"And remember! Once the final phase ends, the safe areas will be locked for good. If you don't want to be left out in the open with high-level monsters, I'd strongly suggest finding a 'den' before that happens," Belial warned, with a faintly dismissive tone. "But enough talk! Let the show begin!"
The little Djinn announced with excitement, throwing his hands up.
At the same time, the train doors burst open, releasing a horde of bloodthirsty monsters hungry for blood.
At the same time, the countdown began.
[Green Phase — 29:58]
As expected, people started sprinting desperately toward the stairs leading out of the subway.
Karma had seen it coming. He slipped away to a corner with fewer people, away from the train the monsters were pouring out of.
"Alright Karma, what's the plan?" he muttered to himself, scanning the chaos around him.
His options were limited.
The first was to bolt down the tracks and put as much distance between himself and this place as possible.
The second was to hang back and wait for the crowd to clear the subway, making it easier to slip out. But that was a bad idea since it meant exposing himself to more monsters.
There was, however, a third option that appealed to him quite a bit.
He had always been observant, and while studying the train, he spotted one car with no monsters in it at all. Instead, a glowing orange energy barrier filled the space, covered in floating runes.
Karma recognized it immediately. An orange safe zone.
One that could carry him through two rounds.
It was tempting, no question. But getting there wouldn't be easy, considering it was right in the middle of where the monsters were coming from.
"Aaaaargh! Help! Help me!" a voice screamed nearby.
Karma spun around. The subway was already full of screaming, but that one had been too close.
"Damn, they're already here," he muttered nervously, watching as a goblin repeatedly stabbed a man on the ground.
He swallowed hard. His body locked up for a moment.
But for some reason, he wasn't as rattled as he'd expected to be.
Almost as if he'd already been desensitized to that kind of scene.
Was it the adrenaline? Or something else?
He wasn't sure, and he had no time to think about it.
The goblin had stopped stabbing the poor man and was now staring directly at him.
"Kwekwekwe," the goblin laughed, licking the blood off its dagger.
In a panic, Karma did the only thing that came to mind.
"[Fate Devourer]," he called out, his eyes flashing crimson.
The moment he thought about activating the skill, it activated.
A stream of golden particles began peeling away from the goblin and drifting toward Karma's palm.
He looked down and noticed a black circle drawn into the skin of his hand. That left him completely puzzled.
"What is this? Is this the 'mark of the beast' Belial mentioned?" Karma said out loud, watching as more golden particles got pulled into the mark.
Was this what someone's good fortune looked like?
"Kwikwikwi!" the goblin snarled with fury, hopping up and down in agitation.
Had it worked?
Right then, the goblin charged at Karma at full speed, its eyes locked on him.
But at that exact moment, it tripped over its own feet and went down hard.
The dagger flew out of its hand, spun through the air a few times, and landed square in its own back.
"...Huh?"
[You have killed a Goblin Lv. 1: +50 EXP]
Karma blinked, trying to process what he had just witnessed.
A scene so absurd it barely felt real.
So that was how it worked?
It was ridiculously effective.
A feeling he couldn't quite name washed over him, the kind you get when you realize something you have is worth far more than you thought.
"[Status]!"
---
Name: Karma Murphy
Race: Human
Age: 21
Level: 0
EXP: 50 / 1,000
Fortune: -10,000,000
Spirit (Colorless): 0%
Spells: [None]
Techniques: [None]
Skills 0/5:
Physical Attributes:
Strength: 7
Constitution: 3
Speed: 6
Agility: 3
Gift:
Fate Devourer {Maljut — 0%}
Ability:
This skill allows the user to devour the good fortune of other individuals by marking them as targets, potentially driving their luck into the negatives.
Negative fortune causes the affected individual to experience a string of misfortunes until their luck stabilizes.
In the event that the user kills a marked target while the fortune absorption is active, they will also have the chance to absorb that individual's [Gift] and convert it into a [Skill].
Limitation:
This skill functions like a fortune vacuum. However, it cannot absorb fortune if the user's own luck is at zero or above.
The skill does not allow the user to increase their own fortune, meaning their negative luck essentially serves as the battery that powers it.
If the user's fortune reaches 0, they will no longer be able to absorb luck and must wait for their fortune to drop again.
Drawback:
The user is unaffected by luck entirely, whether good or bad, even when their fortune values are in the positives.
Items that attract good fortune will have no effect on them. However, this also means the user can equip cursed bad-luck charms to recharge their "battery" without fear of the side effects.
---
"Fascinating," the boy said quietly, reading through his status.
It really was just like a video game.
But a few other things caught his attention.
The first was that his fortune hadn't gone down, or rather, it hadn't gone up. The number was still sitting at "-10,000,000" without a scratch.
What was that about?
Some kind of bug?
On top of that, he hadn't received any skill either, though that was probably because the goblin simply didn't have one.
"Are you serious right now?! Why does this always happen to me?!" a voice yelled nearby.
Karma looked up. More people were moving toward his little "safe corner."
"Well," he said to himself, "I guess it's time to start collecting."
________________________________________
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