Leon's eyes widened, like soone had finally smacked him with an obvious thought he'd been stubbornly suppressing for the last fifteen minutes, drowned out by adrenaline, noise, and that stupid, fragile feeling of it'll work out sohow.
Almost on reflex, he looked down at his hands. Dirty. Sore. Still trembling faintly from the fight.
"I need a weapon…" he muttered under his breath, with that unpleasant churn in his gut that ca when you realized you'd been walking a razor-thin line without noticing. "And I need it fast."
He clenched his fingers like he was testing them, then let out a short, nervous laugh. Because even if his stats had climbed into territory that would've sounded insane yesterday, he was still just a human, no claws, no fangs, no armor. The idea of trying to punch through hardened muscle, thick bone, or plated exoskeletons with bare hands was ridiculous.
"And zombies…" he added more quietly, frowning. "I don't even want to touch them."
One scratch. One accidental brush of a nail or tooth. And it was over. Leon knew that too well now.
His gaze drifted to the last unopened box on the café floor, the Brown Box, the only one still untouched. For a mont he just stared at it, feeling that strange, irrational pressure, like this one item mattered more than it had any right to.
He crossed the few steps slowly, almost hesitant, as if the box might vanish just to spite him. The familiar, emotionless prompt appeared.
[Do you want to open Brown Box?]
Leon swallowed.
"Yes…" he said quietly, then, as if embarrassed by his own desperation, he added faster, almost under his breath, sowhere between hope and pleading. "Give a sword. Seriously. Just give a real sword."
Light burst from the box in that familiar system glow. Particles rose, hung in the air, then began to thicken and shape themselves. Leon was already opening his mouth, ready for either disappointnt or relief, when the form finally stabilized.
It wasn't a sword.
Two daggers lay on the floor amid fading sparks of light, sleek and symtrical, their blades unnaturally smooth, almost matte, swallowing light instead of reflecting it. Like the tal didn't quite belong to this world.
The system description snapped into place.
[Twin Fang of the Umbral Rift (Rare-class artifact)]
[Short-bladed weapons forged from condensed umbral alloy.]
[Extre penetration capability.]
[Effective against armored and reinforced targets below Level 40.]
[STR 5 | AGI 10]
Leon read line by line, and with each one his eyebrows climbed higher, his breathing sped up, and sothing inside his head clicked from careful calculation into sothing almost childish, pure excitent.
"Penetrate… almost anything… below forty…" he repeated under his breath, then looked at the stats again like the system had to be wrong. "Five Strength… ten Agility…"
Before he could stop himself, a smile crept onto his face, wide, honest, completely out of place in a room that still slled like blood and panic.
Valeria, who'd been watching with amusent, suddenly furrowed her brow and tilted her head, like sothing had just snapped into place for her too.
"Damn…" she murmured, more to herself than to him. "That rumor might actually have been true?"
Leon wasn't listening anymore.
He picked up the daggers, one in each hand. The instant his fingers closed around the grips, he felt the difference. Perfect balance. No wasted weight. Blades that didn't fight his movent but followed it, like they were an extension of his wrists rather than tools he had to force into place.
[Equipnt Effect Applied]
[Effect: 5 STR | 10 AGI]
He rotated them a few tis, testing grip and angles, watching how they responded. Fascination and relief twisted together in his chest, like soone who'd just been handed a tool he didn't even realize he'd been missing.
"Alright…" he said quietly, lifting both blades to eye level. "Maybe it's not a sword."
A specific kind of exhausted, genuine smile crossed his face, the expression of soone who'd just been handed a second chance.
"But it beats fighting zombies with my bare hands."
For a mont he just stood there, turning the daggers in his palms like he was trying to morize their weight, their balance, the texture of the tal beneath his fingers. He dragged his thumb carefully along the cold edge with the caution of soone who understood one mistake could cut him, while still not quite able to stop that childish curiosity you got when you'd been given a new toy.
Valeria watched for a few seconds, amused, then gave a light little clap. The motion was almost comically unnecessary, followed by an exaggerated sigh.
"Maybe instead of getting all worked up over your new toys," she drawled, mock-annoyed, "you'll look at the rest of the loot before I forget you're even here."
Her slender pale fingers pointed at the two scrolls on the floor, one plain white, the other faintly violet, both stark against the gri, dried blood, and crumbling fragnts of the old world.
Leon nodded, but he didn't even pretend he was setting the daggers down. He gathered both into one hand, gripping the handles with an irrational fear that if he let go they'd disappear, or soone would take them.
Valeria rolled her eyes, then shrugged.
"Still…" she admitted, almost reluctantly. "For a rare-class artifact? You got ridiculously lucky. People your level dream about daggers like that."
Leon didn't respond. He crouched by the white scroll and focused on the text that appeared before his eyes.
[Elite Soldier (Unclassified Skill) Tier - Expert]
He frowned and tilted his head.
"Elite Soldier…?" he echoed quietly, as if the na itself might carry so hidden aning.
The system, like it had been waiting, expanded the description.
[Elite Soldier (Unclassified Skill) Tier - Expert]
[Description: A passive skill. Upon learning this skill, the user acquires the combat experience, battlefield awareness, and tactical instincts equivalent to an elite soldier from the user's original world.]
Leon read slowly, line by line. His face shifted into that particular expression you got when sothing sounded too simple to be real.
"Wait…" he muttered, straightening a little. "So you're telling I just… learn how to fight? Like that? Like I've got years of training?"
He looked from the scroll to Valeria, searching for confirmation or denial, because it sounded like the kind of shortcut this world shouldn't give out for free.
Valeria didn't answer right away. She shifted more comfortably, leaning in a way that made her posture look effortless and careless, like she wasn't even aware of it. Her expression stayed calm, hard to read, as she watched Leon the way you watched soone standing before a door that would change the way they thought forever.
A familiar prompt appeared in Leon's vision.
[Do you want to learn Elite Soldier?]
The café fell into a heavier silence, broken only by distant, muffled sounds from the gym, voices, movent, the restless noise of people trying not to fall apart.
Leon stood still, staring at the floating window.
But he wasn't really seeing the letters anymore.
He saw the last hour replaying itself, images sliding into place in a pattern that felt far more uncomfortable than excitent over loot.
Because the truth was: ever since Essence Record had appeared, his body had stopped being an ordinary human body. He felt it in every burst of speed, every strike, every impact. With his current stats, he was stronger, faster, tougher than any normal student from a few days ago, and zombies, even higher-level ones, mostly died because they couldn't keep up with the tempo he forced on them.
He didn't beat them because he fought well.
He beat them because he hit harder than their structure could handle and moved faster than their reactions allowed.
And it worked… until it didn't.
The Violet Mutant Marten had been the first enemy to tear that illusion open. The second he faced sothing faster than him, or even just close, his stat advantage stopped being enough. He had no patterns. No drilled responses. No real experience fighting sothing that dictated the pace and shoved him into defense. Every decision had been improvisation, held together by instinct more than knowledge.
If Valeria hadn't spoken up about his unused stat points, and if he hadn't still had them… that fight could've ended very differently. Determination and Cold Mind didn't replace years of combat experience.
And Leon realized sothing both obvious and terrifying:
In this world, the biggest issue wasn't his weapon. Not the lack of artifacts. Not even the lack of overpowered skills.
It was that he still fought like soone who didn't fully understand the battlefield, soone who'd learned the rules by bleeding through them.
What he needed most wasn't lying on the floor as another box or blade.
He needed experience.
The kind that made your body react before your mind had ti to panic. The kind that let you predict movent instead of only answering it. The kind that decided who survived their first real fight against sothing stronger.
He looked at the system prompt again, then at the scroll on the floor.
There was no excitent in his eyes now. No hesitation.
Just a calm, cold decision from soone who'd finally understood what he actually lacked.
He nodded once. Slowly.
"Yes," he said quietly, more to himself than to the system.
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