Walking toward the distant city, Reever had expected to arrive there in half a day. The distance looked manageable, the fields stretched wide but gentle under the light of a sun that never seemed to move. Yet, as he continued walking, he began to notice something strange. With every step he took, the city appeared to drift further away.
Time had little meaning here. Hunger and fatigue were things that did not exist for him, but even so, his mind began to tire. The endless walking, the sameness of the scenery, the silence that followed him wherever he went, all began to weigh on him. He was built to endure, but not to wander without purpose.
He could not tell how much time had passed. The sun remained fixed in the sky, bathing the world in a light that never faded. Still, by judging the distance he had covered, Reever guessed he had walked for two days. He felt no exhaustion, yet there was a weariness that clung to him, something heavier than tired legs. It was the boredom and loneliness that came with endless stillness.
Finally, he decided to rest. The cities still shimmered far ahead, but they had not grown any closer. He began to suspect that the system was toying with him, perhaps setting boundaries he could not cross.
He found a patch of grass and sat down, his mind full of questions. If this world was only a game, why did it feel so vast? Why was the system allowing him to travel yet denying him progress?
Even though sleep was not a natural need, Reever had learned how to mimic it. By quieting parts of his consciousness, he could shut down his awareness and rest. He lay down on the soft grass and let his thoughts fade away.
When he opened his eyes, everything had changed.
[ You have died. ]
The message glowed before him like a cruel joke. His heart, if he could call it that, pounded with confusion and fear. He looked around, expecting to see some enemy or explosion that had killed him, but the field was still and silent. There was nothing but the same endless green.
To his relief, he had not been sent back to Dawnville. Instead, he found himself near the same tree he had destroyed earlier with a single bullet.
"What happened? How did I die?" he muttered, scanning the empty field. The air was still. Not a sound. Not even the hum of the system.
Panic filled him. He had lost another life without knowing how. Seven lives remained, and the system had not yet come back online. Death had come quietly, and that frightened him more than any gunfire.
He forced himself to calm down. Perhaps it was his fault. Perhaps shutting down in the open had left him vulnerable. The thought gave him a small sense of control, though deep inside, he knew something was wrong with this place.
He looked toward the endless stretch of land and clenched his jaw. His long walk had been wasted. All the distance he had covered had vanished the moment he died. That realization frustrated him more than anything else. But as he stood there thinking, another idea came to him.
He remembered that the tree he had shot earlier had survived the reset. Maybe his bullet had left a mark that tied his respawn to that spot. Maybe the system treated his shots as landmarks. The idea was wild, but it made sense. He almost wanted to test it by shooting another place and taking his own life, but he quickly threw that thought away.
He summoned his rifle and decided to move again. The armor shimmered softly as he began to run. His steps were light and soundless. The suit was built for endurance and speed, and though his mind was restless, his body was tireless.
He reached the spot where he believed he had died earlier. To test his idea, he aimed at a rock and fired a shot, leaving a blackened scar on its surface. It would serve as another marker.
Then he continued running.
For a long time, he sprinted across the green plains, leaving marks along the way, one after another. Yet the cities never came closer. He began to sense it now. The world around him was not only vast, it was wrong. The horizon stayed still, the air felt too calm, too clean. There were no insects, no rustle of leaves, no life at all.
After what he thought might have been two days, he stopped again. The silence had become heavy, almost pressing against his helmet. He found a small rise in the ground and knelt down, placing his sniper rifle before him. Through its scope, he looked toward the distant city. The magnification brought the gates into view, massive and metallic. They looked close enough to touch.
Reever adjusted his aim and placed the crosshair on the gate. It was roughly twenty kilometers away, a distance his rifle could easily cover. He pulled the trigger.
The rifle fired with a soft crack. The bullet flew straight and true, cutting through the air like a streak of light. Reever watched through the scope, expecting the impact. But the bullet never stopped.
It kept flying.
He blinked, adjusting the focus. The bullet had passed the halfway point, yet it showed no sign of slowing down. Seconds turned into minutes, and still it moved.
He frowned, confusion turning into dread. The bullet should have hit its target by now, but it seemed trapped, suspended in motion, forever flying toward a gate it would never reach.
Something deep in his chest tightened.
"This place… it isn't right," he whispered.
The endless grass swayed softly in the wind, yet it felt lifeless, hollow, like a painting pretending to move. He began to realize that the world itself was not just strange — it was cursed.
The system had warned him that going beyond the map meant losing protection. What if this was what it meant? An endless loop, a place that defied time and distance. A prison that wore the face of open freedom.
Reever stood, fear crawling through his veins. He began to run again, faster than before, his eyes fixed on the unreachable city. But no matter how far he went, the horizon never changed. The city gates remained where they were, distant and perfect, taunting him.
He ran until he could no longer pretend that distance mattered. Then he stopped, panting out of habit rather than need, and raised his rifle once more. Through the scope, he searched for the gate and found something that made his blood run cold.
The bullet was still flying. It had not stopped, had not fallen, had not faded. It was moving faster now, slicing through the air as if the very laws of motion were being rewritten.
Reever lowered the rifle slowly. The world around him was silent again, too silent. Even the wind seemed afraid to make a sound.
"Well," he muttered, "I'll be damned. This whole place is cursed."
He sat down on the grass, forcing his body to stillness, but his mind refused to quiet. The silence pressed in, thick and heavy. The endless fields stretched before him, beautiful yet wrong, and he felt as if the land itself was watching him, waiting for him to move again.