Zanshin emerged from the dark alleyways and onto the rolling green hills just outside the Town of Beginnings, the boundary between safety and death.
The sun, filtered through the hanging floor of Aincrad high above, cast a perpetual, diffuse light, illuminating the fields where the lowest-level mobs, the Frenzy Boars, rooted around in the grass.
His heart pounded with a rhythm that had nothing to do with physical exertion and everything to do with fear.
It was a terror born not of the enemy, but of his own inadequacy.
He clutched the Glaive like a heavy, awkward stick.
He had to earn Col.
He had to eat.
The absolute, undeniable fact of his starvation was the only thing stronger than his paralyzing self image.
He had barely taken ten steps past the city gate when he was hailed by a group of three players huddled near a ruined stone wall. They were clearly desperate, clad in mismatched starter gear and looking anxious.
"Hey, you!" shouted a bulky player with a short-sword, his real face looking sweaty and irritable. "White hair! You looking for a party?"
Zanshin hesitated, his entire body tensing. He knew he was conspicuous, a beacon in the bland starting crowd. He hated the attention.
"We're short one DPS," the short-sword user continued, lowering his voice conspiratorially.
"Name's Tanki. Look, we don't care if you suck, we just need a body to pull aggro. Well you look... unique. That's good for drawing attention."
Zanshin stared at the ground. Unique. Good for distraction.
The statement resonated perfectly with his newfound purpose: to be a sacrifice, a decoy.
A burden that could, perhaps, be useful.
He nodded once, silently.
"Great! The name's Zanshin," he managed.
"Zanshin, huh? Whatever. Get in line. We're aiming for Frenzy Boars," Tanki grunted, already moving toward the tall grass with his two companions, a whip-user and a player armed with a short-range mace.
The first encounter was a catastrophic disaster.
Tanki instructed Zanshin to run ahead and initiate the fight—to pull aggro.
Zanshin's objective was to land a hit and then retreat, allowing the other three to surround the mob and use their weapon skills.
Zanshin charged forward.
As he raised the heavy Glaive, his intense, repressed stress surged, causing his hands to tremble uncontrollably.
The familiar shaking intensified to a violent, full-body tremor.
The Glaive, instead of arcing in a wide, sweeping Polearm Skill Cue, shuddered mid-swing. The input failed. The System rejected the move.
The Frenzy Boar, a low-level creature with tusks, ignored the failed attack and went straight for Tanki, who managed to block the charge with a grunt.
"What the hell!?" Tanki roared, parrying a quick follow-up attack.
"You missed! Use the skill, dammit!"
Zanshin tried again.
His mind screamed for control, for the precision he had known in his real life.
But his fear—the fear—locked his muscles in a useless, spasming clench. He swung the Glaive like a lead pipe, slow and clumsy. The boar easily sidestepped the attack.
The fight was over quickly, with the three other players scrambling to defeat the mob without Zanshin's help.
They scraped by, their HP bars taking unnecessary damage.
Tanki turned on Zanshin, his face purple with anger. "You're just useless! What are you doing with a Glaive if you can't even trigger the basic Horizontal Arc?"
"I… I can't," Zanshin whispered, avoiding eye contact.
The shame was a crushing physical weight, validating every fear he had ever held.
"You can't? You're shaking like a leaf, man! You spent all your skill points on 'Trembling'?" The mace-user snickered, earning a sharp look from Tanki.
Tanki stepped closer, his voice low and dangerous.
"Look, we can't afford to carry dead weight, especially not fancy-looking dead weight. But you've got that stupid bright hair and those eyes. They draw attention better than any taunt skill."
He jammed his finger hard into Zanshin's chest.
"New plan, bait. You don't fight. You run out, flash those freakish looks, pull the aggro, and run a wide loop back to us. We'll kill it while it chases you."
The whip-user grinned, a cruel look crossing his face.
"Yeah, Zanshin the Target! With that pale skin and hair, we should call him… meat shield."
Internalizing the Label
The name, Meat Shield, hit Zanshin with chilling accuracy.
It was perfect. It defined his total failure and gave him a clear, sacrificial purpose.
He was worthless, and worthless as a companion. He was only valuable as a bait a shield, a disposable item to draw the enemy's attention away from the real survivors.
He accepted the nickname and the role immediately.
His goal had been to be without consequence, and now he had found it: he was designed to be consumed.
"Meat Shield it is," Tanki declared, satisfied.
"Now, go. Bait us a boar. And for God's sake, don't trip."
Zanshin nodded, his face utterly devoid of expression.
The intense, internal pressure—the anxiety, the guilt, the shame—had suddenly flattened, replaced by a cold, emotional numbness. He was no longer himself.
He moved toward the next boar with a strange, detached focus.
He made no attempt to attack.
Instead, he simply ran toward the mob, stopped just within its detection range, and stood still, letting his shimmering white hair and golden eyes act as the lure.
The boar saw the easy, motionless target and charged.
Just as the mob closed in, Zanshin broke into a clumsy, terrified sprint, leading the mob straight back toward Tanki and the others, who ambushed it and quickly finished the job.
Zanshin survived the rotation, but every successful drop of Col, every piece of recovered bread, came at the cost of his self-worth.
By the end of the day, his mind was numb, his muscles were aching from the forced, frantic sprinting, and his inventory contained enough meager funds to cover another three days of survival.
As the temporary party split,
Zanshin walked away alone, the cruel nickname echoing in his empty head.
He knew he had to keep leveling, keep earning, keep fighting the slow death of starvation.
And the only way he could do that was by continuing to be Bait.
The risk of death was constant, but the risk of causing someone else's death—the true terror—was minimized in his new role as a disposable decoy.
He had chosen survival through self-sacrifice.