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Chapter 21 - Erica's Secrets!

Masha stared at the hard lines of Dante's face, a puzzle of cruelty and logic she couldn't solve. She had just laid her deepest fears at his feet, and his solution was to conquer this bloody world and call it home.

"This place is pissing me off," she admitted, her voice a low murmur of frustration. She hugged her knees tighter. "I don't understand how everyone is changing so fast. It feels like they've forgotten we were ever the same—classmates, even friends."

Her gaze drifted past the fire to where Erica was sleeping fitfully. "And Erica… she's changed most of all. You know, she was always too shy to make friends. I thought she was content to be alone."

Masha paused, a secret bubbling up, a memory that seemed so innocent now, yet held the key to the fierce, obsessive person Erica had become. "Dante… promise you won't tell anyone what I'm about to say. Especially not her."

He looked at her, his expression unreadable, but gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod.

"About a year ago," Masha began, her voice dropping to a whisper, "she came to me after class. She looked terrified, but determined, and asked me, 'Masha, please… tell me how to make friends.'"

Dante's brow furrowed slightly, the first hint of genuine confusion she'd seen from him all night.

"I was just as confused," she continued. "She hesitated for a long time, and then she said, 'I can't tell you who. But there's someone I want to understand. He's… special. And I don't know how to even start.'"

She watched Dante's face carefully. He looked away, back at the fire. "So she wanted to befriend someone." He was playing dumb, but his voice was a fraction too steady.

"It was more than that," Masha pressed on. "She wanted to understand him because he was always alone, just like her. She saw a kindred spirit, I think. She started… studying him. Trying to figure out how to approach someone who didn't want to be approached."

She let the silence hang for a moment.

"She followed you, Dante," Masha said softly. "From college to your dorm. Then to that little building where you worked part-time. And then," she paused, a sad smile touching her lips, "she followed you to the orphanage."

His posture stiffened.

"She told me about it," Masha said, her voice gentle. "She hid and watched you. And the person she saw there wasn't the cold, aloof boy from class. She saw you bringing gifts for the children, reading them stories. She saw a genuine smile on your face, a lightness in your eyes that no one at college ever saw. It was as if…"

Her words were cut short.

CLANG!

The unmistakable ring of steel on steel, followed instantly by a raw, agonized scream that was brutally silenced.

The sound shattered the night. Dante was on his feet before his mind even processed the reaction, the exhaustion forgotten, replaced by a surge of cold adrenaline. Masha scrambled up beside him, her face pale with alarm.

"Masha," he said, his voice low and commanding. "Alert the others. Full defensive formation. No one moves from this camp until I return."

She nodded and sprinted toward the sleeping members of their team. Dante, however, was not content to wait. An opportunity. A chance to gather intelligence while others are distracted by bloodshed.

He moved away from the firelight, his feet making no sound on the damp earth. His shadow puppets, sensing his intent, detached from their guard positions and melted into the darkness around him, flanking him like silent hounds as he slipped through the massive trees.

The sounds of battle grew louder—shouts, curses, the wet thud of blows landing on flesh. He reached the edge of a small, moonlit clearing and dropped into the concealment of a thick bush. What he saw was not a battle; it was a siege.

A small, organized team of seven was backed into a defensive circle, completely surrounded by a much larger group of at least twelve savage-looking students. The smaller team fought with practiced coordination; the larger group fought with wild, brutish ferocity, their makeshift armor of leather and bone telling a story of pure survivalism.

"Nowhere to run, Leo!" roared the leader of the savages, a massive girl with a battle axe.

"Better a smart rat than a brainless troll, Rhonda!" the leader of the smaller team, a nimble boy with twin daggers, shot back as he dodged a clumsy swing.

Dante's eyes scanned the smaller team, cataloging them. The leader, Leo. A tank with a tower shield. A healer. A lightning mage. And in the back, a quiet, unassuming boy who wasn't fighting at all. He was just watching.

A savage broke through the line, his club raised to crush the healer. Leo vanished in a blur of motion—a short, instantaneous teleport, a Warpstep—reappearing beside her, his daggers sinking into the savage's side. At the same moment, Rhonda let out a roar, and a red aura enveloped her—a Berserker skill.

The quiet boy saw both. His eyes glowed with a faint silver light.

A moment later, as another savage charged him, he vanished, reappearing a few feet away. He had copied and used Warpstep. Then, as the savage charged again, the boy's body seemed to swell, the same red Berserker aura flaring around him. He snatched a fallen branch and swung it with unnatural force, smashing the savage in the face.

Dante felt a cold thrill. He doesn't share power. He steals it. A living arsenal, his abilities changing with every new skill he witnesses. An asset.

"Focus fire on Rhonda!" Leo commanded his team. "Break the head of the snake!"

His lightning mage unleashed a crackling bolt of energy. The Mimic, his Berserker aura fading, saw the spell and launched a second, identical lightning bolt. The twin bolts screamed toward the savage leader.

"For the pack!" two of Rhonda's savages roared, leaping in front of her. They took the full force of the lightning, their bodies convulsing and charring, but their sacrifice saved their leader.

Rhonda, her face a mask of pure fury, let out a grief-stricken howl. "You'll pay for that!" She ignored the tank and hurled her massive axe. It spun through the air like a giant throwing star, slamming into the lightning mage's chest and pinning his corpse to a tree.

The loss of their primary offensive caster shattered the smaller team's formation. A savage broke through and clubbed the healer, who crumpled to the ground. The tank roared and charged, but was immediately swarmed and brought down.

The battle had collapsed into a slaughter. Now, only two were left: the leader, Leo, bleeding from a dozen shallow cuts, stood back-to-back with the Mimic. They were surrounded, their faces pale with the certainty of their own deaths.

The Mimic's eyes darted around the clearing, desperately looking for a new skill to copy, a new trick to steal. But all he saw was the savage, overwhelming force of the enemy closing in. He was a library of stolen power, trapped in a burning building.

Dante watched from the shadows, a cold, analytical predator. He saw the potential. He saw the limitations. And as Rhonda and her remaining nine savages raised their weapons for the final kill, his mind was already calculating the most efficient way to acquire his new, priceless asset.

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