It turns out there are a couple of significant differences between how the System works for me on Earth as opposed to on Bayteran. First up, and really, I should've clocked this after the whole Katya situation, apparently, bodies don't just vanish here.

Nope. No matter how hard I stared at these guys, there was to be no puff of logic-defying, guilt-free particle dissipation. Instead, I was left with two irritating corpses of which I needed to dispose. Heavy, inconvenient, and not at all easy to hide corpses.

Still, after about twenty minutes of hauling and yet more sweaty digging, my two would-be shooters were now very much part of the local scenery. And while the countryside had plenty of ditches, it turned out very few were ideally suited for rapid, discreet corpse storage.

I'd dragged them into the roadside woods, found the least visible thicket that didn't already have a badger in it, and got to work. It was wet, rooty, and about as far from dignified as you can. I've done a lot of things in my time, and glamour hasn't often been one of them. But this? This was pure grunt work. Manual labour with a crime thriller garnish.

By the time I was done, I was muddy, scratched, and harbouring serious nostalgia for Bayteran's pop-and-fade combat resolution. Honestly, say what you will about the hostile gods, war cults, and screaming shadowbeasts, but at least when you hit something hard enough over there, it had the decency to evaporate.

The two guys I'd killed were Level 2 Knockmen, which sounded like an… interesting Class. Something between door-to-door intimidation and freelance blunt force trauma, I assumed. It seemed like the sort of Class for someone who listed "starter violence" under their special skills.

I quite liked how far I outlevelled them. Level 8 versus Level had a satisfying, stomp-the-tutorial vibe to it. But the more I thought about it, the more it felt less like evidence of my newfound apex predator status, and more like Griff scrambling to send whoever happened to be in the vicinity with a working bike, a shooter and a can-do attitude. They were proximity-based solutions. Flat-pack hitmen.

Which was fine. It was good, actually. Because it meant Griff was nervous enough about me to feel the need to act immediately. Mind you, although that was reassuring in the short term, it did leave me with a gently sweating awareness that the A team might not be far behind.

I wondered how the new version of me would compare to Griff's better operatives?

Renard, for example. Hypothetically, if I could somehow sneak a peek at his System profile from a safe and very well-defended distance - behind three inches of lead and a deadbolt - I certainly wouldn't say no. Same for Anatoly. Although God forbid he got looped into this.

What really got under my skin though, besides the actual shotgun pellets, was what them actually having a Level and a Class actually meant. Bayteran had levels and Classes and Skill notifications because it was weird, and magical, and terrifying in a structured kind of way. But Earth was supposed to be reality.

So what was I seeing?

Had the System always been here, some silent operating layer beneath our drab little lives, measuring impact force and awarding Progress Points to burglars and hedge fund managers, and I just hadn't noticed? Or was this something new? Some bleed-through due to the failure of the Veil? Was I now perceiving the world through a filter that didn't belong here, like a software overlay mapping mechanics onto meatspace?

Or, on the other hand, was this just my newly integrated System trying to make sense of Earth using Bayteran terms because that's what I now understood?

I rubbed my temples.

This was the sort of thought spiral Aunt M would have delighted in. She'd probably have compared it to Pilgrim's Progress or fractal theology, and then gone to feed the crows while I stared into a cup of tea, trying not to cry.

It made my head hurt. Not metaphorically. Genuinely. Like something was grinding gears in the background of my brain. So I shelved it.

Maybe it had always been here. Maybe it was all new. Maybe, like so many things in my life lately, it didn't matter until it tried to kill me.

But if it were here now, maybe that meant I could level up on Earth, too. Which was going to turn out to be extremely useful, because if the System worked on Earth and time didn't pass in Bayteran while I was here...

Well. That was something.

If the System was functioning across both, and time wasn't moving concurrently, then, strictly speaking, I was now operating in a sandbox with no cooldowns. I could train on Earth. Level. Practice Skills. Stack Traits. Then step back through the Threshold to Bayteran with no time lost, like I'd just paused the game, but at the same time been boosted.

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This had the potential to be a real cheat code. A proper, moustache-twirling, glitch-in-the-matrix exploit. Because if the clocks didn't match up, and if I could grind levels on Earth while everyone else in Bayteran stayed frozen, then the power imbalance wasn't just tilted. It was vertical.

I could become unstoppable.

I could—

I stopped myself. That was the kind of thinking that got people turned into final bosses. Still.

A little grinding never hurt anyone.

Another big difference between Earth and Bayteran was the interesting way in which my System was treating the shotgun. I mean, yes, obviously, the gun was interesting in the usual way, being a deadly, pump-action reminder that my mentor wanted me extremely deceased, but what caught my attention wasn't the buckshot or the sawed-off stock.

It was what happened when I picked it up.

[Item: Shotgun – Modified Remington 870] Classification: Improvised Weapon [Blunt] Compatibility: Iron Provocateur – Partial Status: Usable (Melee Only) Traits Detected: – Durable Frame (15% Reduced Breakage on impact) – Weighted Stock (Applies +5 Threat on strike) – Shell Rack (No ammo recognised – Load Type Incompatible)

Crucially, the System hadn't recognised the weapon as a gun. It had logged it in my inventory as a stick. A solid, club-like object with aggressive branding. It hadn't given me a chamber count or ammo readout. There was no notification about shells, spread patterns, or reload speeds. It had skipped all of that and gone straight to: feel free to hit people with this.

I stood there, turning the shotgun over in my hands, half-expecting a prompt to appear explaining why I wasn't getting the good bits. I even rummaged through the shooter's coat and found a pocketful of shells, but the System refused to acknowledge them as usable.

Nada. Nothing. Just that metallic click-clack and a quiet, unhelpful System silence.

When I'd first picked it up, I'd been delighted. I'd thought that I'd got my hands on something ranged that I didn't need to throw. Something I could use, in the absence of having Dema at my back, to keep a bit of distance. Not that I was particularly squeamish about getting up close, especially in my new Class, but variety's nice. Options are nice. And having a way to make other people feel unsafe from far away is the sort of thing I'd been trained to appreciate.

But no.

Apparently, in System terms, I wasn't licensed to operate firearms. It had quietly cross-referenced my Class and shoved it into the nearest box it could find. Improvised Weapon: Blunt.

It hadn't even considered giving me the ranged option. Which, to be honest, was a bit infuriating. I'd wanted to feel like I was stacking a modern weapon into a medieval toolkit. But no. The System had apparently looked at me, looked at the Remington, and gone: "Nah, mate. Stick to hitting things."

I gave the shotgun a few test swings, judging the balance. It was fine. Nothing like my morningstar, obviously. But still, the weight distribution wasn't awful. The barrel had enough heft to it that I could break a nose without much wind-up. It would do in a pinch. But I wouldn't be shooting anyone with it.

Which raised another bunch of ugly questions.

Did the System simply not allow guns for my Class? Was it that simple? Iron Provocateur: Melee Only, No Exceptions? Or was it something deeper? Was the System bending reality around me? Rendering things functionally inert because they didn't fit the narrative I'd been slotted into? Was it suppressing firearms because that didn't fit the build? Or because I didn't expect to be able to use them?

Maybe it wasn't about whether the gun worked. Maybe it was about whether I believed it could. And if that was the case, was this whole thing just an elaborate self-fulfilling restriction? A Class-based nocebo effect?

I sighed. It made my head hurt. Again.

I'd been in this headspace before, where the edges of what was possible felt like they could shift if I just stared hard enough. It hadn't ended well that time, either.

But still, it bothered me. The System's refusal to acknowledge modern weapons as functional said something. I just didn't know what. Maybe it was a soft lock. Maybe it was patchable. Maybe there were ways around it. Or maybe the System didn't care where I was. Maybe it only cared about what I was.

I slung the shotgun into my inventory. Even as a glorified stick, it was a pretty good stick. It had heft, history, and that lovely satisfying thunk when you got the angle right. Besides, I wasn't about to look gift ordnance in the mouth.

Speaking of which, Griff, bless his treacherous little network, had been kind enough to send me a motorbike.

Matte black with grey trim. And no plates. Everything about it screamed wet work.

I switched out my armour gear set and tried to fit the helmet I'd taken off the bigger of the corpses over my head. No dice. How much bigger was I now? Adding that to my 'problems for another day', I swung my leg over, settled into the saddle, and kicked it to life. The engine came alive with a low, punchy snarl that shivered up my calves.

I checked the mirrors and gave the brakes a gentle squeeze. All seemed to be in order. I gave a flick of the wrist, and I rolled out of Wendmere.

As we went, the bike and I didn't exactly bond; I think she still resented me for what I did to her last two riders, but she responded. Clean, nimble, and just a touch angry. Which made two of us.

Wind tore past me, full of the scent of hedgerow and morning muck. The System didn't comment on the bike. I got no pop-ups, or stat blocks, or Gear Set suggestions. It didn't seem to treat the Yamaha as equipment.

Which was interesting. Maybe that meant it didn't see it as a weapon? Or maybe it was just too complicated for the System's current interface. Maybe it had rules about machines with more than one moving part. Or maybe, just maybe, I needed to stop obsessing on this all so much.

I cracked the throttle, and the bike surged forward. Griff had sent me two men and a high-performance death machine.

Only one of them had turned out to be useful.

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