The morning began like the others—with silence. Not the peaceful kind, but the heavy, pressing quiet of a world barely alive. Caleb stood at the edge of his hut, breath misting in the air, arms sore from the weight of the previous day's labor.
Inside, the boar meat was wrapped carefully in the frozen hide, hacked apart with his axe and set aside into 100-gram portions. Caleb had figured out the ideal way to keep it from freezing too hard while still avoiding rot. The fire flickered steadily, his warmth and his warning.
He opened the Trade Hub panel with a flick of thought. The display greeted him again with its sterile glow.
Trade Hub – Active Listings:
5x100g Boar Meat – Fresh (Manually Processed)
Listed: 4 Shivers each
He waited, watching as the listing blinked, then refreshed.
Within minutes, a private request came through.
Direct Offer – 5x100g Meat for 1x Kukri Knife (Forged) + 1x Basic Whetstone
From: User "Stalklight"
Status: Critical Condition (Nutrition: Danger Level)
Caleb hesitated. He clicked the user profile. A thin man, barely twenty, stared back from a low-quality profile photo. Gaunt. Hollow. Frostbite had eaten into the side of his cheek. His message said nothing. Just the offer.
He could've asked for more. Five pieces of meat for a used blade and a whetstone seemed steep—except, Caleb saw the desperation behind the offer. The kukri was curved, made for cutting more than stabbing. Thick-backed. A survivalist's blade.
He accepted the trade without a word. Seconds later, a dull thump echoed inside the storage interface as the kukri and whetstone arrived. The blade was worn but sharp enough to be deadly, and more manageable than his axe for close work.
"Good luck," he muttered, though the man couldn't hear him. Somehow, he hoped it would reach him anyway.
Caleb sat by the fire, sharpening both his axe and the newly acquired kukri with careful, practiced strokes. The whetstone scraped steadily, rhythmic and patient. The repetitive task calmed him—until a thought gnawed at his peace.
He opened the system panel again and tapped through to the global statistics.
Population Remaining: 482,910 / 1,000,000
Average Lifespan (First 7 Days): 3.4 Days
Top Territory Size: 3.6 Hectares
You Are Ranked: 17,435
Caleb stared at the numbers, lips tightening.
Half a million. Gone.
Some of them would've frozen. Others, hunted or butchered. Maybe others just gave up.
His rank didn't matter. What mattered was that the air grew quieter every day.
He leaned back against the hut wall, firelight flickering in his tired eyes.
He wouldn't be part of the next half to vanish. Not while he could still fight. Not while warmth still clung to him, not while he had breath and blade.
He smiled faintly, eyes drifting to the blade in his hand. There was still a long road ahead.
End of 12the chapter.