Marie awoke to a shaft of late morning light slicing through the cracks in her blinds. For a moment, she lay motionless, eyes fixed on the ceiling as the warm glow illuminated the dust in the air. Her body protested as she moved, soreness blooming across every limb, but it was a different kind of pain than the day before. No longer sharp and immediate—it had settled into a dull, exhausted ache.
Still, she felt... alive.
The events of yesterday drifted back in pieces: the blood, the mutated orc, the screams of her classmates, the splintered bones and shattered pride. And yet, here she was.
Alive.
She sat up, rubbing her eyes and wincing at the stiffness in her shoulders. Her room, as always, was barely more than a box: stained walls, a single narrow window, and furniture that had seen better decades. Her satchel lay where she'd dropped it last night. Her boots still caked with grime.
Just as she swung her legs over the bed, a knock rattled the door.
No. Not a knock. A pounding.
She tensed instantly.
"Williams!"
The voice on the other side was deep, rough, and unmistakable. Mr. Kepler. Her landlord.
"I know you're in there! Your rent's two weeks late. You think you can just disappear? I've got other people waiting for this room."
Marie's heart thudded in her chest. She moved slowly, rising with deliberate slowness. She didn't want to deal with this. Not today. But Kepler wasn't the kind of man who went away.
"Come on now," he continued, voice slick now. "Maybe we can work something out... if you can't pay the usual way."
Marie felt her stomach turn. She clenched her fists, teeth grinding.
"Hold on," she called, trying to keep her voice even.
She grabbed her cracked datapad from the nightstand and logged into her bank account. 793 credits. Still there. Still enough.
She transferred 350 credits—the amount they had agreed on months ago before he started making vague threats and dropping hints about "alternative arrangements." Her new balance dropped to 443 credits—still decent, but already slipping from the brief sense of security she'd felt the night before. before he started making vague threats and dropping hints about "alternative arrangements."
A soft beep confirmed the transaction.
Marie marched to the door, undid the lock, and opened it just enough to meet Kepler's eyes through the gap.
"Check your account."
He blinked at her. "What?"
"You got your money. Now leave."
He scowled, pulling a cheap-looking handheld from his coat pocket. It buzzed after a second.
"Huh. You did pay."
He looked up again, his eyes trailing across her sleep-creased face, the dried blood still crusted in her hairline.
"Rough night?"
Marie met his gaze without flinching. "Leave. Now."
He chuckled. "You know, you're lucky. This area's getting expensive. You might want to be a little nicer to people who can make things easier for you."
She didn't respond. She simply closed the door.
Locked it. Double-locked it.
Only then did she allow herself to slump back against it, knees giving out as she slid to the floor.
Later, after a shower that turned the water brown and nearly drained the last of her building's lukewarm supply, Marie found herself sitting at her tiny kitchenette. A real meal. That's what she wanted.
Her fridge was mostly empty—two nutrient bars, a bottle of synthetic milk, and something that might once have been cheese. Disgusting.
She opened the meal delivery app and scrolled past the expensive listings. Too many zeros. Then she found a modest grocery bundle: rice, eggs, soy protein, basic vegetables. 60 credits. She paid it without hesitation, bringing her balance down to 383 credits.
Twenty minutes later, the food arrived in a worn-out delivery drone that buzzed like it was dying. Marie unpacked the groceries with reverent care. She washed the vegetables, cracked the eggs, seasoned everything with the tiny pouch of soy-sauce-like fluid that came bundled.
When the first bite of hot food hit her tongue, she closed her eyes.
Warm. Savory. Real.
Her stomach, empty for so long, twisted with hunger, and she ate slowly, methodically. She didn't want to waste a single grain of rice.
That evening, wrapped in a threadbare blanket, she finally opened the system interface.
The same glowing panels from yesterday materialized with a soft shimmer. This time, her eyes didn't skip over them. She read carefully.
Status: E-Rank (1,835 Stat Points)
It felt surreal. A week ago, she hadn't even been awakened. Now, she was one full rank above what most 16-year-olds achieved in a year.
But that didn't make her strong. Not really. Her gear was trash. Her experience nearly zero. She had two passive skills—one she could feel working in the background, and one she didn't fully understand at all.
She tapped the side panel.
Passive Skill: Echo's Luck [F]
Effect: Whispers of past battles linger in the air around her. Sometimes, when her enemies fall, fragments of their essence flicker briefly—echoes yearning to be understood, to be claimed.
It didn't feel simple at all. Not to her. She hadn't chosen this skill, hadn't understood it when it appeared. All she knew was that after surviving that monster—after watching it die in front of her—she had suddenly gained a Skillshard. There had been no flash, no voice, no system message explaining it. Just... the shard, sitting in her inventory. And now, this new screen, this cryptic description. That was it.
No real instructions. No confirmation it had even come from her actions.
She needed to test it. Observe. Track the outcomes. Try to make sense of what triggered what—and if it was random, or something deeper.
She pulled up the Association's public dungeon access listings and filtered for E-Rank solo-clearable dungeons.
A few names stood out:
Blisterroot Caverns [E-Rank] – An abandoned mine infested with rock beetles and crystal lice. Small but tight tunnels, low visibility. Gear risk: Medium.Verdant Nest [E-Rank] – A forest zone overtaken by insectoid creatures. Known for wide sight lines but erratic enemy behavior. Gear risk: High.Old Spire Sewer Runoff [E-Rank] – A collapsed section of the ancient city sewers. Slimes, mutated rodents. Known for poison hazards. Gear risk: Low to Medium.
Marie frowned.
The first seemed claustrophobic and dangerous without proper armor. The second was out. Insectoids were fast, unpredictable. The third...
She highlighted it.
Low to medium gear risk. Enemies she could likely outrun. Environmental hazards she could manage with caution.
It wasn't a good dungeon.
But it might be her dungeon.
She bookmarked it.
Then, she wrote a list on an old piece of notepaper:
Get cheap antidotesRepair bootsWash and patch uniformBuy cheap torch or glowstick
She stared at it for a long moment.
Then she flipped the paper over.
And wrote:
Survive. Level. Understand.
Her hands were still trembling slightly, but it wasn't from fear.
It was from purpose.