Handsome Dan chatting away cheerfully, Henry was brought along and introduced to his meathead friends, the team for the next critical mission against the wolves.

One meathead, a man built like a refrigerator, with a Battleaxe slung across his back, extended a muscular hand. “How’s it goin', mate? Little Dan’s told us all about you. I’m Richard. Captain of the team.”

Henry returned an uncommitted handshake, using only the tips of his fingers. “Name’s Bob. From San Francisco.”

“America? Sick.”

In addition to this Battleaxe Meathead, there was a Spear Meathead, a Bastardsword Meathead, and the Russian girl the friends had taken hostage, equipped with a one-handed spear and a shield.

When this last one was being introduced by Dan, she wrinkled her nose at the overly-handsome meathead in disgust. She seemed to be viewing him as a kind of sexual predator, probably on account of his exaggerated appearance.

Henry, hanging around this kid, had witnessed dozens of female players responding similarly. Watching these repulsed reactions had been a secret source of amusement for him so far, and it'd been the main reason he hadn’t blocked the meathead yet.

Here was the kicker: what none of them knew was that the meathead’s handsome looks were 100% authentic.

This realisation had occurred to Henry straight after breaking Dan's well-sculpted nose. If the kid had skipped tuning his pain settings in the tutorial, he would have also skipped altering his avatar.

Unwittingly, these chicks were rejecting a visual god.

Through one of Alex's ridiculous ventures, Henry had crossed paths with a few Hollywood celebrities - all very attractive people. Many of them, though, if stood beside this gullible meathead, would seem like pigs in wigs and make-up.

It was a comic tragedy. In real-life, this kid's handsomeness, his friendly disposition, and his overly-optimistic worldview that made him oblivious to implied insults would cause a million doors to be flung open for him. In a virtual reality game, though, these traits, combined with his boyish voice, made him seem on first impression like a cocky, image-obsessed poser who couldn’t take a hint.

As the Russian girl circled around the Spear Meathead to keep him between her and Handsome Dan, Henry's lips curled in delight.

Ah, this was a good feeling. How much lighter thumped his heart knowing that his separation from these noobs was imminent, the trainer and him ditching these kids the moment he bagged his fifteen wolves to continue the tutorial while these noobs were forced to restart from scratch with another trainer.

Some might call this action selfish on Henry's part, but one had to rationally analyse the stakes here. Between potentially summoning a shadow demon that'd destroy the world and sacrificing a couple hours of some noobs' lives, the moral calculus was unmistakable. Life sometimes demanded tough choices, and this wasn't one of them, Henry throwing these kids under the bus without a shred of hesitation.

With the greetings out of the way, he took control of the team and designed a tactic that would be more efficient than the bald trainer's. They needed to kill faster than the others, as, based on the Beast Tamer's figures, the number of wolves was insufficient for all the trainees to reach Level 4. Henry wanted to finish this in one swoop.

After developing a plan that even the meatheads could follow, he walked them through it. The steps, he illustrated slowly on a piece of paper, which he made copies of using his Scholar skills for their further study.

“Does everyone understand?" he asked. "Any questions? Don't feel embarrassed.”

“Nah, Big Bro, that sounds sweet."

“Yeah, we should be sweet.”

"We'll be sweet as, Big Bro."

Henry squinted in annoyance. During the introductions, they’d picked up Dan's annoying term of address, the handsome meathead explaining that Henry was their senior, being 43 despite the deceptive shine of his skin kept youthful by a rigorous moisturisation routine.

Now, for this critical mission of Henry collecting 15 wolves, one last team member remained.

While the others joined the larger group preparing to march off, he separated to find his donkey.

He wouldn’t forget about the beast again. Now that it’d eaten the power-up food, Henry could finally reap a reward for keeping it.

The main usage would be for escaping danger and ditching these noobs quicker, but the donkey might also help him in combat.

In Saana, in general, the usage of mounts on the battlefield was quite limited.

For one, as regular animals, their physiology was distinct from that of monsters. They could increase their Vitality through power-up foods and temporary buffs, but they didn't gain any other stats. Likewise, they couldn't learn abilities aside from a that increased their maximum speed by 50%. These differences made mounts easy to kill relative to the cost of raising them.

A second factor was magic. AOE spells acted as pseudo-artillery, punishing the large, tight, slow-moving military formations common in antiquity and the medieval period. Thus, most armies fought in smaller, more flexible squadrons, often while using magic to construct fortifications in the middle of battle. Saana's battles, if they had a real-world analogue, were much closer to the trench warfare of the early 20th century. In such a setting, cavalry were too clunky for direct combat and instead fulfilled auxiliary roles, like transporting the wounded, moving scouts, reserves, and commanders, and specialised mobile spellcaster/archer units.

That last purpose, horse archery, was what he planned to use the donkey for now. However, it would depend on whether the beast could pass a few tests.

Henry found the shabby animal lapping at an upturned cauldron. “Yoohoo, Donkey Bro!”

The donkey, pretending it hadn’t heard, stopped drinking and tried walking away. When Henry caught up with it, it peeled back its donkey lips, baring a set of plaque-stained teeth.

“I completely understand,” Henry sympathised. “But if you don’t have a purpose, you’re going to end up as a stew yourself.”

As the mass extinctions around the start of the millennium had demonstrated, for humans to care about preserving an animal, it needed to be useful, food, interesting, or cute. One couldn't survive on the goodwill of nature lovers. You needed to have a tangible benefit for mankind or it would discard you the moment you caused it any inconvenience.

"You're not pretty or interesting, unfortunately," Henry warned the creature. "So, be useful."

Light balls funnelled out of his Spatial Bracelet and wrapped around the donkey's head, face, and back. In response, the animal started acting distraught.

He slapped its rump. “Don’t pretend. You were a working donkey; you did this every day."

The donkey cut out the act, neighing bitterly.

The lights formed into reins and a saddle. These had been among the items Henry's minions had gathered.

Mounting the donkey, he found it didn’t buck or complain.

"Good job, Donkey Bro. Sarra, sarra." Henry stroked its knotted mane in reassurance. "Sarra, sarra."

The words would be utter nonsense to the ears of anyone living, and the stroking gesture contained an unusual affection, bearing a warmth alien to Henry himself and picked up from the one he'd learned it from.

Back in Saana II, he’d been taught horse archery by a tribe of nomads whose mounts were semi-feral and required hours of breaking in each time one saddled them. Although increasingly murky, he still recalled some of those pleasant days whenever he mounted a horse - or a donkey.

But, now, was not the time for nostalgia. He had a tutorial to complete.

The donkey not protesting at all, Henry gave it a pat. "Keep this up, and I'll give you a real name."

Actually, since meeting this shabby donkey, he'd been very impressed with its calm disposition. The species usually did have a hardier psychological constitution than horses, but most would still have freaked out being around monsters and fighting. Likely, the donkey had been desensitised to violence from watching the cultists kill people and eat them.

“Jaras." Henry gave an order in the native language of the Sandpeople, the NPC slumdwellers.

The donkey, understanding, broke into a trot.

When Henry first picked it up, he’d tested a few voice commands. Its previous owner had taught it the basics: switching between gaits, changing directions, stopping, and returning from afar.

These were suitable for now, but, later, assuming the donkey survived long enough, he would have it trained to carry out more complex orders.

"Loppy."

Ordering the donkey to gallop, Henry whipped out his bow and started shooting at random shrubs and trees. With the wolf invasion, the recruiters should have already forgotten about him shooting up the gangster-roleplayers, and, even if they did identify him, he wouldn't be here much longer.

Racing against the clock, he advanced through the test quickly.

He steered the donkey into the thick of the area where newly-arrived noobs were still slaying boars for levels.

Passing by one beast about to trample a noob with a broken leg, Henry fired a shot into its eye, the boar, squealing its death, tripping over its front trotters and sliding to a halt.

The relieved noob waved at him speeding past. “Thanks!”

Henry, continuing to fire at random boars, paid attention to the rhythm of the donkey's gait and breath any signs of distress. However, as they ventured further into the boar area, as they passed the piles of dead wolves littering the ground, the donkey remained steady, reliable.

He himself, then, seemed to be the limiting factor today. Having not practised mounted archery in years, his accuracy from the saddle was trash, with him whiffing about an eighth of his shots at static targets.

“Megal."

The donkey coming to a stop, Henry fired four quick shots, killing three boars that were engaged with noobs and aggroing one that'd been chewing roots.

This last boar, feeling the arrow stab into its butt, span around in fury and charged.

The donkey, although tensing up at the sight of the rushing beast, maintained its frozen posture.

“Left turn. Gallop."

The donkey promptly swivelled left and galloped away from the monster charging behind. With danger at its back, it felt tense, but it still maintained its composure, and its reactions were fast.

Henry, turning in the saddle, fired off six shots in quick succession. After four arrows striking bone and two proper hits, the boar collapsed.

His accuracy against moving targets was even shoddier.

However, this should be enough for the job.

Henry gave the donkey an approving pat. “Sarra, sarra. Just one more.”

The donkey brayed, thinking that a much better reward than compliments would be to stop putting it in harm's way and leave it in peace to sip on more of that delectable Wolfblood soup.

“," Henry ordered.

A sudden burst of speed should have followed. To his surprise, however, the donkey continued to gallop at its normal pace.

“," he repeated.