Chapter 4: [Local PvP] Confronting the Saboteur

 Eight minutes. 


The digital countdown in Thomas’s vision didn’t care that he was nineteen again, unarmed, and wearing nothing but a leather loincloth. It just kept bleeding away in bright, clinical neon numbers. 


[00:07:42 remaining until Total Contamination]

[HOST EXISTENCE PROBABILITY: 14%]


Beside him in the reeds, Shivute was shaking so hard his digging stick clattered against the leather waterskin. He had seen the man on the rock, too. To Shivute, an eastern tribesman at twilight meant only one thing: an unmerciful death.


"Amutenya..." Shivute wheezed in a terrified whisper. "We have to go. We have to run back and warn the elders."


"By the time we run back, half the village will have drunk the water," Thomas whispered back, his mind racing through tactical options like an esports captain during a grand final. "He’s almost done with that basket. If he dumps the rest, we’re deleted. I mean, dead."


Thomas looked down at his hands. He had left his herding staff near the Leadwood tree. He was completely bare-handed against a grown warrior who likely carried a forged iron dagger or a heavy club. 


Think, Thomas, think. What apps do you have? Wikipedia? Useless in a fistfight. Calculator? I can't math him to death.


Then, his eyes locked onto the top corner of his vision. The tiny, glowing battery icon. 


The Flashlight.


"Shivute," Thomas murmured, a cold, dangerous grin spreading across his face. "When I move, you crawl around to the left. If he runs, trip him. Don't look at my face when I scream."


Before the boy could protest, Thomas stood upright, parting the papyrus reeds with a loud, intentional rustle. 


The saboteur spun around instantly. In the dim twilight, the warrior's face was a mask of shadows, but Thomas caught the glint of a polished iron knife slipping into his right hand. The man lowered his center of gravity, preparing to spring from the rock and silence the intruder.


"Who goes there?" the saboteur hissed in a low, jagged dialect.


"Your worst nightmare," Thomas said in English. 


System! Activate Flashlight App.

Maximum lumens.

Strobe mode!


Thomas didn't just turn on a light; he mentally willed his eyes to become two high-powered tactical searchlights. Two beams of blinding, blindingly white LED light erupted directly from his pupils, cutting through the African twilight like high-beams on a dark highway. 


The saboteur let out a curdling shriek of absolute terror. He had braced himself for a spear or a club, not the wrath of a god beaming pure, unnatural starlight directly into his retinas. He dropped his woven basket, his hands flying to his face as his vision was instantly burned into white, pulsing static. 


"Witchcraft! Oulodi!" the man screamed, stumbling backward on the slick river rock.


"Yeah, it's called technology, buddy!" Thomas yelled, charging forward through the shallow water. 


The splash of his footsteps gave away his position. Blinded but desperate, the saboteur swung his iron knife wildly through the air. Thomas, utilizing Amutenya’s agile reflexes, ducked beneath the desperate slash. He lunged forward, grabbing the warrior’s knife wrist with both hands, using his momentum to slam the man hard against the surface of the flat rock.


The knife clattered into the river with a sharp splash!.


The saboteur was heavier and stronger than Thomas, driven by pure panic. He threw a blind, brutal left hook that caught Thomas squarely in the jaw. Thomas tasted copper as his head snapped back, his vision flickering with literal digital static for a brief second. 


[SYSTEM WARNING: CRANIAL TRAUMA DETECTED]

[HOST INTEGRITY: 92%]


The warrior scrambled to his feet, trying to flee toward the eastern bank, but he was still visually impaired, stumbling over the uneven terrain.


"Shivute! Now!" Thomas roared, spitting blood from his lip.


From the dark reeds, a small form lunged out. Shivute swung his heavy wooden digging stick with everything he had, striking the saboteur squarely across the shins. 


The warrior yelped, losing his footing entirely, and went down hard into the thick, gray river mud. Before he could recover, Thomas was on top of him, driving his knee into the man's lower back and pinning his arms behind him in a classic restraint hold he’d seen in dozens of action movies.


"Stay down!" Thomas panted, his eyes still emitting a faint, eerie glow that illuminated the muddy scuffle. 


The saboteur writhed under him, weeping in terror, convinced he had been captured by a literal forest demon. "Spare me, spirit! Spare me!"


Thomas didn't answer. He looked out over the river. The woven basket had tipped over on the rock. Most of the poisonous green powder was still trapped inside it, damp but un-dissolved. Only a small fraction had made it into the water, and the slow, heavy current was carrying it past the intake pipe too quickly to concentrate.


The red banner in his vision violently glitched, shifting back to a calm, soothing blue.


[EVENT DETECTED: 'The Poisoned Well' – thwarted]

[CONTAMINATION PROTOCOL: Halted]

[HOST EXISTENCE PROBABILITY: RESTORED TO 98%]


Thomas let out a massive, ragged breath, his muscles turning to jelly. "We did it," he breathed.


"Amutenya..." Shivute whimpered, standing over them with his stick raised, staring at Thomas's glowing eyes in a mix of awe and terror. "What... what kind of ancestor did you say you prayed to?"


"The kind that likes high-speed internet," Thomas muttered, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Come on, help me tie this guy up with some river vines. We still have a royal bull to save, and our twelve minutes are almost up."

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