Riley stood frozen, her breath caught halfway between her chest and her throat. Her mind tried to make sense of what her eyes were seeing. A low wind brushed against the tall grass ahead of her and the entire patch rippled in one beautiful shimmering wave.
Not grass.
Not reeds.
Wheat.
Riley stepped forward and whispered as if saying it too loudly might make it vanish.
“Wheat.”
It wasn’t at all what she was expecting or hoping for but it was still a plentiful resource. A mixed blessing she told herself.
Her heart thudded hard enough to make her ribs ache.
She had found wheat.
Actual wheat.
Growing wild.
Growing in a fairly large field like nature had casually dropped a survival starter pack right at the edge of the forest.
She pushed through the last line of brush and entered the small clearing. Stalks swayed around her thighs like golden cattails. Sunlight caught the tips and the heads glowed pale yellow.
For a moment she forgot how to breathe.
This was what she had been hoping for.
Real food.
Real calories.
Real possibility.
Then every practical problem slammed into her at once.
“Oh no,” she groaned. “This is a nightmare.”
She grabbed a stalk and rubbed the grain between her fingers. Tiny kernels flaked off into her palm. She blew away the chaff and stared at the raw grain.
She could feel her brain spinning through a checklist of concerns.
Harvesting would be slow.
Painfully slow.
Hand gathering would take hours and she only had her bucket and helmet to carry anything.
Then there was the biggest problem.
Processing.
She needed grinding.
She needed tools.
She did not have anything.
She brought the kernel up to her mouth.
“Can I even eat this raw?”
She bit down gently. It was hard and chewy. Not dangerous, probably, but not exactly edible in the way her body desperately wanted.
Riley groaned again.
This was a gift with strings.
She let the wheat head fall from her fingers and looked across the little field. The wind carried the warm smell of straw mixed with sunlight. It should have filled her with joy but all she felt was frustration creeping into her throat.
“If I had corn, I could roast it.”
“Sweet peas? Perfect.”
“Even potatoes would have been easy.”
She sighed heavily.
“But no. I get the one resource that needs processing.”
In that moment with her stomach still growling she found it hard to be grateful for this resource when all she really wanted was to eat.
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She rubbed her face with both hands and growled softly into her palms.
A bark in the distance snapped her out of her spiraling thoughts.
She stiffened. The dog from earlier? Or another animal? She turned toward the brush she had come from and listened.
Another bark.
Farther away, but enough to remind her exactly how exposed she was.
Right.
Priority shift.
She jogged back to where she had dropped her helmet and bucket, scooped them up, then returned to the wheat patch with renewed urgency. She did not have a flour mill or tools but she did have a checklist that needed to be actioned and this was a good start.
She knelt and began pulling handfuls of wheat heads, twisting the grain free one clutch at a time. It was tedious. Her fingers ached after only a few minutes. The process felt like trying to fill a bucket one raindrop at a time.
She forced herself to keep going.
The bucket filled halfway.
Then three quarters.
Finally full.
The helmet took even longer.
By the time she gathered everything she could reasonably carry, her arms were humming and her back felt like it was made of wet rope. She tucked the helmet under her arm, gripped the bucket handle tight, and began the walk back to the tower.
The sun had dipped lower than she liked.
Inside the tower, Riley set everything down in the center of the floor. She took a deep breath and opened the HUD.
Her eyes scanned the numbers.
? RESOURCES UPDATED
? Food: 5%
? Stone: 5%
? Wood: 10%
The percentages were insulting. Riley figured that the percentages must have been referring to how much she had versus how much the system could hold at her level. The problem was she had spent a chunk of her day dragging all these items back and the bars barely moved.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she muttered. “This is pathetic.”
She tapped the repair menu.
? Front Door Repair Requirements:
? Stone: 100%
? Wood: 100%
? Ore: 20%
Ore.
Her stomach dropped.
“Where is ore? It is not on the map at all.”
She flicked the map open. The river shone blue. The stone marker near the banks was grey and small. The forest was marked in greens and browns. The wheat she had discovered earlier was a pale yellow cluster, in the games she had played on her phone this would be considered food.
No ore.
Not a single spark of the needed resource anywhere.
Frustration bubbled in her throat.
“Fine. Whatever. That is a problem for future Riley. Right now we focus on what we do have.”
She closed the map and stared at her tiny piles.
Stone.
Wood.
Food.
Not much, but they were the foundations of survival.
She set her jaw.
Time for work.
Riley made trip after trip from the river to the tower. Her arms shook. Her breathing turned ragged. Sweat stuck her hair to her forehead. Every time she said she would do only one more run, she did another anyway.
Each load made almost no visible dent in the resource bars. The numbers crawled upward with painful slowness. But they moved. That was all that mattered.
By the time the sun lowered to a dangerous orange, brushing the top of the trees like a glowing warning, Riley’s legs trembled with exhaustion.
She dropped the last bundle of wood inside the tower and closed the door behind her. The air inside felt cooler, calmer, safer.
She set everything down carefully and organized her resources into three neat piles along the wall.
Wood on one side.
Stone on the other.
Wheat and berries in the middle.
She stared at the food, her mind tugging at the problem.
She needed calories.
She needed something warm.
Boiling was possible.
Grinding was not.
She set to work.
Riley gathered a handful of small sticks, some dry grass, and a few larger pieces of wood. After several careful attempts, she coaxed a spark into flame and slowly fed it until she had a respectable little fire.
She filled her helmet with water, placed it over the fire, and waited for it to boil.
She needed something like porridge. She had no flour and no mill, but she could mash boiled wheat into something vaguely edible. She found a flat stick outside earlier and had cleaned it by boiling it in water. She placed it nearby, ready for stirring and scooping.
Once the water boiled, she added handfuls of wheat grain. They floated, then slowly softened in the bubbling water.
It smelled awful.
Wet hay.
Sweaty bread.
Something between cereal and barn floor.
Riley cringed but kept stirring.
Food mattered.
Stone mattered.
Wood mattered.
She wiped her hands on her pants, stood, and opened the HUD.
She attempted to select the door repair.
The system chimed.
? Door Repair requires additional resources
Riley nodded once.
She exhaled and lowered herself next to the fire.
She leaned over the helmet. The wheat sludge burbled like glue. She dipped the clean flat stick in and scooped a chunk out. Steam rolled upward.
She blew on it and then took a tentative taste.
She gagged immediately.
Bland. But it was food.
Hot, filling, extremely boring food. Oh what she would have given for some ramen noodles.
Her stomach did not care about flavor. Her body needed fuel and this was the closest thing to a meal she had seen since arriving here.
She forced herself to finish the entire portion. Each mouthful stuck to her teeth and tasted like wet cardboard mixed with boring, but warmth spread through her limbs. For the first time since being pulled into this world, she felt full.
A real meal.
A real victory.
A hard-won, tasteless victory.
She rinsed the helmet with the remaining hot water, then arranged her carpet bed closer to the fire.
Her body sagged into the makeshift bedding. The day had drained her, but in the best possible way. Her arms hurt. Her legs trembled. Her hands were raw from gathering. Yet her heart felt lighter than it had in days.
She curled up, pulled the edge of the carpet around her shoulders, and smiled at the flickering light.
The fire glowed softly against the stone walls.
Tomorrow would be another fight.
But tonight she had eaten.
She had gathered.
She had progressed.
It was the most productive and rewarding day she had experienced since arriving in this strange world.
Sleep pulled at her gently and this time, she did not resist.
