[SOUL SYNC SUCCESSFUL]
[WELCOME, PLAYER 001]
Leo jolted awake.
Air slammed into his lungs—too sharp, too deep. His chest burned as if the breath had been forced into a vessel that wasn't ready to live. When he tried to move, his joints groaned softly—stiff, unfamiliar, and fundamentally wrong.
This body wasn't his. Back home, he was a king behind a monitor; here, he felt like a high-performance processor trapped inside a rotting chassis.
A light hovered before him. Transparent. Cold. Pulsing with a faint golden glow that carried no warmth at all.
[STATUS WINDOW]
●Name: Leo
●ID: PLAYER 001
●Level: 1 | Class: Unassigned
●HP: 32 / 32
●MP: 210 / 210
Attributes:
●Strength: 2 — Physically Fragile
●Endurance: 3 — Threshold of Collapse
●Intelligence: 99 — Transcendent Logic
●Luck: 1 — Chronically Unfortunate
[Passive Trait: Perfect Calculation]
The world slows in your eyes. Every variable is a number; every movement is a pattern. Warning: Your mind is a quantum processor, but your body is melting plastic.
[Condition:Severe Withdrawal & Sleep Debt] Tremors detected. Physical recovery rate: 0%.
"Brilliant," Leo rasped. His voice sounded like sandpaper on stone. "God-tier brain. Corpse-tier body."
He clenched his fist. His fingers trembled violently—too light, too weak. Even the simple act of maintaining balance required his brain to micro-manage his atrophied muscles.
CRASH!
The bushes ahead exploded. A massive wild boar burst through, its tusks glowing red-orange like forged steel. The ground shuddered with every stride.
[Ignis Boar — Level 5]
Leo froze. Not out of fear, but because his mind was automatically processing data: Charge speed: 45km/h. Impact force: 2,100 Newtons. Survival probability if stationary: 0.02%.
A silver blur shot across his peripheral vision.
"HOLY SLASH!"
Light tore through the air. An explosion thundered—and struck nothing.
A female knight was flung backward, her body slamming into the dirt. The massive claymore in her hands was lodged deep between thick, gnarled tree roots. Her weapon was stuck. Her breathing turned ragged as the Ignis Boar lowered its head for a second charge.
Leo shouted before he could stop himself.
"HEY, AMATEUR!"
His voice cut through the chaos—sharp, cold, absolute.
"Stop pulling! You're fighting the grain of the roots! Hit the locking lever at the base of the hilt—shift your weight 15 degrees to the left! That's its blind spot!"
The knight flinched. Her instincts obeyed before her logic could question who this frail stranger was.
[SLING!]
The mechanism clicked. The heavy blade slid free from the wooden vice.
With one clean rotation, the steel sliced through the air. The Ignis Boar's head separated from its body before its roar could even finish. The massive carcass collapsed with a heavy thud, vibrating in Leo's very bones.
Silence followed.
Leo exhaled slowly. Suddenly, a stabbing pain drove into the base of his skull. The world blurred. A warm liquid began to drip from his nose.
His Intelligence 99 had just processed ten thousand variables in a second, and his Strength 2 body was paying the price.
The knight stood shakily, staring at the monster's corpse before turning to him. Her eyes were a mix of suspicion and awe. "How did you know the release mechanism of a Silver Order blade? And that angle..."
Leo dropped to the ground before his legs could give out. He wiped the blood from his nose with a trembling hand.
"Simple calculation," he said flatly, though his voice was fading. "Large hitbox. Low mobility. Your weapon is too heavy for frontal aggression with a stance like yours."
He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to dull the throbbing in his brain.
"And I," he added quietly, "don't have the physical luxury of making a single mistake."