Time dulled the edges of memory. Or maybe it only dulled the parts that hurt to touch.
After Gate 314, Kai lived under the name Lucky Zero—the man who had stumbled out of a collapsed raid when no one else had. To the guilds, it wasn't praise. It was mockery. "He survives because he hides," they said. "Because he doesn't fight."
Still, some parties took him. Not because they believed in him, but because every raid needed someone to carry packs, drag corpses, or serve as a shield in emergencies.
Kai accepted it. Quietly, grimly. For his mother. For his sister.
The next few raids blurred.
In one, he carried three extra packs of potions, ribs aching under the weight, while the frontline boasted about kill counts. In another, he was shoved aside when monsters lunged, the team too busy to watch him trip and bleed. Each time, the exit light washed over him like a reminder: you lived, and others didn't.
Whispers did not return. The glow of his Mark had been a dream.
He convinced himself of that.
Until the raid in Gate 327.
It was supposed to be simple. C-rank goblin nest.
"Stay behind," the captain sneered at him. "If you get eaten, don't scream too loud." Laughter followed.
Kai gritted his teeth. He thought of his mother's pale hands, the way she pressed her shawl tighter each winter. He thought of his sister, too thin for her age. He swallowed the insult and stayed at the rear.
The dungeon smelled of smoke and sulfur. Torches flickered against damp walls. Goblins shrieked in the distance, but the frontline cut through them with ease.
Kai's role: pick up dropped gear, pack the loot, stay invisible.
They never waited for him.
The raid team pressed forward through the cavern, boots pounding in rhythm, torches bobbing in unison. Kai trailed behind, bent under the weight of extra gear, scavenging weapons and potions that others discarded mid-fight. His breath rasped, but no one turned back.
"Keep up, Zero," one of them barked without slowing.
Kai bent to retrieve a dagger dropped in haste. The group rounded the bend, voices fading. Shadows closed in.
That was when the brute came.
A goblin, but swollen—mutated, twice the size of the others, claws scraping sparks from the stone. It dropped from the ceiling in a spray of dust, jaws wide.
Kai froze. Too far behind. Too alone. Nobody would come. Nobody even remembered he was here.
Terror rooted him. He thought of his mother, frail in her bed. He thought of his sister waiting for him at the door, small and stubborn, pretending not to worry. He thought: this is where I end. Forgotten.
The brute lunged.
Kai raised his arms, helpless—
—when his Mark seared. A sudden ignition, like a dormant engine coughing to life. Lightless energy burst outward. The brute slammed against the cavern wall, chest caved in, body twitching once before collapsing.
Silence. Smoke. Kai's breath came ragged, his arms trembling.
A whisper cut through his skull, cold and mechanical:
[System initializing…]
A translucent panel blinked before his eyes—alien text, numbers, things he didn't understand—
[Resonant Eclipse System]
Sync: 0% (Undetectable)
Attributes: Strength 2, Endurance 3, Agility 2, Resonance ???
Status: Pathway locked
Then it vanished.
Kai blinked. His pulse thundered. Hallucination. That had to be it.
Footsteps pounded back toward him. Alek skidded into view, sword drawn. His eyes widened at the brute's corpse.
"What the hell? Did you kill this?"
Kai's throat clenched. The truth would only bring suspicion, fear, maybe worse.
"I… I don't know," he said hoarsely. "There was light… and then… the next moment it was just lying there."
Alek snorted. "Light? You mean you tripped and it had a heart attack?"
Others crowded back around the bend, torches flaring. They took one look at the brute, then at Kai—pale, shaking, empty-handed.
"No way," one scoffed. "A Zero Sync can't even scratch something like that."
"Maybe it laughed itself to death," another jeered.
"Lucky Zero strikes again." Harker spat, shaking his head. "Pathetic. Can't fight, can't die properly either."
Laughter spread, bitter and cruel. No one lingered on the dead brute. No one wanted to imagine that Kai had done something impossible.
Kai swallowed, keeping his eyes low. His Mark was dull again, his wrist bare of proof. Let them mock. Better this than attention.
He shouldered the gear and trudged after them, torchlight fading ahead.
But deep in his chest, where the whisper had lived, something still burned.
He didn't understand it. He didn't dare.
Not yet.