The world had changed in an instant.
Adrian Lock crouched behind the wreckage of a crumpled sedan, his breath hitching with each scream that echoed in the air. The grocery bag he had carried was scattered on the pavement, cans rolling free and a shattered bottle of soy sauce soaking into the asphalt.
Just minutes ago, he had been thinking about dinner.
Now, fire erupted from broken gas lines. Car alarms blared like dying animals. A huge creature—a thing with a centipede's body and a lion's head, its limbs shaped like jagged swords—was tearing through the parking lot.
And in the center of his vision, no matter how much he blinked or rubbed his eyes, floated a glowing interface.
System Initialization Complete
Achievement Unlocked: The First Spark
Reward: +1 Stat Point
Tabs Unlocked: Status, Inventory, Achievements
He swallowed hard. "This... isn't real. It can't be real."
But it was.
He reached out and tapped the glowing square labeled Status with his finger. It felt like interacting with a touchscreen in midair. A new window appeared.
Name: Adrian Lock
Level: 0EXP: 0/100
MANA: 0/0
Health: 100/100
Strength: 1
Vitality: 5
Dexterity: 2
Endurance: 3
Magic: 0
Agility: 2
Wisdom: 1
He stared at it, unblinking. This felt like something out of a video game. A hallucination. But it felt too real. It was real. The system, the monsters, the death. His fingers trembled over the +1 Stat Point prompt.
"What the hell do I put this into?" he whispered.
Strength? So he could fight?
Vitality? So he could last a little longer?
No.
He thought about the creature that had chased the woman moments ago. The way it moved. The speed. His only advantage right now was running.
He slammed the point into Agility.
Agility: 2 → 3
No sooner had he closed the menu than something hissed.
A smaller rift had formed, maybe ten meters from where he crouched. It pulsed like torn skin, and through it dropped a spiderlike creature the size of a pit bull, its skin glistening with acidic pus, its eyes hollow and glowing blue.
Its mandibles clicked. It saw him.
Adrian bolted.
He leapt over the hood of the car, narrowly avoiding the monster's pounce. His upgraded agility kicked in, and his reflexes felt a split-second sharper. It wasn't superhuman. But it was enough.
He sprinted through the wreckage, zigzagging between craters in the concrete, past a corpse slumped against a lamppost. The creature hissed and followed, its clawed legs tapping like knives.
He ducked under a half-collapsed bus stop, his shoulder scraping concrete. The monster lunged— and slammed into the steel beam above. It screeched, stunned for a moment.
Adrian didn't wait to see more. He kept running.
A few blocks away, he stumbled into a wide intersection. Fire engulfed a city bus. The air reeked of sulfur and burning plastic.
That's when he saw them.
Three people, surrounded by two small monsters, were fighting. One of them, a girl who couldn't have been older than sixteen, held a metal bat that glowed with flickering orange runes.
"Activate!" she screamed.
The bat burst into flames.
With a howl, she swung it into one of the beasts, a squat, three-eyed creature with tusks. The strike landed, splattering the street with steaming gore.
One of her companions, a man in a ripped suit, stumbled back with a bleeding leg.
"HELP US!" she shouted when her eyes locked onto Adrian.
He froze.
They were strangers. They were stronger. They were already fighting. What could he do? He still had no weapon, no skills. Just a point in Agility.
He backed away. He hid behind a wall.
A moment later, he heard the girl scream again, this time in anger.
He peeked around the corner just long enough to see her glare—her eyes filled with fire, not just magic, but contempt.
Then they retreated down another street, dragging the injured man.
He said nothing. He did nothing.
He hated himself for it.
He stayed there too long. Just staring at the broken ground.
Then came the noise.
Behind him, a low gurgling growl.
He turned. Another monster.
It looked like a deformed crab, its shell laced with bones, one of its limbs missing. It was wounded—but its other claw was the size of Adrian's torso.
It charged.
He barely dodged. Tripped. Fell onto broken concrete.
The crab hissed, raising its claw.
Adrian grabbed the nearest thing— a piece of broken rebar. He swung it wildly, striking its eye.
It shrieked and flailed.
He didn't think. He screamed and kept swinging. Again. And again. Until the rebar snapped.
The creature stopped moving.
He panted, chest heaving, hands soaked in blood.
Monster Defeated
EXP +100Level Up!
Level: 1 → 2EXP: 0/200
2 Stat Points Acquired
Inventory Tab Unlocked
[Improvised Weapon +1: Rusted Rebar] Added to Inventory
Adrian stared at the message, then at the twitching corpse.
He had killed it.
He had survived.
But the sick feeling in his gut didn't fade.
He limped away, leaving the body behind, and collapsed against a wall beneath a half-burned billboard.
The city was still screaming.
He stared at his bloodstained hands.
"I survived. I killed. I leveled up," he whispered.
He remembered the girl's glare. The disgust. The disappointment.
He shut his eyes.
"I'm not strong. I'm not brave."
A pause.
"…But I'm still alive."
And for now, that would have to be enough.