2025-11-15 17:18:33By the time Leon finished his first shift, he had lifted more weight in one afternoon than he had in the last ten years combined. But Mason Briggs was just getting started.
The warehouse lights hummed overhead, cold and fluorescent. Forklifts beeped as they reversed. Metal racks towered above the workers like silent judges. Everywhere Leon looked, the place felt industrial, harsh, unforgiving. A perfect match for his new life. Mason stalked across the floor like a man who owned the building. Thick arms, shaved head, and eyes that sparkled with the pleasure of causing misery. He stopped in front of Leon, hands on his hips. “So,” Mason said, voice echoing, “the Hale golden boy survived his first few hours. Impressive. I expected you to quit already.” Leon didn’t respond. Mason smirked. “What, no snappy comeback? No announcing how important your daddy is?” Leon simply picked up the next crate. Mason barked a laugh. “Oh, you’re trying to be stoic. That makes this more fun.” He snapped his fingers, and several workers gathered to watch. They knew Mason liked to show off his authority—especially when a new guy arrived. Especially when that new guy was someone he already hated. “Everyone,” Mason announced loudly, “our new recruit here used to live in a penthouse. A real prince.” He clapped Leon hard on the shoulder—too hard. “But now he gets to work with us normal people. Isn’t that right, Prince?” Leon kept his head down. “I’m just here to work.” “That’s right,” Mason said mockingly. “He’s just here to work.” He lifted a medium-sized crate—maybe twenty kilos—and held it toward Leon. “Let’s see if you can handle something simple.” Leon reached for it. Mason yanked it back. “Oh, no. You don’t get it unless everyone is watching properly.” The workers chuckled. Leon waited, silent, calm on the surface—because if he let even a single emotion show, it would all come spilling out. Mason finally thrust the crate forward again. Leon took it. It wasn’t heavy, not with the System’s +3 Strength reward, but Mason wasn’t testing his muscles. He was testing his breaking point. --- “From now on,” Mason declared, “your station is here.” He pointed to a cramped corner at the far end of the warehouse, close to the dumpsters and the leaking pipes. “This is the doghouse.” Some workers laughed. Others watched with sympathy they didn’t dare show. Mason walked ahead, shouting over his shoulder, “Follow me, Prince.” Leon carried the crate to the corner. The area smelled of oil, mildew, and stale garbage. A pipe dripped constantly, creating a puddle that spread across the floor. Mason spread his arms dramatically. “Beautiful, isn’t it? Fits someone like you perfectly.” Leon set the crate down. “What do you want me to do here?” “Oh, it’s simple,” Mason said. “You’ll be doing all the jobs no one else wants. The ones we usually save for punishments. Congratulations.” Leon didn’t react. Mason moved closer, his voice dropping. “Listen carefully. I don’t like people who think they’re better than me. And the moment I saw your name on the system? I knew exactly who you were.” He jabbed a thick finger into Leon’s chest. “Your family caused the layoffs at my brother’s company three years ago. I never forgot.” Leon blinked. “I didn’t do that.” “Doesn’t matter.” Mason’s smile was slow and poisonous. “Your name is Hale. That’s enough.” He stepped back and clapped loudly. “Alright! First task: pallet sort!” He pointed to a mountain of random boxes, broken boards, unorganized items, and a collapsed pallet stack that looked like it had been left untouched for months. “Sort them by weight, size, and category,” Mason ordered. “Then restack them in perfect formation. No breaks. No complaints. And if I see a single mistake, you start over.” Leon swallowed. “All of it?” “Yes,” Mason said. “All of it.” Leon forced out a steady breath. He had no choice. He bent down and began the work. --- Hours blurred. Leon lifted, sorted, stacked. Sorted, stacked, lifted. Again. Again. Again. His arms trembled. His lower back screamed. The System’s small stat increases helped, but only enough to prevent collapse—not pain. Every so often, Mason would stroll by, pretending not to notice the sweat running into Leon’s eyes. “You missed a category tag,” Mason would say. Or, “That pile looks sloppy. Redo it.” Or the classic, “You’re slow. Pick up the pace!” Leon fixed everything without arguing. He had no power to argue. No room to retaliate. Not yet. Some workers tried to avoid watching, uncomfortable with the cruelty. Others didn’t care. A handful even enjoyed it—mostly Mason’s closest sycophants. “You really pissed off the boss, huh?” one whispered as he passed. “He’s doing this on purpose,” another murmured. “He hates rich boys.” Leon ignored them all. He kept working. --- At one point, when the warehouse was loud and chaotic, Leon paused behind a stack of crates. Just for a moment. His hands hung limply. His breathing came shallow and shaky. He stared at the cracked concrete floor. His thoughts spiraled. This isn’t my life. I used to manage departments. I used to negotiate contracts. I used to have a future. Now he sorted trash in the doghouse of a warehouse run by a petty tyrant. His throat tightened. He closed his eyes. How did I fall this far? Why did my father— Why did everyone— A sharp beep hit his skull. [WARNING: Emotional stability dropping.] Leon sucked in a breath. [Recommendation: Continue task. Pressure improves adaptation.] He wiped his face and kept moving. --- Near the end of the shift, Mason returned with a coffee in hand—hot, expensive, steaming. He sipped from it loudly. “Well, well,” Mason said, surveying Leon’s work. “Not bad. Maybe you’re not completely useless.” Leon didn’t answer. “But you still made one big mistake.” Leon stiffened. “What mistake?” Mason pointed at the sorted stacks. “You placed heavy crates on an upper rack. That’s against safety rules.” Leon frowned. “You assigned me that shelf yourself.” “Yes,” Mason said with a casual shrug, “but you’re still responsible for following the warehouse manual.” Leon exhaled heavily. “What do you want me to do?” “Simple.” Mason stepped close, invading his space. “Fix everything. Restack the entire corner. From scratch.” A few workers stopped to watch—even they were shocked. Leon’s voice was quiet but controlled. “The whole thing?” “The whole thing,” Mason confirmed. “Before shift end. Or you’re fired.” Leon’s fingers curled so tightly his knuckles whitened. He imagined punching Mason’s jaw until teeth cracked. He imagined grabbing the man by the collar and smashing him into the racks. He imagined wiping that smug expression off his face forever. But the System’s task required employment. And he needed this job. So without a word, he turned and began taking everything apart. Mason watched, smirking. “Good boy.” --- By the time Leon finished reorganizing everything for the second time, his body felt like it had been torn apart and stitched back together with rusty wire. He collapsed onto a crate, head down, chest heaving. In that moment—when no one was watching—his shoulders shook. Not from weakness. From pressure. From humiliation. From the weight of a life turned inside out. He didn’t cry, but the tremor in his breathing betrayed the truth. Inside, he was breaking. He pressed forearms to his knees, gripping his hair. How long can I survive like this? How much more can I take? Why does it feel like the world is crushing me on purpose? His pulse thumped painfully. That was when the System beeped again. [Observation: Host’s stress response reaching critical threshold.] [Adaptation Phase Activated.] [Hidden Mechanic: Pressure Accelerates Growth.] Leon lifted his head. “…Accelerates what?” [Reward Pending: Survive Day 1.] A warm surge pulsed through his limbs—small, but real. [Temporary Buff: Pain Suppression (Low). Duration: 2 hours.] Leon’s breathing steadied. His shaking stopped. His eyes sharpened. He stood. The day had broken him… but only almost. And almost wasn’t enough to kill him.
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Ch. 14 — The Emotional Threshold
The bridge was silent.Too silent.Leon sat hunched against the cold metal railing, his body drained, his eyes swollen from crying — something he never thought he’d do again. The night air stung his face, but he barely felt it.He was numb.Completely, utterly numb.But inside that numbness… something stirred.A tremble.A pulse.A vibration like the faint thrum of a distant machine warming up.He squeezed his eyes shut, gripping his head with both hands.“Stop…” he whispered. “Just stop…”His thoughts weren’t thoughts anymore.They were fragments.Shards.Pieces of a shattered self.Vanessa’s laughter.Mason’s insults.Eveline’s venom.Alexander’s eyes as he signed the disownment papers.The flash of cameras.The cold warehouse concrete.The river.The brokenness.The emptiness.Everything hit him at once — a tidal wave of years of pressure collapsing inward.His breathing sped up.His pulse raced.His fingers dug into his scalp so hard he felt the sting of nails against skin.“Stop…
Ch. 13 — A Night of Despair
The storm eased sometime after midnight, but the cold didn’t lift.It wrapped itself around Leon like a second skin as he dragged himself across the cracked pavement, still shaken by the strange flashes of light and sound that had echoed through his mind.Had he imagined it?Was it a hallucination from exhaustion?The rainwater dripping from his hair made it hard to think.Harder to breathe.He didn’t go back to the warehouse.He couldn’t—not yet.Instead, his feet carried him toward the old iron bridge crossing the river at the edge of the industrial district. A lonely place. Quiet. Forgotten. Like him.By the time he reached the midpoint, the storm had died completely, leaving only the hiss of wind over the dark water.Leon gripped the railing with both hands, knuckles white.The river below was black—so dark it swallowed the reflection of the city lights. The current moved slowly, like something alive, waiting.He stared down at it.For a long time… he didn’t move.---His shoulder
Ch. 12 — The Broken Man
tThe rain came down in sheets, turning the streets into rivers of cold water that splashed against Leon’s ankles as he walked.No umbrella.No jacket.No destination.Just pain.Just emptiness.Just the weight of another humiliating day.He limped slightly—the result of a fall earlier that afternoon. Mason had “accidentally” knocked a crate off a high shelf. Leon barely dodged it, but the second crate Mason shoved after it struck Leon’s shoulder, sending him crashing onto concrete.The bruise spread down his arm like a blackened spiderweb.The supervisor only smirked.“Try not to die on shift, Hale. Paperwork annoys me.”Leon hadn’t answered.What was the point?Now, hours later, the injury burned with every step, pulsing like a reminder of how far he had fallen.Thunder cracked overhead, but the storm was nothing compared to the one raging inside him.His breath fogged the air as he crossed under a flickering streetlamp. The yellow light illuminated the soaked bandage wrapped around
Ch. 11 — The Collapse Begins
The rain hadn’t stopped.By the time Leon returned to the warehouse, his uniform clung to him like a second skin, soaked through with cold and humiliation. The night shift lights buzzed overhead, casting long shadows across the empty loading bay.His steps felt heavier than they should.His chest tighter than it had ever been.He moved like a man carrying a mountain.---The storage room—his “home”—was dim and damp. A thin mattress lay in the corner, barely better than cardboard. Leon shut the door behind him and leaned his back against it, sliding down slowly until he was sitting on the floor.His body ached, but the real pain wasn’t physical.It pulsed from somewhere deeper… a place he didn’t know could hurt this much.He dropped the envelope—the final inheritance papers—onto the ground. It landed with a soft thud, like dirt hitting a coffin.Leon stared at it.“That’s it,” he breathed. “They’ve completely erased me.”His voice sounded foreign—even to himself.He had lived his whole
Ch. 10 — Eveline’s Final Knife
The warehouse break room smelled of old coffee and metal dust. Leon sat alone on a cracked plastic chair, his body still aching from the twelve-hour shift Mason had deliberately stretched just to “test his limits.” His palms were raw, his shoulders burning, his pride almost gone.Almost.He stared at his phone—one of the only things he had left that still worked since his accounts were frozen. A single message notification blinked.From: Family Attorney – UrgentHis pulse kicked hard.He opened the message.> “Leon, you need to come in. There has been a final decision regarding the Hale inheritance.”A cold weight sank into his stomach.Final decision.Something told him it wasn’t going to be in his favor.---Thirty minutes later, Leon stood outside the glass-paneled office of Mr. Whitford, the Hale family attorney. Rain drizzled down his hair, soaking through his cheap uniform. He didn’t bother wiping it off.Inside, Mr. Whitford looked uneasy—almost guilty.“Leon,” he said, rising
CHAPTER. 9 — Mason’s Threat
Leon didn’t sleep after the system awakened.How could he?That cold mechanical voice still echoed at the back of his mind, sharp as broken glass:[REBIRTH SYSTEM ACTIVATED.]His life had collapsed so brutally that something—not human—had chosen him as a “prime candidate.”And yet morning came like always, dragging him back into the world he still had to endure.The warehouse buzzed alive with forklifts, workers shouting, machinery rumbling. Leon stepped onto the floor with stiff legs and sore shoulders, head low, eyes heavy from a night without rest. He expected exhaustion.He didn’t expect to run straight into Mason Briggs.The supervisor stood near the timeclock, arms crossed, a grin already spreading across his face. Mason’s smile wasn’t friendly. It was the type that belonged to someone who loved watching things break.Especially people.“There he is,” Mason said loudly, drawing the attention of the nearby workers. “The stray dog reporting for duty.”A few workers chuckled. Other
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