Next morning, I got volunteer duty.
Which in army language means:
"You, unlucky guy, do the disgusting job."
Sergeant tossed me a hook, a tarp, and the worst smile I've ever seen.
"Body sweep. Old levy camp. Move."
Great.
So now I was corpse janitor.
I walked down from officer camp to the lower levy yard.
Place looked worse in daylight.
Burnt palisade.
Broken carts.
Blood in the mud.
Flies with full-time jobs.
Most of the human dead were already tagged.
Most of the orc dead were gone.
Too clean, honestly.
Like someone made sure to remove specific bodies first.
Not suspicious at all.
I worked in silence.
Hook body.
Drag body.
Check tags.
Don't throw up.
Repeat.
At one collapsed trench near the old wall, I found an orc corpse half-buried under ash and timber.
Armor stripped.
Pouches stripped.
But not fully.
Something was stuck under the shoulder plate.
A wrapped oilskin bundle, black with blood.
I looked around.
No one close.
I slid it into my shirt.
"Found another one?" a worker shouted.
"Yeah," I shouted back. "Just bones and stink."
"Throw it on the burn cart."
"On it."
I finished the sweep, got yelled at twice, and nearly stepped on a hand.
Normal day.
Back in my bunk, I locked the door with a chair (very advanced security), pulled out the bundle, and opened it.
Inside:
half a parchment sheet
two bone tokens with carved lines
a little strip of leather with symbols burned into it
The writing was rough but readable.
Not human script I learned as a kid.
Orc script.
I sounded it out slowly.
It looked like breathing instructions.
Not sword forms.
Not battle orders.
A body method.
A basic one.
Like beginner-level "pull energy in, circulate, anchor."
I stared at it for a full minute.
Then I said out loud:
"This is definitely a bad idea."
I waited.
No one answered.
So I tried it.
I sat on the floor, crossed my legs, and followed the steps on the parchment.
Inhale short.
Hold low in the gut.
Press tongue to palate.
Exhale through teeth.
Repeat in a weird rhythm.
First ten breaths: nothing.
Next ten: dizziness.
At thirty: stabbing pain in my ribs.
At forty: heat in my spine.
At fifty: my lash scars started burning like someone put salt and fire together.
I almost stopped.
Then I remembered officer court.
Air shocks.
Chi gathering.
My half-brother doing palm strikes like a demigod.
And me with Survival Route and depression.
So I kept going.
Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Then it happened.
Tiny pulse in my chest.
Not heartbeat.
Something else.
A thin thread of warmth moved from chest to shoulder, then down my arm.
I opened my eyes so fast I almost fell over.
"What."
I checked my hands.
Same hands.
No glow.
No dramatic aura.
No old master voice saying "good, disciple."
I whispered:
"System. Status."
Nothing.
I waited.
Then:
[Route: Survival]
I clenched my jaw.
"Useful as always."
No other text.
I looked back at the parchment.
Half of it was missing.
No final steps.
No safety notes.
No warnings.
Amazing.
I just did mystery orc breathing from a blood-stained half-scroll in a locked bunk with zero supervision.
Peak decision-making.
I tried one more cycle.
This time the warm thread came faster.
Small. Weak. Real.
It worked.
I didn't know why.
I didn't care why.
It worked.
A knock hit my door.
"Open up! Night check!"
I shoved the parchment under my straw mat, kicked the bone tokens under the bed, and opened up.
Guard looked in, sniffed, frowned.
"You smell weird."
I said, "Probably corpse duty."
He nodded like that made sense and moved on.
I shut the door and sat back down.
Heart pounding.
Head buzzing.
Hands shaking.
I had one illegal half-method, one secret, and maybe the first real step to not dying like everyone else.
I looked at the floor and grinned like an idiot.
"Okay," I whispered.
"Now we're playing."