Grayson Stratham had never run so hard in his life.
Branches scratched his face. Roots tried to strip him at every step. His chest felt like it was being hammered from the inside out, and his breath came in ragged gasps that scraped his throat raw. Behind him came the sound of snarling, guttural, hungry, Raspy snarls, the kind no sound designer in Hollywood had ever gotten perfectly right.
Grayson stumbled, half-blind with panic, and for the first time in his career of playing background corpses, medieval villagers, and uncredited "Man in Café," he wasn't pretending. He could most definitely become an actual corpse today.
A flickering warning screen burned across his vision.
[Warning! Role Immersion Critically low.]
[ at below 5%, SSS-rank Actor class's effectiveness starts to lose effect.]
[Current Role Gauge: 3%.]
Grayson's stomach dropped.
"loses effect?" he wheezed. "What the hell does that even mean-...."
But He knew. He knew because the sashimi knife had already blinked out of existence when he'd panicked and bolted earlier. The moment he broke character, his only weapon, that gave him a sense of strength, the only thing standing between him and being goblin sashimi , was snatched away.
And right now, with the red warning blaring in his vision, he was a fifty-year-old man with bad knees, poor cardio, and an unpaid gym membership.
"OH SHIT"
BAAM!
He tripped.
His toe caught a root and he sprawled forward, crashing into the dirt so hard the breath whooshed from his lungs. His face filled with leaves, loam, and a bug that scuttled across his lips. Behind him, the snarls grew louder. Closer. The pounding of clawed feet shook the ground.
Grayson rolled onto his back just in time to see them.
Two goblins, squat and muscular, with sickly green skin and glowing yellow eyes. Their teeth gleamed in the moonlight like jagged kitchen knives. They slowed, circling him, drool stretching from their maws.
Grayson's heart jackhammered against his ribs. His hands clawed desperately at the ground, as if he could dig his way out of this nightmare.
"I'm dead. Oh God, I'm dead. This is not how Grayson-fucking-Stratham Should go out."
With his life flashing before his eyes, he quickly remembered something important.
The knife. It had been in his hand before ,sharp, real, solid , and then it had vanished the second he stopped playing the Yakuza role.
The system. The acting. The role gauge.
The knife existed only when he was acting. Survival wasn't about muscles or strength or cardio. It was about performance.
His eyes widened. His mind, absurdly, went back to a role he'd once begged to audition for. A straight-to-DVD Yakuza flick that had cast some YouTube influencer instead of him. He still remembered the swagger, the rough lines, the stupid way he'd practiced spitting blood into a sink.
[Role: Yakuza Thug (C-rank)]
[Traits: Fearless. Ruthless. Honour Bound.]
"Fearless, Ruthless". Grayson Thought.
"Survival depends on my performance," Grayson muttered, half-hysterical. "I have to… stay in character."
The goblins hissed and lunged closer.
Grayson forced himself upright on shaking legs. He spat Red spit into the dirt, though half of it was just blood from his bitten lip ,and squared his shoulders. He narrowed his eyes and rasped out the cheesiest gangster line he could remember:
"You picked the wrong bastard to mess with, Baka yaro!!"
The system flared.
[Role Gauge: 12%]
[Prop Activated: Sashimi Knife]
The knife blinked back into existence in his palm, slick with imaginary blood. Relief shot through him like an adrenaline injection.
"Hai!" Grayson barked. "Come on then, you little Harry Porter Hobbit Reject casts"
One goblin lunged. Grayson screamed , but not as Grayson Stratham, The background extra. He screamed like a cornered thug, raw and vicious, and slashed wildly.
Steel met flesh. The blade cut across the goblin's arm, spilling green blood. The monster shrieked.
Grayson's hand trembled, his form was sloppy, but the system didn't care about skill. It cared about performance. He spat, growled, and barked curses through clenched teeth, every line a pathetic caricature of a Yakuza gangster.
And the gauge rose.
[Role Gauge: 25%]
[Prop Enhancement Triggered: Sashimi Knife. +20% Attack Speed.]
Suddenly his hand felt lighter, faster. The knife flashed quicker through the air than it had any right to.
Grayson blinked in disbelief, then snarled, because snarling, apparently ,kept the gauge high.
"Yeah? You want some of this? Huh? I'll carve you up like Sushi!"
He slashed again, faster this time. The blade ripped across the first goblin's throat. It staggered, gurgling its green blood, before collapsing into the dirt.
The second goblin hesitated. Its glowing eyes flicked from Grayson's blood-spattered face to the corpse of its kin. Grayson realized, that he was scaring it.
The goblin snarled weakly, then backed away, fading into the shadows of the trees before vanishing altogether.
Grayson was left standing there, chest heaving, the sashimi knife dripping green blood in his hand.
Then silence.
For a long moment, he just stared at the corpse at his feet, his brain refusing to catch up. He'd killed it. He'd actually killed a goblin. Never in his 53 years of living could he have predicted that killing a Goblin would be on elf his achievements on his Resume.
And more than that , a sick, heady thrill still pumped through his veins. The knife in his hand felt good. The swagger he'd forced on himself now clung to him like a second skin. His heart hammered, but not just from fear. It was excitement.
He almost didn't want to stop acting.
Almost.
The system dinged.
DING!
[Trial C-tier Role: Complete.]
[Performance Rating: C+]
[Reward: Newbie Package.]
[New Role Assignment shall be Given soon.]
[Role Gauge Peak @25%: No Character inheritance]
The sashimi knife flickered and vanished, leaving only his trembling hand.
Grayson collapsed against a tree, sliding down until his back hit the rough bark. His whole body shook, every muscle screaming with exhaustion. His face was streaked with both red blood and green ichor.
He laughed, weak and broken, because he didn't know what else to do.
"I'm alive… I'm actually alive. Grayson Stratham survives his first starring role! Ha!."
But even as his laughter echoed hollowly through the forest, his chest tightened with dread.
Because if this had been a "trial role," what the hell was the main feature going to look like?
And worse , would he still be Grayson Stratham by the time the credits rolled? Or just another Corpse Prop on the battlefield.