Richter now walked with the group, and it still felt strange—the sound of voices, the ease of conversation, even the occasional joke tossed between them. He’d stopped the thief—acted without hesitation—and that had shifted something. The group still watched him carefully, still weighed every word and movement, but the suspicion that he'd been a vulture waiting to swoop had dulled.

  They hadn’t fully embraced him, not yet, but they’d let him walk beside them. That was something. They’d told him of others—survivors who had begun to gather, forming a rough base camp deeper in the forest. Not far, they’d said. Close enough that hope felt tangible for the first time in a long while.

  Richter was lost in his thoughts when the brown-haired healer quietly stepped in beside him. Her name was Emma—a former elementary school teacher before the System had rewritten the world. She didn’t speak at first, just matched his pace, her presence light but deliberate.

  "So, you chose Healer, right? That knife throw—was that some kind of skill you chose?" Emma’s tone was light, conversational, but Richter could tell she wasn’t just making small talk out of curiosity. She struck him as the kind of person who filled silences not out of discomfort, but to make others feel less alone. Someone who noticed when people drifted to the edge—and stepped in before they could fall off.

  The group clearly valued her—he could see it in the way they subtly shifted when she spoke to him, the way Liam’s gaze lingered just a little longer. It wasn’t overt, but it was protective. A silent message passed through glances and stances: 'Hurt her, and we’ll end you.'

  Emma had been chosen to open the most recent uncommon chest, part of what the group described as a fair rotation. Liam, the archer, had drawn an uncommon bow from the first; Sarah, the one-armed warrior, had pulled a rare sword from the second. Now it was Emma’s turn, and she'd walked away with an uncommon staff humming with latent power. Next in line was Jon, the bald, grizzled dagger-wielder. The system wasn’t just practical—it was a quiet show of trust, a way of reinforcing that everyone had a place, and no one was left behind.

  Emma’s staff made Richter’s plain metal one look like scrap. It was crafted from two intertwining strands of wood—one a bone-pale white, the other a rich, dark ebony—braided together in an elegant twist. A faint, steady glow pulsed where the woods met, like mana breathing quietly beneath the surface.

  "Yeah, I picked it up early on. It pairs well with my knife..." Richter hesitated, the rest of the truth catching in his throat. They didn’t know about the mark. Or Cain. "The skill boosts my throw and lets me call the blade back," he finished, voice steady. A clean lie—simple, functional. Safer that way.

  "Oh, that’s cool. My first choice was a mana bolt upgrade. The last one let me cast my healing at range, which has been a lifesaver." She smiled, clearly proud of her progress. The others in the group were all at least level six in their class. Richter, still sitting at level three, was clearly behind—but it didn’t sting too badly. Only Liam had unlocked a profession so far, and that helped soften the gap.

  Richter drifted back into his thoughts as Emma spoke. She was kind—curious about his past, about how he’d earned his profession—without pressing or probing. She seemed especially intrigued by the puzzle he’d solved to get it; her group hadn’t encountered anything like it. There was genuine interest in her questions, not just politeness. It made him wonder how different things might have been if he’d met someone like her sooner.

  Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

  As night drew closer, Sarah and Liam decided to set up camp. They said it was still a few hours' walk to the base, and it would be safer to wait until morning.

  They set up a watch schedule, but Richter wasn’t included. A quiet decision, unspoken but clear—he still hadn’t earned that level of trust.

  The moon hung high above the treetops when Richter stirred, roused by the quiet insistence of nature.

  On his return to the camp, the soft glow of the fire guided him back. Liam sat at the edge of the light, cross-legged and quiet, whittling a stick with slow, methodical strokes of his knife.

  "Mind if I ask you something?" Richter gathered the nerve as he sat down beside the taller man. Liam’s eyes flicked toward him, sharp and unreadable, like he was peeling Richter apart with a glance. After a pause, he gave a slow shrug that doubled as a nod.

  "When you caught me, Sarah mentioned something about you catching another one before. I’m guessing that thief wasn’t your first encounter." Richter noticed it—a flicker, brief but unmistakable, that cracked through Liam’s steely composure.

  Liam placed the stake he was carving down and picked up another piece of wood to begin his next.

  "It was our second chest. A dark blue beacon—rare chest. We figured out that the beacon color correlates with the chest's rarity." As his knife glided through the tough wood, he flicked the shavings into the fire.

  "Anyway, I had just gotten my profession—Trapper. It lets me build basic traps, useful in these woods. It was meant to help protect our camp from beasts." He was looking down ashamed, the tough exterior now gone.

  "“The guardian of the chest was some kind of oversized rodent—smart, territorial, and backed by a whole pack. So we figured it made sense to lay traps ahead of time. Lure part of the group into them, deal with the alpha while the rest were occupied.”

  Richter found himself genuinely impressed. It was a practical use of a practical profession, and he could already see the value in it.

  “It worked—mostly. The traps took out most of the pack before we even engaged. With the numbers thinned, the alpha was easier to handle. But just as we brought it down and turned to the chest, one of those scavenger types dashed in, snatched it, and vanished before we could react.”

  Richter glanced at the growing pile of stakes in front of Liam, suddenly curious. Was that what he used? How did he set them? He imagined snares hidden under fallen leaves, pressure-plates buried in brush. It would be interesting to see them in action.

  "The thief thought he got away, but he was careless. I had set up a pit trap—filled with these." Liam looked down at his creations. "My profession lets me infuse mana into my creations, boosting their effectiveness and increasing the traps' damage." He paused slightly.

  "The kill notification came after the screaming. By the time we reached him, the young man was already dead—impaled on eight sharpened spikes, his body crumpled in the trap like a broken marionette."

  Liam’s voice had gone quieter, the words trailing off like the weight of them was settling heavy on his chest. He didn’t pick up another stake, didn’t reach for his knife. He just sat there, staring into the fire.

  Richter didn’t speak. He could see it in the tension in Liam’s jaw, the way his fingers fidgeted but never moved. Guilt clung to him like smoke.

  So Richter sat there beside him in silence, letting the fire crackle between them. He didn’t ask more. Didn’t push. Some wounds weren’t meant to be poked at—they needed space to scar on their own.

  Richter knew that anyone looking from the outside would say it wasn’t Liam’s fault. If the man hadn’t been a thief, he wouldn’t have died. But Richter understood all too well how deeply an accidental death could weigh on a person’s mind.

  Neither of them spoke again. And that, in its own way, felt like trust.