Deadworld Isekai

“Nothing pleases me more than getting to see you experience the fine weather this island has to offer.”

The guardian’s voice was dripping with sarcasm, and Matt didn't bother with a response.

Back on the island, Matt was afraid to set up any kind of permanent camp. If the cat was the only threat on the island, it could be programmed to roam around and look for him. Given its ability to smell him out, there was a real risk it would find a camp that Matt set up and tear it down.

Matt was sure that he could get away before the Bonecat reached him. After all, he could hear the cat even if he were asleep. It wasn't exactly stealthy. But getting away and getting away with all of his stuff were two different things, and he didn't want to lose a bunch of resources for the sake of comfort.

Unfortunately, unlike the surface of Gaia, this dungeon had weather. At the moment, the wind was howling, and it was raining just as much as Earth hurricanes.

At first, the rain was nice. Matt had a friend from Arizona who, for a while, stood outside in the rain every chance he got. He got wet like an idiot every time. Matt hadn't understood why back then, but he did now. Any change from the dusty-dry air was good. The fact that there was also a day-night cycle was also good.

But this positive outlook lasted for about ten minutes, when he became well and truly soaked. Now, he was hours into getting absolutely whipped by wind and rain in the dark, and much less happy about it.

The guardian finally spoke up. The sheer force of the storm made her seem smaller than before, even though she didn't appear capable of actually being affected by things like wind or rain. “So, what’s the plan? Are we just going to sit around watching you be miserable? You probably agree that there’s just no way you can take that thing down.”

Matt didn’t necessarily disagree. “How was anybody supposed to take this thing down? Even in a team? It’s huge. I can’t see someone at my level tanking it.”

“Oh, lots of ways,” the guardian snorted, “This used to be a whole planet, with libraries and schools. You could study up before you went into these dungeons, unless it was a new one. And new ones were rare.”

“So there’s a trick to it? Tell me.”

“Honestly, I don’t know what it is.”

“I'll do the command thing…”

“I really don't know,” the guardian hurriedly added, “This isn’t me screwing you over, it’s the system. I was supposed to have some warm up time to do research and get some information you might want. I didn’t get that, with the planet dead and all. There’s a lot of stuff I didn’t even have a chance to learn.”

Matt paused before responding, “Seems convenient. Why didn’t the system just implant you with memories about the dungeons?”

“I don’t think it knows. The system is pretty powerful, but it’s not omniscient. The whole point of guardians isn’t just to keep you company, it’s to take work off the system’s plate. It doesn’t keep track of every change on every planet. That’s probably why you're here in the first place. It was counting on me to learn about whatever was going on and help you. So it just didn’t check,” the guardian shrugged.

Matt scowled in the darkness. He could imagine some video game setups that would let a team kite a big, awkward animal like the Bonecat, but he didn’t have any of the abilities to do that. He barely stayed ahead of it earlier by staying maneuverable, but there was no chance he could do that while taking potshots at it. Even if he could, he didn’t have any ranged weapons. Survival instincts was feeding him information on slings and rudimentary bows, but nothing he could make would even put a scratch in it.

He thought about it for a few hours before the rain finally let up a bit. Finally, he could sleep. Recognizing that he wasn’t making much headway, he let unconsciousness take him. He’d think about it tomorrow.

—

Matt was woken not by the sun or by an insane bone monster crashing through the trees, but instead something smaller. Off in the distance, he could hear some sort of whimpering, like an injured animal caught in a trap. He hadn't seen any wildlife on the island yet, to the point where he thought there wasn't any to see. Whatever there was would probably offer him limited food value, but he couldn’t have it luring in the Bonecat. He lifted himself up and started creeping towards the source of the noise.

He was as stealthy as he could be. If it really were an injured animal, he’d have to be careful. If even a rat could injure him, so might a panicked animal of any kind. He had to land a surprise attack where he’d not only avoid getting bitten, but also prevent the animal from running away. It could leave a scent trail and bring the Bonecat straight to him at some point.

The stealth paid off in an unexpected way. When Matt popped out of the brush, he was greeted not to the sight of bleeding wildlife but to a small holographic girl, trying and failing not to make any noise as she sobbed. It would have been hard for her not to notice him bursting from the dark, knife drawn and poise for a stab. She yelped and moved out of the way as Matt tried in vain to jerk to a stop midair.

“What in the hell are you doing, dumbass?”

Matt looked down at his knife, which he still held in a stabbing grip in his hand. He suppressed a reflex to hide it behind his back like a guilty cartoon character, and ended up awkwardly sheathing it while the guardian glared at him.

“I heard something. I thought it was an animal. I came to see what it was,” Matt said.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” the guardian huffed, pretending not to be wiping her eyes. “I’m just trying to get a few moments away from you doing dumb things and trying not to get killed.”

It would have been easier for Matt to believe her if she wasn't clearly trying to hold back sniffles. Once again, his niece and nephew babysitting experience was feeding him scenario-specific wisdom. Every bit of his experience was telling him that he was not only dealing with someone who was trying to hide that they were crying, but that was embarrassed about it.

“Listen, it’s okay if you were crying. It’s…”

“I wasn’t crying.”

“Ok. If we're going to be traveling together, maybe we can talk about what we're feeling.”

“No.”

Matt was willing to keep trying even though the guardian didn’t seem to like him, wasn't willing to help, and seemed to get genuine joy out of the prospect of killing him.

And, sure, she spends all her time insulting me and is only here because I accidentally have some kind of slave contract over her. But she’s all I have, he thought.

“I’m not the best with little kids. But I want to help.”

That apparently crossed some line. The guardian suddenly popped to her feet and rushed at him, jabbing at his chest with her finger.

“You want to help? Really? Because I’ve already told you how to do that. You can leave me alone. You can go do the stupid stuff you want to do without forcing me to come along. Or you could... die? That would be fine too. You had to die to get here in the first place, right? You should be good at it by now.”

“Hey…”

“No hey. I have to follow you around. That sucks. You suck. But I don’t want to listen while you play amateur psychiatrist with someone who was just trying to spend ten minutes away from your snoring.”

Matt knew when he was beaten, and he wasn’t doing himself any favors by pissing off his only reliable source of information about the world. He put both his hands up, palm out, “Ok, I get it. I’m sorry. Have a good night.”

Defeated, he went back out into the dark and found another tree to lean against. He stayed awake for a while, listening to see if she’d cry again. Either she didn’t or she learned her lesson about doing so audibly because he didn’t pick anything up. After a while, he drifted back off to sleep with images of crying children and gigantic bonecats dancing in his head.

—

The next morning, he put together something resembling a plan. It wasn’t a good plan, but he was beginning to suspect that he didn’t have enough tools to put together something better. Absent options with high probabilities of success, he was left with settling for stuff that plausibly might work if everything lined up just right. He settled for something that made his odds go from certain death to maybe death.

Finding a stick that would work for his plan wasn’t hard. The trees in the forest were old, and the island got a lot of wind. Fallen branches were lying around everywhere, so finding the right stick was only a matter of walking around and browsing various chunks of wood until one was straight and thick enough to do the job.

Finding a stone was harder. He saw dozens that looked flat and wide enough to work. But after digging them out of the ground, they all ended up the wrong size or shape that rendered them unsuitable for his task. It took some time before he found one that, through some trick of erosion, was shaped like a giant arrowhead.

The guardian was absent from Matt's activities, and he didn't go looking for her. There were only so many places she could go. He didn’t mind giving her some space after what had happened the night before.

By the time she finally barged back in, he was just about done lashing the stone to the branch. He was thankful once again for his survivor’s instincts. Tying a stone to a stick was somehow much, much harder than it sounded, especially if you needed it to stay there through any sort of abuse.

As she approached, she cleared her throat, “Ahem, I see you have a spear there.”

“Yeah, it’s almost done,” Matt responded without looking up.

“I have to hand it to your system skills. That looks almost like a real thing.”

Matt made the last wrap of his lashing, then tied it off. He picked the tool up and gave it a few experimental swings, and was gratified when the stone stayed in position tight against the wood. He thwacked it on the ground a few times with the same results.

Yup, that will work.

“One piece of bad news,” the guardian said. “Well, really two. First, there’s no way in hell that stone is anywhere near sharp or hard enough to hurt the bone tiger.”

“Agreed.” Matt’s failure to argue on that point seemed to throw her for a moment, but she continued on. “Second, even if it could, there’s no way you’d get close enough or get enough strikes in to take it down. It’s a lost cause.”

“No disagreement here.” Matt took his creation and flexed the joint between the stone and stick a few more times, making absolutely sure it was as well-fastened as he could get it. “I agree that this won’t do much as a weapon, but it’s better than nothing. And you did make one mistake in your judgement there.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

Matt stabbed the tool downwards and smiled as the point cleanly cut into the damp soil.

“It’s not a spear. It’s a shovel.”