The notification left Aleks speechless and stunned. He couldn't believe what he was seeing with his own eyes and what the system had expected of him—as if he hadn't suffered enough already, all thanks to this unpredictable system.
"You've got to be kidding me?" Aleks exclaimed, wishing what he saw wasn't true.
[Bonus Quest: Kill the horde of monsters]
Kill the horde? What horde? He didn't remember seeing a horde of monsters—just this one monster that pierced his stomach, ripped out his intestines, and ate them in front of him.
Now this was thrown at him. Aleks was already in a terrible state: losing blood rapidly, turning grey and pale, with a gaping hole in his stomach. What confused him more was the penalty quest's unexplained disappearance. Last he checked, he had 02:50:59 left—yet now this new order replaced it.
He didn't know whether to feel relieved or not. He didn't trust this goddamn thing. So he kept asking himself questions—questions he had no answers to, and questions he shouldn't even be asking.
There he stood, barely clinging to life. He desperately needed medical attention, but judging by this nightmarish place, he wouldn't get it anytime soon.
'I've just received a new quest. I don't even know what this thing is or how I got it… and now it's asking me to kill a horde of monsters? What horde? Which monsters?'
Pain and the looming specter of death made these questions scream in his mind.
*'Heh… so this is really how I die? Stuck in a simulation? Clearly not meant to survive?'*
Unconsciousness threatened to pull him under.
'Damn… too bad I don't know how much time I've got left. Would've been nice to see how long I've been here.' Aleks gave a pained chuckle.
Little did he know his wish was granted instantly—as if summoned by his thoughts.
[Countdown: 01:55:55]
"One hour, fifty-five minutes, and fifty-five seconds. That's… something." He watched the countdown tick down at a glacial pace.
Suddenly, he'd forgotten where he was. A guttural growl echoed from the depths—and from its sound, he knew it wasn't the creature that ate his organs. That thing had been oddly intelligent. After mutilating him, it didn't finish him off. Instead, after letting him see its eyes—knowing that alone would scar him and leave him powerless—it vanished.
Then, countless footsteps thundered from the depths. These were a horde—moving in perfect, unnerving unison. Too loud to be human. They sounded like beasts with hooves.
Maybe it was fear, or his shattered body's refusal to obey, but Aleks couldn't move. The steam-wall separating him from the organ-eater began burning away like wildfire losing its fury.
That's when he saw them.
The source of the footsteps.
A horde of monstrous antelopes—not the ordinary kind. Though still ascending and half-shrouded, their nightmarish forms made Aleks's gut twist.
It's about to get worse.
The nightmarish forms were the least of his worries. These antelope had some form of deformative, distinct features — they walked like humans, upright on two legs. That was the sight Aleks wasn't fortunate enough to avoid seeing.
Yes, they were still a bit distant from him, but just like that one creature, their aura was overwhelming. It was evil and oppressive.
Slowly, they were getting closer. Still frozen and paralyzed, Aleks really didn't know what to do at that moment — or even how to escape the situation.
As they got closer with each step they took, that's when Aleks was finally able to spot and pinpoint exactly what he was facing — and this was not something he'd ever been taught about.
The antelopes were grotesque and horrifying in appearance. They were tall — maybe about eight to ten meters in height — and everything about them as monsters was unsettling and immoral.
It seemed like they were dead, but undead at the same time. Though they didn't have the stench of death, their appearance became even worse the nearer they got. It was as if their skin had been devoured, torn into wounded flesh, with bones grotesquely exposed.
Their horns were twisted, sharp, and freakishly long. And on their faces — though it may sound sarcastic — they genuinely had skeletal masks of other antelopes covering their own.
But the most distinctive feature that made them stand out even more was their strong and muscular physique.
All of them locked their eyes on Aleks as they reached the side of the first monster — which, compared to them, was barely Aleks's height. Aleks still hadn't seen the complete appearance of that creature; all he could remember was its eyes when it had looked at him.
After the antelopes stood next to the creature that felt and looked like their leader, it shrieked — a loud, high-pitched cry that rang through Aleks's ears.
The sound was unbearable, like something scratching against metal.
Once the creature stopped its shriek, the antelopes all charged at the wall. They slammed their bodies against it repeatedly — some with such force that their skeletal antelope masks began to crack open.
The wall had already been weakened by the constant pounding and punching of the creature, so it wasn't going to hold much longer. Still, Aleks clung to the hope that it might buy him a bit more time — just enough to come up with a plan to escape without dying in the next few minutes.
Within a few moments of the antelopes relentlessly hitting the wall, it finally broke and collapsed. Now it was just gone — just like that.
Apparently, it was now Aleks, all by himself, facing maybe a hundred-plus antelopes, all watching him with deprived stares full of unsatisfied hunger.
Both sides stood still, staring at each other. The antelopes didn't even try to run at Aleks or attack him. They just stood there, as if waiting for an order.
That alone was enough to destroy Aleks mentally — knowing they were after him, and in the terrible state he was already in, who knew how far he could run to keep his distance from them?
What tortured him most was the way they were breathing — they mimicked someone who was running out of breath, but with a scratchy, ragged voice layered onto it.
"What should I do? What should I do?" Aleks was now breaking down mentally.
Something finally snapped in Aleks's mind. His body suddenly took control, and he just saw himself turning around — his feet moving, running forward. Though he was still hurting, it didn't matter.
Seeing this, the creature simply waved its arm — the one still gripping Aleks's organs — and just like that, the antelopes all started to move, more like lunge, forward.
And Aleks really ran — he ran for his life against all odds. He gave everything he had to make sure he escaped. He still didn't know where he was, nor did he know where he was going. He didn't have the time to look around — as long as he just ran, that's all that mattered.
The whole place was covered with a lung-burning mist, so even if Aleks tried to see and make out a path that could help him, it wouldn't be fruitful — because he was doomed.
And the worst part of it all was that the open wound on his body was really feeling the pain — the sting and the burn of the smoke that infected it.
Obviously, Aleks was feeling it. He would be lying if he said he wasn't. The room temperature was increasingly high, as if he were in the same place as the sun.
Aleks had managed to maintain some distance between himself and the horde of antelopes, and the only thing he needed now was to find a place to hide — because, truth be told, he wasn't going to be able to keep running much longer.
He came across a place that still carried the same burning high temperature, but this one felt different — more like warm. The structure of the place was unique, like one of those ancient caves that archaeologists or explorers discovered.
Sighing heavily, breathing uncontrollably, Aleks ventured into the caves, hoping that he would be safe.
Indeed, he did find a place where he could finally be able to cooperate with himself and think about the next plan. But the truth was, all of that proved to be much tougher than he had anticipated.
The pain he was feeling and experiencing was the one thing that distracted him — the one thing that blocked him from taking the next step.
Aleks leaned against the rock, grunting and feeling the full weight of the pain. The blood pouring from his wound had completely covered the hand he'd used to keep himself from bleeding out.
He'd done a pretty good job keeping himself alive for all this time. So, without even knowing or being fully aware of it, Aleks thought about seeing the countdown timer again.
And it appeared before him.
[Ding]
[Countdown: 01:35:00]
He couldn't believe his eyes. What had seemed and felt like hours of surviving the impossible… turned out to be just mere minutes.
At that moment, there was really nothing Aleks could say. He had come to terms with dying. So, as soon as he heard that the antelopes had caught up to him...
He didn't have the strength to run anymore. He just gave in and sat down, trying to avoid being spotted.
But little did he know — the same place he thought would be his sanctuary… had its own secrets. And one of those secrets was now looming behind clueless Aleks, who, by the way, had just begun shutting his eyes.