Jason didn't check the system again.
That wasn't a decision so much as a refusal to panic.
After the numbers faded from his awareness, he'd sat on the edge of the bed until his breathing evened out, listening to the city through the open window. Nothing outside had changed. No bells rang. No alarms sounded. People laughed, argued, lived.
If something world-altering had just happened to him, the city hadn't noticed.
That mattered.
Jason lay back and stared at the ceiling until the lines and cracks blurred together. When sleep finally came, it was shallow and dreamless.
He woke later than usual.
Sunlight filtered through the shutters at a sharper angle, catching dust in the air. His body felt heavy not injured, just tired in a way that went deeper than muscle. He sat up slowly, half-expecting the numbers to appear again uninvited.
They didn't.
Jason exhaled and rubbed his face. "Good," he muttered, though he wasn't sure what that meant.
Downstairs, the inn was already busy. The late-morning crowd had replaced the early risers: merchants counting coin, guards off duty, travelers who looked relieved to have reached somewhere with walls. Jason moved through them quietly, taking a seat near the back with a bowl of thin stew Mira pushed his way without asking.
He ate slowly, tasting very little.
Across the room, Aldric argued with a man whose boots were too clean for the outer ring. Jason caught fragments of the conversation shipping delays, missing supplies, something about a route being unsafe again. He filed it away without comment. Routes were always unsafe. People just forgot between losses.
"Did you hear?" someone near the door said, voice pitched low but eager.
"About what?"
"Another group didn't come back from the eastern edge. Third this month."
Jason's spoon paused halfway to his mouth.
"Guild?"
"Independent. Thought they could manage."
Someone snorted. "They always do."
Jason finished his stew and stood. He didn't look back at the speakers. He didn't need to. He knew how those conversations ended with a shrug, with numbers that made sense only after someone else had already paid the price.
Outside, the city pressed in closer than it had the day before.
It wasn't imagination. Jason had learned to trust the small shifts. People clustered differently. Guards lingered longer at intersections. A pair of messengers hurried past him, faces tight, steps quick.
He headed toward the southern wall again, not for work this time, but to walk.
Walking helped him think.
As he moved, his thoughts circled back to Maldova despite his efforts. Not the attack itself that memory stayed buried unless something forced it out but the days after. The quiet. The way people had avoided his eyes because they didn't know what to say to a child who'd lost both parents in one afternoon.
We're sorry, they'd said. You're strong. They were good people.
None of it had helped.
What had helped was work. Carrying water. Fixing fences. Doing things that needed doing. The village had continued because it had to, and Jason had followed because stopping would have meant feeling everything at once.
The city was like that, only larger. Less personal. Losses here didn't echo as loudly.
Jason reached the labor board again and scanned it out of habit. The warehouse posting he'd taken yesterday was gone. A few new ones had appeared in its place escort work, wall patrol, something involving waste removal near the outer ring.
He ignored the ruin postings again.
Not because he feared them. Fear was simple. Ruins demanded something else commitment, preparation, people who relied on one another in ways that didn't leave much room for doubt. Jason wasn't sure he trusted himself to do that without dragging others into his mistakes.
He took down a wall patrol posting instead. Boring. Safe. Paid enough.
As he folded the paper, the faint pressure returned.
Jason stopped walking.
This time, he didn't pretend it was nothing.
He leaned against the stone wall near the board, closed his eyes, and let the sensation settle instead of pushing it away. It wasn't pain. It wasn't warning. It was more like… awareness sharpening around something internal.
Carefully, deliberately, he thought of the numbers.
The response was immediate.
Not visual not like before. Just a sense of alignment, of information surfacing where it could be reached.
Jason hesitated.
Then he focused.
The same quiet overlay appeared, clearer this time but no more intrusive.
Name: Jason
Level: 1
Condition: Stable
Vitality: 12
Strength: 9
Agility: 10
Perception: 11
Recovery: 8
He stared without staring.
Nothing had changed.
Jason let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. If the numbers were lying, they were at least consistent. He dismissed the overlay with a thought, and it receded again.
"Alright," he murmured. "So you're real."
The system if that's what it was didn't respond.
Jason pushed away from the wall and resumed walking, mind working steadily now. Numbers meant measurement. Measurement meant comparison. But comparison to what? To whom?
He'd seen stronger men die. Faster ones too. Whatever these numbers represented, they weren't guarantees.
That, oddly enough, was reassuring.
The wall patrol was uneventful. Jason walked the assigned stretch with two other men who spoke little and watched a lot. From the wall, the Wasteland stretched outward in uneven waves broken ground, scrub, distant stone formations that caught the light wrong. Somewhere beyond that, ruins slept under layers of dust and bone.
The patrol ended without incident.
Jason collected his pay and headed back toward the inn as the light began to soften. Evening in the city was louder than morning, voices rising as people returned from work and decided how much energy they had left for the day.
He took a longer route back, cutting through a narrower street where the buildings pressed close enough to block most of the sky. He liked streets like this. They reminded him to look forward.
Halfway down, he heard raised voices.
Jason slowed.
A small crowd had gathered near the end of the street nothing dramatic, just enough people to form a loose semicircle. At the center, a man lay on the ground clutching his leg, blood darkening the stone beneath him. Another man stood over him, shaking, a broken crate at his feet.
"He fell," someone said. "Slipped."
"Bullshit," someone else replied. "That's a blade wound."
Jason stepped closer, crouching near the injured man. The cut was deep but clean, angled wrong for a fall. The man's breathing was fast, shallow.
"Move," Jason said, not loudly, but with enough authority that people did.
He pressed cloth against the wound, applying pressure. The man hissed but didn't pull away.
"Help's coming," someone offered weakly.
Jason didn't respond. He focused on what he could do pressure, positioning, keeping the man conscious. He was aware of his own body in a way he hadn't been before. His hands were steady. His breathing controlled.
The man survived.
Barely, maybe, but alive.
When guards arrived and took over, Jason stepped back and wiped his hands clean. He felt tired now ,not the good ache from work, but a deeper weariness that settled behind his eyes.
As he straightened, the faint pressure returned one last time.
Jason didn't hesitate.
He checked.
Copy code
Condition: Strained
Recovery: In Progress
No numbers changed. No levels increased. No reward appeared.
Jason stared at the words until they faded.
He laughed quietly under his breath, a short, humorless sound.
"So that's how it works," he said to no one.
Not saving. Not effort. Just strain and survival, recorded without opinion.
He turned away from the crowd and headed back toward the inn as the city lights flickered on one by one.
Behind him, the Wasteland waited, patient as ever.
And Jason walked on, carrying weight that didn't show yet, but was already beginning to settle into his bones.