2025-07-03 10:28:34Chapter 5: Goddamn Year
One fucking year. Twelve moons, four seasons, a hundred and fifty-two tantrums from The System, and more sweat than a cursed gladiator's jockstrap. And yet, here he was: Kael, age nine, sitting behind a cracked desk in Emergency Room 3, staring into a mirror that knew him better than most priests knew sin. He whispered the familiar invocation. “Status.” The interface unfolded like a holy tapestry woven from glass and lightning. Name: Kael Age: 9 Race: Human Class: Healer [Common] Level: 9 [9000/9000 EXP] (+) Titles: - Born Anew [Unique] [Temporary] > Increases experience gain by 50% until level 10 Stats: HP: 340/340 | Regen: 48 HP per hour MP: 520/545 | Regen: 89 MP per hour STR: 40 END: 48 AGI: 37 INT: 89 CHA: 6 Skills: Hand-to-Hand Combat [Lv.5 | 0/2500 EXP] [Common] [Passive] > +5% STR when unarmed Discipline [Lv.7 | 250/3500 EXP] [Uncommon] [Passive] > 7% resistance to mental magic Shooting Mastery [Lv.6 | 0/3000 EXP] [Uncommon] [Passive] > +6% projectile velocity Heal [Lv.10 | MAX] [Common] [Active] > Restore 150 HP > MP Cost: 25 Focus Heal [Lv.10 | MAX] [Common] [Active] > Restore 150 HP to a focused area > MP Cost: 15 Kael leaned back, fingers steepled like a smug little archbishop of arcane healing. He’d earned this. Every stat point, every drop of mana, every aching muscle forged from dragging his gangly body through a thousand laps and twice as many squats. His magic was maxed. His bones were steel. His fists were harder than some low-tier mercenaries’ swords. “You finally hit Level 10. Now, click the damn button,” The System said, voice sweet as poison-tipped sugar. Kael gave it a sidelong glance, then tapped the shimmering [+]. The heavens rang with a tone that felt like digital choirboys screaming. Level Up! [9 → 10] EXP reset to 0/10000 HP/MP fully restored +5 Unassigned Stat Points Milestone Reached! +10 to All Stats HP/MP Ratio Adjusted: 1:5 → 1:6 New System Functions Unlocked And then the world tilted again. Random Healer Skill Generated: Purify [Lv.0 | 0/100] [Rare] [Active] > Purify the target, curing all diseases and illnesses > MP Cost: 100 Kael blinked. Does it cure all diseases? That is right, it is overpowered, The System replied, smug as a cat in a fish market. “...Wait. Do you hear what I am thinking now?” “That's one of the new perks, brother.” Kael flinched. His inner dialogue was no longer holy land. Nothing was secretive, including his sarcasm. He cringed as did a man who knew that the village gossip demon had read his diary. And that is not the best new feature either, The System cooed. “Try [Skill Merging].” Kael brightened. Wait... is it possible to combine Hand-to-Hand Combat with Shooting Mastery? That would be hardcore.” “No. They’re passive. Only active skills are valid. They must also be of the same rarity. And level max.” “Of course. Why don t you fuck me sideways with a rusty wand, Kael growled. Nevertheless, he opened the new menu. There were two of the skills that shone like twin stars in a sky of progress. [Heal] [Focus Heal] He rapped them together. There was a large glittering button. Confirm Merge? Yes. A deeper, older, sacred DING. Skill Merged: Greater Heal [Lv.0 | 0/100] [Uncommon] [Active] > Restore 500 HP > MP Cost: 20 Kael was nearly knocked off his feet. “Five hundred HP?!” That is more Rare-level. Technically Uncommon. But holy as fvck anyway.” Kael did not even argue. He was too occupied with thoughts of breaking bones and clamping arteries with a mere flick of mana. Oh, The System said, and I already allocated your stat points. Kael hissed, Have you put them all in INT again? “Yes. You’re welcome.” I despise you. No, you do not. He sighed. “Status.” Level: 10 HP: 448/448 | Regen: 58/hr MP: 724/724 | Regen: 104/hr STR: 50 END: 58 AGI: 47 INT: 104 CHA: 16 Skills: Hand-to-Hand Combat [Lv.5] Discipline [Lv.7] Shooting Mastery [Lv.6] Greater Heal [Lv.0] Purify [Lv.0] He was stacked. Dangerous. A nine-year-old divine battery wrapped in flesh and sarcasm. Time to train. But as he stood to leave the Recovery Center, the world bent again. A woman with no name and no soul stepped into his path. “Elira wishes to see you.” No emotion. No blink. Just those words like ice cracked on stone. “She’s brainwashed,” The System whispered. Kael flinched so hard his spine nearly rebooted. “Couldn’t you warn me before she shows up?” “My bad.” “Your bad? You waited on purpose, didn’t you.” The System went quiet. Guilty silence. Glorious bastard. Kael headed to Elira’s office. As he approached, Maren — tight-lipped and always watching — opened the door and followed him inside. “She’s also brainwashed,” The System said casually. Kael did not scream. He merely clenched his jaw like a saint swallowing a fireball. Inside, Elira stood behind a fortress made of paper. She moved a stack with her magic and gestured. “Sit.” Kael sat, carefully, as though the floor might vanish if he breathed wrong. “Place your hand on this,” she said, revealing the Level Stone. He did. Name: Kael Age: 9 Class: Healer Level: 10 Elira blinked. Her mask slipped for a heartbeat. Then she smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “There’s been a situation,” she began. “A few monsters escaped a dungeon. Not dangerous. The government’s using them as target practice.” Kael tilted his head. “So?” “I want you to join the party. Get some real experience.” Kael hesitated. He’d trained like a mad monk for a year, but he'd never fought. Not here in this body. Since the war. Not since the first life. Not since the blood and dust and screams. The System said, You should go. Kael froze. You are really promoting this? You deserve it. You are much more powerful than you think. Most children wake up at ten. You are ahead of the game. Such will be thy probing ground. Kael sighed slowly. He gazed into Elira's eyes. "I'll go." Her fake smile faded away. "Wonderful. In a week I will come to get you. Oh, here you are." She gave him a silver keycard. Your new room. I would have handed it over to you on your birthday, but... I was occupied. Kael gazed at it. It was a real room. No bunk beds. No other kids. Just space. Quiet. Relief. He said: Thank you. Elira sent him away, and said, send Maren to me. Kael strode off and, with the key still in his hand, closed his heart with a curse of steel, a blessing. Walking low and sharp round the desk, Maren spoke. Why did you do that? Elira made no reply. Was that all he could have done to see Drennov? It was said that if you were here, what would it mean? Maren looked, frosty-eyed. What was the boy's level? "Level 10. Within a year. He's terrifying." Have you told him about the monsters? "Yes." Maren swung round with a cloak of shadow behind her. Never question authority. Silently she slipped away into the dark. Elira gazed at the wall and tightened her lips. She thought, "Drennov. The jerk manipulates people as a means to an end. He had also confessed publicly to brainwashing her, cocksure, and he did not mind that she remembered. She was merely a chess piece. And now he desired Kael. He had plans. She could feel it. Whenever he smiled the world was colder. But she would stop him. She swore it. It would burn down the gods to do it.
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Chapter 82: Blood That ScreamsThe frenzied Vampire continued its assault with the kind of obsessive cruelty that suggested either remarkable discipline or a deeply personal hatred for Kael’s continued breathing, as bolts of condensed force tore through the air toward him at speeds that made perception itself feel like a delayed luxury, forcing him to rely on instinct and precognition rather than sight as he twisted, stepped, and slid through the storm like a man dancing inside a guillotine factory that had just discovered rhythm.It took far too long for clarity to claw its way into the chaos, but repetition has a way of educating even the most distracted mind, and Kael finally caught the pattern hidden inside the madness, noticing that each projectile shimmered with a dark red sheen that refracted light like wet glass and pulsed with a viscosity that made his skin crawl, the color unmistakable and obscene in its familiarity.“They are using blood,” he mu
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Chapter 81: Coffin Beneath the DirtKael moved through the uneven hills with the careful irritation of a man who knew exactly where the problem was and deeply resented that it existed at all, his awareness stretched across the terrain as clusters of hostile red marks burned patiently on his mental map, all of them gathered together like idiots waiting to be scolded, and he made absolutely certain that no curious soul or well meaning hero was tailing him because this was personal, messy, and very much a one man inconvenience that he intended to finish without witnesses.The land itself seemed wrong the closer he drew, the ground rising and falling in shallow waves as if the earth had once tried to escape and failed, and when the first shapes revealed themselves, crawling out of shadow and rot, Kael felt that familiar, tired click of recognition settle into place because these things were not shadows, not truly, but imitations stitched together from death and bad dec
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Chapter 80: SimilarKael lay beside the crackling fire, his body trembling under the lingering ache of exhaustion. The System had forced him to “train” for four relentless hours, and he now looked like someone who’d wrestled with death and barely crawled back. His hair clung damply to his forehead, and his breaths came shallow, smoky in the cold air.To make matters worse, he could feel the weight of two gazes fixed on him. The longer it went on, the more uncomfortable it became.Bored and sore, Kael finally turned his attention toward Astraea. Talking seemed better than sinking further into the silence. He didn’t know much about this world, about its customs or its strange truths, but she fascinated him—too quiet, too composed, too otherworldly.He wanted to ask her something simple, something that wouldn’t sound foolish. Yet before he could, she moved first.Astraea approached the firelight and sat beside him. Her silver eyes shimm
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Chapter 79: Cold ---Kael sat in front of the fire, staring into it as if the flames could explain why the silver-haired woman across from him wouldn’t stop staring at him like a particularly interesting ghost.‘She’s still staring at me,’ he thought, trying not to meet her eyes again.The cave was quiet except for the occasional crackle of burning wood. Night had fully claimed the forest outside, leaving only the trembling halo of the campfire. Orin seemed calmer now, the madness in his eyes cooled into something that almost resembled rest.But Astraea... she was something else entirely. A presence that shouldn’t exist. A fragment of his past wearing human shape.Kael could feel the connection between them — not imagined, not metaphorical, but stitched through the soul like a needle through scar tissue. The memory she awakened in him was too vivid to dismiss, yet too incomplete to understand.When he finally looked back, sh
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Chapter 78: The Odd Woman[Kael’s POV]“How does it taste?”Kael didn’t even have the luxury of answering before his body decided to violently betray him. He bent forward and vomited everything onto the stone floor of the cave, the sound echoing wetly in the cold air. That made it the fourth monster he’d ruined today. Four steaming piles of culinary failure, each more inedible than the last.They looked edible enough—beast-like, muscular things that probably considered him a snack in another life—but once he cooked them, every bite tasted like rotten mana condensed into despair.Orin had already fallen asleep deeper in the cave, curled against the wall like an overgrown cat. The cave itself was safe, wrapped in a natural mana flow that repelled beasts. Kael should’ve been at peace. Should’ve been, if not for the yellow dot blinking on his Halo’s minimap, a few dozen meters away.The dot hadn’t moved. It just watched.“Wh
Chapter 77: Safe
Chapter 77: Safe---Kael had been walking for what felt like forever, the weight of the small, unconscious child slung across his shoulder pressing into his bones like a punishment he didn’t remember earning. Two hours. Maybe more. His map promised a stretch of grassy serenity up ahead, but right now it all felt like the same dry, corpse-colored earth, sighing under the heat of a sun that refused to die.The kid hadn’t stirred once, not even a grunt of awareness—just the occasional twitch or mumble, like he was wrestling ghosts in his dreams.Kael exhaled. “Should I just leave this kid here? My shoulder’s starting to ache.”He said it with his usual sarcasm, the kind that made it hard to tell whether he meant it or not. But the boy must have heard the words somewhere deep inside that sleeping shell, because he jerked awake so violently he almost crashed face-first into the dirt.Kael caught him mid-fall by the foot. “You c
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