We run.We run like three idiots who've lost their minds, charging straight toward the sound of the explosion without a second thought about what's ahead.After about 15 minutes, I start feeling... how unfair life is.My lungs are burning like an industrial waste incinerator, my heart is pounding erratically like a short-circuiting circuit, and my legs... ha ha, my legs are like velocity vectors divided by zero. Hải is panting like a bull in a marathon, and Kỳ—the damn ox—doesn't look any better, his face is red as hell, sweat pouring out like a flood.Finally, the three of us collapse under a cherry tree, leaning back and breathing heavily like we're about to die.I look up at the sky. Cherry blossom petals fall gently, like smooth integrals, while we... feel like we're about to have a stroke."...How much further?" Hải asks, his voice broken up like a noisy sine wave.I pull out the mana meter, tapping it."Still... 20 kilometers to go." I breathe out. "Actually, I miscalculated earlier, it's probably 20.7 kilometers."Hải's face looks like it's just been smacked in the soul with a stick.Kỳ leans on his knees, grumbling:"How wide did Shinji make this damn forest? People plant forests and call them 'ecological landscapes', but this guy plants one and replaces the whole damn ecosystem. What kind of artificial forest doesn't have an endpoint?"True.Back on Earth, it's normal to see a sign that says 'Artificial Forest Area.' But here—Shinji builds a whole cherry biome, 16K resolution shaders, tree canopies modeled in fractals, and don't forget about a few glowing mushrooms to up the "magical" factor.Kỳ reaches into his pocket and pulls out three glowing yellow bottles.I look. A dozen warning signs flash in my head: "Unregulated substance!", "Mana fluctuations!", "High heterotrophy levels!""What the hell is that?" I squint.Kỳ holds up one of the bottles, shakes it. The liquid inside glows faintly."Rage Beeroot. Specially crafted for... beast usage."Hải's eyes widen:"Can... can humans drink it?"Kỳ grins, a smile that says, "I know how this ends, but I'm not telling."Then he pops the cap—gulp!—drinks it in one go.Immediately, his body emits a faint golden light, then whoosh, Kỳ shoots off like a bullet.Hải and I freeze for 3 seconds.We glance at each other."Drink it?" — I ask."If we don't, we'll be breathing artificial oxygen soon enough." — Hải replies.Without hesitation, I open the bottle and gulp it down.It tastes like radish mixed with Redbull and a few rusted nails. My throat burns, and it feels like someone turned on a halogen lamp inside me.But... the effect is immediate.A wave of mana spreads through my cells. My physical movement stats seem to skyrocket exponentially.Hải drinks too, his face scrunching up like a monkey eating ginger, and then he glows gold too."Run!"And so, the three of us take off like the wind.We crush plants, trample bushes, I even kick a small tree stump out of the way.My body starts to stiffen like I've been hit with an uncontrolled high dose of calcium ions.Arms and legs, which were moving according to equations of uniform accelerated motion, suddenly freeze—literally.Bam!I slam face-first into a thick pile of cherry blossom leaves, their fragrance filling the air.ACHOO!Once.Twice.Three times.I try to make the sneezes follow an arithmetic progression, but by the fifth, I give up.Next to me, Hải is cursing up a storm, and Kỳ... Kỳ really does pass out, lying flat on his back with his mouth slightly open, looking like one of those broken zombie models in a game.While we're all struggling like stranded eels, a dark figure appears—wearing wolf fur armor, a mask that looks like a Lã Bố (Lubu) cosplay version from Terre.It's Joon Soo.
It stops, looks at us like it's analyzing a heap of incorrectly sorted garbage, and then speaks with a mocking tone:"Reinforcements arrive at the perfect time. Shinji and I just finished off the ogres, now we wait for you guys to come and take over the front lines, huh?"I can barely manage to raise my middle finger in my mind, but outwardly, all I can do is sigh:"Blame it on the long distance and Kỳ's bad medicine, don't pick on me."Joon Soo squats down, doing the perfect "Asian Squat," knees hugging his arms, staring at us like we're some weird DNA-strand creatures trying to figure out how to duplicate ourselves.He taps his forehead lightly and asks Kỳ:"Did you ask about the side effects?"Kỳ lazily opens his eyes, his voice weak like a wifi signal that just dropped:"I asked... the description sounded... really physical... said that after an energy boost follows an exponential increase, and when it wears off, it'll... decay linearly... lose mobility."I blink. It sounds like a bunch of nonsense.Hải can't hold it in anymore, jumping in to yell at Kỳ:"Dammit, back on Earth, you wouldn't study, always vaping, getting high, and now you're out here taking some stupid drug and blaming who?"Kỳ's not having it, puffing up his neck to argue:"You studied Chemistry and Physics like a genius, but can't even read the instructions when you take something, huh?"Hải fires back like cannonballs:"Your medicine doesn't even come with instructions!!!"They're about to start fighting for real if Joon Soo doesn't step in calmly, patting each of their heads like a strict teacher in a Japanese movie."Shut up. You're all hopeless." — Joon Soo declares like a final verdict from the highest court.Then he goes off to find a massive piece of wood. The texture of this wood... I swear, it's rough enough to use as a sandpaper block for carving solid wood.Joon Soo picks us all up, one by one, in a princess-carry—talk about the most humiliating moment in my personal history—and then... drops us onto the board.The feeling of my butt hitting the ground is no different from a Dirac delta function: excruciatingly painful for an infinitesimally brief moment.Screams echo across the forest.Kỳ curses:"Dammit, Joon Soo! You trying to make me an old man with a dislocated joint or what?"Joon Soo's cold, his eyes exuding the perfect bad-boy vibe from a Korean movie:"Whatever."He grabs some rope, ties us all together like three packages ready to ship.Then he ties a rope to the board and starts... dragging us through the forest at full speed.Is it cool? Sure, it's cool.But... the forest floor isn't exactly smooth.The board bounces constantly like an out-of-control sine wave. Every time it bounces, my ass feels like it's about to file for resignation.If we average a bounce every 2 seconds, in 10 minutes, we've bounced over 300 times. A record that would deserve a Guinness World Record if we survive today.Finally, Joon Soo drags us to a clearing full of grass, way brighter than the cherry blossom forest surrounding it.He stops, lets go of the rope.Looks back to check:• Kỳ: sleeping like the dead.• Hải: puking like he's severely intoxicated.• Me: groaning, clutching my ass, feeling like my tailbone is rearranging itself like a broken 3D puzzle.Joon Soo lightly kicks each of us to check if we're "still alive."I painfully mumble:"Can you heal me... I swear, when my mom took me over 22 potholes to the countryside... it was still better than this..."Joon Soo raises an eyebrow, looking confused, then his face darkens.He tilts his head back and yells at the sky like he's trying to strangle the air itself:"EXCEPT ME, ALDO, VERITAS, ZIHAO, AND SHINJI, IS ANYONE HERE NOT USELESS?!!!"His voice echoes through the field, and the birds in the sky flutter and scatter in a panic.I lie still, thinking to myself:"Sorry... but we're the number one rookie mistake of this team..."
Shinji casually walks over now, wearing only a simple robe, looking like he just finished meditating. As soon as he arrives, he greets us in a flat tone:
"Hello, everyone."
Before I can even speak, Kỳ, lying sprawled out on the ground, shouts:
"Damn you, Shinji, why did you plant this massive forest?!"
Shinji, still with his usual "chill like flowing spring water" face, responds nonchalantly:
"It's only as big as Réunion, France."
The three of us—me, Hải, and Kỳ—freeze, like CPUs that have been overloaded. What is this Réunion? It sounds French, but our geography knowledge... well, let's not even go there.
I bluntly ask:
"What is Réunion?"
Shinji remains calm:
"Réunion is a French overseas territory in the Indian Ocean. Its area is about 2,500 square kilometers."
I quickly calculate in my head. 2,500 km². That means each side is roughly √2500 = 50 km. Oh my god, does that mean we just ran through a forest the size of... a small province in Vietnam?
I freeze. Hải's jaw drops. Kỳ mumbles, rolling around like a fish out of water:
"Huh... overseas territory... what the hell is that?"
(Of course, he skipped all the geography classes back then.)
Shinji, still polite, expressionless, explains:
"Those are lands outside Europe but still under French sovereignty. For example, Réunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique..."
Kỳ looks as confused as a duck caught in a thunderstorm. Hải and I are too tired to even explain. Joon Soo, at this point, lets out a deep sigh, waving it off:
"To put it simply, France has a bunch of islands outside the mainland that it controls. That's it. Don't ask any more, it's giving me a headache."
Kỳ pouts and turns away, while Shinji smiles lightly, a mix of teasing and pity.
Kỳ snaps:
"What are you laughing at?!"
Shinji remains unfazed, not even bothering to respond, letting Kỳ act like a child.
Shinji then turns to report:
"We've finished off the Ogre group. You guys showing up here... well, it was both late and unnecessary."
His polite tone, however, cuts through us like a knife. I slump down, swallowing bitterly. Hải lies flat, like a wet pancake. Kỳ mutters:
"Dammit, all in vain."
Joon Soo crosses his arms, clearly displeased, and asks grumpily:
"So can I leave now? The red-light district is still waiting for me to play chess."
Shinji looks directly at Joon Soo, letting out a sigh:
"Yeah, go ahead."
Upon hearing that, Joon Soo seems overjoyed, turning around and walking off, the heavy wolf-fur armor on his back making him look like he's hip-hopping, despite the weight. I watch his broad back disappear into the forest and feel a strange sense of pity.
At this moment, all I can think of is one calculation:
"The distance we ran earlier was about 14 km + 8 minutes of potion effectiveness + more crawling = an average of 5.2 km/10 minutes... Damn, that's even worse than those old ladies doing slow walking in the park."
I look up at the sky and sigh deeply:
"Life is just like a sine wave, huh?"
Hải winces, his face as sad as a dumpling left out in the rain, and asks:
"Hey, is there anyone who goes to the red-light district and plays chess with prostitutes like Joon Soo?"
I'm panting, still wondering, what kind of world system is this?
Shinji sits down on the grass, cross-legged in a meditative pose, speaking in a tone as steady as reading a textbook:
"Joon Soo wants to satisfy his... lust and also enjoys 'picking on newbies'."
Both Hải and I are dumbfounded. Shinji remains as stoic as ever and continues:
"By 'newbies', I mean the prostitutes who are just starting out and don't know how to play chess. He seeks them out to win, to make up for being defeated by Aldo... back when Aldo was... fully equipped."
I gulp. Hải's eyes widen. Kỳ, on the other hand, is still rolling around sleeping, drooling.
(When it comes to our image, we're losing to the whole army of ants in this forest.)
Shinji closes his eyes, continuing his meditation as if he doesn't care about us, the three stranded sardines, waiting... to recover naturally.
I'm breathing like an ox, my muscles feeling like they've been poured with cement. Hải drags himself over to Shinji, whispering in a voice like he's about to pass out:
"Hey... do you have a Stamina Potion?"
Shinji gently shakes his head, a motion like the gentle ebb of waves, not fast, not slow.
The entire forest falls silent.
No insect sounds. No wind. Just the three of us lying on the ground, and Shinji meditating like a Buddha statue.
I lie on my back, staring up at the towering trees, counting each breath, and a sudden wave of homesickness hits me: missing home. Missing the smell of rain in Hanoi. Missing the three-thousand-vietnamese-dong iced tea. Missing the sound of motorbikes honking in the street.
Hải shifts positions, resting his chin on his hand, staring blankly. I turn to look, and he's tilted his head, watching... a line of ants.
A trail of black ants, marching in perfect formation, moving in a natural parabolic curve (following the law of gravitational terrain). Hải watches them intently, as if seeing the philosophy of life in the way they carry their food.
As for Kỳ—the most adaptable among us—he's fast asleep. His legs twitch like a puppy dreaming of a bone. His face scrunches up, probably dreaming of fighting Shinji or arguing with Joon Soo.
I turn over, letting out a long sigh.
If I had to describe our current state with a mathematical graph, it would be a function decaying over time, slowly approaching zero... but never quite reaching zero, just crawling a little more, little by little, and slowly... dying.
A gentle breeze blows by. The ants keep marching. Shinji keeps meditating.
And I, Hải, Kỳ—the ones summoned from Earth—continue lying around like creatures waiting for roll call at the end of the semester.