The world did not end. It updated.
There were no collapsing skies or divine trumpets. Instead, translucent windows unfolded before every human alive like a silent, glowing wave.
[SKILL AWAKENING COMPLETE]
Screams followed. Then laughter. Then a sudden, sharp hunger for ambition. In the square, fire flickered in the palms of a baker. A few feet away, a young girl watched as her skin hardened into grey steel. Bodies grew stronger in seconds, pulses racing with newfound magic. Some dropped to their knees weeping with gratitude. Others immediately began testing their power on whatever—or whoever—stood nearby.
Everyone received something. Everyone—except him.
He stood in the shadow of a broken water tower, his eyes fixed on the status windows blooming like blessings across the crowd.
Ten seconds passed. Twenty.
Then, a late, almost reluctant chime echoed in his mind.
[Skill Acquired: View] [Rank: H] [Classification: Information-Type]
That was all. No surge of warmth, no phantom strength, no weapon summoned from thin air. Just a small, lonely pane of text. He focused his eyes on a man standing nearby.
[Name: Jarek] [Level: 2] [Primary Skill: Iron Skin (D-Rank)] [Overall Worth: D]
"Worth?" he whispered, his voice dry. He didn't understand the metric, but everyone else was already shouting their status.
"I'm B-Rank!" a woman screamed in delight.
"I got a C! I can actually fight!"
"Look! Someone over there awakened an A-Rank talent!"
H-Rank didn't even register in their conversations. It was beneath discussion. To be H-Rank was to be a ghost in a world of giants.
The Month of Trying
He refused to accept the silence of the system. If others could grow, so could he.
For thirty days, he lived on the edge of the settlement. He hunted the weakest creatures he could find—mutated rats with yellow teeth, bone-thin scavengers, and slow, bloated crawlers. He nearly died a dozen times, his ribs bruised and his hands scarred from fighting with nothing but a rusted pipe and desperation.
Every night, he crawled back to his shelter and checked his window.
[Level: 1] [Additional Skills: None] [Growth Detected: None]
No experience points. No evolution. No secondary awakening. While others rose from D to C in days, and a rare few touched the heights of A-Rank, he remained frozen. The system did not respond to his effort. It was a locked door with no key.
Hunger thinned his face and exhaustion hallowed his eyes. Finally, he looked at his reflection in a puddle of rainwater and realized the truth.
Maybe I wasn't meant to fight, he thought. Maybe I was meant to see.
The Market of Truth
A trade district had formed naturally in the ruins of an old transit station. It was a place of noise and greed. Awakened hunters brought back monster cores, broken weapons, and relic fragments from the merging worlds. Most buyers relied on rumors, luck, and instinct.
He relied on View.
As he walked through the stalls, the world became a sea of data.
[Cracked Bone Dagger] [Grade: C] [Monetary Value: F (Scrap)] [Durability: 12% Remaining]
[Old Steel Bracer] [Grade: D] [Monetary Value: B] [Hidden Trait: Reinforced Core Channel]
His breathing slowed. He saw it now. Some worthless-looking scraps held secret value, while flashy, glowing weapons were nothing but polished trash.
For the first time since the update, hope felt practical. He didn't need the strength of a S-Rank warrior. He needed capital. If he could buy low from ignorant sellers and resell at a fair profit, he could build something. Quality verified. No scams. In a world rebuilding itself, information was the only true currency.
All he needed were goods to start. That was when the brothers approached him.
The Scapegoat's Deal
There were three of them. Neighborhood hunters, recently awakened, and always too loud. The tallest, Korr, grinned at him.
"You're the appraisal guy, right? The one who stares at junk?"
"I can see the quality of things," he replied carefully.
"Perfect," Korr said, leaning in. "We're heading into an underground ruin tomorrow. An early-stage dungeon. It's not too dangerous."
That phrase—not too dangerous—sat poorly in his stomach.
The second brother laughed. "You come with us. Identify the good stuff. We'll sell you our finds cheap before we hit the open market. Direct supply, no bidding wars. What do you say?"
It was exactly the opportunity he needed. Still, something in him felt cold. He activated View on the men.
[Name: Korr] [Combat Rank: C] [Overall Worth: D] [Betrayal Probability Toward Target: 42%]
[Brother 2: Overall Worth: D–] [Brother 3: Overall Worth: E+]
Their Worth was low—lower than their Combat Ranks suggested. It was a fascinating discovery. Their souls were cheaper than their swords.
"Why me?" he asked quietly.
Korr shrugged. "Because you're not competition. You're just... useful."
Useful. He looked at his own reflection in the glowing status window.
[Skill: View (H-Rank)] [Combat Capability: Minimal] [Market Potential: Undetermined]
He needed an opening. They needed an appraiser. He nodded. "I'll go."
The brothers' smiles widened just a little too much. They didn't tell him they had already mapped a second exit. They didn't mention the emergency flares used to lure monsters away. They didn't explain why bringing a powerless H-Rank boy into a dungeon made perfect tactical sense.
That night, as he lay awake in his shelter, a new line of text flickered faintly in the corner of his eye.
[Notice: You have been registered as a variable in a high-risk scenario.]
He didn't understand what it meant. But tomorrow, beneath the broken concrete where worlds collided, he would learn that in a place of monsters, "Worth" mattered far more than Rank.
He was the boy with the H-Rank eyes. And he had just been chosen—not as a partner, but as the escape goat.