Riko didn't see himself move. One moment the tiny monster was mid-air, mouth open, teeth stuttering in and out like a corrupted pixel file-and the next moment his arm jerked forward on pure panic. Not strategy. Not bravery. Just something wild firing through his nerves.
His fist shot upward.
He didn't even clench it right; his thumb was in the wrong place, and his wrist was bent at a terrible angle. It was the kind of punch a teacher would warn him never to throw. But the second his knuckles left his side, the world shifted. A soft, electric hum rippled over his skin. Light - thin, sharp, needle-bright - sparked around his hand.
For half a heartbeat, his fist was aglow.
Not like a flashlight. More like a small furious star was trying to be born inside his bones.
The monster crashed into that glow—and everything exploded.
A shockwave cracked through the junkyard, sending loose screws rattling and dust bursting upward like smoke. It didn't just bounce off him. It launched. Its body shot backward, spinning wildly through the air like a cannonball fired from a rusted war machine. It ricocheted off a stack of broken vending bots, shattered a metal crate in half, and finally slammed into a mound of tangled wires with a pitiful squeak.
Riko stood frozen, arm extended, fist shaking in the air like it hadn't realized the danger was already over. His brain hadn't caught up yet. It lagged behind, buffering.
"…did I… do that?" he whispered.
His voice barely made it out.
The creature didn't move. Its little legs twitched, then drooped. A puff of static crackled from its mouth.
Riko's knees wobbled. He sucked in a breath that tasted like dust and burnt ozone. His arm throbbed, not from pain but from the leftover buzz of adrenaline-or energy, or whatever had passed through him. He slowly lowered his fist, staring at it like it was suddenly an alien piece attached to him.
"Okay… okay, okay…" His voice cracked. "What was that? What did I just—how did—"
The screen on his wrist answered before he finished.
It screamed.
Not figuratively. Not a beep or a pleasant chime. It shrieked like a fire alarm having an existential crisis, its display flashing in furious reds and yellows. Panels of data burst across it so fast that Riko stumbled back, shielding his eyes.
"STOP—STOP, YOU'RE TOO BRIGHT!" he yelled, shaking his wrist uselessly.
The device didn't listen. Instead, symbols cascaded downward in a chaotic rain: equation fragments, power readings, jagged error codes, percentages swinging from zero to impossible numbers. The junk around Riko flickered with reflections of the flashing light, making the whole mountain look like it was waking up.
"What did I DO?" he yelled. "Tell me something that makes sense!"
The screen vibrated harder. The heat from it warmed his arm. It felt alive now—like a heart pounding against his skin, thrilled or terrified or both.
Then the warning lights synched into a pattern. The chaotic strobing settled into one steady, drumlike thump.
A single line of text burned its way through the haze.
LEVEL CALCULATION PROCESSING — STAND BY
"Processing for what?" Riko demanded.
No answer.
"Hey! Broken wrist parasite! GIVE ME A NORMAL SENTENCE!
Still nothing.
The device merely hummed louder and louder, each pulse resonating through his bones, his fingertips tingling. His heartbeat felt wrong, skipping in strange rhythms, as the screen fed up some invisible thread of energy up his arm.
He swallowed hard. "This better not explode. If you explode, I swear—"
A flash of white cut him off. The mountain around him washed out into brightness as if lightning had struck ten feet away. Riko squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for pain. Or another shockwave. Or for the entire pile of junk to collapse on him.
But none of that happened.
Instead, the light contracted back on the screen, coalescing into a single enormous symbol that swallowed the whole display. The character pulsed once, twice, like a heartbeat in sync with his.
Then the readout exploded.
LEVEL UP ×
Riko's breath caught.
More and more numbers poured in, piling up in rapid succession.
LEVEL UP × 2
LEVEL UP × 3
LEVEL UP × 5
LEVEL UP × 12
"Wait-how many-what is happening?!"
The counter continued to increase.
His arm tingled harder, muscles tensing even without his command. Something crawled through his veins, like warm static. Not painful-just unnervingly present.
The machine buzzed again, louder this time, as if the inside of it were filling with pressure.
LEVEL UP × 17
LEVEL UP × 23
LEVEL UP × 31
Riko took a stumbling step backward, dizzy. "Stop leveling me up! I didn't even mean to do anything! I panicked and punched a weird bug!"
The screen ignored him.
LEVEL UP × 40
His pulse quickened.
"STOP!" He grabbed his wrist with his free hand, trying to pry the device off. It didn't budge. "I don't NEED this level! I don't want—"
The counter leaped again, jumping numbers as though it were laughing at him.
LEVEL UP × 47
LEVEL UP × 48
LEVEL UP × 49
Riko's stomach dropped. "NO NO NO NO—" The screen flashed so brightly he could no longer see the text. Heat flooded across his whole forearm. The device chimed in a sharp, triumphant sound which rang across the junkyard like a victory siren. Then came the final number, locked into place with a thunderous digital boom: LEVEL UP × 50