Zane sat in the bloody mud, the rain was washing streaks of filth across his face.
The kid who was called Rat, was gone.
His screams were swallowed by the smog.
He remembered the reincarnation genre of novels he read on Earth.
"Truck-kun's isekai was better than whatever this is."
He sighed and looked at his jagged self. He couldn't have imagined that the reality of Isekai will be worse than what he read. Boy, did he read some dark shit.
Zane was alone with the dead now.
"Soul-Eater," Zane whispered. He let out a harsh, barking laugh that sounded foreign in his own throat. "Kid's not... he's not wrong, is he?"
The vibrating, electric charge in his veins was undeniable. It was a high, pure and perfect. It beat back the cold, the hunger and the misery.
For the first time since he'd arrived in this shithole, he felt... capable.
But the high wouldn't last. He knew that already.
The hunger was a beast, and he'd just given it a taste of real food. It would be back and might be even worse if he gets addicted.
"A monster," he said. "Okay. Fine. But monsters have to survive, too."
His old self, the 'HopeLine' Zane, was still in there, curled in a ball and screaming in horror.
Zane told him to shut the fuck up.
He looked at the bodies. Four of them. Four empty shells.
Survival.
He'd never stolen anything in his life. He'd never even seen a real dead body before today.
Now, he was surrounded by them.
He crawled over to the first body, the one with the caved-in skull. The man's pockets were empty, just lint and grime.
Zane moved to the next one, the Rusted-Nail who'd been shanked in the gut. He grimaced at the smell, the mess of intestines, and plunged his hand into the man's pocket.
His fingers closed on something hard.
Coins.
He pulled them out. Three heavy, bronze coins, slick with blood. The metal was grimy, stamped with a sigil he didn't recognize.
Money.
He shoved them into his own tunic.
He moved to the third. Nothing.
The fourth body, the one strangled with a chain, had two more bronze coins... and a knife.
It was a piece of shit. A six-inch blade of rusted, sharpened metal, the hilt wrapped in dirty cloth.
Zane took it.
He held the knife in one hand and the five coins in the other.
This was his new "Self-Fulfilment." Not saving lives but ending them. And looting the goddamn corpses.
He stood up, the power from the feast making him feel steady. Strong.
He had to get out of here.
The boy that escaped, Rat, was a problem. A big one.
He pulled the hood of his tunic up, shadowing his face, and walked out of the courtyard.
He stepped back onto the smog-choked street.
The "thrum" of his power was still there, but now, something else was, too.
A noise.
It was a low, constant, psychic murmur, like a hundred televisions playing in the next room, all on different, depressing channels.
A man shuffled past him, his face a mask of grey grime. Zane got within ten meters.
<...can't... can't go back. He'll beat me again. No money. No food. He'll... he'll beat me...>
The thought slammed into Zane's brain. It was the man's voice, but inside his head.
Zane flinched, stepping away.
A woman was huddled in a doorway, rocking a bundle of rags. As he passed, her thoughts washed over him.
<...so cold... so cold... the wheezing... he's not... oh gods... he's not breathing... he's...>
"Fuck," Zane hissed, walking faster.
It was the skill. Whispers of Despair.
It wasn't a skill he could use. It was just... on.
He was walking through a sea of human misery, and he had no way to plug his fucking ears.
<...another shift... another 18 hours in the dark... the foreman's hands... just... just let me die...>
<...the rot... I can smell it... my foot... it's black... it's black and I can't... I can't...>
<...hungry... so fucking hungry...>
Zane clamped his hands over his ears, but it did nothing. The voices were in his skull.
This wasn't a power.
This was his old job but amplified into a personalized, unending hell. He just can't hang up.
"Shut up," he hissed, stumbling through the crowd. "Just... shut up!"
The Sump was a city built on despair, and he was a walking, ten-meter-wide antenna for all of it.
He had to get away.
He had to get inside. Somewhere. Anywhere.
As if to add to his despair, the high was fading.
The electric thrum in his veins was going cold. The sharp, crisp edges of his vision were blurring. The gnawing ache in his gut was back, a faint, cold echo of the beast.
It was withdrawal.
He was becoming a junkie already, and his fix was dying.
"Shit. Shit, shit, shit."
He needed a room. A hole. A place with a door that locked.
He saw a sign, buzzing with failing, greenish neon. It was a ratty-looking building, even for the Sump, jammed between a boarded-up pawn shop and a gutter-meat stall.
THE SUMP-PIT ROOMS. HOUR / DAY
A flophouse. Perfect.
He clutched the five bronze coins in his pocket. It had to be enough.
He pushed through the ankle-deep river of filth in the street, heading for the greasy, wooden door.
He was five steps away when they appeared.
Two men, emerging from the smog.
They wore the same red-cloth-and-nail insignia as the gangers in the alley.
The freaking Rusted-Nails.
They weren't just wandering though. They were moving with a goal, a purpose.
They stopped, right at the mouth of the alley Zane had just left. They were looking at the bloodstains on the cobblestones, suspiciously scowling.
Zane froze. He was ten meters away. Exactly.
One of them, a tall bastard with a face like a hatchet, pointed into the alley.
Zane couldn't hear their words over the rain and the city's groan.
But he could hear them.
<...Rat-boy was right... the hatchet-faced man's thought echoed, cold and sharp. ...four of 'em... drained...>
The other man was shorter but bulkier. He radiated a pure, simmering rage.
"...find him. Find the fucking 'Sump-Demon' Rat was screaming about. Scour this whole block. The Boss wants its head. Now!"
They turned, with their eyes sweeping across the street.
Zane didn't breathe.
He was standing in the open. A few grimy shadows passed between them, but the Nails were looking for someone.
They were looking for him.
He wasn't just a monster right now.
He was a target.