I walked in the grass, trying to absorb as much of the pleasant feeling as I could. The soft soil, the small tree sticks fallen amidst the swaying blades of ankle-high grass. Oh, how lovely.

  Mark continued yapping about the tournament and about what these survival games were supposed to be like, constantly forgetting to mention one part, just to go back to it in the middle of the next thing he was talking about.

  "So, survival games are just what the name implies: Survival. You have to survive here for fourteen days, and you probably want to thrive as well."

  Wait, what? "What do you mean, fourteen days?"

  "Oh yeah, I forgot how little the gods tell you.” He rubbed his head with one hand. “Man, I feel all over the place. Each floor is up for only 14 days. That’s it. This one is survival-based. I think you’ll have to complete a goal on the others.”

  Shit. That didn’t sound good. “So I want to advance as fast as I can, right?”

  “Yes. It’s a race against time, and a race of resources with so many players.”

  This whole thing sounded harder every passing moment. “You really should tell me stuff like this out of the gate, Mark.”

  “We’ve just met. I’m getting used to it. Do you know that you’re the first person I’ve spoken to in two years, Timmy?"

  Timmy. The name soured in my mind now, as if something was telling me the name was a bad fit after all. "Hey, I’ve decided to change my name. Timmy isn’t cool enough.”

  Mark stopped and moved his hands in the air, opening up a menu that I could not see. "Sure, dude. What do you want it to be then?"

  What did I want my name to be? All my ideas have been shot down by Mark before, but I’ve finished getting knowledge from whatever system was running this. Mantis shrimp was a no-go, but what about making it into a real name?

  "Shrimpie."

  He sighed. "Really? That’s what you’ll settle on? You do realize that shrimp are going to be here too, right?"

  That was true, but what was the chance I’d meet them anyway? "Won’t they just die off before I meet them?"

  Mark chuckled. "Maybe. Who knows, really. I don’t know how many people are still alive. Only the gods can tell you that, and they apparently only do so when we go to the next stage. Or so the books said." His eyes glazed over. “Done. Your name is set to Shrimpie.”

  And that was that. I finally had a name, would you believe it! I felt just a bit more proud of being whatever this weird combination of my former and human body was.

  I thought back to what he said last. “Okay. So I can’t even say how many people will move to the next floor. Fourteen days seems like a lot, though.”

  Mark shook his head. “It is, and it isn’t. We’ll see which ruleset they follow, but I reckon it will only get harder from here. Fourteen days lets us get prepared, but you’ll have to work your ass off to not fall behind others. We want you to hit the next floor running.”

  I continued walking, taking in the smells and the feels of the forest glade, and though it was really pretty and interesting, I longed for another fight like the one I’ve been through not that long ago.

  "Of course, I want to hit the next floor prepared, Mark. I want to win this thing! The Glorious king Shrimpie! Ahh, I can already imagine it...” Mark facepalmed, but I promptly ignored his anguish. “Gotta work hard then. Got it. What’s up next, then? Guide me to more battles!"

  He looked me up and down. "Battles? I don’t think so. Survival games don’t work like that. Listen, we’ve got maybe about five hours until night rolls over. The true monsters will probably start coming out of whatever hole they’re hidden in, and you seriously don’t want to fight those."

  Who was he to decide what I wanted to fight? "Oh, I absolutely DO want to fight those… things!"

  "No. Listen. REALLY listen.” He pointed a finger at me. “That giant wolf? That was a low-level creature. Not the weakest around here, but weak, near a starting area. You won’t be able to take those night creatures on, especially with your bullet strike down."

  That might be true. Bullet strike was powerful, but it was on what Mark called a cooldown. It lasted 8 hours, and that made Mark dub it an ultimate attack. I’d seriously need to get more skills soon, though the shields I’ve equipped looked handy too.

  "Okay, so, what do you suggest I do?"

  Mark stopped and rubbed his chin, his eyes glazed over as he calculated whatever strategy he found the best. As much as I complained about the guy, I had to admit his knowledge about these video-games was really good. Or, at least, I thought them good, since he always had an answer ready for whatever question came flying out of my mouth next.

  Might he be making the answers up just to get rid of me already?

  "Okay, Shrimpie. What we should do are three things. One - you gather materials, and try to kill some small creatures while at it. Two - you build a base. At least a small one, to spend the night in. And lastly, three - if you can, you want to find other players. There’s no reason to not group up, at least on this floor."

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "What if they want to get rid of competition? That’s what I would do."

  "Yeah, but you have me as a guide, right? All of the others have guides as well.” He scratched his head. “But okay, you might be right. Let’s only approach if we see a friendly one then. Hopefully we’ll get lucky."

  "You can find them? And know what animal they are?"

  He looked at me, and shrugged his shoulders. "No, and no. YOU can find them. Look at your stat view again. Upper right corner of your vision. If you think about it, you can enlarge the map. Whenever you spot something, even if you didn’t actually register seeing it, it will show up as a dot on the map. The green one is you."

  Taking a long breath, he motioned for me to follow and continued swimming through the air, going in a direction that led us straight to the thick of the forest. "As for the animals, I do and don’t know at the same time. I will probably be able to discern some of them, but I’m no biologist."

  "The system won’t tell you what they are? But how do we know what they do then?”

  “It will. You’ll see.”

  “Okay. Oh, biologist is a human occupation, right? That seems really helpful. What was your job?"

  Mark continued forward in silence, as if thinking on whether to tell me or not. "Student."

  Oh, right. The humans aged fairly slowly. He must not have been that old by human standards then. Him not having a background in animal studies wasn’t going to help us much, though, for I thought that identifying the other players, enemies or otherwise, would definitely be a necessary survival skill soon.

  "I don’t reckon you were studying animals?"

  He chuckled."No. But I love… well, loved video games. I guess I won’t get to play anything until this is over. Not sure I’ll want to, after this experience. Used to play a lot of different genres, though. I know how to win most of them."

  That was helpful. I looked at the map in my upper right corner of my vision, and I could see the map he mentioned, including the map that showed just one dot that represented me.

  "Okay, so what’s first? Gathering materials, sure, but what are those?"

  "Sticks and rocks. Food and water after."

  What? Such simple things? "That’s it? Sounds boring. You sure you don’t want me to find more things to kill?"

  "After that first scuffle? I’d bet you whatever on you not surviving your next fight."

  RUDE. Who did this man think I was? I killed that wolf in one good punch! “I’ll survive this whole thing. You better believe it!”

  “How about this, then. You collect sticks and rocks, and I’ll keep a lookout for the next fight. If you win under 20 seconds, you can order me around for the next day. Goes the other way around, too, though.”

  Oh, I loved that idea. This would show him! “You’re on.”

  With that settled, I walked toward the nearest tree and looked around its base. Though there were many sticks and pebbles, Mark guided me on which were large enough to register as crafting items in my inventory before I even picked them up.

  My inventory was apparently endless, though, and even storing the items that apparently had no use didn’t slow me down or add any weight to my body. Soon enough, I opened my inventory and, just after thirty minutes, it showed that I had hundreds of small sticks. There were two types, actually, but only one of them had the CRAFTING tag.

  Finding rocks that were large enough was a bit harder than that, though. I could definitely find some small pebbles, but rocks large enough to count as a craftable item were nowhere to be found, at least not here around the pines.

  Mark seemed to be as annoyed and frustrated about the same thing, so much so that he decided to take back his word about looking for materials here, and instead motioned for me to follow him elsewhere.

  "We probably need to find a source of water to find some rocks, or at least a different biome or something."

  "Biome?"

  "Oh yeah, this might not be like that cube game I used to play, but surely there are some different climates in here. The whole map is huge, after all. As large as a planet. The written guide specified a lot about the rules of the game, the progression, and what I can and cannot tell you. Some things I can’t tell you until the last floor, would you believe it?"

  That was weird. Although Mark was definitely the type of person that liked to keep his secrets to his chest, it seemed unlikely that he’d withhold knowledge instead of flaunting it. That didn’t seem to be his style.

  "Why can’t you tell me, though? There isn’t anyone here to stop you."

  He tapped his head and smiled, though the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. "The gods. They put a spell on us guides. Well, more than one, actually, as you can see what my body looks like. But one of them forbids us to tell you anything we’re not supposed to. I literally cannot do so, because when I think about trying to tell you about-"

  He coughed, hard, and his whole visage began flickering in and out of existence, glitchy lines distorting his whole body. Wow, yeah, he didn’t have to explain further.

  “Just follow me, Shrimpie. Let’s drop this for now.”

  I didn’t really want to argue anyway. I hurried to keep up behind him.

  I continued following my blue translucent guide for about half an hour, through the forest and to nowhere in particular. My map continued to fill in wherever we went, the only visible parts being the ones that I’ve already seen when walking. The nature was still the same the whole time, but I’ve begun noticing that the trees started getting smaller and smaller as we went on. Before I even realized it, we stepped out of the forest and stood in front of a foaming river.

  Mark levitated in front of me, and he seemed genuinely impressed, at least as far as I could deduce from his tone. "Wow, that’s… beautiful. I’ve not been out in the wilds since high school, I think. Brings back some memories."

  "Of course it’s beautiful, Mark. It’s water. There’s nothing more beautiful than water!"

  "That’s not what I meant!" He said, but then stopped and just let a sigh out, prolonged dramatically. Wow, what a flair for the dramatics. He gave me a small smile, and continued. "Okay, you know what, Shrimpie? You win. Water is beautiful. Happy?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. Now get to picking those rocks. There must be some at the riverbed.” He scratched his head, looking at the sky. “We don’t have much time until night comes. You won’t be able to fight if we don’t make torches, at least. Gods, we have about three hours left, forget the base, we have to make at least something!"

  That much was true. I could already see the yellow sun hovering lower and lower beyond the distant mountain range, soon to be hidden from my view completely.

  "Don’t forget I can see better than humans can, Mark! I’ll see whatever comes at me."

  He scoffed, but nodded after moving his hands through the air a few times. Must have inspected my skills, then.

  With that settled, Mark hovered above the river, and I went to pick the rocks.

  A fight would happen sooner or later, and I would be prepared for it.

  It was then, as I was mentally already preparing for the night, that I noticed a change on my map.

  There were red dots all around me in the river.