The System Chose the Weakest Man

Chapter 003: What the Monster Left

"Absorb," Ethan said.

He said it out loud, because thinking it felt too small.

[Absorption requires understanding. Observe holds partial data on this target. Partial absorption will proceed.]

[Warning: every absorbed source leaves a trace. Trace strength depends on how well the source is understood. Proceed?]

"What kind of trace?"

[Unknown until absorbed.]

Of course it was. Above him the winch chain squealed, and lantern light jumped across the ceiling in long yellow strips. Somebody swore. Boots hit stone.

"Proceed."

The corpse lit from the inside. Cracks of purple ran across the black hide like frost spreading on a window. Then the whole body came apart. It didn't break into pieces. It broke into light, a slow bright cloud that lifted off the floor and sank into Ethan's chest, straight through his torn shirt.

It was cold. It tasted like copper.

The weight on his legs was gone.

[Skill acquired: Stalker's Instinct (Common). Detects the breath of living creatures within fifteen meters.]

[Trace acquired: Hunger.]

The hunger hit like a fist in the stomach. His mouth flooded. He smelled blood, thick and sweet, a lot of it, and for one terrible second he looked down at his own mangled arm and wanted to put his mouth on it.

He slapped his good hand against the stone. "No. No. Stop it."

It faded slowly, the way a tide goes out. His heart thumped against his ribs. Sweat ran into his eyes. So that was a trace. He decided he would remember that, and be careful, and never do this on an empty stomach.

[Mission complete: Survive. Reward: Status window unlocked.]

A new square opened in the air.

NAME: Ethan Vale LEVEL: 1 VITALITY: 41 / 100 STRENGTH 6 / AGILITY 7 / PERCEPTION 9 / ENDURANCE 5 SKILLS: Observe, Stalker's Instinct

Level 1. One hour ago he had been nothing at all. Ethan looked at the number and felt something he hadn't felt in two years. He didn't have a word for it. It was small and stubborn, and it hurt a little.

Then another line slid in under the first.

[New mission: Reach Level 3. Deadline: seven days. Penalty for failure: undisclosed.]

"Undisclosed again," he muttered. "You really like that word."

The system didn't answer.

Where the creature had lain there was a dark stain, the dagger, and something else. A ring of grey metal, loose now, rolling in a slow circle on the stone. He caught it with two fingers before it stopped. It was heavy for its size, cold, and the inside was scratched with thin letters in a script he'd never seen. They didn't look like they'd been carved by a person who was worried about being read.

Monsters didn't wear jewelry.

He shoved it in his trouser pocket. His fingers brushed something else in there, soft and dry. He pulled it out without thinking.

A flower, pressed flat. Pale blue, five petals, a faded ribbon tied around the stem.

He turned it over. The ribbon was knotted in a careful bow. Someone had taken time over that.

Ethan stared at it for a long moment. He had no idea who had given it to him. He had no idea why he'd kept it. It was a hole shaped exactly like this flower, and he was holding the edge of it.

"Oh," he said quietly.

The lanterns turned the corner.

Rhea Kessel reached him first. She had two guards behind her, young ones, both with their hands on their swords and both looking everywhere except at the floor. She dropped to her knees beside Ethan so hard her armor rang.

"Don't move. Let me see." She took his left arm in both hands. Her face went tight. "Gods. That's a clean set of teeth marks. Dren, get the healer. The Wardens' healer, not the tower one."

"Captain, the seal doors-"

"Then send someone else to look at the doors! Go!"

Dren went.

The other guard, a boy with a patchy beard, stood with his lantern up, swinging it left and right across the corridor. "Where is it?" he said. "I heard it screaming. I heard it die. Where's the Stalker?"

"Gone," Ethan said.

Rhea looked at him.

"It bit me," he said. His voice came out rough. "Then it, um. It fell apart. Light came off it and it went away."

"Monsters don't do that," the boy said.

"I'm just telling you what happened."

"Monsters leave corpses. They leave cores. They don't just-"

"Corin." Rhea didn't look up. "Go and stand at the top of the stairs. Make sure nobody comes down."

"But-"

"Now."

Corin went. His lantern light shrank up the stairwell until it was only a smear.

Something tugged at the back of Ethan's skull. A soft pulse, like a second heartbeat that wasn't his. He frowned, and the pulse sharpened into shapes. Rhea, close and loud, her breath quick and warm. Corin on the stairs, fast and scared. And past the gate, up on the landing, one more. Slow. Even. Standing still.

Not a guard running. Someone listening.

He looked up the stairwell. There was nothing to see but dark. The slow breath didn't move, and then it did, drifting away from the gate and out of range.

He opened his mouth to say something. Rhea pressed a hand flat to his chest, and the moment slipped away.

She sat back on her heels. She tore a strip off her own cloak and wound it around Ethan's arm, quick and hard. He bit down on a yell.

"That's my dagger," she said.

He glanced at it, lying in the stain. "You dropped it."

"I threw it."

"Same thing."

Something moved in her face that might have been a laugh. It didn't last. She pulled the strip tight and tied it off, and when she spoke again her voice was low and flat.

"I watched you fail the crystal, Ethan. Everyone watched. No magic, not a spark. And you're sitting here with a bite that should have taken the arm off, and the thing that did it is gone. One stab. In the one spot it can be killed."

"Lucky guess," he said.

"Don't." She said it gently. "Don't lie to me. I'm not going to hurt you for it. I'm just going to know."

The Observe window was still floating beside her head, small and clear. Under her name it said, [Rhea Kessel. Human. Level 28. Attitude: Wary, concerned.] She didn't seem to see it at all.

He closed his hand around the dagger's handle, then let go and pushed it toward her across the stone. "Thank you. For this. I think I'd be dead without it."

She picked it up and turned it over. Looked at the stain, and the ring of scorched dust where the body had been. Then at the gate above them, and the black iron lattice her people had dropped with him on the wrong side of it.

"I'm going to tell you something," she said. "Then you're going to tell me something back."

He waited.

"That seal hasn't opened in four hundred years. It was built to hold. Every mage in this tower walks past it every day and checks it, and last month it was perfect." She leaned closer. "So I want to know why a Rift Stalker, a D-rank, which can't break iron, broke it this afternoon. And I want to know who told you to stand next to it."

"Nobody told me. It's the null door. It's the way out for people who fail."

Rhea went very still.

"Say that again."

"The lower corridor. It's where they send us. So the families don't have to see." He frowned. "Everyone knows that."

"Everyone does," she said. "Whose idea was it to route the nulls past the seal, Ethan?"