“Alright,” Nura finally said between breaths. “Let’s say it. That was a mess.”
Elanil chuckled, saying no word.
“Those things,” Nura continued, nodding toward the wreckage, “same bodies, same tricks. Spinning blades, fire-spewing nonsense. But they didn’t fight the same.”
“They specialized,” Elanil said.
“One stayed back, one went airborne,” Nura muttered, thinking it through. “One kept pushing, forcing reactions.”
“Aerial pressure, artillery suppression, crowd control,” Elanil continued her thought. “They weren’t assigned abilities. They were assigned roles.”
Nura’s tusked grin showed briefly. “Such clever little bastards.”
“Yes.”
Another pause. Nura shifted, wincing slightly. “Our side wasn’t perfect either.”
“But it worked.”
“Because of timing,” Nura said. “And because you didn’t panic.”
“I was nervous.”
“Doesn’t count.” Nura hesitated, then scratched the back of her neck, eyes fixed on the ground. “You… covered my back. When I screwed up.”
“That’s called teamwork.”
“So, we’re a team now?” Nura chuckled.
“Turns out yes.” Elanil shrugged. “At least for that one brawl. But if you don’t mind to continue…”
Nura cleared her throat. “I don’t like admitting this stuff, but—thanks. That would’ve ended badly.”
“You threw yourself between me and a barrage earlier,” Elanil reminded.
“Instinct,” Nura muttered. “Don’t make it weird.”
“I won’t.”
The pause stretched. It was not unpleasant, just awkward a bit. Finaly, reality intruded—the interface slid into Elanil’s vision with a soft chime.
Quest: Rogue Constructs
Status: Completed
Description: What a mess!
Rewards: 0 XP
Elanil blinked.
“Are you for real? Zero, again?” she grumbled.
“What do you mean?”
“Like with that beetle, I gained no experience for this battle. Maybe it’s a bug?” The very thought of being stuck in a game with a flaw that wouldn’t let her gain experience and thus improve her stats was quite ominous.
“Bug? Another one?” Nura jolted, instinctively grabbing for her axe. “Where?”
Elanil smirked. “No, that’s not what I meant. We just fought for our lives. And the system says it was worth nothing.”
“Ohhh, that,” Nura broke into a wide grin, finally understanding. “So that’s what you Wood Elves call it, the system.”
“It’s not specifically Wood Elves—” Elanil started, then stopped herself. Was it worth telling Nura that she wasn’t actually from this world? Would the orc even understand her? For someone like Nura, there was no reality beyond this one. She had been born here, grown up, and quite genuinely considered herself real. At best, she’d think it was just another odd quirk of her strange Wood Elf companion.
“For us orcs it’s called the Gift of the Ancestors,” Nura went on, apparently not even noticing Elanil’s aborted explanation.
“Gift of the Ancestors?”
“Yes,” Nura nodded. “We fight bravely against our foes, so Father Sky and Mother Earth thank us by sharing a grain of their wisdom. And then we decide how to use it. Become more nimble and swift-footed, like an antelope in the endless savannah. Or mighty and punishing, like a summer storm. Or enduring, like camel thorn in the middle of a waterless desert. Or cunning and sharp-witted, like a fox on the hunt.”
Elanil couldn’t suppress her smile, not at Nura, but at the narrative designer. Whoever had worked on this had gone crazy. Taking what was, mechanically, just experience gain and stat distribution, and wrapping it in race-specific metaphor. And knowing her team, this someone had probably written different explanations for each race in the game, according to their cosmology.
“Then how do you orcs do it?” Elanil asked, genuinely curious.
“Do what?”
“Accept the Gift of the Ancestors.”
“What do you mean, how?” Nura still didn’t quite get the question. “We just… accept it. It surrounds us, and we take it in. Like this.”
She spread her arms, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, as if sinking into meditation. For a brief moment, a pale golden glow surrounded her. Above Nura, Elanil saw a translucent interface appear.
[System Notification]
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
[Level Up] Nura
Level: 4 → 5
4 Stat points gained.
Elanil still wasn’t entirely sure what exactly she was supposed to be inhaling. The twisted metal scrap that had nearly killed them minutes ago had already stopped smoking. Still, she decided to imitate Nura. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her nose burned instantly, like she’d just sniffed ground pepper. Next moment, she burst out with a series of five powerful sneezes.
“Did you seriously inhale it?” Nura burst out laughing.
“I did exactly what you did,” Elanil muttered hoarsely, blinking away tears.
“No, you actually inhaled it.” Nura shook her head, still grinning. “You’re just supposed to welcome the blessing entering you. Like water soaking into a dry sponge. It’s not smoke. You don’t have to sniff it.”
Elanil nodded, filing that away. Next time she would try to do as Nura said.
“Interesting,” she thought. “So that’s how they implemented it in the end.” She remembered the debates back in development. Whether to keep experience gain simple: you kill an enemy or complete a quest—you get XP; or go old-school—scatter experience through the environment after combat or quest completion, forcing the player to actively collect it. It looked like the second option had won. “No wonder the CEO wanted to shut us down,” she mused dryly. “This is peak nerd design.”
Her interface flickered again.
[System Notification]
[Level Up]
Level: 1 → 2
4 Stat points gained.
“Nice,” she grinned, content.
“Did it work?” Nura asked curiously.
Elanil nodded. “Still, I wonder how those constructs ended up here in the first place. After all, I would imagine anything here, but not them.”
“But here they are, as well as a Wood Elf,” Nura chuckled. “And an Orc.”
“True,” Elanil agreed, “but you have to admit it. The Eastern Peak Mountains are even further away than the closest of our realms.”
“Uh-huh,” Nura muttered and approached one of the fallen constructs, which looked like a hollowed-out nutshell.
“That’s odd, to say the least,” Elanil thought. The whole picture was becoming much more worrying than she initially expected. There was a land called Mirdain beneath the Eastern Peak Mountains, inhabited by a race of skilled smiths and unrivaled craftsmen. Though incapable of magical abilities themselves, they were highly resistant, if not downright immune, to magic. They also somehow mastered the art of weaving magic into inanimate objects, be it weapons, armor, or everyday devices. Constructs were also their domain.
Elanil knew that depending on the main character’s race, class and other initial settings, the game could take quite a variety of plot directions. Not being a narrative designer herself, she didn’t know about all of them. But as for the little she remembered, none of the light scenarios involved rogue constructs prowling thousands of miles from Mirdain lands. This could only mean that this adventure was indeed going to be quite exciting and challenging for her, if not downgraded to nightmare-level difficulty.
Elanil decided not to bother Nura with her concerns until she was one hundred percent sure. How would she react to some random Wood Elf knowing too much about where this world was heading? Besides, Nura’s identity was also a mystery to Elanil, so she decided to keep her alarmist thoughts to herself and instead observe her companion. Meanwhile, unaware of all this storm of thoughts inside her friend’s head, Nura wandered across the battlefield from one defeated steel enemy to another.
“Do you think this might have something to do with how we ended up here?” she glanced at Elanil.
“We’ll find out sooner or later,” she shrugged. “But for now, more questions are piling up than we have answers.”
“Well, let’s think about it in our spare time,” Nura agreed. “Let’s see what useful things we can salvage from this pile of scrap metal.”
The fallen enemies did not lend themselves easily to what Nura cheerfully called “salvage.” Steel did not peel. Still, where there was stubborn material, there was an even more stubborn orc with axes. Nura had already pried open one of the fallen constructs, bracing a boot against its shell while levering an axe head into a seam. The metal ground in protest before finally giving way with a dull crack. One hemisphere rolled aside, hollow and surprisingly light for its size.
“See?” Nura said, tapping the inner surface. “The shell’s intact. No scorch marks.”
Immediately, the interface appeared in Elanil’s vision.
Item Acquired: Construct Hemisphere (Reinforced Alloy)
Quality: Common
Description: highly valued by Mirdain blacksmiths, shunned by everyone else
Elanil crouched beside the wreckage, peering inside. The interior was a maze of rods, plates, and crystalline channels, most of it warped or shattered from the fighting, but not all.
“Blacksmiths might take the shells,” she said thoughtfully. “Though I’m not sure how many outside Mirdain would know what to do with this alloy.”
“That worries me too,” Nura nodded. “Non-Mirdain smiths like their metals predictable. This stuff feels like it might bite back. But who knows, maybe we’ll find someone who likes experimenting with their stuff.”
She moved on to the artillery construct, carefully angling its split shell away from herself as she worked. Inside the opened cannons, thick residue clung to the inner chambers—dark, oily, and faintly shimmering.
Another menu flickered.
Item Acquired: Incendiary Compound (Volatile)
Quality: Common
Description: adored by alchemists; Handling Warning Issued
“That,” Nura said, pointing with the tip of her axe, “is not something I want exploding in my pack.”
“Alchemists will,” Elanil replied. “Or at least complain loudly while paying for it.”
Finaly, they reached the cores. Each construct had one, buried deep at its center. Compact. Shielded. Untouched by the chaos that had destroyed the rest. Nura cracked open the first housing and froze in surprise.
“Well-well,” she said slowly. “That’s interesting.” Nestled within the core was a rune, a masterfully crafted stone that fitted easily into the palm of her hand. The engraved lines pulsed with a cold silver light. They surely were not there for just a decorative purpose—some stored potential was definitely perceptible.
Elanil’s interface reacted instantly.
Item Acquired: Rune – Protective shield (Archer-Mage)
Quality: Bronze
Description: The ranger casts a protective shield either on them or their ally. The shield has its own health bar, which is calculated based on the ranger’s Health, Physical, Magic and Poison resistance multiplied to the Shield HP coefficient. The shield absorbs any incoming damage while depleting its own health. The ability has no duration expiration—the shield ends when its health depleted. Each upgrade increases the Shield HP coefficient and provides the ranger to cast multiple shields on allies at once.
The second construct yielded another.
Item Acquired: Rune - Shadow Fight (Dual-axe wielder)
Quality: Bronze
Description: For a time, the hero calls upon the shadows of their enemies, and they rise up against their masters, dealing weak physical damage. These shadows cannot be attacked, and their strength depends on the hero’s physical attack. Each upgrade increases the shadows’ physical attack and duration. Note: ability cannot be used if the foe doesn’t cast a shadow.
Nura let out a low whistle. “Looks like the ancestors are generous today.”
Then came the third. The rune inside the final core was different. Its shape unfamiliar, its pattern asymmetrical. This time, Elanil’s interface was brief.
Item Acquired: Rune – N/A (N/A)
Quality: N/A
Description: Incompatible
“This one doesn’t belong to either of us,” she said.
“So someone else is missing it.” Nura tilted her head, studying the rune.
“Yes,” Elanil murmured. “Or hasn’t showed up yet.”
