Chapter 1: The Last Cut
The knife went in like it was cutting meat.
I stared at the blade buried in my stomach, then at the man holding it. The fluorescent lights of Park's Butcher Shop flickered overhead, casting jagged shadows across the bloodstained floor. His face was a blur of cheap alcohol and desperation.
"Give me the register," he slurred, twisting the knife. "Give it now."
Blood soaked through my white apron. The same apron I'd worn for three years, working the night shift. Minimum wage. No future. Just me, a cleaver, and the endless carcasses that passed through my hands.
Behind me, Mi-sook was crying. She was nineteen, a part-timer, the only coworker who didn't treat me like furniture.
The robber hadn't seen her. His eyes were locked on mine, wild and shaking.
I could have stepped aside. Let him take the cash. Let him run. Called the cops after. The sensible thing. The safe thing.
But I'd spent three years carving dead animals. I knew exactly how much force it took to separate flesh from bone. I knew the sound a blade made when it hit something vital.
And I was tired of being a nobody.
I grabbed his wrist.
His eyes widened. "What the—"
I pulled the knife deeper.
Pain exploded through my gut like liquid fire. My knees buckled. But I'd gutted a thousand pigs. I knew exactly how much a body could take before it stopped.
I smiled through the blood bubbling in my throat. "You picked the wrong shop."
He yanked the knife free and raised it again.
Mi-sook's scream was the last thing I heard. That, and the clatter of my body hitting the cold floor.
The fluorescent lights flickered above me like dying stars.
I never even got to make something of myself.
That was my final thought.
---
Darkness.
Then—
\[SYSTEM ACTIVATION DETECTED\]
\[INITIALIZING…\]
\[TRANSMIGRATION PROTOCOL: ENGAGED\]
\[DESIGNATING HOST CLASS…\]
A voice. Mechanical. Absolute. It carved itself into my consciousness.
\[CLASS ASSIGNMENT: BUTCHER (F-RANK)\]
\[CLASS DESCRIPTION: A common profession focused on processing meat and materials. Combat capability: Minimal. Utility: Low. Recommended role: Civilian support.\]
F-rank.
Of course.
I tried to laugh, but I didn't have a body anymore. Just awareness floating in an endless dark.
A moment passed. Then another.
\[ERROR. ANOMALY DETECTED.\]
\[HOST SOUL COMPATIBILITY: 0.03%. STANDARD TRANSMIGRATION FAILURE IMMINENT.\]
Failure. Even in death, I was a failure.
\[INITIATING EMERGENCY PROTOCOL…\]
\[FORCED TRANSMIGRATION TO NEAREST COMPATIBLE VESSEL…\]
\[TARGET FOUND. WORLD: UNKNOWN. HOST AGE: 17. STATUS: RECENTLY DECEASED. SUITABILITY: 87%. DEPLOYING…\]
The darkness cracked. Light poured in like a flood.
---
I opened my eyes.
Fluorescent lights.
Again with the fluorescent lights.
I was sitting at a desk. Small hands. Too small. Pale, skinny fingers wrapped around a worn wooden surface. I looked down—a school uniform, cheap fabric, a name tag pinned to the chest that read Kang Jin-ho.
Memories slammed into me like a freight train.
Not my memories. His.
A seventeen-year-old boy. Bullied. Weak. Father disappeared three years ago investigating something called "System irregularities." Mother worked two jobs, barely kept food on the table. The boy had no friends, no future, no reason to live.
He'd died in this very classroom, ten minutes ago. Heart failure. The shock of what was about to happen had been too much for his weak body.
And now I was wearing his skin.
I sucked in a breath. The air tasted different here—sharper, cleaner, with an undercurrent of something electric.
The voice in my head wasn't finished.
\[TRANSMIGRATION COMPLETE.\]
\[CLASS LOCKED: BUTCHER (F-RANK)\]
\[WELCOME TO THE SYSTEM.\]
Around me, the classroom erupted.
"S-rank! I got S-rank Mage!"
"A-rank Warrior! Yes! I'm going to be a hunter!"
"I'm… C-rank Healer. Not bad. Not bad at all."
Students leaped from their seats, their faces lit with joy or disappointment. Floating screens hovered in front of each of them, glowing with class assignments, stats, skills.
Everyone was getting their classes.
I looked at my own screen.
---
[Kang Jin-ho]
Class: Butcher (F-Rank)
Level: 1
Strength: 8
Agility: 7
Vitality: 9
Magic: 0
Skills: Butchering Lv.1
---
Eight strength. Seven agility. Zero magic.
A boy behind me snorted loud enough for the whole room to hear. "Butcher? What a waste. Even the janitor got a D-rank."
"Didn't his dad disappear or something?" another whispered. "Probably why he's so pathetic. Genetics, you know?"
Laughter. Familiar. I'd heard it in my past life too, in different voices, different faces. It was always the same.
I didn't turn around. My fingers traced the desk. The wood was warm. Real.
I was alive.
That was more than I'd had five minutes ago.
A girl's voice cut through the noise. "Everyone, quiet down! The System announcement isn't over!"
Han Seo-yoon. Class president. Long black hair, sharp eyes, the kind of beauty that made boys stutter and girls jealous. Her screen floated beside her with glowing text: A-Rank Paladin.
She scanned the room with authority, then paused on me. Her eyes flickered to my screen. For a fraction of a second, something like pity crossed her face.
Then she looked away.
The System voice returned, louder this time, echoing off the walls.
\[SYSTEM APOCALYPSE: INITIATED\]
\[ALL HUMANS HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED CLASSES. MONSTER INVASIONS WILL COMMENCE IN 60 SECONDS.\]
\[OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE.\]
\[GOOD LUCK.\]
The classroom went silent.
Then someone screamed.
---
The windows shattered.
A goblin crashed through the glass, trailing shards like rain. It was barely four feet tall, green-skinned, and holding a rusted blade. Its mouth stretched into a grin full of needle teeth.
Screaming. Blood. Chaos.
The teacher—Mr. Choi, a kind-faced man who'd been talking about career paths five minutes ago—lunged forward. His screen identified him as a C-rank Shieldbearer. A translucent barrier flickered to life in front of him.
The goblin's blade cut through it like paper.
Mr. Choi's body hit the floor, twitching, a red line drawn across his throat. The goblin licked its blade clean, its grin never wavering.
\[ALERT: MONSTER INVASION – SEOUL ACADEMY\]
\[REMAINING STUDENTS: 28\]
\[SURVIVE.\]
Students scrambled. Some tried to fight with their newly awakened skills. A boy with an A-rank Swordsman class swung at the goblin with a summoned blade of light—and missed wildly. The goblin carved open his chest in response.
Another student, a B-rank Archer, fired a glowing arrow that went wide, embedding itself in the wall. A girl with a D-rank Healer class stood frozen, tears streaming down her face.
The goblin cackled. It moved like a snake, fast and unpredictable, cutting down anyone who got close.
I didn't move.
My hand went to my bag. Old leather, worn at the seams. I unzipped it slowly, deliberately, while the chaos raged around me.
Inside: a lunchbox. Cheap steel, dented corners. I opened it.
A kitchen knife. Small, dull, meant for cutting fruit, not flesh.
I picked it up anyway. The weight was familiar. Comforting.
I'd spent three years holding a cleaver. I knew the feel of a blade in my hand. I knew the grain of muscle, the texture of sinew, the exact angle needed to separate joint from socket. I'd processed a thousand animals.
A goblin was just another carcass waiting to be broken down.
The goblin finished with the swordsman boy and turned. Its eyes scanned the room, found the frozen Healer girl, and licked its lips.
It lunged.
I moved.
Not toward the goblin—toward the girl. I grabbed her arm, yanked her behind me, and planted my feet.
The goblin's blade came down.
I sidestepped—eight inches to the left, exactly like dodging a swinging carcass hook in the butcher shop—and the rusted steel whistled past my ear. Close. Too close.
But I was already inside its guard.
The kitchen knife drove into its throat.
Steel met cartilage. I felt the resistance, the way the blade wanted to slide off. My past life's muscle memory took over. I twisted, pulled, and the knife came free in a spray of dark blood.
The goblin collapsed.
\[Goblin defeated. Experience gained.\]
\[Butcher skill activated. Processing…\]
\[Strength +2\]
\[Agility +1\]
\[Skill acquired: Dagger Mastery Lv.1\]
Warmth flooded my limbs. Strength poured into muscles that had been weak seconds ago. My grip tightened on the knife, my stance settled into something more grounded, more dangerous.
I looked at the blood on my hands.
My past life had been a joke. A butcher's apprentice who died for nothing, who never amounted to anything, who was forgotten the moment his body hit the floor.
But this life?
This life, I was starting with a blade in my hand and a System that rewarded me for doing what I already knew how to do.
I wiped the blade on my sleeve and stood.
Behind me, the Healer girl was staring with wide eyes. "Y-you… you killed it."
"I processed it," I said. "There's a difference."
A heavy footstep shook the hallway.
Then another.
Something larger than the goblin was coming. The students who had been fighting fell silent, their faces pale. Even Han Seo-yoon, the A-rank Paladin, had gone still.
Through the shattered window, I saw it.
A hobgoblin.
Eight feet of muscle and rage. Its skin was mottled gray, crisscrossed with old scars. A crude club hung from its belt, stained with something dark. Its eyes were small and intelligent, scanning the classroom with the cold calculation of a predator.
It was dragging something.
A student. A girl in a torn uniform, her long black hair matted with blood. Unconscious. Helpless.
Han Seo-yoon.
The hobgoblin tossed her aside like garbage. She hit the floor and didn't move.
It roared.
The sound was a physical force, rattling the windows, shaking dust from the ceiling. Students screamed. A few ran for the exits. One collapsed, clutching his ears.
I didn't move.
I was watching the hobgoblin's joints. The way it shifted its weight. The way its neck muscles bunched when it roared.
The neck. Major arteries, thin muscle covering. One clean cut and it bleeds out in seconds.
The knees. Forward-jointed, like a pig's. Sever the tendons and it can't chase.
The eyes. Sensitive. A distraction.
I looked down at my knife. Dull. Small. Useless against something that big.
But I had three goblin corpses on the floor. And a Butchering skill that let me use every part of a kill.
I turned and ran.
Not away from the hobgoblin. Toward the emergency exit. I shoved through the door, ignoring the shouts behind me, and ducked into a supply closet.
I dropped the goblin corpse I'd grabbed on the floor. My hands moved automatically, guided by Butchering Lv.1.
Ten minutes. That was all the time I had before the hobgoblin finished with the classroom and came looking.
Ten minutes to turn a goblin into weapons.
I worked fast.
The hide came off first. Tough, but flexible. I stripped it in long sheets, my knife finding the seams between muscle and skin with practiced ease. \[Goblin Leather obtained.\]
Then the bones. I cracked the joints, extracted the long bones of the arms and legs. They were harder than steel, lighter than they looked. I sharpened one against the concrete floor until it had a point. \[Goblin Bone Spike obtained.\] I made three.
The meat I separated into strips. I'd read somewhere that goblin flesh had natural healing properties when prepared right. I didn't have fire, but I had my knife and a willingness to experiment. I minced the meat, mixed it with a cleaning solution I found in the closet—some industrial solvent that was probably toxic to humans but reacted with the goblin's proteins—and packed it into a small container.
\[Minor Healing Paste obtained.\]
It would have to do.
I stood, testing the weight of my new weapons. The bone spikes were balanced, aerodynamic. The leather could be wrapped around my forearms as armor. And the healing paste might buy me another minute of life if I needed it.
A System Message appeared in front of me, glowing gold instead of the usual white.
---
\[HIDDEN PATH DETECTED\]
\[Butcher class growth is not limited by standard ranking. Harvest unique creatures to unlock abilities beyond normal progression.\]
\[First special condition: Harvest a creature at least two ranks above your current level.\]
\[Reward: Evolution path unlock. Class upgrade chance.\]
---
I read the message twice.
Two ranks above me. The hobgoblin was estimated to be C-rank. My class was F-rank.
That was two full ranks.
And the reward was a chance to upgrade my class.
I looked through the closet's vent. The cafeteria was visible through the narrow slats. The hobgoblin had gathered the surviving students, herding them toward the center. Han Seo-yoon was tied up now, still unconscious. The other students were bound with rope, their faces pale with terror.
The hobgoblin sat on an overturned table, chewing on something that used to be a person. It was smiling.
I had six monsters to deal with. One hobgoblin, five goblins.
Against a single knife, three bone spikes, and a class everyone called useless.
In my past life, I would have hidden. Waited for rescue. Been a good, safe nobody.
But this world didn't reward safety. This world rewarded the ones willing to get their hands dirty. The ones willing to carve their own path.
I smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.
"Time to go back to work."
I kicked open the closet door and stepped into the hallway.
---
From outside the cafeteria windows, a pigeon watched.
Its eyes were too bright, too focused. It sat on a branch, ignoring the chaos below, its head tilted as if listening to something far away.
Behind those avian eyes, a presence stirred. Boredom. Then, a flicker of interest.
"A Butcher," a voice whispered in no language a human could hear. "In this harvest cycle? How… nostalgic."
The pigeon's head turned toward the boy in the bloodstained school uniform. Its gaze lingered.
"Let's see how far you get."
---
The goblin nearest to me turned.
My first bone spike caught it in the eye socket before it could scream.
\[Goblin defeated.\]
\[Strength +1\]
I was already moving.
---
End of Chapter 1