Then he opened the regional rankings and felt his expression go flat. After six hours of sleep he had expected some slippage, but fifty-second in the American region was not what he’d anticipated. Elias Finch sat at first place, five full levels ahead. Don closed the rankings without comment. At thirty-five, Finch could equip that gold-grade longsword, and a gold-grade longsword at that level turned leveling into something mechanical and efficient. The math made sense.

It didn’t make it less irritating.

He pushed the thought aside. Wolves first.

Fifty silver coins bought them a teleport to Ghost Wolf Village. The moment they stepped outside the village boundary, the canyon opened up around them, gray and wide, the kind of landscape that looked exactly as hostile as its name suggested.

The wolves were everywhere.

They weren’t the decorative kind. Each one stood nearly as tall as a Tibetan Mastiff, built heavy through the chest and shoulders, gray manes bristling, eyes burning with a flat red light that had nothing behind it but appetite. Don posted their data to the party chat.

[Ghost Wolf] — Rank: Elite. Level: 35.

HP: 260,000. Physical Attack: 1,600–1,700. Physical Defense: 1,000. Magic Defense: 1,000.

Skills: Tear Strike, Bloodlust Strike.

Kira studied the stat block with the expression of someone reassessing her life choices. "Brother Don... this isn’t a newbie village, is it."

"Definitely not. If it were a newbie village, none of us would be alive right now."

Lily surveyed the wolves with her hands on her hips. "These pelts are going to be a nightmare to collect, aren’t they."

"The blueprint calls for four pelts per pair of boots, plus auxiliary materials. Given the monster’s rank, drop rate should be reasonable." Don paused. "Theoretically."

Kira had already stopped listening. She drew the Malan sword, stepped forward, and opened with a clean overhead slash to the nearest wolf’s skull.

"Head-On Slash!"

4,059.

"Let’s go," she said simply.

Don fell in behind the wolf, his body flaring red as killing intent stacked to full. He drove his dagger into the wolf’s hindquarters with a precision that was entirely deliberate.

6,097.

Kira’s head snapped around. "How,"

"Taunt," Don said. "Now. Before it decides I’m more interesting than you."

She hit the skill immediately, pulling aggro back. The wolf redirected, lunging for Kira with its jaws wide. They closed on her arm, and the debuff icon appeared, fifty health every two seconds, ten seconds duration.

Kira shook the arm out irritably. "It’s like it can’t actually bite properly. Just clamps on and hangs there."

"Give me a second."

Don reached into his pack, produced a pinch of green powder, and worked it carefully into his dagger blade. The poison coating caught the light.

He went back in. Two horizontal slashes across the wolf’s flank, and then, at the precise instant the second slash completed, a sharp flick of the wrist that drove the blade across the wolf’s back before the animation fully closed.

1,984. 2,195. 2,985.

Three numbers, rapid succession.

Lily blinked. "How did you get three?"

"Last one’s a card strike. You end the skill and immediately chain a normal attack before the recovery frames finish. If the timing’s right, the game treats it as a separate hit."

"Can I do that with a crossbow?"

"No. Reload time’s too long on ranged weapons. The window closes before you can fire."

Kira watched him work with an expression caught between admiration and mild exasperation. "Brother Don, teach me proper combo canceling. I’m not consistent with it."

Don glanced over. "You’re serious? Someone with your skill level?"

"I said I’m not consistent."

He clicked his tongue. "There’s nothing to teach. It’s a habit, not a technique. Pay attention to your animation stops every time you swing. After a few hundred repetitions it stops being a decision."

"And the benefit?" Lily asked.

"Output," Don said. "More of it."

The poison had taken hold while they talked. The wolf’s fur had gone a sickly green around the shoulders, its attack speed visibly sluggish. Kira found the rhythm easier to work with immediately, and then the wolf simply froze mid-swipe, claws extended, locked in place as the slow effect peaked.

Kira smiled. "The poison is genuinely useful."

"It’s also ten silver coins a bottle," Don said through his teeth. "From a grocer who apparently fled Rwanda and decided to make his fortune selling poison to rogues."

Kira nearly choked on a laugh. "You have less than four thousand gold and you’re complaining about silver coins?"

"Less than four thousand is less than four thousand."

Lily turned to Kira with an expression of theatrical disbelief. "How much do you have?"

Kira looked at Lily. "Forty-three."

Both of them turned to Lily.

She stuck out her tongue. "Two hundred and four."

"Two hundred," Kira rounded on Don. "You’ve been selling her equipment!"

"That’s called earning money through legitimate means," Don said. "It’s a virtue."

"It’s called robbery."

"Sour grapes."

Kira’s eyes narrowed with the particular calculation of someone assembling a proposal. "Here’s an idea. You sell my equipment going forward. Fifty-fifty split."

"Done. I take fifty-five."

"I said fifty-fifty."

"I heard you. I’m renegotiating."

"Go to hell."

The wolf died somewhere in the middle of this exchange, which none of them had particularly planned for. Don crouched over it without breaking stride, drew his dagger along the neck, and began working the hide free.

Lily recoiled. "Brother Don, that’s,"

"What did you expect? It to undress itself?"

She had no answer for that.

The pelt came free about halfway before Don felt the tension change. A sound like tearing paper, and then,

Nothing. The pelt, the carcass, all of it dissolved.

"Skinning of the Ghost Wolf failed. The wolf pelt has been lost."

"No!" Lily’s composure broke completely. "I watched you do half of it,"

"I know."

"That’s not fair,"

"I know."

Don sat back and thought about it. He killed five more wolves across the next twenty minutes. One pelt came off clean. The rest tore. He was staring at the ground with the expression of a man recalculating his assumptions when Kira spoke.

"It’s not your technique," she said. "Skinning is a dwarf skill. Their success rate will be higher. Probably significantly."

Don went still.

Then a particular kind of look crossed his face, the one that preceded either a very good idea or a considerable amount of trouble, and was often both simultaneously.

"Give me five minutes," he said. "Stay here."

He logged out before either of them could ask what he was doing.

Back in the studio, Don pulled off his glasses and looked around the floor. Nearly empty, as expected. Then he noticed seat one-seventeen, a head moving with the small, careful movements of someone trying very hard not to be noticed.

Don crossed the floor quietly. In the chair sat a small figure in a gray canvas baseball cap pulled low, frame compact enough to read as young at a glance.

Don reached down without ceremony, pulled the cap off, and pinched the cheek beneath it.

In Realms Online, physical harassment in the real world triggered an automatic logout prompt. The figure’s hands flew to the glasses, pulled them off, and looked up.

A face Don recognized. Caught. Grinning immediately, in the way of someone who had planned for exactly this outcome and found the result acceptable.

The tongue came out first. "Oh no," said the infiltrator cheerfully. "My cover is blown."