Fin studied the four choices above the corpse, weighing them the only way a broke man could.
’Speed I can fake, the wall runs already feel like cheating... endurance is for people who plan to take hits, skills need a teacher I don’t have... but strength.’
’Strength is the only thing this city has ever respected, and it’s been shoving me around all day.’
He pressed the gold line, feeling hunger pour toward the corpse before the panel answered.
The orc shriveled beneath the pull, its arms collapsing while its armor settled around the bones. Heat flooded through his chest, then into his arms, settling deep into his back while the monster paid its debt.
[ Absorbed: strength +6 ]
[ Trait source depleted ]
[ Warning: mortal conduits at capacity : vessel saturation: 1/1 (rank F limit) ]
[ Core assimilation cooldown required before subsequent absorption ]
’One meal fills the tank for now,’ he realized, his chest throbbing with violent, unrefined heat. ’Any more raw monster marrow right now and my veins would burst like overpressurized pipes.’
His grip tightened on reflex, and the pipe in his hand creaked, denting around his fingers without effort.
"Oh," he said, flexing his fingers slowly in the dim light. "That’s nice..."
He pushed off the wall just to test the power, his palm sinking into the brick and leaving a crumbled red print.
’Haha... this is so fun I can barely contain myself.’
He set off down the road at a jog, the new strength turning the jog into a sprint before he decided anything.
The city blurred past him, building after building, while the wind pushed tears from the corners of his eyes.
He dragged the crab-legged creature from beneath the bus by one leg. His palm struck its body, folding it flat against the ground.
[ Kill count: 2/10 ]
The skitterers at the corner learned the same lesson moments later. His thrown trash can crushed two against the wall before bouncing into the gutter.
[ Kill count: 4/10 ]
He ran up the pharmacy wall, turning as a beast dropped from the awning. His pipe met its body before either of them reached the ground.
[ Kill count: 5/10 ]
"That’s five," he told himself, landing in a crouch. "And the crowd goes wild."
Nobody was watching, so he clapped for himself, because somebody in this district had to celebrate something tonight.
The applause echoed once against the shuttered shopfronts, which was the city’s full review.
The next hour carried him over car hoods and through intersections. He kicked beasts through windows, throwing scavenged pipes whenever another target crossed his path.
He tested another wall run, discovering it carried him over a delivery truck. His body kept offering him new tricks, so he kept saying yes to every one of them.
Every hit landed harder than the last, and every jump carried him higher than the one before. The new strength obeyed him the way money obeys rich men, instantly, no questions asked.
He swept through the bus depot, shattering two charging beasts with one swing of the pipe.
He vaulted onto a ticket booth, catching another beast by the throat. His landing drove it into the pavement hard enough to break its neck.
’One punch used to hurt my knuckles,’ he thought, leaping back into the street. ’Now I’m breaking monster skulls like dry clay.’
On the fifth block, he found six beasts clustered around a wrecked grocery store, drawn by the food inside.
He tore through the pack with sweeping pipe strikes, cracking jaws and crushing ribs with savage precision.
’Haha, I could get used to this.’
The monsters changed direction as he approached, abandoning their hunts to flee east through the haze.
’Cowards... an hour ago everybody wanted a piece of me.’
The counter passed ten during the hunt, but he ignored the waiting reward until the twenty-second kill.
He stopped beside the fallen monster, finally opening the notification with a thought.
[ Quest: first blood - complete ]
[ Kills: 22/10 ]
[ Reward: 50 stat points - distributed ]
[ Rank: F+ → E ]
The fifty points landed hot, rolling through him as another surge, with faster recovery and stronger fists. He read the rank line upside down during a vault, shouting loud enough to wake the dead district.
"E-rank!" He yelled at the smoke. "Same rank as the idiots from the market in one evening!"
The system asked for ten kills, and he delivered twenty-two, because nobody ever taught him when to stop.
Then his hands started shaking in the middle of his best stretch.
He stood over his latest kill, watching his fingers tremble while an amber meter flashed at the edge of vision.
[ Stamina: 31/100 ]
’...huh?’
He noticed the meter for the first time, realizing what his excitement concealed.
Every swing burned stamina while every acrobatic flip burned more, the meter counting every drop of effort spent tonight.
The amber deepened toward red while he stood there watching it fall.
’Crap... okay, easy. No more backflips.’
His next thrust missed a skitterer bolting across the intersection toward the loading docks.
He vaulted a delivery cart in pursuit, spending stamina without adding another kill.
The meter dropped into the red and stayed there, flashing without pause.
Sweat ran down his back while his breathing turned ragged, and then a chilling realization hit him.
Jolly remained somewhere inside the break zone while he played hero on empty streets.
’It’s fine,’ he told himself, the adrenaline burying the panic away. ’She knows what to do.’
He remembered her dinner stories about shelter drills, counting games, and hiding places. None of those lessons prepared a classroom for an uncontained gate break.
The thought almost stopped his legs before fear for her safety propelled him forward again.
He chased the last runner down a street lined with loading docks, sprinting hard, trying to clear the route toward the school.
The runner stopped at the far end of the road, turning around to face him, calm as a closed door.
It never fled from him at all, he realized with a sinking stomach, because luring him was its whole job.
They stepped out of the smoke on three sides at once, tusks first, crude cleavers dragging sparks off the asphalt. Four stood in the open, with more dark shapes shifting in the haze between the docks.
Every one of them smelled the weakness on him, the scent of prey running out of breath.
The beast at the back stood wider than a doorway, bigger than his original killer ever was.
’W-Woah... those are E-ranks... a whole pack of E-ranks...’
The street lay open in every direction without an alley mouth to bottle them up, every escape route closing fast.
His hands shook so hard the pipe chattered against his leg while his thighs burned with exhaustion.
A siren wound up somewhere behind the smoke, far away in a wealthier part of the city. His district never received emergency sirens that quickly during previous alarms.
[ Stamina: 9/100 ]
’Damn... I might be in trouble again.’
He looked toward the nearest wreck, measuring the gap beneath its chassis.
’I could crawl under there. So could their hands. Then I would be trapped with nine points and no room to swing.’
"Stay on your feet," he told himself. "Make them come one at a time."
He shifted the pipe across his body, keeping its end between himself and the nearest set of claws.
The biggest orc rolled its shoulders once, taking its time, and stepped forward with a guttural roar that shook the road.