Waiting was a luxury he could no longer afford.
Jack lay awake in the oppressive silence of the barracks, the Bureau's 13-day timer a relentless pulse at the edge of his mind. Eleven lives had already been harvested in his dungeon. Eleven points of power. Pathetic. He replayed the Essence Ledger revelation again and again: weeds yield nothing. If he wanted real strength, he needed wolves.
But before he could hunt wolves, he had to sharpen his own fangs.
He flexed his hand, feeling the quiet, unnatural hum of [Minor Regeneration]. It was a margin of safety, yes, but it was also a liability a passive defense that did nothing to help him kill. For weeks, he had hidden behind masks, calculations, and the convenient deaths of others. The thought irritated him. If he wanted more, he needed to step forward himself.
The next day, Unit 17 was dispatched on another Hazard Clearance patrol. A stretch of service tunnels, supposedly infested with hobgoblins. The kind of dull, miserable task designed to grind down orphans until they broke or died.
The unit shuffled along like sleepwalkers. The front line carried dented shields. The rear dragged makeshift spears. Sergeant Vale barked orders in his usual voice of contempt, his tone promising that failure meant pain. From a distance, Proctor Sarah observed with her arms crossed, her eyes cold, sharp, always lingering on him. Looking for weakness. Looking for deviation.
Jack kept his mask firmly in place: the quiet, wide-eyed coward at the back. But today, he was waiting. Watching. Hunting for his moment.
The first clash was chaos.
Three hobgoblins barreled into the shield wall with snarls, their crude weapons hacking and scraping. The unit's formation wavered instantly. Shields nearly collapsed under the weight. One boy screamed as his arm bent the wrong way.
And then, as if summoned by fate, a lone hobgoblin its eye gouged during the initial melee broke free from the press. It stumbled blindly, then fixed on the straggler at the back.
On him.
Normally, this was his cue: trip, scream, let someone else intervene. That was the mask everyone expected. Vale expected it. Sarah expected it. Even the orphans expected it.
He hesitated for only a fraction of a second. Then, he chose.
Jack raised his hand. Mana coiled in his palm, unstable, trembling. He loosed it.
The [Mana Bolt] sputtered out, striking the hobgoblin's shoulder instead of its chest. A flash of burned leather, a snarl of pain but not a kill.
The beast roared and surged forward, claws outstretched. Its rancid breath hit his face as it closed the gap. Too close.
For a heartbeat, instinct screamed: stumble back, fall down, hide.
Instead, he planted his feet. He cut the mana tighter, sharper.
The second bolt was cleaner, faster. Blue-white energy speared through the hobgoblin's skull, just above its remaining eye.
The monster collapsed mid-leap, crashing to the ground in a twitching heap, its claws swiping harmless air inches from his cheek.
Silence.
For Jack, the world froze as a clean notification flickered across his vision:
[Monster slain by host.]
[EXP Gained: +4.]
[You have reached Level 3.]
[+5 Stat Points Acquired.]
[3 points automatically allocated: +1 Strength, +1 Agility, +1 Perception.]
[2 Free Points Remaining.]
The surge was immediate. He felt his body sharpen his muscles tauter, his reflexes quicker, his vision clearer. He funneled the two free points into Mana, and the shallow well inside him deepened ever so slightly.
He was stronger. Tangibly, undeniably stronger.
And yet, what struck him most wasn't the power. It was the feeling.
Killing through tenants had always been abstract a clean stream of numbers and notifications. But this seeing the life leave a creature's eyes, feeling the recoil in his arm, the sound of the body hitting the ground this was different. It was raw. Real. Addictive.
A shard of cold truth pierced through him: violence wasn't just a tool. It was a thrill.
"About time you did something," Vale grunted, barely glancing his way. To him, it was just a low-rank mage finally pulling his weight.
Sarah, though Sarah's eyes lingered. She tilted her head, sharp as a hawk sighting prey. A note written in her mind, no doubt: too clean for a boy who's never killed before. She said nothing, but Jack caught the suspicion flicker in her gaze.
The other orphans whispered. A mix of awe and unease. But when Vale barked again, they dismissed it, chalking it up to luck. Only Maria's hollow stare clung to him longer than it should.
Jack forced his hands to tremble, his knees to shake, his lips to quiver. The performance was perfect. On the surface, he was still the frightened, lucky boy who had panicked and gotten a lucky shot.
Inside, though, his mind was already racing.
If I can kill F-rank hobgoblins this easily… what about E-rank?
The skirmish ended in the usual mess of blood and exhaustion. Unit 17 limped back with minor wounds, rattled as always. While the others scavenged the corpses for usable scraps, Jack quietly palmed a jagged, bone-handled dagger from the hobgoblin he had slain. To them, it was trash. To him, it was opportunity.
That night, back in the barracks, he opened his Dungeon Interface in silence. He seeded the dagger into the loot table, designating it as a rare drop. To the others, it would look like fortune. To him, it was bait another cog in the machine.
He lay back on his bunk, staring at the dark ceiling.
[Level: 3]
[Stat Ledger: +11 (Tenant Deaths). Randomized Distribution Applied.]
The hum of [Minor Regeneration] was still in his body, a quiet safety net. But it paled compared to the satisfaction of today's kill.
The truth crystallized, clear as ice.
Sheep fatten me. Wolves will make me ascend. But to slaughter wolves… I must first sharpen my own fangs.