Chapter 2: Your Ticket Has Been Escalated

The first thing Milo Park learned about being reincarnated in another world was that grass could be aggressive.

Not metaphorically. Not in the poetic, nature-is-healing way exhausted office workers used when they posted pictures of hiking trails and then went back to answering emails at midnight.

The grass was physically, personally, and maliciously up in his business.

It grew to his waist in shimmering blue-green blades, each one thin as a paper cut and tipped with dew that smelled like mint and electrical fire. Every step dragged a cold wet line across his borrowed trousers. Burrs the size of marbles clung to his sleeves. Something with too many legs clicked away underfoot whenever he moved, as if the meadow itself contained a drawer full of living staplers.

Above him, the sky was an impossible wash of violet morning. Two pale moons hung near the horizon like forgotten plates. A sun the color of honey spilled light across rolling hills, glinting off distant ruins and the dark sawtooth line of a forest that looked exactly like the kind of forest where tutorial characters said things like, Do not leave the road.

There was no road.

Milo stood in the middle of the field, wearing the same wrinkled white button-down shirt he had died in, minus the vending machine-shaped bloodstains, plus a pair of soft brown trousers and boots that had appeared on him sometime between being yelled at by twelve divine middle managers and face-planting into Elyndra’s topsoil.

His tie was gone. He missed it. Not because he liked ties, but because a tie could become a tourniquet, rope, snake deterrent, or emotional support object in a pinch.

“Great,” he said. His voice came out small under the enormous sky. “Fantastic. Love the onboarding process. Very robust.”

A blob of translucent lime-green jelly bounced beside his boot.

“Congratulations!” it chirped. “You have successfully entered the Beginner Meadow of Mild-to-Moderate Regret!”

Milo looked down.

The slime was the size of a basketball, with two glossy black dots for eyes suspended inside its body and a mouth that appeared only when it spoke. It wore, somehow, a tiny blue cap with a yellow tassel. The cap floated on top of its jelly like a garnish.

“You,” Milo said, pointing at it, “are going to explain several things.”

“That is my purpose!” The slime bounced proudly. “I am Pip, your official Divine Tutorial Slime, contracted under the Heroic Transition and Early Survival Assistance Act, revised six hundred and twelve years ago after the Incident With the Confused Baker.”

“The what?”

“He kneaded a dragon.”

“I have follow-up questions.”

“Excellent! Questions are a vital part of learning. However, we should begin moving before the local hostile entities discover your scent.”

Milo froze.

“My scent.”

“Yes! You smell like foreign soul residue, divine apology fruit, and fear sweat.”

“That last one is universal.”

Pip made a wet little sound that might have been laughter. “Please select a direction.”

Milo turned slowly. Meadow, meadow, forest, hills, more meadow. Far to the east, beyond a scatter of wind-bent trees, a thin gray line curled into the distance. Smoke rose beyond it in faint threads.

“Is that a town?”

“Likely!”

“Likely as in you don’t know, or likely as in you’re trying to build confidence?”

“Yes!”

Milo pressed thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. It did nothing. His headache had followed him across dimensions, which felt like a breach of contract.

“Fine,” he said. “We go toward the smoke. People make smoke. People have food. People have chairs. I would commit several misdemeanors for a chair.”

“Excellent decision, Hero Milo!”

“Don’t call me hero.”

“Excellent decision, Customer Milo!”

“Somehow worse.”

They started walking.

The meadow rolled gently underfoot, each hill revealing another hill, the distant smoke never seeming to draw closer. Bright insects drifted over violet wildflowers. Somewhere unseen, a bird trilled a melody so clean and complex that it made Milo’s chest ache. Then another bird answered by screaming like a fax machine dying in a fire.

“Nature,” Milo muttered. “Balanced.”

“Indeed! Elyndra is a realm of profound harmonies.”

“That thing sounded like it was uploading itself to hell.”

“The shriek-lark’s mating call is considered a delicacy among certain poets.”

“Poets deserve what they get.”

Pip bounced ahead, crushing grass beneath its jelly body only for the blades to spring back untouched. Milo, meanwhile, left a trail like an intern dragged through a hedge.

He tried to take inventory. Phone: gone. Wallet: gone. Keys: gone. Dignity: questionable before death, now missing presumed dead. He had no weapon, no food, and no idea how to use the ridiculous divine skill the gods had shoved into his soul like a coupon for a restaurant that had already burned down.

Customer Support.

The words floated at the edge of his mind, not quite visible, like a browser tab open behind his eyes. When he focused on them, his vision shimmered.

DIVINE SKILL: CUSTOMER SUPPORT

Status: Active

Tier: Improperly Assigned / Compensation Package

Current Access: Basic

Available Functions: Open Ticket, View Knowledge Base, Submit Feedback, Escalate Once Per Calendar Day

Warning: Vague requests may produce interpretive outcomes.

Milo stumbled.

“Oh,” he said.

Pip spun mid-bounce. “Did you access your skill?”

“I accessed a migraine with formatting.”

“Wonderful! Many heroes require days of meditation, combat, or near-death emotional awakening to perceive their sacred abilities.”

“I worked in a call center for nine years. If there’s a queue, I can smell it.”

He focused again, squinting into the invisible interface. It felt less like casting magic and more like trying to remember a password he had set in 2017.

OPEN TICKET

Please describe your issue.

Required fields: Category, Target, Impact, Requested Resolution

Optional: Attachments, Desired Timeline, Tone Preference

Milo barked out a laugh.

“They gave me Zendesk.”

“What is a Zendesk?” Pip asked.

“A cursed altar where human patience goes to be harvested.”

“Ah! Like a shrine.”

“Exactly like a shrine.”

Milo kept walking, half watching the meadow, half poking at the interface in his head. Categories unfurled when he thought the word, each one appearing in neat glowing lines.

CATEGORIES

• Environment

• Creature Behavior

• Personal Status

• Quest Progression

• Divine Intervention

• Billing and Contracts

• Other

“Billing and Contracts?” he whispered.

“Very important,” Pip said solemnly. “Many wars begin when tribute invoices are sent to the wrong moon.”

“I hate that I believe you.”

He tried opening the Knowledge Base.

KNOWLEDGE BASE

Search: _

Milo thought, How do I survive?

Search Results for: How do I survive?

1. Breathing: A Beginner’s Guide

2. Identifying Edible Mosses By Whether They Scream

3. So You Have Been Chosen By A God And/Or Administrative Mistake

4. Goblins: Negotiation, Evasion, and Basic Anti-Stabbing Techniques

5. Filing Emergency Requests Without Creating A Weather System

“Open result four,” Milo said quickly.

Nothing happened.

“You must think it with conviction,” Pip said. “Magic responds to intent.”

Milo had managed forty-seven consecutive minutes once convincing a furious man named Dennis that no, unplugging his router did not count as “being hacked by China.” He knew conviction.

Open result four.

Goblins: Negotiation, Evasion, and Basic Anti-Stabbing Techniques

Goblins are communal tool-using sapients often misclassified as pests due to unfortunate public relations, aggressive resource acquisition strategies, and a cultural fondness for yelling.

If approached by goblins:

1. Do not run unless you are certain you are faster than both the goblins and your slowest companion.

2. Display empty hands.

3. Avoid insulting ears, mothers, soup, or unions.

4. If negotiations fail, protect soft organs.

Milo stopped walking.

“Pip.”

“Yes?”

“Are goblins a local hostile entity?”

“Frequently!”

“Are there any nearby?”

Pip’s jelly body brightened, then dimmed. “Scanning beginner radius.”

A soft chime rang from inside the slime. Its smile vanished.

“Good news,” Pip said.

“I already hate it.”

“You will shortly have an opportunity to practice.”

The grass ahead rustled.

Milo’s body reacted before his brain could schedule the meeting. His stomach dropped, throat tightened, palms went slick. He raised his hands and stared at the swaying blades as several squat green shapes emerged from the meadow.

There were five of them.

They looked less like the goblins from video games and more like someone had taken wiry, furious old men, dyed them moss-green, sharpened their ears, and dressed them from the lost-and-found bin of a violent summer camp. They wore patched leather vests, mismatched boots, bone buttons, and belts heavy with pouches. Each carried a weapon: a rusty cleaver, a hooked spear, a club studded with nails, a sling, and, in the hands of the largest goblin, what appeared to be half a pair of garden shears strapped to a pole.

The largest goblin had a red cloth tied around his left arm. He lifted the shears-pole and grinned, revealing teeth like broken corn kernels.

“Tall soft thing,” he said in rough but understandable Common, which Milo only knew was Common because his brain helpfully labeled it like a subtitle. “Empty pockets or open belly.”

Milo swallowed.

“Hi,” he said. “Thank you for reaching out.”

Pip made a tiny squeak.

The goblins blinked.

“What?” said the largest.

Milo kept his hands up. His customer service voice, that smooth and terrible weapon honed through years of refund disputes and outage notifications, slid into place. “I understand you’re requesting access to my inventory. Unfortunately, I’m new to the area and currently don’t have any valuables on my person.”

The goblin with the cleaver squinted at him. “He cursed?”

“Sounds cursed,” said the one with the sling.

“No curse,” Milo said quickly. “Just transparency. I have no money. No food. No weapon. My companion is a tutorial slime, and I don’t think he’s edible.”

Pip puffed up. “I am educationally valuable and nutritionally disappointing!”

The goblin leader jabbed the shears-pole toward Milo’s stomach. The dull metal point stopped a foot from his shirt.

“Boots,” the goblin said. “Give boots.”

Milo looked down at his boots. They were the only thing between his feet and a field full of living staplers.

“That’s going to be difficult.”

“Make easy.”

The other goblins spread out. Milo could hear them moving through the grass behind him, little huffs and snickers, the jangle of bone charms. The sun was warm on his neck. Sweat crawled down his spine. Pip trembled beside him like gelatin at an earthquake.

Okay.

His heart hammered. He had no combat training. He had once taken a free self-defense seminar in a mall and learned that his wrists were “emotionally available.” He was not going to outfight five armed goblins.

But he had a ticketing system.

“Pip,” Milo said through his smile, “how fast can a ticket work?”

“Depends on category, wording, queue load, divine jurisdiction, and whether the request contradicts existing covenants.”

“In English.”

“Sometimes instantly! Sometimes after everyone dies!”

“Great.”

The goblin leader’s eyes narrowed. “Whispering. Bad.”

“Internal process,” Milo said. “Please hold.”

He focused hard on the glowing tab in his mind.

OPEN TICKET

Please describe your issue.

Category: Creature Behavior.

Target: Goblins currently threatening Milo Park.

Impact: Imminent physical harm, possible theft of footwear, bad first-day experience.

Requested Resolution: Prevent goblins from attacking me.

Desired Timeline: Immediately.

Tone Preference: Firm but polite.

He mentally hit submit.

Ticket #000001 Opened

Category: Creature Behavior

Priority: Medium

Status: Awaiting Triage

Estimated Response: 3-5 business days

Milo stared at the message.

“No,” he whispered.

The goblin leader leaned closer. “Boots now.”

“One moment.”

He jabbed mentally at the ticket.

Escalate.

Escalation Attempt

Please provide justification for escalation.

I am about to be murdered for my shoes.

Escalation Denied

Reason: Threat level does not yet exceed Beginner Meadow standard parameters.

Suggestion: Try negotiation, evasion, or clarifying requested resolution.

Milo’s eye twitched.

“I am going to leave the gods such a bad review.”

The goblin with the club darted in and swung at Milo’s knee.

Milo yelped and hopped backward. The club whistled past, close enough that he felt the air move. His heel caught on a root hidden under the grass. He pinwheeled, arms flailing, and landed hard on his backside.

The meadow slapped wetly against him. Pain shot up his tailbone. Goblins cackled.

“Tall thing sits!” crowed the cleaver goblin.

“Take boots while sitting!”

Pip bounced between Milo and the goblins. “By the authority vested in me as a tutorial assistant, I recommend you reconsider!”

The leader looked down at Pip. “Soup talks.”

“I am not soup!”

“All things are soup if boiled brave enough,” said the sling goblin philosophically.

Milo scrambled backward on hands and heels. His fingers dug into damp soil. The goblins advanced in a loose semicircle, grinning, weapons raised more for intimidation than immediate murder, which was not as comforting as it should have been.

Clarify requested resolution.

He reopened the ticket, thoughts racing.

Prevent goblins from attacking me had been too broad. Too passive. Maybe the system needed a mechanism. Gods loved mechanisms. Magic loved loopholes. Reality behaved like badly documented software, the throne room gods had said, laughing nervously as if that excused everything.

Fine.

New ticket.

OPEN TICKET

Please describe your issue.

Category: Creature Behavior.

Target: Goblin group engaging in hostile resource acquisition against Milo Park in Beginner Meadow.

Impact: Risk of bodily harm, theft, companion consumption, and negative onboarding experience.

Requested Resolution: Establish immediate nonviolent negotiation framework that prevents physical aggression from all parties until dispute regarding property can be resolved.

Desired Timeline: Now.

Tone Preference: Authoritative, legally binding.

He submitted.

Ticket #000002 Opened

Category: Creature Behavior / Conflict Mediation

Priority: High

Status: Routed to Local Covenant Engine

The air made a sound like a stamp striking paper.

A square of golden light unfolded between Milo and the goblins, hovering at chest height. Lines of script crawled across it in a language Milo didn’t know and somehow understood anyway.

The goblins stopped so abruptly the club goblin stepped on the cleaver goblin’s foot.

“Ow, Skrit!”

“Don’t stop in front of me!”

“Shut both mouths,” the leader hissed.

The golden square flashed.

Temporary Nonviolent Negotiation Framework Established

Participants: Milo Park, Pip Tutorial Slime, Red Rag Foraging Band

Duration: Until resolution of immediate property dispute or framework breach

Prohibited Actions: Stabbing, bludgeoning, biting, boiling, theft-by-force, intimidation exceeding regional norms

Required Actions: State claims clearly. Listen in good faith. Do not insult soup.

Milo exhaled so hard his ribs hurt.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay, great. That worked. That actually worked.”

The goblin leader raised the shears-pole and swung it down at Milo’s face.

The weapon bounced off an invisible barrier with a cheerful boing. A tiny golden spark leapt onto the goblin’s nose.

“Agh!” He staggered back, clutching his face. “Contract bite!”

Framework Breach Warning: Participant Grubnash Red-Rag

Further violations may result in penalties.

Milo sat in the grass, hands shaking, and felt a wild hysterical laugh claw up his throat.

“Grubnash,” he said. “Your name is Grubnash.”

The goblin leader bared his teeth. “You laugh name?”

Milo remembered point three from the Knowledge Base.

“No. Strong name. Very brandable.”

Grubnash looked suspicious but mollified. “What is brandable?”

“Means people will remember it while running away.”

The other goblins murmured approval.

“Good,” said Grubnash.

Pip leaned close to Milo. “Excellent recovery.”

“I almost died because of a service-level agreement,” Milo whispered.

“You almost lived because of one, too!”

The golden square pulsed gently, waiting.

Milo pushed himself to his feet, legs still watery. Mud stained his palms and the back of his trousers. He forced himself to breathe through his nose. The goblins watched him with the irritated patience of customers trapped behind someone counting pennies.

“All right,” Milo said, brushing grass from his shirt. “Let’s resolve the dispute. Grubnash, you want my boots.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The goblin leader stared as if the question itself had grown a second head. “Boots good.”

“I understand boots are good. But why do you need them?”

The goblins exchanged glances.

“Feet hurt,” said the club goblin, Skrit. He lifted one narrow foot. His boot sole had a hole large enough for two toes to poke through. The toes were wrapped in dirty cloth. “Sharp grass. Thorn bugs. Long patrol.”

The cleaver goblin snorted. “Tall soft thing don’t care.”

Milo looked at their feet. Every goblin wore battered scraps held together with twine, bark, and desperate optimism. Their weapons were poor. Their leather armor was patched and repatched. One had a bandage around his wrist stained dark green with dried blood.

They were still armed robbers. They had still threatened to cut him open.

But Milo had supervised enough desperate people under impossible metrics to recognize the shape of being squeezed by a system that did not care whether you bled, only whether you met quota.

“Why are you on patrol?” he asked.

Grubnash’s mouth twisted. “Boss says bring meat, metal, boots. Or no stew.”

“Your boss?”