"Are you out of your goddamn mind?!" one of the guys in the group screamed, staring at the infected boy with raw, uncontrolled fury. "Do you hate us that much you want to drag us down with you?!"
A second voice joined in almost immediately, shaking, but just as sharp, jabbing a finger toward Leon.
"He's out there fighting for us, and you're standing here screaming like an idiot!"
The infected boy flinched back a step.
Only now did it hit him what he'd done.
His eyes went wide, and the anger that had been holding him upright popped like a bubble, leaving something soft and terrified in its place. He looked at the dead monsters, then at Leon, still facing the threat, taking a deep breath after killing the three creatures, and only then back at the group.
"I…" he started, and his voice cracked. "I didn't mean, I didn't mean to hurt you…"
Tears gathered in his eyes. Real ones. Humiliating, helpless.
"I was just… scared."
"If you're scared, then leave," one of the guys growled. "If you really don't want to get us killed, get out of our sight. Now."
The words were harsh, but there was no cruelty in them, only fear finally finding a way out.
The boy looked from face to face like he was searching for resistance, for even one stay, but he found none. Three of the students were already turning away, folding into the cluster Leon instinctively shielded with his position.
Only Michael remained.
For a moment they stared at each other in a silence so thick the only sounds were the distant noises of campus, screams, cracks, something that sounded like bones breaking.
Michael bit his lip.
"I'm sorry, Paul…" he whispered, barely audible, like he was afraid that if he said it any louder, he'd never be able to move again.
Paul's eyes widened at his friend's reaction. Then he nodded once, short, final, and gave a small, sad smile as he turned away.
He started walking off slowly. Not running. Not dramatically. Just the heavy, ordinary steps of someone who'd lost everything at once. Only after a few meters did he speed up, disappearing between the buildings.
Michael stood there for one more second, watching him go, then turned sharply and almost stumbled into the group, as if the distance between him and Paul was something he had to widen immediately just to breathe.
Leon didn't spare the fleeing Paul a single glance. His attention was on the notifications hovering in front of him.
[Essence Record - Kill Confirmed]
[Target: Mutated Mantid (LVL 11)]
[Reward: +3 VIT | +2 STR]
A second window appeared almost instantly, then a third, partially overlapping the first.
[Essence Record - Kill Confirmed]
[Target: Chitin Crawler (LVL 12)]
[Reward: +5 VIT | +2 AGI]
[Essence Record - Kill Confirmed]
[Target: Hooktail Skipper (LVL 13)]
[Reward: +5 VIT | +4 STR]
A moment later, another window appeared, larger, impossible to miss.
[Level Up: LVL 6 → LVL 7]
[Stat Points Gained: +4]
And another, before he even had time to properly breathe.
[Level Up: LVL 7 → LVL 8]
[Stat Points Gained: +4]
For a fraction of a second he felt it, that familiar rush, the brief euphoria and surge of power as his body grew stronger.
Then his gaze dropped to the insect corpses sprawled across the asphalt.
Near two of them, the ones that had given the biggest stat gains, something began to form.
Leon moved quickly, crouching to grab a Gray Box and a gray skill scroll. He didn't even look at them, didn't check the names, just shoved them deep into his backpack. He was intensely curious what he'd gotten, but he knew this wasn't the moment to start sorting loot.
He lifted his head and looked at the people who, over the last few minutes, had almost unconsciously begun clustering closer to him, as if the mere presence of someone who could hold back the hell, even for a moment, was something their instincts wanted to cling to.
There were almost twenty of them.
Dirty. Injured. Eyes red from crying and fear. Some barely stood upright. Others gripped makeshift weapons, or just their backpacks, like that could give them any sense of control.
"We keep running," Leon said, short and flat. No raised voice, but clear enough that everyone heard. "No stopping. If you can't keep up, you get left behind."
There was no cruelty in it. No attempt to scare them.
A few people nodded almost immediately. Someone swallowed. Someone adjusted their backpack strap. A third clenched their teeth, like it was only now truly sinking in that survival depended on legs, not hope.
Valeria stood beside Leon, half a step behind, calm, almost indifferent to the scene. And there was something strange about it: none of the others even glanced her way, as if she wasn't there at all.
She flicked her eyes toward the gap between buildings where Paul had vanished, then back to Leon.
A slight shake of her head.
"That's going to come back to bite you someday," she muttered under her breath, more to herself than to him.
There was no condemnation in it. Just the dry observation of someone who'd seen versions of this scene dozens, maybe hundreds, of times.
For a brief moment her gaze lingered on Leon's back, on his posture, on the way he held the sword, steady, but not yet fully effortless, and something like understanding surfaced in her thoughts.
These were his first steps.
His first real decisions in the world of the Essence Record, where there were no good choices, only less bad ones, and necessary ones. And even though he could kill without hesitation now, he still lacked the one thing that only came with time: the ice-cold certainty that sometimes you can't save anyone, no matter how much you want to.
Valeria sighed softly.
You don't have thick enough skin yet, she thought. But if you survive… you'll grow it faster than you'd like.
Leon moved first, without looking back. A moment later the entire group broke into a run, melting into the chaos of the campus.
***
For years, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń had been considered one of the most prestigious universities in all of Poland, a place that drew not only students from every corner of the country, but people from abroad as well, attracted not just by the programs' reputation, but by the particular atmosphere of a city that, in many ways, revolved around students and the rhythm of their lives.
The campus didn't feel like a single, compact complex. It was more like a small city spread across several hectares, with wide walkways, little squares, bus stops, and buildings scattered in a way that let you function without constantly going into Toruń's center. There were supermarkets, small shopping arcades, karaoke bars, restaurants and pubs that, before, had been alive until late at night. Dorms stood close to lecture halls so a student could wake up fifteen minutes before class and still make it.
Now it all looked like a model city after a disaster.
The distance between the men's dorms and the gym Leon had chosen as their destination was just under half a kilometer, a stretch that, two days ago, you could've walked at an easy pace while talking about classes or scrolling your phone. Now every meter was its own problem. Zombies stood in the roads and on the sidewalks. Mutated insects with chitin armor scuttled through open spaces. Animals that had long since stopped behaving like anything Leon remembered from parks and neighborhoods prowled the edges of sight.
So they didn't run in a straight line. They curved, zigzagging between buildings, avoiding areas with too much movement or places where the echo of screams might pull in more beasts. Leon led them on instinct, no map, no fixed plan, reacting to what he saw in real time, changing course at the last second whenever something felt too risky.
A few hundred meters before the sports hall, he spotted another group of students pinned near a side entrance to an academic building, shoved against the wall by three zombies. They moved slower than the ones from the first hours of the apocalypse, but they were bulkier, stubborn, heavy.
Leon didn't even stop.
He sped up just enough to close the distance, slipped ahead of his group, and with two quick, economical cuts took the zombies' heads off, never holding the blade in place a heartbeat longer than necessary. The bodies folded to the ground, and the echo of the impacts rolled through the empty corridor between buildings.
[Essence Record - Kill Confirmed]
[Target: 3x Normal Zombie (LVL 8)]
"Th-thank you…" someone said in a trembling voice.
Leon didn't even look at them.
"Anyone bitten or scratched?" he asked immediately, turning half sideways so he could watch both them and the space behind his back.
Several people shook their heads at once. One girl raised her hands as if to prove she was intact. Someone else pushed up a sleeve, showing clean skin with no marks.
Leon watched them for a moment, suspiciously, a beat too long to be polite.
Finally, he nodded.
"Then come on," he said. "And keep up."
No further questions.
The students merged into the group, now even larger, and ran after him, eyes fixed on his back, on the long coat moving with his stride, on the sword he held as naturally as if he'd carried it for years.