing their skills, only to reach Silver or Gold if they were lucky.

  To reach Quartz could take centuries, perhaps millennia!

  Wright steadied himself, adjusting his shoes and taking a deep breath. Centuries were nothing. For him, millennia were nothing.

  He could do this.

  All he had to do was start running.