Until they die
The rat surged upward, its movements jerky but deadly fast. It lunged at the nearest person—Ahmed.
Ahmed screamed as massive teeth clamped around his midsection. Blood sprayed across the disposal area.
"Contact! Live monster in disposal zone!" Miller shouted into her radio, drawing her shock baton.
Everything happened so fast. Cooper fired his pistol at the rat, but in his panic, the shots went wide. The creature whipped around, dragging Ahmed's body with it, and charged toward Sunny.
No weapon. No defense. Just his pathetic stats and a jumpsuit.
Time seemed to slow.
[CRISIS DETECTED]
[ACTIVATING EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS]
[ADRENALINE SURGE: AGILITY +2 (TEMPORARY)]
The rat lunged. Sunny dove to the side, rolling across the dirt. He scrambled to his feet as the monster crashed into a disposal cart, sending it toppling.
"Kill it!" Jackson yelled, firing his pistol.
A bullet grazed the rat's hindquarters. It squealed in rage and spun around, Ahmed's limp body still dangling from its jaws.
It charged again.
Sunny looked frantically for a weapon, anything to defend himself. His eyes landed on a jagged piece of metal from the overturned cart.
He grabbed it just as the rat pounced.
The impact knocked him flat on his back, driving the air from his lungs. Massive weight pressed down on his chest. Hot, fetid breath washed over his face as jaws opened wide to take his head.
Pure instinct drove him to thrust the metal shard upward.
It pierced the rat's throat. Black blood gushed over his arms, burning like acid. The creature thrashed, its death throes nearly crushing him.
Then, suddenly, it went still.
For a moment, Sunny just lay there, pinned under the enormous corpse, gasping for breath.
[CRITICAL STRIKE DETECTED]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 50]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL 1 → LEVEL 2]
[ALL STATS +1]
[NEW SKILL SLOT AVAILABLE]
Walsh and Alpha team arrived, weapons drawn.
"What the hell happened?" Walsh demanded.
"Rat wasn't dead," Miller explained, helping pull the monster off Sunny. "Rookie took it down."
Walsh stared at Sunny, covered in black blood but somehow alive.
"Ahmed?" he asked.
Miller shook her head. "Gone."
Walsh cursed under his breath. "Tag him for recovery. Standard death benefit package."
He turned to Sunny. "You killed it?"
He nodded, still struggling to breathe properly.
"Not bad for a trainee." Walsh actually looked impressed. "You get his share of today's payment."
Sixty thousand credits. For nearly dying.
As they loaded the now-definitely-dead rat onto a disposal cart, Sunny felt something strange. The black blood on his arms seemed to be... moving. Flowing. Not away from him, but into him.
His shadow rippled unnaturally.
[UNIQUE SKILL: VOID ABSORPTION NOW AT 7% UNLOCKED]
[ABSORBING MONSTER ESSENCE...]
[NEW PASSIVE SKILL ACQUIRED: TOXIC RESISTANCE LVL.1]
The blood vanished, absorbed completely into his skin, leaving no trace.
He stared at his clean arms in shock.
"What the hell are you?" Jackson whispered beside him, eyes wide with fear.
Sunny had no answer. But for the first time since his parents died, he felt something other than grief and rage.
He felt powerful.
"Let's finish the job," he said, turning toward the remaining corpses.
His shadow stretched behind him, darker than it should have been, moving slightly out of sync with his body.
No one else seemed to notice.
But Sunny knew something had changed.
---
Sunny stared at the payment notification on his phone. Sixty thousand credits. Double what he expected. His first day, and he'd already doubled his earnings because someone else died.
He didn't know whether to feel lucky or guilty.
"First round's on the rookie!" Garrett shouted, slapping Sunny on the back hard enough to make him stumble forward.
They stood outside a dingy bar a few blocks from the SEM facility. The illuminated sign flickered intermittently.
"I don't think—" Sunny started.
"Don't think," Miller cut him off. "That's the first rule of this job. You think too much, you quit too fast."
Jackson nodded solemnly. "Ahmed was thinking about quitting next week. Said he had enough saved up."
A heavy silence fell over the group. Ahmed's vacant eyes flashed through Sunny's mind.
"One drink," Sunny conceded. He needed to save every credit.
"One drink!" Cooper echoed with a laugh. "Kid kills a Level 3 monster with a piece of scrap metal on his first day and wants to celebrate with '0one drink'!"
The teams pushed through the entrance, the smell of cheap beer and cheaper disinfectant washing over them. The bar was half-empty, populated mostly by other cleanup crews and low-level dungeon support staff.
They claimed a large corner table, and Garrett signaled the bartender.
"Eight beers and eight shots of whatever's strongest!" he called out.
The bartender, a woman with tired eyes and arms covered in what looked like burn scars, nodded without a word.
"You don't have to pay," Jackson told Sunny quietly. "It's tradition. They always say the rookie pays, but no one actually makes them."
"It's fine," Sunny replied. A few drinks wouldn't bankrupt him, and he needed allies more than he needed to pinch credits right now.
The drinks arrived, and Garrett raised his shot glass.
"To Ahmed," he said solemnly.
"To Ahmed," the others echoed.
"And to the rookie," Miller added, "who proved he's not total dead weight."
"To Sunny!" they cheered, louder this time.
Sunny raised his glass awkwardly and tossed back the shot. Liquid fire burned down his throat, making his eyes water. He fought the urge to cough.
[WARNING: ALCOHOL DETECTED]
[TOXIC SUBSTANCE ENTERING BLOODSTREAM]
[TOXIC RESISTANCE SKILL ACTIVATED]
The burning sensation subsided almost immediately. The alcohol's effects dulled to a pleasant warmth rather than the searing pain he felt initially.
"Whoa," he muttered, staring at his empty glass in surprise.
"First drink?" Cooper laughed. "Don't worry, it gets easier."
"Yeah," Sunny said vaguely, watching as his new companions started on their beers. He sipped his own, finding it almost tasteless after the system's intervention.
"So," Garrett leaned forward, his eyes bright with curiosity, "where did you learn to fight like that? Most rookies would've frozen and ended up rat food."
Sunny shrugged. "Instinct, I guess."
"Bullshit," Miller declared, slamming down her beer. "You moved too smart for pure instinct."
They were watching him carefully now. Sunny realized they were trying to figure out if he was more than he appeared.
"My parents died in the Starfall incident," he said, deciding a partial truth was safest. "I've been training since then. Running, basic self-defense."
It wasn't a lie. The system had been forcing him to train.
"Revenge, huh?" Cooper nodded approvingly. "Classic motivation."
"You got anyone else?" Jackson asked, his tone gentler. "Family? Friends?"
He shook his head. "Just me."
"Not anymore," Miller declared, her words slightly slurred already. "You're SEM Gamma now. We look after our own."
"Until they die," Cooper added, raising his glass in a mock toast.
"Until they die," the others agreed solemnly.