Anders left the longhouse before the fire was fully awake.
The night had not yet released its grip on the world. Frost clung to the earth like a second skin, pale and brittle beneath his bare feet. His breath rose in quiet clouds as he stepped beyond the outer posts, long bow resting against his shoulder, quiver light and carefully arranged.
No one stopped him.
No one needed to.
This was not defiance. It was not secrecy. By now, Anders moving alone in the early hours had become something the clan accepted without words. He trained alone. He hunted alone. He returned when the work was done.
The forest received him without ceremony.
Mist lay low between the trees, thin as breath, shifting as he moved. The air smelled of damp earth and pine resin, of cold water running somewhere unseen. Birds had not yet begun their morning calls. The world held still, balanced between night and day.
Anders slowed.
Not because he was tired—but because the forest demanded it.
He moved the way Erik had taught him without teaching him. Weight distributed evenly. Steps placed where sound would be swallowed rather than echoed. His eyes tracked small details: broken twigs, pressed grass, the faint disturbance of frost where something large had passed.
The elk had been here.
He felt the familiar pressure settle—not the system's command, not its testing weight, but something quieter. Attention. Expectation. The sense that this moment mattered.
He followed the trail for nearly an hour.
The bull was old. Anders could tell from the depth of the tracks, the uneven rhythm of its movement. One hind leg favored slightly. A survivor. A creature that had endured seasons of cold, hunters, wolves, and hunger.
The rack alone was enormous—broad antlers sweeping outward like the branches of a dead tree, scarred and polished from years of dominance and defense. When Anders finally saw it through the mist, his first instinct was not awe.
It was calculation.
Distance. Wind. Angle.
The elk stood broadside near a stand of birch, steam rising from its nostrils as it breathed. It was calm, unaware. Its ears twitched occasionally, reacting to sounds Anders could not yet hear.
He did not rush.
He waited.
Minutes passed.
The wind shifted once, twice. Anders adjusted his stance, slow and precise. The long bow came into his hands without thought. His fingers found the string. The arrow slid into place.
He drew.
Past the chest. Past the shoulder. To the anchor he had practiced until his muscles knew it better than rest. The bow bent smoothly, limbs storing tension patiently rather than fighting it.
His breathing slowed.
The world narrowed.
He released.
The arrow flew clean.
It struck deep behind the shoulder, where Erik had shown him in the dirt so many times—where heart and lung lived close together. The bull jerked, staggered, took three powerful steps, then collapsed with a sound like falling timber.
The forest went quiet.
Anders did not move for several long breaths.
He watched the elk's chest rise once. Twice.
Then stop.
As the last warmth left the massive body, the pressure Anders had always known—constant, testing, waiting—shifted.
It did not press.
It did not test.
It acknowledged.
The blue light appeared without sound, hanging in the air before him like frost made solid.
Level Up Achieved
Current Level: 2
Stat Increase Applied:
Strength +5
Endurance +5
Agility +5
Perception +5
Will +5
Unassigned Stat Points: 1
Anders felt it before the screen faded.
Not an explosion.
A deepening.
Breath settled lower into his chest. Balance tightened, subtle but undeniable. Strength did not surge wildly—it contained itself, coiling inward, dense and ready.
This was not reward.
This was confirmation.
The screen vanished.
The forest remained.
Anders approached the elk with care. He laid a hand against its flank—warm still, heavy, real. He offered no words, no thanks spoken aloud. Respect was shown through work, not ceremony.
He set to it methodically.
Cuts were clean. Efficient. Blood steamed faintly in the cold air, dark against pale frost. He worked slowly, ensuring nothing was wasted, movements practiced and deliberate. When he removed the antlers, he did so carefully, preserving the skull plate intact.
By the time he finished, the mist had begun to thin. Morning light filtered weakly through the trees.
Voices carried from somewhere to his left.
Anders straightened, alert but calm.
Figures emerged from the woods—five of them. Armed, but relaxed. At their head walked a tall man with iron-grey hair braided at the temples, posture easy but unmistakably authoritative.
Orik, chief of the Broken-Spear clan.
With him walked his family—his wife, stern-eyed and observant, and his daughter Freydis, perhaps ten winters old, her gaze sharp and curious. The others spread slightly, hands resting near weapons but not drawing them.
They stopped when they saw Anders.
A child.
Standing over a massive bull elk.
Bow in hand.
Antlers laid carefully at his feet.
No one spoke at first.
Anders broke the silence.
"Good morning," he said, voice clear, unshaken.
Orik's eyebrows lifted—not in mockery, but in surprise.
"Well met," Orik replied slowly. "That is… a fine kill."
Anders nodded once. "The wind was kind."
Freydis stared openly, eyes flicking between the elk, the bow, and Anders himself.
"You did this alone?" she asked, unable to keep the disbelief from her voice.
"Yes."
Orik studied him more closely now. The stance. The calm. The absence of bravado. This was no feral child, no accident of strength.
This was training.
"We are guests bound for Shatter-Shield," Orik said after a moment. "My people and I come at Erik's invitation."
Anders inclined his head. "Then you are welcome. I was on my way back."
He lifted the antlers and settled them across his shoulders. They were heavy—heavier than he was tall—but his posture did not change.
Freydis inhaled sharply.
They walked together toward the village.
Conversation was careful at first, words chosen like steps across thin ice. Orik asked about the bow. Anders answered simply. Freydis asked his age.
"Three winters soon," Anders replied.
She stopped walking.
Orik stopped with her.
"…Three?" Freydis said.
"Yes."
Something shifted then—not fear, not hostility, but recalculation.
By the time the palisade came into view, Erik and Astrid were already outside, searching the treeline with increasing urgency.
Astrid saw Anders first.
Relief hit her like a blow, followed immediately by dread.
He was bloodstained.
Antlers rose above his shoulders like a crown of bone.
Erik's expression was unreadable—but his eyes never left his son.
"You went far," Erik said carefully.
"There was a bull," Anders replied. "It will feed many."
Orik stepped forward. "Your son met us in the forest."
Erik turned to him, then back to Anders. Pride and concern warred silently behind his eyes.
"You did well," Erik said at last. "We will speak later."
The Broken-Spear party was welcomed inside. The longhouse filled with murmurs as word spread quickly—of the elk, of the antlers, of the age.
Orik learned the truth moments later.
"Just over three?" he repeated, disbelief unhidden now.
Freydis stared at Anders as if seeing him for the first time.
One of Orik's men—a broad-shouldered warrior with a scar across his jaw—shifted uneasily. His son, perhaps ten winters old, watched Anders with a tightening jaw.
The boy had long believed himself strong. Promised. A future worthy of Freydis.
Now a child younger than him had carried antlers heavier than he could lift.
The boy stepped forward.
"This is foolish," he said sharply. "Too much attention for a child."
Silence fell.
"I challenge him," the boy continued, voice cracking with pride. "To spar. Fair. No blades."
Every eye turned to Anders.
The system said nothing.
Anders stood still, blood dried on his hands, strength coiled quietly beneath his skin.
He met the boy's gaze—not with challenge.
With calm.
The world waited to see what strength would choose next.