The shelter in Block 17 wasn't a home; it was an open wound in the side of an abandoned warehouse. The corrugated iron walls vibrated under the blows of the acid wind, emitting a metallic groan that sounded like the sector's dying breath.
I entered, closing the entrance with a piece of rotten plywood. The darkness welcomed me like an old friend who asks for nothing. I sat on the cold concrete floor and waited for the tremors in my hands to stop. It wasn't fear. It was a glycemic crash.
«Biological status analysis: Energy reserves at 12%. Tissue integrity: worsening. Diagnosis: Imminent starvation».
My brain, that broken mechanism that never stopped calculating, began tracing the vectors of my survival. The System had discarded me. I would have no rations, no regeneration skills, no loot from official dungeons. To the world, I was already dead. But the world was bad at math.
The Friction of Kindness
I heard footsteps outside. Shuffling, heavy steps, weighed down by an exhaustion that no magic potion could cure.
I approached the crack between the metal sheets. It was Barnaby. An old NIL who had survived sixty years in Sector Z simply by becoming invisible. Barnaby was the man who had taught me to distinguish the mushrooms that grow on exhaust pipes from the ones that kill you in three minutes.
But tonight, Barnaby had made a mistake. He was wearing a pair of synthetic leather boots—likely scrap loot fallen from a Country freight wagon—and was clutching a sealed pack of protein bars to his chest.
Seeing him didn't trigger gratitude in me. It triggered a calculation.
Asset 1: Bars (caloric intake sufficient for three days of intensive training).
Asset 2: Footwear (thermal protection and 15% increase in movement efficiency).
I felt a pang in my stomach. It wasn't hunger. It was the last residue of what people call a "soul." But my brain had broken long ago under the weight of the ash. Barnaby's kindness was just statistical noise. A useless data point in an equation of life or death.
The First Predation
I stepped into the shadows of the alley. The air tasted of ozone; a Grade E dungeon must have opened a few blocks away, spilling the stench of monsters and raw magic into the air.
«Barnaby», I whispered.
The old man turned, smiling with his few remaining teeth. «Hey, kid... look what I found. Come, let's share...»
I didn't let him finish. My coldness descended like a guillotine, isolating his smile in a memory compartment I would never open again. I grabbed a piece of rusted rebar I kept hidden behind my back.
«Impact point: temporal bone. Force required: minimal».
I hit him. It was a dull thud, like a dry branch snapping in the mud. Barnaby fell without a scream. I began stripping him with mechanical precision, ignoring the heat still emanating from his body. I slid off his boots and took the bars. I didn't look at his face. Looking at the face would activate mirror neurons, and I couldn't afford that energy expenditure.
Suddenly, a grayish light pulsed before my eyes.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION] > Entity Eliminated: NIL #4.201 (Barnaby)
Experience Gained: 0.00012%
Progress to Level 1: 0.00012%
Note: Eliminating worthless entities produces negligible results. Keep it up, Zero. Maybe in a million years, you'll be a speck of dust in a Metropolis.
I stared at that number: 0.00012%.
A harsh, bitter laugh erupted in my chest, vanishing almost instantly into the cold air. I had just killed the only person who had ever reached out to me for a decimal increase that didn't even reach the first significant digit. The System was mocking me. It was showing me that even if I became a monster, I remained insignificant.
I went back to my shelter and put on the boots. They were loose, but they were warm. I began eating the first bar, feeling the chemical taste of protein invade my body.
«One thousand days», I whispered to the dark.
One thousand days was the time my brain had calculated to transform this emaciated shell of flesh into a tool capable of climbing the abyss. If the System didn't give me a Class, I would force my body to become a class of its own. No magic, no skills unlocked from the sky. Just logic, labor, and a will stripped to the bone.
I dropped to the floor and began the first set of push-ups. One. Two. Ten. Every time my chest touched the concrete, I stared at the 0.00012% notification. It wasn't a prize. It was a scar.
I would rise. Not as a hero from the fable of the Radiant Monarch, but as the monster Sector Z had created. One step at a time, made of bone and calculations.