He recognized the voice instantly. His best gaming buddy, Reed, was forcing her way through the crowd, waving one arm and throwing sharp elbows with the other to carve a path for her four-foot-eleven frame.
When she pulled Hydrion into a sudden, spiked-leather embrace, he caught the sharp scent of worn denim and smoke. In that closeness he noticed every detail: the mohawk's platinum spikes crowned with acid-green tips, and on its sides, red-beaded braids dangling past her buzzed temples, the vest bristling with studs that gleamed like tiny embers, and the belts cinched tight with mismatched chains that rattled softly as she moved. To him she looked like a living banner of rebellion, stitched together from shadows, neon, and defiance, and the warmth of her hug only made the contrast sharper—an armored storm with a heartbeat. His daughter.
"Despite how it looks, it's no longer Rome, Reed," he said with a laugh. "You can't go around hailing Hydra with so many people watching. The whole hail-this or hail-that thing got a pretty bad reputation last century."
"Whatever."
He could swear that he heard her eye-roll as she kept her arms wrapped around him for a few more seconds, before she went back to her defiant, guarded self, with arms crossed and staring to the side. His fatherly pride almost consumed him.
"Your eyes are flashin' gold, Dad," she told him off, her tone sharp but playful. "Don't go gettin' too prideful now, or I swear I'll have to pull somethin' dumb and embarrassin' again. An' what's with that robe, huh? You Hydra'd again?"
"Couldn't be helped." He shrugged. "I got called a human."
"They called you a human!?" She gasped, laying on the mock offense thick. "The audacity!"
All around them people were exclaiming, waving, and searching for familiar faces. Some laughed, some cried, and one woman was whacking a guy with her purse for spiking her drink with hallucinogens. The square was chaos, and Hydrion felt that even in his robe he blended in well enough. Especially considering another woman in black leather, whip in hand, was hopping up and down trying to spot someone in the crowd.
"Well Reed, do you think what I think?" Hydrion asked with a grin.
"That depends. Do you think the same thing you think every night, Pop—how to take over the world?" She answered with a smirk. "Way ahead of you."
Before Hydrion could fire back another quip, a ripple of noise cut through the square. It began near the center, where a raised platform had been erected—shouts rose and boots scraped against stone, spreading outward like a wave. One by one, the restless faces turned toward the same point. Reed tilted her chin toward the commotion, and Hydrion followed her gaze.
Several figures now stood upon the platform. The murmurs slowly died as attention fixed on the tallest among them: the familiar white-bearded wizard, his hand lifted in a gesture for silence. The air shimmered faintly around him as his voice, deep and commanding, rolled across the gathered crowd, carried on threads of a spell that made every word echo against the stone walls and into the farthest alleys.
"You all know what was promised," he began, his tone heavy with both weariness and authority. "A world beyond this one, a sanctuary prepared for us." He paused, shaking his head in disappointment. "But the spell has faltered. The gate I helped to open did not lead us there—it cast us instead upon a waystation, a planet adrift between our home and the place we seek."
A murmur rippled through the crowd, though Hydrion didn't see a single mouth move. The wizard raised his staff and the sound died instantly.
"There is no returning to that first world. That path is closed to us forever. But I will not leave you stranded. Behind me, upon the mountain's crown, the soldiers have raised a nexus. From there, I can open another passage, one way as before. We will leap from world to world, step by perilous step, until at last we stand where we were meant to be."
His eyes swept the faces below, hard as iron.
"The military will march with you, shields raised, blades ready. But know this: they cannot carry you. Each of you must endure the road. Each of you must reach the nexus by your own strength. The way will be dangerous, and the time is short. Gather what you can, steel your hearts, and move swiftly. The mountain waits, and beyond it, the next world."
The staff struck the platform once, sending a dull boom through the square.
"Go. Survive. Reach the nexus."
"I didn't vote for you!" someone yelled from the crowd.
At the same time, a window popped up in Hydrion's vision, and judging from the eerie silence that followed, he wasn't the only one to receive a new notification.
[System Notice]
The Cosmos System can no longer delay game start. Fort gates are open and the tutorial officially begins NOW. All remaining players who didn’t enter the portal yet have been notified and are advised to make their way into the game.
Hydrion smirked with superiority.
"Would you look at that," he thought vindictively. "Obviously, I wasn't the last one, not even close. At least not to leave the room we got teleported to. Or enter the city we got teleported in front of. Whatever." He rolled his eyes, getting a curious look from Reed, but continued his internal complaint. "I wasn't last and that's all that matters. I swear those consultants need more training or something. They got no clue what they're talking about."
The next notification that popped up before his eyes made him raise a brow.
[New Quest Received]
Objective: Reach the Nexus
Time Remaining: 74h 34m
Details: Travel with the escort toward the mountain nexus.
The military will defend the path, but survival depends on your own vigilance.
Failure to arrive before the portal closes will leave you stranded on this world.
"All right, all right," Hydrion thought as the wizard moved away, disappearing amid a group of military personnel. "So there's some storyline here besides the Muad'Dib kind of spice-inspired genocide. March to the mountain, don't die, portal's on a timer. Truly, bards will sing of this quest for generations. 'Remember that time we walked uphill because a wizard told us to?' Riveting stuff. And those instructions! The complete lack of useful details must have been Delphi Oracle inspired."
He glanced at Reed, who was already scanning the crowd with the calculating look of someone pricing inventory. "You catch all that, young Padawan?"
"Mountain we must climb, nexus we must reach," she said in perfect Yoda cadence, not looking at him. "Rewards he did not mention. Suspicious, this is."
"That's my girl. Always focused on what matters."
"How do humans survive this!?" Hydrion muttered, scratching furiously at the smelly woolen tunic that itched like a swarm of fleas. He could see the benefits of soft, fragile skin when it came to intimacy, but in every other respect? A complete evolutionary disaster. No hide, no scales, no armor. He said it back in the day, and his opinion hadn't changed since. Oh, what he wouldn't give for a silk shirt.
At least Reed was enterprising. Right after the announcements, she marched up to a squad of NPC soldiers and bargained them right out of their clothes.
"They wanted a beautiful woman to spend time with them, and she wanted their clothes," Hydrion mused. "Everyone got exactly what they asked for—though not necessarily what they wanted."
Reed got what she wanted. The soldiers, on the other hand, were now forced to wear their armor directly against bare skin. He shuddered at the thought. Unfortunately, they'd drawn the line at surrendering their war gear, no matter how persuasive Reed had been. Maybe others will be more accommodating.
Hydrion eyed the last pieces of garment. The scarf was an insult—why would he cover his magnificent neck, even if he only had one at the moment? Still, he tucked it away, just in case. The cloak, though... the cloak he could work with. That, at least, had some dignity.
He was still wrestling with the belt, muttering about human design flaws, when a translucent window blinked into existence right in front of his face.
[System Survey: Grumbling]
Your fellow citizens have expressed concerns regarding the adequacy of rewards offered by the Cosmos System for participation in New World Universe. In order to improve fairness and satisfaction, your input is requested.
Question 1: In your opinion, what would constitute an acceptable reward for winning the game (whether as the strongest faction or the last individual alive)?
[ ]
Question 2: In your opinion, what would constitute an acceptable reward for runner-up participants?
[ ]
Your opinion is very important to us. Please note: responses will be reviewed and could influence future reward structures.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Hydrion muttered, buckling his belt. "Pretty soon we'll be getting system calls about our extended gear warranty."
He jabbed a finger at the empty air. Nothing happened. For a moment he froze, glancing around in embarrassment, but no one was there to notice. With a relieved sigh, he forced himself to focus on the glowing fields of the survey.
A new planet was fine and all, but it wasn't enough. Not for him. The most important thing was making sure that his new planet had magic. If it didn't, he'd jump out of this game the first chance he got. Well, maybe not right away. Maybe he would play a little, but definitely not go the whole way.
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Basic housing structures would be useful too—something to give the chaos shape. And skills—real, transferable skills from the game into whatever came next. Riches, of course, were a given. Even the dragons—blind, arrogant, insufferable as they were—had managed to grasp that much. At least on the matter of hoarding treasure, they'd shown a flicker of sense: being filthy rich was the natural state of greatness.
He focused on what he wanted to communicate, and letters started filling the blank sections, converting thoughts into words.
Question 1: In your opinion, what would constitute an acceptable reward for winning the game (whether as the strongest faction or the last individual alive)?
[Immortality (the real kind, not the respawn kind)]
He paused. Waited. No alarm bells, no system warnings. Emboldened, he continued.
Then his vertebrae cracked getting ready to spill his thoughts.
Oh no.
Was the last cohesive thought before five different minds yanked at the reins simultaneously:
[Actually, scratch that—MEAT. Plenty of tasty meats. Foes to crush beneath our feet—]
*—No, WEALTH, you barbarian. Gold, silver, gems, cryptocurrency, rare metals like platinum and rhodium—*
**—Quiet nights! Longer than these pathetic few-hour naps we're getting—**
***—SPICES! No more of this Dark Ages British bland food nightmare. Exotic substances like painite and taaffeite—***
****—SUGAR THAT DOESN'T MAKE YOU FAT—****
[—Fertile grounds! Variety of vegetation! Trade roads! We can't be waiting around for—]
*—Diamonds, tritium, property deeds, waterfront real estate—*
**—Sleep. Please. Just uninterrupted sleep—**
Hydrion felt himself panting, barely holding the warring impulses in check. His vision blurred as the survey box filled with a chaotic stream of demands, each head hijacking the phantom keyboard mid-sentence.
Then one thought cut through the noise like a blade, unifying them all:
[But ABOVE ALL ELSE: functioning magic. Preferably swamp-based.]
He felt the calming sensation wash over him. His heads were coming back together under one unifying presence. The coherent thoughts returned.
[Because if I'm stuck playing Oregon Trail: Apocalypse Edition just to end up on Magic-Free Earth 3.0, I'm filing complaints. Lots and lots of complaints. I have millennia of practice in whining. Do not test me.]
He was on a roll now, fully synchronized.
[Also: transferable skills, because what's the point of learning to breathe fire if I can't use it during HOA meetings? Property deeds for prime real estate—waterfront preferred, swamp adjacent acceptable. And housing structures, because I'm not living in a cave like a dragon. I have standards.]
Question 2: In your opinion, what would constitute an acceptable reward for runner-up participants?
[Participation trophies]
He snorted—but then felt the tug of different heads on his being, a warning tremor of dissent. Quickly, before they could spiral again, he sent:
[The same as above, just back on Earth instead of the new planet. Fair is fair.]
[PS: My consultant is terrible and I would like to speak to her manager. She wished dragon feces upon me. This is workplace harassment and I'm documenting it for HR.]
[PPS: I better not find out that human resources is discriminating vs swamp borns.]
[PPPS: Think of HR name change.]
"Well, that's that," he said as he mentally closed the window, every head deeply satisfied with itself. Then he wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead and rolled his neck, vertebrae popping back into comfortable alignment. "Hopefully we'll get a survey about our consultants soon."
He added the last comment for the hell of it, expecting Amelia's voice in his head, but there was only silence. Well, besides his own five voices.
Ready to go, he packed his robe and slippers into a sack where he had a spare set of clothes, slung it over his shoulder, and headed out.
As he was making his way back to Reed, he noticed that the far gate has been swung open, and a column of soldiers, followed by carts and more soldiers, started to move out. From their distinctive clothing, Hydrion picked out several dozen players scattered among the gathering, some clinging to the troops while others peeled away the moment they left the fort.
Charging out blindly only to be cut down by some stray monster and lose the entire tutorial made no sense. Neither did going hydra on the spot, as Reed liked to call it when he transformed, and triggering the skill's cooldown just to stomp on some annoying low-level monsters. Sticking with the main column, on the other hand, was not his style, and from the way the soldiers' own leader had spoken, there was no real guarantee of safety there either.
He found himself curious about these soldiers and their mage leader. How strict was their script? How did they view this bunch of peculiar strangers tagging along? But most importantly—what sort of builds did they have, what strategies, what skills? Unfortunately, NPCs rarely shared such details, and he doubted they'd open up to a stranger. His own daughter, at least, was more forthcoming.
They had spoken briefly about their character sheets. He was deeply dismayed that she had chosen the ranged fighting style—the worst style in the universe. Still, at least she hadn't gone with archer, the most boring path imaginable. Standing far away and plinking at targets when you could be up close and personal? The only real use for ranged combat was to drag someone into striking distance—like a breath weapon. Nothing brings enemies closer like a good torrent of acid—either you move in or you move the fuck out. If she had chosen bow and arrows, he would have wondered where he went wrong in raising her. But at least she had taken the arcane path. A little heretical, perhaps, but not anathema.
She rolled her eyes when she heard about him being a healer—most likely out of daughterly jealousy that she hadn't thought of it first—but didn't comment out loud.
"Ready for the goodbyes?" she asked him when he tracked her mohawk through the crowd. "Got things in motion, can't be standin' here all day."
"Oh? What have you done, little one?"
“This or that,” she waved him off, “don’t you go worryin’. We’d have to split up sooner or later anyway, can’t be seen keepin’ your company too much.”
“That’s fine,” he agreed. His daughter brushing him off didn’t faze him—not even here, in this supposed new world. If the NWU really counted as one.
Hydrion knew her well enough to know that she had things in hand and probably several different plans going, and he trusted her completely. If she said that she couldn't be seen with him too much right now, that was how things were, and they would catch up at a different point.
“Whoa now, don’ be runnin’ off jus’ yet.” she scolded him, rolling her eyes to make the point.
"Naturally. Before we go our separate ways, I still need to share something with you: we are in a new season of the game, and doing new, hard-to-pull-off things gives a lot of rewards," Hydrion explained quickly. "So if you have any ideas, smart or dumb, that you think nobody else has thought of or done, now is the time. It gives pretty decent bonuses."
“Oh?” she asked with a raised brow. “What you gone and done this time, oh ancient one?"
"Oh, this or that," he gave her a winning smile.
"Well, how are we gonna find each other, though?" she asked, brows lifted. "Got any bright ideas? I ain't tryin' to search the whole forsaken crowd if I need healin'."
That gave him pause. It was a valid question, and he had an answer to it: he had absolutely no idea.
"You got no idea, do ya?" she asked, skepticism written all over her face. "You were fixin' to leave your barely grown daughter in a strange game, all alone, with no plan how to find her later?"
"No, of course not!" he said defensively, scrambling for any plan. "And don't you play damsel in distress. You hunted alligators with me when you were five."
"Well?"
"Weeeeell," he stretched the word, brainstorming. Literally, there was a raging storm in his mind, and some of his heads—mainly the purplish one—could only contribute by asking for food. "What were you thinking? I wouldn't want to ruin your plans."
She stared at him flatly for several seconds before shaking her head.
"They must've had their hands full with you at that consultation," she sighed. "So, heads or tails?"
"How would a coin flip help with that decision?" Hydrion asked, confused.
"Lawd, how can somebody so dense still got that kinda buoyancy," she huffed. "Ain't but two places we can look for each other—up front at the head of that column headin' to the nexus, or back at the tail."
"Why can't humans just say that? Heads and tails, heads and tails…" Hydrion grumbled. "They don't even have a tail to know what they're talking about."
"Mm-mm. Don't ask me—somethin' off 'bout 'em."
Hydrion gave her a discerning look before he decided.
"Tail. If you're wounded, it will be easiest to keep up with the column there. And even if you're not, chasing the front of the column might be hard in the mountains. Plus," he added, "that's where all the food will be. When are they serving lunch?"
"All right, listen up, people! Form ranks! We need organization here!" A commanding voice cut through the commotion from the direction of the platform where the wizard had made his quest speech.
Hydrion turned toward the sound, eyebrows raised. Near the platform's base, a man in his fifties stood with military bearing, chest out, shoulders squared. Despite wearing civilian clothes—khakis and a polo shirt that had seen better days—everything about his posture screamed authority. His graying hair was cropped short, his jaw tight beneath a permanent scowl, and his eyes swept the crowd like a drill sergeant inspecting recruits.
He wasn’t a first one to start a commotion, trying to gather people, but he was the first one to use the platform for that.
A horde of people still milled about the square, searching for friends or loved ones, chatting with NPC soldiers or cart drivers, and even breaking into impromptu trades as if the place were a bazaar. Not everyone noticed the old man, but many did, turning their heads toward him—some with curiosity, others with exasperation, and still others with hope etched across their faces.
"Mm-hm, this 'bout to be good," Reed grinned. "Think I'll hang 'round a lil' longer for this."
“You’re going to mess with him, aren’t you?” Hydrion asked rhetorically, getting a toothy grin in response. Reed absolutely hated the man.
