I walked slowly but deliberately after the tracks.

  It really was not that hard. The man had been leading the animal I thought was a cow, and cows were not exactly known for subtlety. Deep hoof marks. Scuffed earth. Broken branches where something wide had brushed past. Even without trying, my eyes kept catching the trail. It was obvious that I could have followed it half asleep.

  Also, after following the tracks, I was pretty sure the person was a man. The footprints were quite large, and the stride was longer than my own. Even though I was not a tracker it just more like a man's walk to me.

  That, or it was a scary warrior woman and my bias was showing.

  The forest continued to look the same as it had since I left the corpse piles behind. Tall trees. Open ground. Too much visibility and not enough movement. The only real change I noticed after about an hour was that the trail had started to slope downward. Not steep. Just enough that I felt it in my legs once I paid attention.

  The quiet was still there. Thick and unnatural. Probably the result of the matriarch and her daughters clearing out everything that moved and stacking the remains like trash. Weirdly, knowing that made it easier to deal with. Silence with a reason felt better than silence without one. It took some of the tension out of my shoulders. At least I was not waiting for something unknown to jump me.

  After about three hours of following the tracks, I started to worry.

  I had been moving for a long time. I kept seeing signs that I was close. Freshly snapped twigs. Leaves crushed into the dirt. Cow pies that had not fully dried yet. But I still had not caught up to them. Either they were moving faster than I thought, or they were much farther ahead than I liked.

  At least the trail kept going downhill. That helped. It felt like a game trail. Narrow. Worn. Bushes pushed aside just enough to make walking easier. It zigged and zagged the way animal paths always do, never straight for long. At one point, it even ran alongside a stream. I could see where both the man and the animal had stopped to drink.

  I stopped there too.

  There I rested for a bit and refilled my battered metal water bottle. I drank without thinking too hard about it. At this point, I was oddly unconcerned about water quality. I had already drunk from stranger sources, and nothing bad had happened yet. No cramps. No sickness.

  I realized I was not actually thirsty either. I drank anyway. More out of habit than need. Staying hydrated mattered when hiking like this. Still, it clicked that the magical berry had done exactly what it claimed. Hunger gone. Thirst gone. Just handled.

  As I started walking again, my brain picked at that. The ability said the berry satisfied hunger and thirst for the day. But what did that actually mean? Was it compressing calories and water into something magical and dumping it into my system? Was it released over time? If so, when I ate the second one, did all of that stack at once and trigger my body to revolt?

  I shuddered at the memory of the amount of vomit that came out of me at that second berry.

  Anyways, magic was involved obviously. But there had to be a line somewhere. A cutoff where reality gave up and the system stepped in. I just had no idea where that line was.

  I had been going downhill for a while now. Long enough that it reminded me of hiking down the Rockies, where it feels like the descent never really ends. Step after step, always expecting the terrain to change, and it just…does not.

  Honestly, after three hours of steady downhill I should have noticed something different. Warmer air. Thicker humidity. Some sign that I was dropping into a lower elevation zone.

  But everything stayed the same. Same temperature. Same breeze. Same light filtering through the trees. If anything, it felt like the forest was locked in place. Another nice, calm, sunny day that refused to change no matter how far I walked.

  Thankfully, I could no longer smell the corpses.

  At least, I thought I could not. For the first couple of hours after leaving the piles behind, it felt like the stink followed me. Clung to the back of my throat. Sat in my sinuses. I could not tell if it was actually still there or if my brain was just replaying it. Part of me worried it had soaked into my clothes and I had just gone nose blind to it.

  While I walked, I worked out a loose plan if and when I caught up to the duo.

  Ideally, I would catch up to the man and his herd animal when they stopped to rest. I would approach slowly. Hands up. Open stance. Say I came in peace. Back at the corpse lake, I had somehow been able to understand everyone, and I was running on the assumption that language worked the same way out here. If I got bad vibes or if they reacted aggressively, I would turn around and go back the way I came.

  I was also assuming they did not want to be anywhere near the corpse piles. That alone might buy me some safety if things went wrong. As far as I could guess, the man had probably come out this way to rescue his animal, not because he wanted to be anywhere near that mess.

  Somewhere in the middle of that planning, it hit me that I had been teleported to a fantasy world and had spent most of my time so far just walking through forests.

  I let out a short laugh. J.R.R. Tolkien had been uncomfortably accurate.

  That laugh died the moment I heard something else.

  I had been listening constantly as I walked. Straining for any sign of life. All I had heard for hours was wind through leaves, the occasional insect, and the sound of the stream earlier. This was different. Sharp. Wood hitting wood. A hard sound that carried farther than it should have in the direction I was walking.

  I slowed and listened again, focusing my magic-sound-hearing in that direction. Yelling. More impacts. Distant, but clear enough.

  That sounded like fighting.

  Yeah. That came with mixed feelings.

  My first instinct was to rush toward it. I actually leaned forward before catching myself. Running toward a fight was a terrible idea. I had no idea what was happening, who was involved, or whether charging in would just get me killed faster.

  Jumping blindly into violence was a great way to make my survival problem much worse.

  Crap.

  Even if it seemed like I could survive in the woods for a while, that did not mean I wanted to. Sure, I could probably find a cave somewhere and hole up. Eat my magical berries. See how long I could exist without an actual toilet. But the thought of that made my stomach turn. I did not want that to be my plan.

  I also had no idea where I was or what the situation was. The fact that there were wandering, stabby, angry people out here made it feel important to get some context fast. Was I near a town? A road? Were there gangs? Monsters that came out at night and bit fingers off while you slept?

  That last one felt oddly specific, which probably meant my brain was spiraling.

  Under all of it, I knew the real problem. I was lonely. And scared. Deep down, bone-tired scared. The kind that settles in when you have been alone too long with nothing but your own thoughts and too many close calls. It was the same feeling that almost made me chase after the gang at the lake before they started killing each other.

  That urge to just be near people, even if it was a bad idea.

  “Okay,” I muttered. “Do this smart.”

  I was not going to rush toward the sound, but I was not going to turn away either. I would move carefully. Scout. Figure out what was happening and decide from there.

  Worst case, I ran back toward the corpse piles.

  I had the broken spear in one hand. I reached into my pack with the other hand and pulled out the dagger. The one I had accidentally given a magical mouth to.

  It stayed quiet. No biting. No tongue. Just a knife again. That helped more than it should have.

  With that, I started moving toward the noise. Slowly, trying not to snap branches or rush my steps.

  It did not take long. After about five minutes of walking, the sounds grew louder and clearer. Yelling. A lot of it. Sharp, rhythmic impacts mixed with angry shouts. It almost sounded like chanting at times, then broke apart into chaos again.

  I crested a small hill and immediately dropped into a crouch. The sound hit much harder up here. I eased forward, keeping low, peering over the rise.

  Below me was a mess of movement.

  I would have guessed thirty or forty child-sized figures circling a man and a buffalo. The creatures were maybe three and a half feet tall. Bald. Gray-skinned. Wearing ragged scraps of leather that barely covered their genitals. Male and female in about equal numbers, though the females made no effort to cover their chests at all. They carried clubs and crude stone axes, waving them as they darted in and out.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Then there were the ears.

  Ridiculous did not even begin to cover it. It looked like someone had taken giant fruit bat ears and glued them onto the sides of their heads. They stuck out so far that some of them were wider ear to ear than they were shoulder to shoulder.

  I focused on one of the creatures at the edge of the group.

  [Goblin] {Level 18}

  A quick scan of the others showed similar results. Most hovered around that range. The highest I saw was level 22. The lowest was 11.

  The man had a thick black beard that hung down his chest and a build that could only be described as excessive. He was just under seven feet tall and packed with muscle in a way that looked earned, not decorative. Broad shoulders. Thick arms. The kind of frame that made armor optional.

  He wore what looked like homemade clothes. A rough linen shirt. Tan overalls. Heavy brown boots that were laced in a strange looping pattern, the cord wrapped around the boot several times before being knotted tight. Practical. Sturdy. Nothing wasted. He wielded a silver colored sword, and the way he held it told me everything I needed to know. Balanced. Relaxed. Ready.

  As he shifted his stance to keep himself between the creatures and the beast, his body language was calm and controlled. No panic. No wasted motion yet somehow energized. He knew exactly where every goblin was and how far they could reach.

  Honestly, his presence gave off strong Kool-Aid Man energy. Like he could crash through a brick wall and then have the wall apologize to him afterward.

  When I focused on him, text appeared above his head.

  [Warrior] {Level 53}

  Yeah. That checked out.

  Behind him was the four-legged animal he was protecting. At first glance, it looked like a buffalo, though slimmer, with less of a hump. Its hide was a lighter tan than those I remembered from the Midwest. The horns curled forward like a ram’s, thick and heavy. A leather harness wrapped around its body, with a lead dragging loose behind it as it shifted and stamped.

  I focused on it next.

  [Bison - Domesticated] {Level 43}

  As I watched, it became clear what was happening. The warrior was shielding the animal from the goblins. They circled constantly, hopping in and out, testing him. Whenever he committed to one side, another goblin would dart toward the animal, forcing him to disengage and respond. It was coordinated harassment. Annoying. Dangerous.

  When he struck, his sword flared faintly with light. Each swing was sharp and decisive. No flourishes. Just clean violence.

  Even with his attacks, he wasn’t doing any damage. More just chasing the creatures away.

  From my vantage point, I could see that the bison was already hurt. Cuts scored its sides. Blood darkened its fur. The warrior kept attacking, but there was a tightness to his movements now. The kind you see when someone has been fighting too long. I spotted several goblin bodies off to the side. He had already been at this for a while.

  If it kept going, it was only a matter of time. I tightened my grip on the dagger, my knuckles whitening.

  I had no idea what the relationship was between the goblins and the man. No idea who started it or why. But every instinct I had said the goblins were the problem, and this might be the first chance to get in with someone not trying to kill me. And that if I walked away and left him to it, I would regret it.

  The problem was that I had no idea how to help.

  All I had was a creepy mouth dagger and half a spear. Even if I was technically higher level than some of the goblins, they had numbers. And while my stats were better than when I first arrived, that did not make me immortal. One good hit from a stone axe would end me just as dead as before.

  I stood there, watching, trying to decide if stepping in would save a life or just add another body to the pile.

  I forced myself to think quickly.

  What were my options here? I could disengage and leave this man and his bison to their fate. Walk away and tell myself it was not my problem. I could rush in with my weapons, which I barely knew how to use, and probably get myself killed right next to a stranger who never asked for my help. I could throw magical berries at the goblins, which would accomplish absolutely nothing except announce my presence before they turned and attacked me instead.

  None of those felt useful.

  If I actually wanted to help, I needed to change the situation without putting myself directly in the kill zone. That meant distraction. Which meant sound stuff.

  My sound mojo was limited. I could break rocks if I took my time. I could make fish dizzy. I could listen really well. None of that helped here.

  Could I just sing or play my garbage flute? That would definitely get attention, but probably only for a second. Long enough for all the goblins to decide I was the next problem.

  I needed something sharper.

  Something unpleasant.

  Then it clicked.

  Their ears.

  They were huge. Like bats. They did not seem to be using echolocation, but everything about them screamed sensitive hearing. Same basic principle as dogs.

  And dogs hated high-pitched sounds.

  I remembered the one time I had used a dog whistle as a kid at a friend’s house with their dog. Television made it look silent. Blow once, and Lassie saves the day. Reality was different as you could hear it, barely. A thin, painful squeal right on the edge of hearing. And the dog did not charge heroically. It backed away, hackles raised, barking at me like I was a threat.

  That reaction stuck with me.

  Could I hit that pitch on my crudely slapped together forest trash flute though?

  Focusing inward, I thought I could. I had a sense of where the note lived now. A narrow band of sound. Hard to reach. Harder to hold.

  I decided to go for it.

  I set the bone dagger and spear down in front of me and raised the flute to my lips. I needed to time this right. One shot. No practice run.

  I watched one of the higher-level goblins tense, readying to rush. The warrior shifted to face him. I took a breath as the goblin lunged, and I blew.

  For an eyeblink, I missed. The sound came out wrong, like a balloon deflating. Then my lips adjusted by instinct, and I hit it.

  The pitch was awful. Pain flared in my ears and my right ear popped hard enough to make my vision swim. I even wanted to stop. I forced myself to keep blowing.

  The attacking goblin I had been watching froze. He shook his head once, then turned and looked straight at me.

  Locked eyes with me. And I kept playing.

  My eyes flicked left and right past the goblin in front of me, and my stomach dropped.

  Every single goblin was looking straight at me.

  Shit.

  The warrior was not. His glowing sword was already halfway through the goblin he had been fighting, and the creature screamed as it went down. For a heartbeat, everything split. Goblins staring at me. Steel carving through flesh behind them.

  As I watched, the goblins snapped their attention back to the warrior. He did not slow down. He drove forward, cutting down two more goblins in quick succession. Then he twisted, took a fourth one at the shoulder, and the arm came off in a spray of blood. He jumped back into position in front of the bison like this was routine.

  When he landed, his eyes flicked to mine.

  Shit, probably time to run—

  “To me!” he shouted.

  I was moving before my brain caught up. I stopped blowing the flute and sprinted. The flute stayed clutched in my left hand. The dagger was somehow in my right hand, spear forgotten. My packs bounced and twisted behind me as I ran, straps digging into my shoulders.

  The goblins hesitated. Some of them turned toward me, but none committed. The ones between the warrior and me backed up fast, scrambling out of the way.

  I reached him and immediately planted myself with my back to the bison, the warrior at my right. I raised the dagger and tried to look like I knew how to use it.

  I absolutely did not.

  Without even looking at me, the warrior barked, “Make that sound again when I say so.”

  I did not answer. It finally hit me that I was standing in the middle of a fight, surrounded by screaming monsters. That was really weird that I ran into the middle of a fight, that was really unlike me—I didn't understand why I did it. My hand went numb, and I dropped the dagger. It hit the ground on its side and fell flat.

  I found myself raising the flute again to my mouth instead.

  Another goblin had found his courage. He crept forward, shoulders hunched, muscles tensing. His eyes locked on me. He lowered himself like a sprinter ready to launch.

  Adrenaline flooded my system. I knew without question that I was his target.

  “NOW!” the warrior shouted as the goblin leapt.

  I blew.

  The dog whistle scream tore out of the flute, and every goblin flinched back at once. Even the ones mid charge recoiled. Bison behind me even let out a snort of disapproval.

  The warrior surged forward. Sword in his left hand, and his right palm open.

  I had expected steel and blood.

  Instead, he grabbed the goblin by the ankle.

  The goblin started glowing, the same way the sword had. Then the warrior spun and hurled him back into the mob like a thrown stone.

  The group was not packed tightly, which made what happened next even more impressive.

  A first goblin was hit square in the stomach and launched sideways. She landed face down and did not get back up. I could not tell how badly she was hurt because the goblin that hit her exploded like a trash bag full of rotten tomatoes.

  Blood and pieces went everywhere.

  The bloody remains slammed into another goblin, this time catching it across the lower half of the body. The impact folded it sideways, and it dropped hard. One of its legs bent in a direction legs absolutely should not bend. It screamed once, high and sharp, before the noise was swallowed by the chaos.

  I kept playing.

  I did not even realize I was doing it consciously anymore. The high-pitched noise just kept pouring out of the flute as gore exploded in front of me. My jaw ached. My lungs burned. I forced the sound to stay steady.

  The warrior rushed past me without even glancing back. He moved like the fight was already over in his head. As he passed, he scooped my dagger off the ground in one smooth motion, never slowing, then grabbed the leather lead on the bison and yanked hard.

  “Move,” he snarled, more to the animal than to me.

  The bison staggered, hooves scraping dirt. It was clearly hurt, limping badly, but it responded. Fear and training pushed it forward. Once it was moving, the warrior turned his head just enough to bark, “Follow!”

  I just did as he said.

  I backed away, still playing the high note, walking backward as carefully as I could manage. I stopped only long enough to gulp air, then blew again. The sound ripped at my ears every time I resumed. My head throbbed. I did not stop.

  The goblins followed at first, shrieking and waving weapons, but their confidence was gone. Every time I played the note, they flinched. Some clutched their ears. Others hesitated, looking at the injured bodies behind them.

  After a minute, the gap widened.

  After two, only a handful still chased.

  At three, the last of them slowed, shouted something angry in a language I did not recognize, and fell back. I stopped playing.

  The silence hit hard. My ears rang violently, and the sudden lack of sound made my balance wobble. I turned and looked at the warrior, and he shook his head once. Not angry or impressed, just acknowledging that we were still alive.

  We kept walking.

  No one spoke.

  We walked like that for nearly thirty minutes. The forest swallowed the sounds of the fight behind us. The only noise left was the bison’s labored breathing and the crunch of boots on dirt.

  I thought about saying something a dozen times. Thank you. Are you okay. Do not stab me. Nothing felt right.

  I defaulted to following the guy who clearly knew how to fight.

  I also noticed he still had my knife. That alone told me everything I needed to know about who was in charge right now.

  Eventually, he slowed to a stop. Not because he wanted to, but because the bison did. The animal stumbled, legs shaking, and the warrior let the lead go slack. He turned fully and inspected it, hands firm but careful.

  He patted its head, and the bison leaned into him like a tired dog. The sight was strangely grounding. Familiar in a way nothing else here had been.

  After a moment, he turned toward me and walked over. His posture was relaxed but guarded. Close enough to talk. Far enough to react.

  Okay. This was it.

  I ran through everything I could say and everything I absolutely should not. I kept my hands visible. Still. Empty.

  As he got closer, as he looked down at me he seemed like he was about to speak, then stopped. His eyes swept over me from head to toe. My gear. My posture. My stance.

  Then his gaze locked on my boots.

  His eyes flicked back up to my face. He stared for a long second.

  Then he said, incredulous and loud,

  “Holy shit, you’re a fucking noob?!?!”