By the time Rook reached the city center, it was already too late.
Not for survival.
For choice.
Barricades of overturned cars choked the main avenues. Handwritten signs—spray-painted on plywood and cardboard—marked territory in shaky letters.
NO ENTRY — GUILD ZONELEVEL 5+ ONLYCONTRIBUTION REQUIRED
Men and women stood at the edges of these makeshift fortresses, clutching pipes, knives, anything that looked vaguely like a weapon. Blue status windows hovered over their heads, numbers displayed openly, proudly.
"Level check!" someone barked as Rook slowed near a gas station.
Another voice laughed. "If you're not pulling your weight, don't bother."
Guilds.
They'd formed in less than an hour.
People with the loudest voices and the biggest weapons had gathered others around them, promising protection in exchange for obedience. Rook watched one group argue over kill credit while a wolf carcass bled into the street between them.
No one was watching the rooftops.
He didn't stop.
He turned down a side street instead, tires crunching over shattered glass.
The shops there were worse.
Windows smashed. Doors torn off their hinges. Shelves stripped bare down to warped metal frames. A convenience store had been reduced to a hollow shell, the floor littered with empty wrappers and crushed cans.
Rook stepped inside anyway.
He moved slowly, methodically, ignoring the urge to rush. He checked behind counters. Under shelves. Storage rooms most people hadn't bothered opening.
He found a dented metal crowbar.
A half-crushed box of nails.
A roll of industrial plastic sheeting.
Useless, according to the System. None of it triggered inventory highlights. No rarity glow. No tooltips.
Rook loaded them into his trunk without comment.
He crossed the street to a hardware store—or what remained of one.
Someone had torn the front gate completely free. Power tools were gone. Lumber racks stood empty. Paint cans lay smashed open across the floor, bright colors mixing into dull brown sludge.
In the back aisle, half-hidden behind a collapsed shelving unit, Rook found a battered surveyor's kit.
Measuring tape. Stakes. A coil of fluorescent string.
He paused.
The item pinged faintly when he touched it.
[Item Detected: Surveyor's Kit]
[Function: Land Marking Assistance]
Rook blinked once.
Then he picked it up.
By the time he left the city center, shouting echoed behind him—an argument spilling into violence as two guilds clashed over a claimed intersection.
Rook didn't look back.
He drove with a trunk full of scraps, hands steady on the wheel, face unreadable.
This wasn't his first time working with leftovers.
And if the System cared about land boundaries—
The thought settled quietly into place.
He headed toward the outskirts, where the roads thinned, the buildings gave way to trees, and no one else seemed interested in stopping.