The rain didn't wash anything away. Cain knew that well.
Standing on the ledge of the old railway bridge, he looked at the dark water flowing twenty meters below. At sixteen, Cain towered over almost all his peers with his six-foot-one height (187 cm), but he had never felt so small.
His dark brown hair was drenched, plastered to his forehead, hiding eyes of the same color that had stopped shining years ago.
"Like father, like son," they had hissed at him at school that day. "A toxic reject."
The memory of his father, who died with a needle in his arm when Cain was six, was a brand. But the void left by his mother hurt more. She had left when he was three, choosing a businessman and an easy life, erasing Cain as one deletes a typo.
There was no one to stop him. No friends, no relatives. Just the dull, constant pain of being a ghost in a world of living people. "I just hope that after... there's nothing," he whispered.
He took a step forward. Gravity did its job. The impact was instantaneous, then darkness.
[Soul Synchronization completed.] [Welcome to Aethelgard.] [Anomaly Detected... Innate Ability Awakened.]
The first sense to return was smell. It reeked of mold, rotten straw, and stale urine. Cain opened his eyes, expecting hell. Instead, he saw rotting wooden beams above his head. He sat up abruptly, his breath short. His body didn't hurt. In fact, he felt... different. Lighter, more fragile.
He looked at his hands. They were pale, covered in soot, riddled with superficial scars and calluses from manual labor. They were small, malnourished hands. He staggered to his feet, finding a shard of broken mirror leaning against a damp stone wall.
What he saw made him freeze. It wasn't his face. It was the face of a boy of about fifteen. His features were sharp from hunger. But what struck him were the colors: hair the color of raw amethyst fell over his eyes. And those eyes... they were gray, dull, two pits of cold ash.
"Where the hell am I?"
The voice was raspy, devoid of strength.
Suddenly, a crystalline sound rang in his head. Ding. A bluish, translucent window appeared before his eyes, floating in mid-air.
[STATUS]Name: Cain (Previous: Nameless)
Race: Human
Age: 15 Title: The Lost One
Base Stats (Rank F - Weak):
Attribute
Strength | 4 | (Average Adult Human: 10) |
Agility | 7 | (Average Adult Human: 10) |
Stamina | 5 | (Average Adult Human: 10) |
Mana | 0 | (Unawakened) |
Unique Ability:[Vital Predation (Grade ???)]: The bearer ignores conventional growth limits. The Soul Essence (EXP) of victims is not accumulated for leveling, but instantly converted into permanent physical or magical attributes.
Cain stared at the screen. The numbers were pitiful. Strength 4. It was less than half that of a normal man. He was in the body of an orphan destined to die from deprivation. But the ability... Vital Predation.
"I don't accumulate experience... I devour it," he murmured, a mirthless smile creasing his thin lips. "Ironic. I died because I was too weak to live, and now I'm given a chance to exist only by stealing life from others."
A grating noise came from the entrance of the dead-end alley where he was. Cain turned slowly, his movements fluid despite the weakness. A creature, about a meter tall, with warty green skin and a hooked nose, was rummaging through the trash. It wore soiled rags and gripped a rusty dagger.
Ding.
[Passive Analysis]Target: Goblin Scout (Rank F) Level: 2 Assessment: Biological Waste. Low Threat.
A Goblin. The creature saw him. It let out a guttural noise, a sneer showing yellow, rotten teeth, and lunged towards him. To the monster, the skinny boy was just fresh meat.
Cain felt no fear. Fear was a luxury for those who had something to lose. He had already lost everything. The Goblin aimed the dagger at his belly. A clumsy, predictable attack. Agility 7. It wasn't much, but it was enough to move faster than the thing. Cain took a swift side-step. He smelled the creature's rancid odor pass by him. Without hesitation, he bent down and grabbed a jagged piece of brick from the ground.
Don't hesitate. They didn't hesitate when they trampled you.
With cold, mechanical violence, Cain brought the brick down onto the Goblin's nape. A sickening crack was heard. The creature collapsed, shrieking and thrashing like a crushed insect. But Cain didn't stop. He mounted the monster's back, ignoring the dirty claws that tried to scratch his legs. He raised his arm. Strike. The brick came down again. Black blood splattered onto his pale hand. Strike. The skull gave way. Strike. Now he was only hitting pulp and broken bones.
Cain's breathing was heavy, but his gray eyes remained steady, empty mirrors observing the massacre without disgust. He wiped a drop of black blood from his cheek with indifference.
Ding.
[Target Eliminated: Goblin Scout (Level 2)][Essence Absorption in progress...][Conversion completed.]
Strength: +0.2
Agility: +0.1
Stamina: +0.1
A sudden warmth, like a shot of strong alcohol on an empty stomach, exploded in his chest and ran through his veins. The muscles in his right arm, sore from the effort, instantly stopped trembling. The chronic hunger that gripped the boy's stomach eased slightly. It wasn't a "Level Up." It was pure sustenance.
Cain got up, dropping the bloody brick. He looked at his hand. He felt it imperceptibly stronger. A Goblin had given him scraps. 0.2 Strength. To reach the human average of 10, he would need to kill thirty more.
He kicked the Goblin's corpse to turn it over and rummage through its pockets, his face impassive.
"In this world," he said to the empty alley, his voice icy and steady, "the weak are just food. And I am very hungry."
He walked towards the exit of the alley, toward the lights of an unknown city, ready to begin his climb on the mountain of corpses.