The Goblin's club swung.
Dante didn't just see the motion; he parsed it.
It was the "trash mob" heavy attack. He had watched it a thousand times in a dozen different starter zones.
Slow, predictable, and designed to miss a Level 1 player who knew the dodge mechanic.
But Shivvy wasn't a player.
She was just a child, paralyzed and plastered to the tree bark; a portrait of pure fear.
"Shivvy!" Dante's voice was a raw, panicked bark. "Move! Dodge! Do something!"
He shoved his will at her, demanding an action.
He searched for the mental hotkey to activate an ability: [Evasion], [Shadowstep], [Gouge], or any of the dozens of Rogue skills he knew were listed on her class sheet.
But the control panel was dark. There was no skill list.
Shivvy flinched at his shout, tears instantly welling.
"I-I-I don't know how! I'm sorry, Creator! I'm so sorry—"
CLANKKKKKK
The club connected, not with her, but with the tree trunk an inch from her ear. The impact sent a shudder through the wood and peppered her face with splinters.
The Goblin roared in frustration, yanking the heavy weapon back for another swing.
'Shivvy wasn't a pet. She was a person!'
A person he had designed as a back-end character, leveled to 3 on auto-grind, and then abandoned with zero combat training.
A person whose assigned "class" was Rogue, but whose combat experience was precisely zero.
He hadn't summoned a character; he had spawned a person.
The other Goblin, the one that had wounded him, was watching. Its rusty sword was held low. Its black eyes flicked between the bleeding man and the cowering girl.
It was assessing.
'Hmmm. It must has an aggro table.'
The thought cut through his panic, sharp and cold.
They were low-level mob.
Observation: They would split attention: one on the weak target, one on the wounded threat.
Analysis: They would attack whoever was closest, or whoever generated the most "threat."
Hypothesis: He could pull aggro.
"Shivvy!" he screamed, his voice cracking. "H-HIDE! SNEAK!"
He didn't know if the command would work. He just needed her to flicker.
He grabbed a rock, the first jagged stone his fingers found. He scrambled to his feet, his wounded arm screaming its protest.
The motion sent a wave of white-hot nausea through him, but he ignored it.
"HEY!"
He hurled the rock at the Club-Goblin. It was a pathetic, fluttering throw. And it probably did negative damage, a literal zero.
But it worked.
The Goblin's head snapped around. It forgot Shivvy instantly.
Its tiny, hate-filled eyes locked onto Dante. It let out a guttural snarl, a sound of pure single-minded malice.
'Yes! Aggro acquired.'
"That's right!" Dante gasped, already backing away. "Come on! Aggro me, you son of a bitch!"
He turned and ran.
It was a clumsy, stumbling, pathetic excuse for a sprint. His bare feet slipped on the damp leaves.
His pajama bottoms snagged on a thorn. The throbbing fire in his arm was a constant, blinding signal, and every jarring step was a fresh spike of agony up to his shoulder.
But it was enough.
He heard them behind him. Two sets of heavy steps.
He had pulled aggro. Both of them.
Good. Now, the kiting.
He wasn't a warrior, or course. But he was a gamer. He knew the basic loop.
Keep them in pursuit. Never let them get in range. Use the environment.
He dodged around a massive tree trunk, using the wood to break their line of sight. He heard them crash through the underbrush, stupid and direct.
They didn't anticipate it. They only followed.
He was bleeding out and getting slower. His lungs burned.
The one with the sword was run closer. Ten feet. It raised its blade.
He looked forward.
'I'm going to die.'
He had no [Blink], no [Charge], no [Shadowstep]. He was just a slow, bleeding man in a t-shirt.
"C-Creator..."
The voice was a whisper. It came from beside him.
He flinched, looking left. Nothing. Just a dense, shadowed thicket of ferns.
"...in here... this way..."
He squinted. And he saw her. She wasn't behind the ferns. She was part of them.
She was crouched, perfectly still. The light and shadow of the foliage seemed to bend around her, wrapping her in a cloak of mundane reality.
It wasn't the translucent blue shimmer of the game. It was a perfect absolute cessation of presence.
[Sneak].
'Yeah, right.'
She was useless in a fight, but she was a god at not being seen.
The Goblins burst through the bushes behind him. They hadn't seen her. Their entire world had compressed to him.
Dante didn't hesitate. He veered sharply, throwing himself into the thicket, grabbing Shivvy's small, trembling hand.
"Run!"
He dragged her with him. She moved, and the "spell" broke.
She was just a girl again, crashing through the leaves, sobbing quietly.
The Goblins howled, suddenly confused by the secondary "target," and plunged in after them.
"Split up!" Dante yelled, shoving her away from him. "Just hide! Don't let them see you!"
He scrambled one way, she scrambled the other. He was the distraction. He was the bait.
He ran until his vision blurred at the edges, until the pain in his arm was a detached, distant signal.
He finally dove, rolling, into a hollow moss-covered log, the stench of rot and damp earth filling his nostrils.
He held his breath.
Silence. Then, come heavy angry footsteps.
The Goblins passed his log. And they stopped, grunting, sniffing the air.
He could hear their wet, labored breathing.
But this is enough. They were confused. They lost their target. He could almost see the invisible question mark appearing over their heads.
One of them kicked a nearby stump, snarled, and then... they moved on.
Their footsteps receded, and their low grumbling fading into the ambient noise of the forest.
Dante stayed in the log.
He counted to thirty seconds, fifty, sixty… one hundred.
"Haaaaaahhhhhh, I'm alive." His heart hammered so hard he was afraid it would give him away.
He slowly, agonizingly, crawled out. He was covered in mud now, and sweat, and his own drying blood.
The world tilted. He slid down a tree trunk, gasping.
The adrenaline was gone, leaving only a vast and aching exhaustion, and the searing throb in his arm.
He was alive, but he was badly wounded. And his Mana bar, floating in the corner of his vision, was still ticking down.
[Creator Mana: 4/10]
That 1 Mana/Hour upkeep. He was "paying" for Shivvy to be manifested, wherever she was.
"Shivvy?" he called, his voice a dry rasp.
Silence.
"Shivvy!" he tried again, louder. Panic began to rise.
A rustle.
She stepped out from behind a tree, not from a bush, but from the shadow of the trunk itself. She was pale, her face streaked with tears and dirt, but she was unharmed.
She rushed to him, her eyes wide with terror.
"Creator! You're... you're bleeding! It's so much blood!"
"I'm fine," he lied, gritting his teeth. He slid down the tree trunk, clutching his arm.
"Just... need to... stop the bleeding."
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her hands twisting in the hem of her tattered tunic.
"I'm so sorry. I-I'm useless. I couldn't fight. I just... I ran. I hid. It's all I know how to do..."
Dante looked at her terrified, tear-stained face.
"No," he said, his voice quiet, filled with sudden, grim respect. "You were perfect."
He was a gamer. He knew the value of a perfect scout. He knew the value of a distraction.
"You did exactly what you were built for."
He tried to tear a strip from his pajama bottoms to make a tourniquet. His fingers were slick with blood. He couldn't get a grip.
"I need..." he muttered, his head swimming. "Bandages. A potion. Something."
Shivvy's eyes widened.
"Oh! Um. I have..."
She stopped wringing her hands. She held one small, trembling, dirt-caked hand out, palm up.
She frowned in concentration. And a small, red-corked vial, filled with a glowing crimson liquid, appeared instantly in her palm.
Dante stared. He knew that vial. The exact shape. The exact color. It was a [Minor Health Potion] from Aethelgard Online.
Shivvy held it out to him, her hand still shaking.
"I-I have this," she said. "And... I have 50 [Linen Cloth]. And... and... a [Level 25 Boar Tusk]... and 200 gold. And... a [Faded Blue Shirt]?"
As she listed them, the items flickered into existence in her other hand.
A stack of neatly folded cloth. A single curved yellow tusk. A small jingling bag. And a plain blue shirt.
It hit him with the force of the club that had missed her.
Bank alt.
He hadn't just summoned a Rogue with a crippling fear of conflict.
He had summoned his bank.
Her [Inventory] skill wasn't just her inventory. It was his. The one he had dumped ten years of junk into.
She wasn't a warrior. She wasn't a scout. Yes, she was a walking-talking-terrified supply depot.
Dante let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob.
The usefulness of uselessness.
He was wounded, lost, and being hunted. But he was no longer empty-handed.
He snatched the potion.