The Panel was quieter these days, but it still liked to offer invitations like a bored host sliding postcards across a table.
Ethan tapped the ribbon open with the smallest of gestures and let the mission board unfurl in his private HUD. The settlements' mission pool had new entries since the Hunter Exam logging closed; most were small—scavenger hunts, observation runs, training calibrations. One of them was different: bright, sharp, and blunt.
—————— PANEL — NEW MISSION ——————
Mission Title: PURGE PROTOCOL
Rank: C (Field) — Optional PvE Loop
Location: Zombie Apocalypse Node (Rogue Sector)
Objective: Neutralize hostile undead in the target grid and recover salvage as needed.
Primary Reward (per kill): Base 5 PP → Talent ×10 applied → 50 PP per undead neutralized
Item Drops (chance): Scrap Parts, Medical Kit Fragments, Contaminated Tissue (convertible)
Notes:
• Mission is repeatable.
• Host may choose extraction for infection resistance (optional, PP cost).
• Public usage of high-profile abilities may attract other survivors or opportunists.
Accept? [YES] [NO]
———————————————————
Ethan read the numbers twice.
Fifty PP per kill. That was stupidly lucrative—exactly the sort of arithmetic that would make greedy people do stupid things. But that was the Panel: giving temptation and then watching what you chose to do with it.
He ran a private check: reputation impact, expected survivor draw, risk of timeline ripples. Nothing flagged major. Mostly it was a grind node: survival, scavenging, and cleanup. Mostly canonical—this node existed to be survived, not altered.
He accepted.
—————— PANEL — MISSION ASSIST — OPTIONS ——————
• Basic Gear Pack (Free Assist): Medical Patch (Minor), 1 Healing Capsule, 1 Temp Flashlight.
• Extraction Prompt: Add "Infection Resistance I" conversion attempt (Major): 800 PP (chance-based) — Recommended for repeated exposure.
• Stealth Option: Activate Shadow Cloak (short) for 90 PP.
Choose assistance now or in-field.
——————————————————————————
He clicked Basic Gear Pack and took the free items. The Panel already nudged another button in the background: the travel node was unlocked for him; his Temporal Anchor would allow a smooth re-entry point.
He took one more breath and pressed Travel.
The Node
The arrival was never cinematic—no starburst, no dramatic fog. The settlement ribbon bent space in practical, efficient ways. One second he was in a sterile hub, the next the Panel dropped him into an alley that smelled like the end of a garden and a chemical dump at once: stale water, burned paper, the copper tang of old blood.
The sky was a bruised, low slate. Concrete skeletons lined the horizon: looted storefronts, a toppled bus, a hotel with a ragged banner flapping. The city moved like a place built for running: narrow alleys spilling into broken plazas, rooftops linked by rusted scaffolding. Somewhere far off, a siren that still cared faintly about order gave up and died.
Alpha Sense painted the immediate air with motion vectors. They were thin, confused lines—short local arcs that suggested stumbling, not purposeful stride. Shadow Sense flagged low-energy eddies of cold where the bodies had been; they jittered with the ineffable intention that was not quite life and not quite nothing.
He checked the HUD.
Mission Active — Purge Protocol (Zone A: Downtown Quarter)
Current PP: 2,240
That number squinted at him like a ledger daring him to spend it wisely.
First Contact
He moved the way he always did now—small, practical, hardly showy. Fold Slip gave him options: a blink here, a blink there. Alpha Sense let him prefer the lane of movement a single step ahead of the undead. Emotional Insight, absurdly, helped him read the remaining warmth in a survivor's frame when he needed to avoid panicking them.
The first cluster was three of them by a broken kiosk. Not fast. Not smart. The kind that had once been human and now answered only to a hunger reflex. Their faces were pale and slack; their joints moved with a looseness like uncoordinated gravities.
He could have thrown a blade and ended it in a single clean motion. Instead he tested the reward.
He stepped into a low shadow, slid one foot along a line of rubble, and let Fold Slip take a centimeter of space from beneath him. He reappeared behind the nearest walker and tapped the back of its skull with a carpenter-like fist. The head slackened, collapsed to the pavement.
The Panel chimed inside his head.
REWARD PROCESSED — BASE: 5 PP ×10 → +50 PP
Current PP: 2,290
Ethan let the number settle. Fifty PP every time. The math would add up. He kept moving.
Two more followed—one staggered and reached, hands clawing useless air. He swept a foot at its ankle; it folded. The second fold produced another soft chime: +50 PP. The patrol radius ahead was clearer.
He felt no joy; the Panel's gain was efficient bookkeeping. He felt a kind of clinical satisfaction, like fixing a machine.
Loot & Risk
The first dead body yielded a scrap tool kit and a rusted medcap. The item drop was real physical salvage—they were not panel-ghosts. The Panel offered conversion options: bind the medcap to a "Medical Kit Fragment" in inventory, convertable later via extraction or used at once for a heal.
He pocketed the medcap. Inventory pinged.
ITEM OBTAINED — MEDICAL KIT FRAGMENT (Minor)
Note: Can be converted to Healing Capsule (Minor) at Settlement Shop for 35 PP or bound via 1 Common Ticket.
More undead shuffled ahead. The whole block was a slow, groaning ballet of interrupted lives. He moved like a ghost that knew angles, crept along the shadow of a delivery truck, and used the sunlight as a blind.
Occasionally, the Panel sent small mission sub-prompts: clear this alley for survivors, secure a rooftop for salvage, pull a trapped NPC out. Those optional missions wore smaller badges—50 PP for clearing a pack, 150 PP for rescuing a survivor. All of it multiplied.
He took the rescue once. A woman—mid-thirties, stubborn jaw, clutching an infant that hissed with fear—was stuck under a collapsed awning. He used Cliffmaster advantage to wedge his fingers in the cracked concrete and lever the beam free. He could have used the Panel's strength-enhancing capsules but he let his current build do the work. The crowbar was heavy; grit was heavier. When she crawled free, she looked at him like a lamp that hadn't been expected.
The Panel rewarded him with a mission bonus—rescues were worth more.
RESCUE BONUS — Base 15 PP ×10 → +150 PP
Current PP: 2,540
She wouldn't be a new long-term friend in his timeline—these were canonical echoes, aligned to the node's design—but she would get to move on. That, for now, was enough.
Unease and the Bigger Picture
A chill crawled down his arms. A large group of undead had been moving in increments, correcting for the positions he'd cleared. He'd been careful, but careful stacked into risk. His skin prickled.
The Panel pulsed an advisory:
Attention: Cluster approaching (estimated 8). Mission suggests fallback to high ground or deploy area suppression.
Option A: Withdraw to rooftop — no PP cost.
Option B: Deploy suppressed explosive device from shop (80 PP) — damages cluster heavily.
Option C: Hold position and thin the pack for rewards. (High mission reward — each kill still +50 PP)
Ethan thought the arithmetic and instinct both at once. Eight bodies at +50 PP each was +400 PP. If he thinned them one by one he could net the money and the salvage, but a mistake would be costly. The Panel gave him tools; he gave himself discretion.
He could feel the node's design pulsing around him: risk and reward were balanced to keep Hosts busy.
He chose a middle path. He activated Shadow Cloak—short—from his internal ribbon (90 PP), not to hide, but to temper the chance of being swamped in a flanking move. The cloak wasn't invisibility; it was a dampening field that blurred movement lines for casual vision.
-90 PP
Current PP: 2,450
He took the alley's far end and let the undead march into a preselected kill-line. Combat Insight whispered micro-timing cues; Exam Reflexes handled instant frames. He targeted legs, stun-kicked, and used a weighted blunt to knock their skulls clean. He moved the way a surgeon would, precise and utterly unromantic.
Each death added +50 PP. Four fell under his pattern—+200 PP. The last four he pushed back with a smoke and grenadier-style blast from a scavenged device he'd chosen not to buy earlier; instead he improvised, lobbed a flare into a bar of gasoline and kicked. It was messy and beautiful in the way survival often is. The last four went down with a chorus.
When it was over the Panel chimed a larger note:
MISSION MILESTONE: Zone A cleared (temporary). Reward Processing: +Base 200 PP ×10 → +2,000 PP added.
Current PP: 4,650
Ethan let the number sit. He'd just earned enough to buy a serious service. He also felt the thrum of small, dangerous things forming in the periphery—other Hosts, for one; opportunistic survivors wanting payout for intel; maybe even hunters with eyes on the node's yield.
Brief Respite & Decision
He took a breath, wiped a smear of grime from his jaw, and checked the medkit fragment. Inventory noted a small choice: convert now into a healing capsule (cost 35 PP) or stash and combine later. He chose conservatism and converted one—he'd need the cushion.
-35 PP for conversion → small heal in inventory available.
Current PP: 4,615
He sent a short, silent ping through the Panel: Zone A complete. Extracting minimal salvage. Anchor active. It was a private log that would allow him to return to this node quickly. The Panel ticked back: Anchor accepted.
Then the more uncomfortable thought: each kill increased his PP and thus his reach. That wealth would let him buy more powerful things. The Panel's Talent bar hovered in the corner of his private view, but the mission reward arithmetic now felt almost like a currency trap. It could be useful—if managed—and it could be a magnet.
He reviewed the mission board. There were other nodes—quieter extraction points, higher-yield zones, and a main plaza that, if cleared, would unlock a specialty: a permanent "Safehouse" module that could be turned into a forward base. That required clearing an entire plaza of concentrated undead—dangerous, but paid out in thousands of PP thanks to the ×10.
He tapped the HUD and marked it for later.
Closing the Loop (for now)
Before he left the downtown quadrant, a small, unexpected pop-up appeared—Panel special notice in small type:
SYSTEM NOTICE: The Host's talent multiplier remains in effect. Panel recommends periodic cooldowns between high-density Purge runs to minimize detection risk and timeline ripple.
OPTION: Auto-cooldown engage (suggested: 2 hours) — sets Host to low-visibility mode until next mission. (No PP cost)
He accepted the auto-cooldown. Better to breathe and plan.
Ethan checked the last ledger line: from the single alley incident he'd netted an extra +2,375 PP after spends and conversions. The number was obscene and practical. He locked it in his head the way you lock the combination on a safe.
He stepped into an open street and looked at the city's broken geometry. Far off, a sound—less groan, more mechanical—suggested something larger moving. Maybe it was a generator. Maybe another pack. Maybe something else entirely.
He pocketed the medkit, toggled the Shadow Cloak off, and folded the Panel ribbon inward. The node still hummed with business. There was more to do, and the Panel still whispered opportunities.
He walked toward the laneway where the Temporal Anchor would kick in and pull him home or forward as he chose. He'd planned to stay longer; the math seduced him. But the Panel's advisory about visibility had landed in his head.
For now: back to the settlement. Inventory secure. PP counted. Mission logged.
The apocalypse had been a ledger and a lesson.
The Panel chimed one last, private note before travel: "Host: Purge Protocol logged. Consider supervised extraction for high-risk purchases."
Ethan closed his eyes for a second, tasted the city on his tongue—smoke, dust, the faint sweetness of old fruit—and let the Panel carry him back.
He thought of the numbers, the options, the steady rise in his talent bar. He had made a tidy sum, and with it came a new set of choices.
Choices were the point.
He hit Travel.