"There's a hollow space underneath this rubble!"
Varg's hoarse voice cracked like thunder inside the dead silence of the Korreth Tower. For a fraction of a second, nobody moved. The other eleven demons scattered in the dark corners of the room just stared at him with their hollow, sunken eyes. It was as if their brains, starved of nutrients and beaten down by relentless despair, couldn't process the concept of 'hope'.
From the safety of Morra's trembling arms, Vavian watched the pathetic scene unfold. He rolled his tiny, infant eyes.
*Are you fucking kidding me?* Vavian screamed in his mind. *An interactable object is literally discovered right in front of you, and you brain-dead NPCs are just going to sit there? Move! Dig, you lazy bastards!*
Morra was the first to react. She practically scrambled to her feet, clutching Vavian tightly to her chest. "Varg, are you sure? The ground here is solid bedrock. How could there be a hollow space?"
Varg didn't answer immediately. He began tearing at the smaller rocks around the massive collapsed pillar, his thick, stone-like fingernails scraping violently against the floor. Blood began to seep from his cuticles, but the Vanguard didn't seem to feel the pain.
"There's a draft. I smell ancient wood. And... preservation magic. Faint, but it's there," Varg grunted, his muscles straining as he tried to wedge his hands underneath the massive stone slab. He looked over his shoulder, his eyes wide with a manic desperation. "Don't just sit there! Get over here and help me lift this! If there's an old cache down here, it might be our only chance!"
Slowly, the cogs in the minds of the other eleven demons began to turn. The prospect of food—of surviving just one more week—was a drug more potent than any healing magic.
One by one, they staggered to their feet. They were a pathetic, miserable bunch. A few had missing limbs. Some had skin that was sickly pale, marred by the toxic ash burns of the Vorreth Wasteland. But as they gathered around the collapsed pillar, a primal, animalistic strength awakened within them.
"On three!" Varg commanded, taking the heaviest corner of the slab. "One... Two... THREE!"
A collective, agonizing roar echoed through the ruins. Twelve starving, half-dead demons pushed against the multi-ton stone pillar. Veins popped on their foreheads. Their ragged shoes slipped against the ash-covered floor.
Vavian watched with intense scrutiny, his gamer brain automatically calculating their combined strength stats. *Varg has 18 strength. The rest probably average around 8 to 10 points right now because of the starvation debuff. Total output is barely enough to move a one-ton object. If that rock weighs any more than that, they're going to fail, pull their muscles, and die faster.*
*Push, you useless pieces of shit!* Vavian mentally cheered, his tiny fists clenching tight. *My life is literally riding on your malnourished biceps!*
With a sickening *CRACK*, the stone slab shifted.
"Keep going! It's moving!" Varg bellowed, spitting blood from biting his own lip.
With one final, desperate heave, the twelve demons managed to roll the massive pillar completely off the cracked tiles. Several of them instantly collapsed to the floor, panting heavily, their hands scraped and bleeding.
Beneath where the pillar used to be, a thick layer of compacted dirt and ash covered the floor. Varg immediately dropped to his knees and began digging like a mad dog. Within seconds, his bleeding fingers hit something solid. Not stone. Wood. Dark, ancient, magically reinforced ironwood.
It was a trapdoor.
"By the blood of the ancestors..." an old demon missing an eye whispered, falling to his knees.
Varg grabbed the rusted iron ring attached to the trapdoor. He pulled with all his remaining might. With a loud, agonizing screech of rusted hinges that hadn't been moved in centuries, the hatch swung open.
A cloud of stale, musty air blew upwards, but beneath that smell was something that made every demon in the room freeze.
The scent of dried meat.
Varg didn't hesitate. He grabbed a piece of burning firewood from the dying pit and descended into the dark hole. The silence in the room was suffocating. Morra held her breath, her grip on Vavian tightening so much it almost hurt him. But Vavian didn't cry. He just stared at the dark hole with a victorious, sinister smirk.
*I told you,* he thought arrogantly. *System's a bitch, but it never makes an impossible game.*
A minute later, Varg climbed back up. In his massive arms, he carried three large, dusty wooden crates. The moment he set them on the floor, he collapsed onto his back, staring at the ceiling, laughing and sobbing at the same time.
"Preserved rations," Varg choked out, tears cutting tracks through the black soot on his face. "Rations from the old era. Hardtack. Dried Iron-Boar jerky. Clean, magically sealed water pouches. There's... there's enough down there to feed us for a month."
The reaction was instantaneous. The eleven other demons broke down. Some wept loudly, burying their faces in their dirty hands. Others prayed to dead gods. Morra fell to her knees, hugging Vavian tightly as tears streamed down her hollow cheeks.
"We're going to live, Vavian... We're going to live," she sobbed into his tiny shoulder.
Vavian just let out a soft, infantile coo, while his inner monologue was purely toxic. *Yeah, no shit we're going to live. You're welcome, by the way. If it wasn't for my god-tier perception, you bozos would have starved to death right on top of a goldmine.*
Suddenly, the familiar, intoxicating sound of a system notification echoed in his skull.
*Ding!*
A bright blue translucent screen materialized in front of his face, completely ignoring the emotional breakdown happening around him.
> [Main Quest Completed: The Brink of Extinction]
> EVALUATION: S-Rank (Discovered hidden cache without any direct communication capabilities).
> REWARDS DISTRIBUTED:
> - [Beginner's Inventory] Unlocked. (Capacity: 50 Slots)
> - 50 EXP Acquired.
> - 1x Random Gacha Ticket (Tier F - C).
> [LEVEL UP!]
> VAVIAN has reached Level 2.
> +2 Free Stat Points available. (Trash Hard Penalty: Stat points reduced by 50%. You receive +1 Free Stat Point).
Vavian's eyes twitched. *Are you fucking shitting me? The penalty applies to level-up stat points too?! So instead of two points, I only get one? Fuck this developer! I swear to god, if I find the admin of this world, I'm going to strangle them with their own intestines!*
He took a deep breath, calming his gamer rage. One point was better than nothing. He immediately dumped the single free point into [Endurance], bumping it from a pathetic 18 to 19. He needed to get that stat out of the critical danger zone as fast as possible, otherwise, a mild cold would literally send him to the grave.
But the stat point wasn't what Vavian was truly excited about. His eyes locked onto the glowing golden ticket sitting inside his newly unlocked digital inventory.
A Gacha Ticket.
In his previous life, Vavian despised gacha mechanics. It was a predatory, pay-to-win casino designed to drain the wallets of degenerate gamblers. However, as a free-to-play hardcore grinder, getting a free pull was the ultimate dopamine hit. It was the thrill of defying the odds.
And right now, he desperately needed an edge. Being an infant with an adult brain was psychological torture. He couldn't walk, he couldn't talk, and he couldn't fight. He needed something to bridge the gap.
*System. Use the Random Gacha Ticket,* Vavian ordered.
> [Consuming 1x Random Gacha Ticket (Tier F - C)...]
> [Initiating Summoning Sequence...]
The holographic interface in front of his eyes shifted. A swirling vortex of stars and nebulae appeared, exactly like the flashy summon animations in those cheap mobile games. A shooting star shot out of the vortex.
Vavian held his breath. *Come on. Don't give me some Tier F garbage. I don't need a fucking wooden spoon or a rusty dagger. Give me a C. Give me a goddamn C-Tier!*
The shooting star turned gray.
*Fuck, that's Tier F color!* Vavian panicked.
But then, it cracked and flared green.
*Tier E! Keep going, you bastard!*
The green light shattered, bursting into a brilliant, glowing blue. It pulsed with a heavy, magical aura before exploding into a shower of digital sparks.
*BLUE! THAT'S TIER C! YES! SUCK MY ASS, RNG GODS!* Vavian mentally screamed in triumph.
The sparks settled, revealing a small, floating card that slowly turned around to reveal its contents.
> [CONGRATULATIONS! You have pulled a Tier C Summoning Entity!]
> [Item: Contract of the Shadow Imp]
> TYPE: Familiar / Summon.
> DESCRIPTION: Summons a low-tier demon of the shadow realm. Imps are physically pathetic and cowardly in combat, but possess absolute loyalty to their contractor.
> ABILITIES:
> 1. [Shadow Meld]: Can hide perfectly within the shadows of objects or people.
> 2. [Telepathic Link]: Can communicate mentally with the master up to a 1-kilometer radius.
> 3. [Minor Poltergeist]: Can lift objects weighing no more than 1 kilogram.
Vavian stared at the description. He didn't blink. He didn't breathe.
In any normal game, a Shadow Imp was trash mob material. You killed them by the hundreds for copper coins in the tutorial forest. Their combat ability was practically zero.
But for Vavian? For an infant trapped in a paralyzed, crippled body who desperately needed to manipulate the world around him without raising suspicion?
This was a fucking godsend. This was the equivalent of pulling a Legendary SSR unit.
*Telepathic link and the ability to lift one kilogram of weight,* Vavian's mind raced, his tactical gears grinding flawlessly. *I can use it as a scout. I can use it to eavesdrop on Varg and Morra. I can use it to trigger traps, steal small items, or orchestrate 'accidents' without anyone ever tracing it back to a literal baby.*
While the adults around him were busy tearing into the crates of dried meat, gorging themselves like starving animals and crying tears of joy, the infant in Morra's lap was busy forging his first demonic contract.
*System. Activate the Contract,* Vavian commanded.
A tiny prick of pain hit Vavian's index finger. A single drop of his blood materialized in the digital interface, dropping onto the glowing blue card.
The shadows in the corner of the room directly behind Morra seemed to waver. For a split second, a pair of glowing, pinprick yellow eyes opened in the darkness. Nobody noticed it. Nobody except Vavian.
A raspy, high-pitched voice suddenly echoed directly inside Vavian's brain.
*[Master... This lowly servant answers the call. What is your command?]*
Vavian looked up at the ruined ceiling, an imperceptible, terrifying smile spreading across his tiny face. The kingdom of Revista was a rotting corpse, the world of Etherion wanted him dead, and his body was practically a liability.
But the Demon Lord had just gotten his hands on his first chess piece.
*Standby in the shadows,* Vavian commanded telepathically, his mental voice dripping with the arrogant authority of a top-tier gamer. *Observe everyone in this room. And don't do anything stupid until I say so.*
*[As you wish, Master.]*
Vavian closed his eyes, finally allowing himself to relax slightly against his mother's chest. The crisis of the first three days had been averted. His troops were fed. He had a scout.
The tutorial phase was officially over. Now, it was time to actually start playing the game.
***
[Nymphaearoot the Author]: Hope you enjoy reading! If you like it, please add it to your library and let me know your favorite moments in the comments