Abby crouched next to Zeke, a conjured arrow already nocked as they watched Pudge charge the kapwan for what felt like the hundredth time. The bear cub already bore a dozen wounds in various states of mending, where the frog-like humanoid had managed to land strikes. Pudge had just been thrown, judo-style, by the kapwan, but he’d come out of the brush completely unshaken to resume his series of attacks.

“Just say the word,” she muttered, hating the scene before her. In the few days since she’d met Zeke and his pet bear, she’d grown quite attached to the furry creature. The bear – not Zeke, she reminded herself. Cutting her eyes in the man’s direction, she couldn’t help but think that the descriptor could’ve described her new ally as well, considering the state of his wild hair and unkempt beard.

“He’s fine,” Zeke said, his voice low. His eyes never wavered from his companion. However, Abby had noticed the slight grimace every time Pudge took a wound. She didn’t understand their bond, but she suspected that, at some level, Zeke felt the cub’s wounds. He bore the strain without complaint, though, insisting that the bear needed the practice.

“He’s only level six,” she whispered. “That kapwan is twice his level. It’s unreasonable to –”

“I said he’s fine,” Zeke hissed. “He’s got this. He’s almost got it figured it out.”

Abby was about to ask what, precisely, the bear was supposed to be figuring out when a diffuse, red cloud erupted from the bear’s paws. Beside her, Zeke pumped his fist, whispering, “Yes!”

Pudge hit the kapwan – a primitive, four-foot-tall mixture of frog, goblin, and human, with mottled green skin, a short spear, and a hide buckler – in a flying tackle that sent the kapwan tumbling to the muddy turf. Pudge’s sharp claws raked out, gouging into the creature’s rubbery skin, and to Abby’s shock, she saw the wounds on the cub’s side begin to close a bit with every strike. More, the claws bit deeper than they ever had before, and soon, the long-limbed amphibian slithered out from under the bear and tried to scramble toward the nearby lake. But Pudge, reveling in his newfound power, wasn’t about to let it reach the safety of the water, and he pounced on the kapwan’s back. He didn’t weigh much yet, but there was significant force behind the attack. His claws bit deep into the kapwan’s spine, crushing the thing’s vertebrae and severing the nerves within. Immediately, the frog-like humanoid went limp from the waist down, its powerful legs completely unresponsive. Still, with a low-pitched bellow of anguish, it didn’t give up in its quest to reach safety. It dragged itself forward, digging handholds into the soft mud.

With a roar, Pudge bit down on the kapwan’s neck, silencing it forever. The thing died only a foot away from the water. Then, because he didn’t quite understand that the kapwan had died, Pudge worried the thing a few times, shaking it back and forth and slinging bright green blood all over the lakeshore. The motion reminded Abby of when, back in her old life, her dog would play with its rope toy. Just with more blood and loss of life. That impression grew even stronger when Pudge dragged the kapwan to where she and Zeke were waiting, almost as if he was presenting them with his trophy.

“Good boy,” Zeke said, grinning as if he hadn’t just watched his pet kill a near-sapient creature. That was the thing about her new comrade. He showed absolutely no hesitation when it came to killing, and he didn’t appear to empathize with any of his victims. Sure, he didn’t go out of his way to kill anything that didn’t attack him first, but that didn’t make his lack of feeling any less creepy.

And then there was the day they came upon that troll village.

Abby shivered at the memory. Zeke hadn’t hesitated, charging into the mid-sized village without a word. Pudge had gone right with him, too, forcing Abby to participate in what turned out to be an unmitigated slaughter. Despite the fact that most of the trolls had out-leveled him, Zeke had been a whirlwind of destruction, felling a blue-skinned troll with nearly ever swing of that primitive mace of his. The few wounds they managed to score healed in seconds, driven by that overpowered skill of his.

But the real surprise had been Pudge. Abby didn’t really know how their bond worked, but there was clearly some sort of emotional leakage between the pair. If she hadn’t been convinced of that before the troll village, she would’ve been afterwards because Pudge had gone on a rampage that, in terms of intensity, if not effectiveness, rivaled that of his companion. The bear cub had killed a couple of trolls by himself, which given his level, was a testament to how recklessly he’d thrown himself at the monsters.

For her part, Abby had shot a few trolls herself – more so that Zeke would know that she’d helped than because her aid was needed. It wasn’t that she had a soft spot for the monsters, either. She didn’t. Rather, Abby was used to avoiding trouble when she could, and for most people, a troll village posed the kind of threat that wasn’t easily overcome. For Zeke and his bear cub, though, it only took them about an hour to completely massacre the village’s population down to the last troll. In the end, they’d killed almost a hundred of the monsters.

Afterwards, Zeke, who was covered in blood but unhurt, had only said, “I hate trolls.”

That had been the day after they’d left the ruined city of Tua’Ta’alar behind. Since then, four days had passed, and though Abby hadn’t seen a similar rampage in that time, she still couldn’t forget the sheer unthinking savagery of his attack.

“Why?” she finally asked, watching Pudge drop his prize and cock his head sideways.

“I told you,” Zeke answered. “Pudge needs to learn to activate the skill on his own. He can’t just rely on me to heal him with the splash effect of my own attacks.”

“No,” Abby said. “I’m not talking about that. Though I still think you’re pushing him too hard, that’s not…I was asking about the other thing. The thing with the trolls.”

Zeke stood, and suddenly, Abby felt very small. Even if she hadn’t known that his stats far outstripped hers, she probably would’ve felt at least a little intimidated based on size alone. The man was built like an NFL linebacker, with wide, heavily muscled shoulders, thick limbs, and a narrow waist. He carried that size like he knew how to use it, too, moving with the sort of grace usually reserved for apex predators – an effect that was only enhanced by his wild, unkempt hair and bushy, untrimmed beard.

Or perhaps it was the aura of violence and animalistic savagery that clung to him. It was ephemeral and amorphous, but it was there, permeating his very surroundings. Abby had even seen a few lower-leveled monsters slinking away, terrified to disturb the predator in their midst. Even Julio, with all his levels, hadn’t prompted that kind of reaction.

Zeke ran his hand through his hair, saying, “Ah, that. I…I’m sorry. I lost control. It won’t happen again.”

Abby stood. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, her old life bubbling to the surface. Back then, she’d fancied herself a mental health professional. Certainly, even before she had died, it had been years since she’d actually worked in the field, but the training was still there, buried beneath a mountain of denial, regret, and forced forgetfulness. She didn’t want to even think about the person she had been back then, much less utilize those skills. But the same traits that had led her to major in psychology drove her to put her hand on Zeke’s chest. He flinched slightly. Clearly, he hadn’t been touched by another human being in quite some time. “It might help.”

For a few seconds, Zeke didn’t answer. Instead, he kept his steely, blue-eyed gaze trained on the nearby Lake Rathekar. The waters were choppy, and every now and again, a huge fin would cut through to the surface, evidence that the monsters that permeated their world weren’t confined to the land. Beneath those waves were hydras, water goblins, and, if rumors were true, a few huge sea serpents – each one of a level that Abby would be hard pressed to survive an encounter, much less come out on top.

Finally, after almost thirty seconds, Zeke shifted his eyes to the ground, saying, “It wasn’t the fact that they tried to kill me, you know. I mean, it is. From the very moment I came into this world, I was being attacked by trolls. First, it was the larva – I called them croco-rats because they looked like a mixture of crocodiles and rats – but then it was the adults. They’re vermin. But that’s not what gets me…so…so angry.”

Abby saw his fists trembling with rage. “What is it, then?” she ventured.

“I gave you the short version of my time in the tutorial dungeon,” he said, glancing in her direction. “But I left something out. A few months in, I came across this cavern. Inside, I saw all these troll larva. Hundreds of them. But in the center of this huge cave, there was a giant, slug-like creature. Like, the size of a school bus big. It’s the grossest thing I ever saw. The troll’s Brood Mother. I don’t know if it was the only one, but it might’ve been. The second I walked into that cave, everything attacked me, and I killed it. That’s where I got my mace. It was an extra quest.”

So, the mace was a quest reward? Judging by its appearance, Abby had simply assumed that Zeke had looted it from something he’d killed. With its bone shaft and rough, metal studs, it certainly looked like something a troll would wield. However, it being a quest reward meant that it was far more than it appeared to be. Those sorts of weapons were incredibly rare, and every one Abby had ever seen was extremely powerful.

The more Abby learned of her new companion, the warier of him she became. He was just too strong, and in the grand scheme of things, he was just getting started. What would he be in a year? In two? If his claims of already having an evolved race were to be believed, he wouldn’t even hit the bottleneck, which meant that the only thing standing between him and real power was his willingness to slaughter monsters. And given what she had seen so far, that didn’t seem like it would be a problem.

“I found this door,” he said. “First real door I had seen in the whole cave system. So, thinking it was important, I went inside. There were guards inside. I killed them, expecting that where there were guards, there had to be something good. I was riding high off of getting my mace, so…I guess it never even occurred to me just to leave it alone. I wish I would have.”

He turned away from her, his shoulders hunched. But Abby didn’t put two and two together until he spoke again, his voice raw with emotion. “Bodies,” he said. “Hundreds of human bodies, hung up like sides of beef. Severed arms and legs. Heads. Men. Women. Children.”

Zeke turned his head back to her, and she saw the tears cutting through the light dusting of dirt on his cheeks. In that moment, he looked so much younger. So much more human than ever before. “It was a larder,” he said. “A meat locker. They were food.”

Abby’s hand clapped over her mouth. “Oh, God,” she breathed.

“After that,” he went on. “I…I killed them all. Before, I’d skip troll villages if I thought I could. Part of it was self-preservation. But part of it was this…I don’t know…unwillingness to kill them if I didn’t have to. They were sentient. They had lives. Villages. They were primitive, but they weren’t much different than people. After seeing that…after seeing those…bodies, I lost all sentimentality. I didn’t care if they were sentient. I just wanted them dead. So, that’s what I did. I say I was down there for two years, but it might have been a lot longer. Time…time was funny down there. Hard to track. And I lost myself for a long time.”

For the first time in her life, Abby had no idea how to help someone. She had been trained as a therapist, but in the face of this kind of raw trauma, her training seemed so weak and miniscule. Instead, she responded as one human to another, saying, “I-I’m sorry. You…you should never have had to deal with something like that. But I think…I think you did the right thing.”

Abby wasn’t sure she actually believed that. In fact, she felt certain that she would’ve made another choice. However, she hadn’t been there. She hadn’t seen those bodies. So, she had no right to judge him for doing what he thought was right, for giving in to the rage and letting it drive him to genocide.

Zeke barked a harsh laugh. “Something tells me that’s only the tip of the iceberg,” he said, his tone scratchy and raw. He sniffed, wiping his cheeks. “This is only the beginning. I know you weren’t asking about Pudge just now, but in a way, you were. I’m teaching him to take care of himself, because this is a harsh world, Abby. I think you recognize that. And it’s only going to get worse.”

Abby tightened her grip on her bow, remembering the people she’d lost. She’d escaped her own watered-down version of a beginning dungeon seven years before, and in that time, she’d seen a host of friends and companions die. Vladimir was only the latest to succumb to the whims of their new world, and she suspected that he wouldn’t be the last. Danger lurked around every corner, and if she wasn’t careful, she would share their fate. Abby knew that. She’d accepted it long ago. But at some point, she had forgotten it. She’d grown confident and complacent, sure of her own superiority.

That was just in her own little world, though. She’d put herself into a bubble where she was strong. And Zeke had come along, shattering her preconceptions about what strength really was, bursting that bubble with his mere presence. That’s what made her so uncomfortable around him. He didn’t fit into her world. In fact, he nullified everything she thought she knew.

“Do you think they were real?” he asked, filling the silence. “The trolls in the dungeon, I mean. That’s what I can’t stop wondering. When I got out of the caves, I turned around, and there was nothing there. So, do you think it was…I don’t know…do you think they were just props in somebody’s sick game? Or do you think they were a real people, once?”

“I…I don’t know,” Abby admitted. She’d never even heard of a beginning dungeon like the one Zeke had experienced, so she had no notion of how such places worked.

He sighed. “It felt real enough,” was his response. Kneeling, he reached out to scratch Pudge’s ear. “Come on. I think we should get moving before the smell of blood attracts something more dangerous than a frog-goblin.”