A single skeleton—animated by nefarious magic no doubt—was walking around aimlessly behind shrubs and waist-high rocks. It didn’t really seem to have any purpose—it felt very programmed in that way.

Over behind a lamppost was Mickey. He had been eying it for the last ten minutes, making notes of his behavior. This was his first fight—he wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to make stupid mistakes due to his eagerness.

“That said… He looks pretty standard. Doesn’t even have a weapon and he’s naked so that probably means he’s nothing tricky.”

For all intents and purposes, a naked skeleton was typically the weakest type of undead along with zombies, when it came to other video games at least.

“And the guide said this Realm could support up to Level 20 players. Being so close to Torea too… It’s got to be low-level. I wish I could see its Level, or maybe see some kind of danger indicator.”

Mickey pulled out his Slate to see if there was some extra information it could afford him, but nothing.

Mickey grinned as there was nothing more he could do to exercise caution. He had done his due diligence—no one would blame him for running in now. He had to fight monsters. He had to level. This was one way of doing that. He would most certainly not be faulted.

And with that mindset, he ran in—

I’ll take it by surprise and bash its head in with the spiked ball!

Five feet away—Mickey conjured up his weapon and threw the spiked ball at the skeleton’s head. The ball hit the enemy's skull as Mickey swung across—the skeleton stumbled, shocked.

But Mickey was shocked too.

“Huh?” he sounded, wide-eyed.

The skeleton shook its head, a crack on its cranium, and chattered at Mickey as it pointed at him. The spiked ball at the tip of the chain was on the floor, next to the skeleton stomping in place.

Mickey’s eyes were fixed on the spiked ball.

“Huh?”

Mickey yanked the ball back and caught it in his palm—

“Why is it palm-sized?”

The ball could fit in his palm—it was only a little bit bigger than a fist. Mickey went in thinking he was going to have what he thought was the standard size for the ball—one a little bigger than a head.

“And it didn’t feel as easy to handle as when I used it during the trial—AHH! Oww!”

Mickey was pushed over, falling on his rump as the skeleton stood over him, chattering and stomping—as if it was raging over Mickey’s sneak attack.

“Huh. In a way, you seem more fleshed out than the townsfolk—”

Mickey threw the spiked ball at the skeleton, hoping to catch it by surprise. The skeleton caught the ball instead and stared at it.

“WHAT IS THIS?!” Or so Mickey imagined the skeleton screaming as he watched it, with the ball in hand, jump up and down and chatter wildly.

Mickey, mildly perplexed, yanked on the chain. The skeleton, still holding on to the ball tightly fell over, landing face-first against the dirt. It tried to get back on its feet, but felt a weight on its back—Mickey had climbed over top of him and was sitting on its exposed spine.

Mickey wrestled the spiked ball from its grip, “I’ll take that back,” and held the ball firmly between his palms, raising it above the skeleton’s head.

With a straight face, Mickey brought the ball down repeatedly on the exposed, gray skull.

The skull cracked and shattered. Mickey didn’t stop. The ball went straight through, breaking through bone and hitting the dirt. Mickey didn’t stop. He kept swinging—the only sound echoing across the barren land being the sounds of bone splintering. Had someone of rational mind seen him, they would have thought him the monster.

The skeleton had long been still when Mickey finally stopped. Its head had been pulverized into bone dust even.

Rosie, his cousin with who he sometimes played video games with—she would always remark that Mickey was unexpectedly brutal in his methods when it came to games. The only thing that held Mickey’s brutality back were the limits of the game themselves. Mickey however never saw it—that was to say he was as oblivious to his habits then as he was now. From his perspective, if the mission was to vanquish imaginary enemies, why not do it as conclusively as possible?

He wiped the sweat off his brow and sighed. “Well, that was an unexpected workout. Now, what’s going on with this Skill? What am I not doing right?”

Mickey tapped through his Skill Menu, looking for more information. Meanwhile, the skeleton below him faded away into dark dust as most video game enemies tend to do. Mickey didn’t notice—he was much too preoccupied with things that mattered.

“Okay, so I have the one Skill unlocked and then—oh. I see. I get it now.”

Mickey found what he was lacking. The second node on the Skill Tree— the one representing the Handling skill. If he wanted to have better control over his weapon, he needed that Skill activated. It all made sense now.

“Now the question is, how do I unlock the next node in the Skill Tree?” Mickey sighed. “I regret not reading the skill guide but I was too excited… It’s not like I’ve lost out though. I’ll just read it when I log out. Oh! I got 2EXP for that! Wait, only 2EXP? That seems a bit stingy. So I’d need to beat fifty enemies? Actually, maybe that isn’t too bad.”

As Mickey played with his menus he heard a very distinct chattering coming from various directions. He looked up and was amused.

“Oh. More experience.”

Mickey got on his feet to greet them, the six skeletons that had walked up to him. Their chattering teeth drowned out the whistle of the cold breeze. He, in turn, tried to drown them out with his own noise.

“So what if I can’t handle it all that well? This is simple enough for me.”

Above his head, Mickey spun the ball attached to the chain, as if it were a lasso, the chain giving off a high-pitched whistle as it revolved about Mickey’s grip. Mickey, unsure of his ability to aim, opted to swing the ball just like how the hero did in the game he played. This spin attack—with the ball moving so quickly—was sure to do some damage on its unfortunate targets.

“Okay, let’s figure out what I can do.”

“Hmm… So I got 12EXP, so they each gave 2EXP… Reasonable.”

Mickey was sitting atop a pile of five skeletons, each with cracked bones and headless.

The battle had gone well for Mickey. His chain, as it was now, was 6ft long. For his spin attack, he gripped it at 4ft from the ball, meaning he had a radius of 4ft that the skeletons had to be wary of—they weren’t. The ball, revolving extremely fast at the extent of the circle, cracked skulls easily, and with careful adjustments of the angle, Mickey was able to crack necks as well. On occasion he also tried whipping the chain around, though, in that case, he found he was more accurate and damaging when holding the chain at 2ft from the ball.

He did lose roughly 20% of his HP—a consequence of experimentation. When things got too dire, he remembered he had a third hand he could use to strike the enemy. The damage he incurred before that point stuck, however; he was outside of the 60 seconds that Damage Rejection could work on.

Set-back aside, it was a fruitful trial run.

“So I’m down to 80% of my health total… That’s not too bad, I can probably go on. And then, one potion restores 30%, so, if I want to be efficient, I’ll use it when I’m at 70% health or lower.

“I didn’t get any extra experience. Do I not get that from fighting regular enemies?”

Mickey shrugged and hopped off his pile. He spun on his heels and declared it boldly, “I’m done with you now.”

The pile of skeletons disintegrated into black dust seconds after.

“Sweet, so it actually does work like my items. What a nice anti-frustration feature.”

Mickey had noticed it upon destroying the first of the six skeletons. The bodies of enemies wouldn’t disappear until one took their focus off of them. The exact purpose for that mechanism wasn’t fully understood by Mickey just yet, but he did appreciate that being able to keep them for as long as he wanted felt good, as a player.

“Are there monster drops?” Mickey mumbled as he scanned the ground.

Drops were another staple of the genre—it would be strange to not have anything left behind by monsters.

“Ahh! There it is.”

Mickey spotted three mounds of gray dust—these he was sure weren’t there before.

They had to be drops.

Mickey tapped on one, and it immediately disappeared into dust, a chime going off in his ear. He repeated for the remaining two mounds and got two more chimes. A quick check of his inventory revealed he had acquired the drops, Skeleton’s Bone Dust.

“Sweet,” Mickey said as he stretched. “Well, better get back onto the quest. I shouldn’t keep the maintenance guy waiting.”

And like that, Mickey was on his way, feeling a little stronger and a little more confident.