I woke to the sharp beeping of an alert, my eyes slowly opening to a system notification flashing above my vision.
[Daily Quest ending in 10]
[9... 8... 7...]
"Daily quest?" I muttered, still half-asleep, voice slurred.
[4...]
Then my eyes shot open. The mory hit like a slap.
"No!"
[3...]
"No, no, no!"
[2...]
"Shit!" I cursed, scrambling upright. How could I forget sothing this important?
[1...]
I froze.
I was screwed.
I just sat there, staring at the blinking ssage like it might go away if I looked confused enough. Spoiler: it didn’t.
[Daily Quest Failed]
[You will now be penalized]
Seriously? I could’ve avoided this if I’d just taken it seriously earlier. But after the fight with the troll, mooncat and then the Direwolves, all I could think about was getting back and resting. And I did. I slept so hard I drooled. Best sleep I’d had in years.
But of course, the universe had to punish for relaxing. Like always.
I sighed. At this point, all I could do was hope the penalty wouldn’t be too bad.
DING!
[You have not completed the daily quest]
[You will now be transported to the Penalty Zone to receive punishnt]
"Transported?"
[Brace yourself...]
The warning barely finished when the door burst open—Zarah rushed in, panic on her face.
"Chief—!"
That’s all I heard.
A powerful force yanked downward like I was being dragged into the earth. I scread without aning to, the room vanishing as the world twisted and warped around .
One second I was standing there, the next—gone.
Darkness.
I was falling—weightless—in a black void, spinning, tumbling. For a second, I thought I was going to puke mid-air.
Then—
THUMP!
I landed hard in a pile of warm, dry sand. Not gracefully. I groaned and sat up, coughing and spitting out a mouthful of grit.
"What the hell...?"
I stood slowly, dusting myself off and surveying my surroundings. I wasn’t in the cave anymore.
This was... sowhere else.
The sky above was tinted a rusty orange-brown, the sun either setting or rising—I couldn’t tell. Two strange moons, one greenish and one blue, hovered in opposite corners of the sky, and the sand beneath my feet was pale and fine, like salt which shimred under the alien sky, almost crystalline.
I took a step and it shifted noiselessly, smooth as powder.
A desert?
Endless dunes stretched in every direction, quiet except for the wind hissing past my ears.
Where was I?
I didn’t have ti to think.
The ground beneath began to tremble. The sand rippled, like sothing massive stirred below.
Then, with a soft crunch, skeletal hands pushed through the surface.
Dozens of them.
No—hundreds.
Bony figures rose from the dunes...First one hand. Then two. Then ten. The sand ruptured like it was boiling from beneath, and skeletons clawed their way to the surface, all the sa size as . Small, hunched... goblin-shaped.
I activated [Analyze].
[Undead Goblin]
[Level: 15]
They were at the sa level as . Bare bones—literally—each one holding a crude dagger. Their skulls drooped, lifeless, as if waiting for sothing.
My heart pounded.
Don’t tell ...
DING!
[Daily Quest Failed]
[Penalty: Survive the Horde of Undead Goblins]
[Ti Limit: 2:00:00]
"...W-what?"
I stared as more goblins erged from the sand, forming a massive semicircle in front of . Hundreds—maybe more—stretching into the horizon.
I was supposed to survive this?
I felt a flicker of hope. I still had [Phase Walker], my innate ability. If I warped around, I could stay out of reach. The desert gave plenty of open space to maneuver.
Then another ssage popped up.
DING!
[During this trial, your Innate Skill has been temporarily removed]
I stopped breathing for a mont.
"...what?"
[Try not to die, Eli.]
"No. No, no, no, no—"
[Good luck.]
"Seriously, Gandalf?!"
The mont the ssage vanished, every undead goblin raised its head, their bones clicking in sync, like an orchestra of death tuning up.
Their eye sockets glowed with an eerie green light, and every single one of them locked onto .
I was frozen.
Then they started moving—fast.
The bones clattered, feet kicking up dust as the horde surged forward like a wave of death.
I turned and ran.
I didn’t know how fast they were or how strong. But without [Phase Walker], fighting hundreds of undead head-on was suicide.
The sand crunched beneath my feet as I sprinted. The air was dry, burning my lungs. Wind sliced past my ears. The only plan I had was not to stop running.
The goblins stayed behind at a steady pace, not fast, but relentless.
I glanced back.
They weren’t slowing down.
But—thank the system—they weren’t speeding up either.
I sighed in relief.
Didn’t jinx it. Good.
I kept going, but my legs were already starting to ache. My breathing grew ragged.
I checked the tir.
[01:50:00]
Only ten minutes had passed?!
Seriously?
I stumbled but caught myself. That brief mont of slowing let the undead close so distance. My heart raced.
There was no way I could do this for another 110 minutes. Not like this.
But then I rembered sothing.
I still hadn’t used the 12 stat points I earned from the Direwolf fight.
Without hesitation, I called out:
"System—add 10 points to Stamina, 2 to Agility!"
The change was instant. My breathing eased, muscles loosened. I felt lighter—faster.
I accelerated, widening the distance again. The gap between and the horde grew.
"Yessss," I breathed. "I might actually survive this."
That’s what I thought... until more undead began appearing ahead of . Dozens, spawning from the dunes like corrupted plants bursting through soil.
They were trying to trap in.
I weaved between them, just barely avoiding their grasp. One got too close, and I lashed out with a punch.
Its skull snapped clean off, and the body crumpled.
"Oh..."
I stared at my fist, surprised by the force.
But my relief vanished the mont I looked back.
The goblin I just decapitated picked up its head... and reattached it.
The green light flickered back in its sockets.
It stood again.
I felt cold.
This... this wasn’t just a punishnt.
This was hell.
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