"As long as the cold wind blows from the Last Bastion, humanity survives. You are the Wardens of the North, carriers of the frost, slayers of demons. The cold cannot hurt you."
'Tell that to this fuckin' cold,' Noah cursed, his breath fogging the inside of his thick woolen mask.
The wind was a razor. It sliced across the frozen battlefield, carrying the stench of demon blood. Below the colossal, ice-sheathed walls of the Bastion, Noah kept his head down and worked.
"Move it, scavengers! Before the night crawlers show up!" Sergeant Kael's roar cut through the gale. He stood on a small rise, a thick-necked veteran whose face was a roadmap of scars.
Noah just grunted, not looking up. His job was simple and grim: clear the field of demon corpses.
It wasn't a job for heroes. It was for the forgotten, the unawakened orphans like him. He was just the janitor who cleaned up the mess left by the Wardens of the North.
They were the legends on the walls, with gleaming armor and powerful deck traits.
He approached a fresh kill, a hulking beast the grunts called a 'Groveler.' It was a mass of dark-green muscle and sharpened bone.
Its shape was unnervingly human, aside from the skin color and the jagged spikes jutting from its joints.
Its beady red eyes were frozen in a look of permanent rage, and a sickly, vile aura shimmered around the corpse—a demonic taint that could sicken an unawakened man.
"Don't get any on you, kid," muttered Finn, another scavenger, trudging past with a cart of severed limbs.
"Kael will have your hide."
Noah nodded, gripping the long steel pole with its heavy iron clamp. The first rule of the corps was simple: if you're unawakened, never touch a demon with bare skin.
He aimed the clamp for the Groveler's thick ankle. The creature was a four-hundred-pound dead weight, but for a man of Noah's size, it was nothing.
He braced himself in the blood-stained snow, but as he moved to tighten the clamp, a furious gust of wind slammed into him.
His vision blurred, the world narrowing to the leathery carcass rushing towards his outstretched hand.
'Fuck.'
His bare skin made contact. A shock colder than ice and hotter than fire surged up his arm. It felt like a thousand frozen needles stabbing his soul while a searing energy tried to boil his blood.
The world twisted into a dizzying vortex.
He cried out, stumbling back and falling hard. His heart hammered like a war drum.
He clutched his chest, gasping for air as something deep inside him—a part that had slept his entire life—was violently shaken awake.
A sound, clear as a silver bell, echoed in his mind.
[Congratulations! You have awakened your deck trait: Skill Crafter]
Noah's eyes shot open. A deck trait? Him? Impossible. The tests on orphans were final: unawakened, devoid of potential.
[Skill Crafter: Craft skill cards using attribute points.]
His mind reeled. He stared at the Groveler's corpse. The sickly aura was gone; it now looked like a simple hunk of meat.
A tiny, warm spark flowed from the point of contact, up his arm, and settled in his chest.
[You have touched the corpse of an ordinary demon. One unassigned attribute has been collected.]
The chime faded. The wind still howled, and Kael was still yelling, but for Noah, everything had changed.
The searing pain was replaced by a strange warmth. He shakily got to his feet. No one had noticed.
The other scavengers kept their heads bowed against the wind.
He scrambled to pull his glove back on, acting as if nothing happened.
'Status,' he thought, his mind racing.
A blue screen shimmered before his eyes, just as the old books described.
Name: Noah Bastion
Title: Nil
Deck trait: Skill Crafter
Deck quality: Iron
Level: 0
Slots: (10 slots unassigned)
Attributes:
STR: 20 (Twice an ordinary human)
DEF: 25 (Twice an ordinary human)
AGI: 20 (Twice an ordinary human)
VIT: 30 (Thrice an ordinary human)
INT: 5 (…)
Mixed attributes:
Magic attack (MA): 200 (STR*10)
Magic defense (MD): 250 (DEF*10)
Health points (HP): 300 (VIT*10)
Mana points (MP): 50 (INT*10)
[Unassigned attributes (UA): 1]
'So this is the legendary status screen,' Noah marveled while pulling the demon carcass towards a huge carrier pulley.
The pulley was hauled by northern bears, massive beasts trained to carry goods across the snows.
The Last Bastion wasn't a single fortress but a chain of them, connected by transport streamlines and guarding the stretch of Zara where the Atlantis Ocean met the mainlands.
Since modern transport was too dangerous in the snow, northern bears were widely used. The tamed beasts were even powerful enough to fight off an ordinary demon.
After loading the carcass onto the pulley, he walked back to find another.
'Skill Crafter… so I can create skill cards?'
Every awakened person opens a deck in their heart. Beginners start with an Iron deck with ten slots. T
hey fill these slots with suitable skill cards, and only then do they actually become a decker. Every new awakened in the Bastion was granted four F-rank skill cards.
If he revealed his awakening, he would get those cards too. But his deck trait made him pause.
'How can I create skill cards?'
[You can use unassigned attribute points to craft skill cards. An F-rank skill card requires one hundred unassigned attributes to craft.]
'One hundred?' Noah glanced at the single UA point in his deck. His eyes widened as he recalled how he got it.
A manic grin spread across his face.
"I'm going to touch all the demons!"
In his excitement, he mumbled a bit too loudly. It was loud enough for Finn, the middle-aged captain of his scavenger team to hear.
The older man chuckled and muttered, "Oh boy, kinky are we? I heard a new group of maidens reached the Lustrous. Why corrupt your dick with demonic energy?"
Noah almost choked on his own saliva. He embarrassedly tilted his head away from the old man, which only made him laugh again.
The old captain had clearly misunderstood his intentions.
He paid it no mind as his focus locked onto the next demon carcass.