"Proto-Devourer… What does that even mean?" he mumbled to himself.
Now that Jack had seen the system, he concluded for now that the system was a result of the Doctors' experiments on him. And the other kids like him.
"The other kids…" he mouthed, barely a sound escaping his lips.
The Proto part made sense, but what is a Devourer? He remembered reading about it in a novel in one of his simulations, but...
"...It can't be real. If the Devourers were real, the real world is doomed," he said, rubbing his face with his palm.
The worst part is that the System had deemed him a Devourer himself. He didn't know what that meant, but aside from his black-out, he felt fine.
He glanced at the Level and Class.
"If this is like a game, then I have to do something to level up. What will that be?" he wondered as he looked at the last stat, "Matricide. Hmm, who exactly was the real mother I killed?"
He was about to look at the last window—the Skill window—when the door to the bed chamber opened.
"Hey there. I thought I heard your voice. Did you have a good rest?" a girl with a small frame, long red hair and crimson eyes asked enthusiastically. Practically skipping towards him.
"Uh... Yes, thank you, miss," he said, recognising her as one of the two who took down the bird creature.
"Don't thank me. It's really easy to kill that dumb bird. In the end, Tom did it and not me," she said, pouting and looking to the side.
Jack, seeing this, quickly tried to cheer her up, saying, "It's fine. I didn't kill any myself."
The young red-haired girl froze in place, hearing that. Jack was confused by this reaction. He felt some kind of pressure building from her, which sent warning signals to him before a hand rested on her shoulder.
"Calm down, Jane," a boy at the same height as her said in a deep voice. "He didn't say you were weak."
"He might have well..." she replied in a serious tone, staring down at Jack.
He gulped, not understanding how his statement could have been taken so wrong. 'I need to learn the traditions of the people of this world.'
Just then, three loud bangs came from the side of the vehicle.
Startled, Jack jumped back to the side of the small bed.
Tom looked at Jane with a serious expression and asked, "How dangerous?"
Jack saw her eyes glowing through her eyelids. He wondered how bright it would be if she opened them.
"Cool," he whispered.
Just then, Selene Psycone walked in and exclaimed, "Blinds."
The metal frame at the side of the vehicle opened on command.
She had an indifferent look as the wind blew through her hair. She stood there as if waiting for something.
The glow in Jane's eyes died down, and she opened them.
Jack couldn't see the flamingoats; only a dark cloud of dust that was fast approaching.
He tried to look within the cloud, and like before with the bird creature, he could see the Flamingoats.
His suspicion was correct. They were grotesque hybrids—flamingos with the shaggy, hoofed legs of mountain goats grafted onto their avian bodies.
Tom stated that the Flamingoats were rampant in this area of the desert, so this wasn't unusual.
"There are over 20 of them, though," Jane muttered.
Jane stated the highest level of the Flamingoats was around Level 3. She counted about 20 of them.
Of course, Jack didn't understand what this meant. But as if to help with his confusion, a Quest window popped up.
[You have encountered your first Beast. Flamingoat.
Rank: 2 Star. Difficulty: Level 1-3.
Description: Native to the Canch Deserts. Flamingoats are beasts with strong hooves pink body, a long neck and a long beak that leaks molten grey, which burns.
Reward: Devour to get stronger.]
'Devour. Does the system want me to eat the Flamingoats?' Jack gulped.
In truth, the word 'Devour' could mean many things. Ranging from ravenously eating to learning about something and everything in between. But, he had a feeling that it was the eating part that the system wanted him to do.
It didn't help that a message popped up below the Quest saying:
[WARNING: HUNGER LEVELS CRITICAL.]
[If you do not devour something in 36 hours, you will die.]
The problem lies in the fact that Jack still wasn't a hundred percent sure this wasn't a game, but the pain from the experiments. This had to be the real world.
He couldn't die. He had fought through every simulation to make sure he escaped, and now, he won't be able to enjoy his freedom.
'No.'
He had to find a way to devour something. The rover was moving, so he realised that he couldn't do anything for now. Hopefully, they get to their destination quickly so he can ditch them and figure things out.
He had overheard them talking about going back to Murica before the Night Crawlers came out.
'I don't know what Night crawlers are, but I am grateful to have found these guys,' he thought.
Jack was brought back to reality from his daze by Selene's voice. "Why'd it take you so long to analyse?" she asked Jane.
"Their energy was weird. Abnormal. Range attacks is the safe option," Jane replied.
"Got it. That's mine and Tom's speciality anyway."
Klein was still driving, so Stiles decided to join. Jack's heart fluttered, expectantly waiting to see what the red knight does.
Selene sighed, puffing blue mist. Jack could feel a chill that shouldn't be possible under the sunny weather of the Black Desert.
"Approaching," Tom said. He stretched his hand to the side and formed a claw, then his fingers began to glow green. He twisted in a circle, and a cylindrical opening appeared in space.
He brought out a large gun that dwarfed him and pointed it at the Dark cloud of dust approaching fast.
Selene wrote in thin air, and the writing began to glow a bright blue, and it shot forward with a wide blast radius.
Several shrieks could be heard.
"5 down," Jane confirmed.
Jack flinched at this sight. He had seen it once, but this was a way stronger attack.
Jane looked at him and said, "The Flamingoats hunt in groups. The max I've seen is 10, but they are not even this coordinated. One or three usually get away from the group. This is coordinated. I suspect a Devourer is involved."
Jack gulped, looking at his Status panel. What will the Sun-Hunters think if they found out he was one of these Devourers? A proto-Devourer… but still.
'How is any of this real?' he thought.
He was about to ask a question when Tom fired an ear-piercing blast. Jack had to cover his ears and grit his teeth.
He had felt his hearing was clearer, but seeing that the others were not fazed confirmed it.
Stiles, seeing his two companions had done their parts, jumped into the dust cloud. It cleared immediately he approached it.
He was a red blur, incredibly fast and precise with a blade. Plus, he was capable of teleportation. Cutting down the flamingoats in a few seconds.
"He could have taken all of them out himself," Jack said, eyes widened.
Selene smiled. "Yeah, but Devourers come in several shapes or forms. The change in their energy could be a Puppeteer Devourer or nothing. Stiles waited to see if the ones we killed came back to life before he went in."
Apparently, Devourers were a bigger problem in this world than the beasts they had been fighting.
Selene, seeing Jack's clueless expression, smiled and said, "You don't know anything about this world, do you?"
Tom and Jane turned to look at him with their eyebrows raised.
"I don't remember anything from before today. I just found myself in the desert," Jack lied with a straight face.
"I see," Selene said, then paused for a moment, but then she turned around and walked to the door leading to the front of the vehicle. "We hoped you came from a land in this sector. We were looking for Canch nomads who could guide us to a ruin."
She further explained that they were on Planet Visha. A planet hostile to non-native life.
Stiles appeared in front of them and, without saying a word, walked through the door to the front of the rover with Tom and Jane. The battle was over.
The system had also confirmed that he had failed the quest since the Flamingoats were far away now.
"So, humans are not native to this land?" Jack said, ignoring the annoying window pop-up.
"Yeah, kid. We humans came here from Earth, which was being taken over by Devourers at the time."
Jack interrupted once more, saying, "Earth is real?!"