The bathroom mirror didn't lie.
Quentin stood shirtless in front of the cracked glass, the one his father had punched one night too many. His reflection showed him exactly what he was: a skinny body, ribs visible beneath the skin, a purplish bruise spreading across his entire left side. The cut on his arm had dried into a dark scab. So had the one on his temple. He looked like he'd been in a car accident.
No one had noticed.
He'd come home the night before with the blood barely wiped off his sleeve, his gait twisted. His father had been asleep in front of the TV, an empty can in his hand. Quentin had walked past him like a ghost. Like always.
He pressed his fingers against the broken rib. The pain rose, sharp and clear—and something inside him coldly recorded it, like checking a box. *It hurts. But not as much as it should.*
The System appeared in the corner of his vision. He didn't need to summon it. It was there, patient, like an eye that never closed.
**[Physical condition: injured — natural recovery in progress]**
**[Bear's Fury — Cooldown: 19h 42m]**
**[Experience: 24/100]**
**[Hatred Orb: 79%]**
Nineteen hours. He couldn't use his skill again until tonight. Until then, he was what he'd always been—fragile.
He pulled on an oversized sweatshirt, the one that hid everything, and went downstairs.
High school hadn't changed.
That was the strangest thing. Quentin had killed two creatures the day before. He'd torn a limb off a living thing. He'd felt hatred flow through his veins like molten metal. And now he was sitting in French class, listening to Ms. Renault talk about Baudelaire.
*Les Fleurs du mal.* He almost smiled.
Everything around him was identical. The same plastic chairs, the same murmurs, the same gazes sliding over him without stopping. The world hadn't moved an inch. He was the one who had changed.
—Bear! Hey, Bear.
The voice came from his right. Kévin. Sitting two rows away, elbow on the desk, chin in his hand, wearing that proprietary smile he always had when he wanted something.
—You got the history homework? I didn't have time.
Quentin looked at him. Really looked at him, for the first time. He saw the broad shoulders, the square jaw, the easy confidence of someone who had never been afraid of anything because the world had always bent before him.
Yesterday, he would've pulled out the paper. Yesterday, he would've nodded and handed over the assignment without a word, telling himself it was easier that way.
Something cold passed through his chest.
—No.
The word came out on its own. Short. Flat. No anger, no provocation. Just—no.
Kévin blinked. Two or three heads turned around them. Bear had just said no. Bear never said no.
—What?
—I don't have your homework.
It was a lie. He did have it. He'd done it the day before, before going out, out of habit. The paper was in his bag, folded into quarters. But the words were out, and he didn't want to take them back.
Kévin stared at him for one second too long. Then he let out a little laugh, the kind you make when you haven't realized yet that you've just lost something.
—Are you serious right now?
Quentin didn't answer. He turned back toward the board.
**[Hatred Orb: 79%]**
The counter hadn't moved. Saying no wasn't hatred. It was just—the end of something.
The day passed. Slow, gray, identical to all the others. But Quentin moved through it differently. He watched. The hallways, the faces, the gestures. He noticed things he'd never seen before—or had always ignored.
The senior who shoved younger students without apologizing. The girl copying her neighbor's answers with a smile. The teacher looking at his phone while the students talked. Small cruelties, small acts of cowardice, piling on top of one another like bricks.
*That's what the world is like,* he thought. *It always has been. I was the one refusing to see it.*
At lunch, he sat alone in a corner of the courtyard, his back against the wall, and closed his eyes. The System pulsed softly.
**[Active quest: Survive. Become stronger. Never be left for dead again.]**
**[Secondary objective generated: eliminate 5 F-rank Wanderers]**
**[Reward: level up]**
**[Time limit: 72 hours]**
Five Wanderers. In seventy-two hours. With a skill that lasted less than a minute and a twenty-four-hour cooldown.
He opened his eyes again and looked at his hands. Thin. Pale. The same hands as yesterday—except there was still a dark trace beneath his nails that he hadn't managed to scrub away. Wanderer blood.
He closed his fists.
*Five. Okay.*
He returned to the industrial district at nightfall.
The warehouse was empty. The Rift had disappeared, the sky had gone back to being an ordinary sky, and there was no trace of the previous night's battle. No blood. No bodies. As if someone had cleaned everything up.
*The Awakened,* he realized. *They erase everything.*
He stood in the middle of the deserted parking lot, hands in his pockets, waiting. He didn't know how to find a Rift. He didn't know how this world worked. He didn't know anyone, had no information, no guide.
He was alone. Like always.
The System blinked.
**[Passive detection activated — range: 200 meters]**
**[No anomaly detected]**
He could detect Rifts. Not from far away, not precisely, but it was something. He started walking. Slowly at first, then faster, heading deeper into the industrial district, passing warehouses, fences, and empty lots.
After twenty minutes, the System pulsed.
**[Anomaly detected — 140 meters northeast]**
**[Type: micro-Rift — unstable]**
**[Estimated Wanderers: 1 to 3 — F-rank]**
His heart sped up. Not from fear. From impatience.
He checked the System.
**[Bear's Fury — available]**
**[Estimated duration: 47 seconds]**
Forty-seven seconds. Again. He'd have to make do.
He walked toward the signal. Behind an abandoned warehouse, the air trembled again—a smaller crack than the one from the day before, barely a meter high, pulsing weakly like a sick heart. A single Wanderer had come out of it. Smaller than yesterday's. It crawled across the concrete, its overlong limbs scraping the ground with the sound of fingernails dragging across glass.
Quentin stopped ten meters away.
The Wanderer sensed him. Its head turned—that same absence of a face, those same empty slits in place of eyes.
Quentin inhaled.
*Think about them. Think about everyone who watched you fall without reaching out a hand.*
Heat surged through him. Immediate. Brutal. As if his body had been waiting for exactly that.
**[Bear's Fury — Lv. 1 activated]**
He charged.
This time, he didn't swing blindly. He'd learned something the day before—not a technique, not a style. Just one simple truth: F-rank Wanderers were fragile. Fast, frightening, but fragile. One well-placed hit was enough.
The Wanderer sprang at him. Quentin pivoted, grabbed the creature by what looked like a neck, and squeezed. Hard. Harder. Until something gave beneath his fingers with a dull crack.
The thing crumpled.
**[F-rank Wanderer eliminated]**
**[Experience gained: +12]**
**[Quest progress: 3/5]**
**[Hatred Orb: 79%]**
Three out of five. Counting the ones from the day before.
He dropped the body. His hands weren't shaking. Bear's Fury still pulsed through his veins, hot and intoxicating—and he had thirty-eight seconds left.
The micro-Rift throbbed. A second Wanderer came out, then a third. More skittish than the first, they spread out on either side.
Quentin didn't retreat.
Thirty seconds. Two creatures. That was enough.
He threw himself at the closest one. The fight lasted eleven seconds. Two blows. The first broke something, the second finished it. The Wanderer collapsed without a sound.
The last one hesitated. Like the one from the day before. The hesitation of a beast sensing that the predator had changed sides.
Quentin didn't give it time to run. He covered the distance in three strides and struck—a downward blow, from high to low, with all the weight of his rage. The Wanderer's skull split open.
**[F-rank Wanderer eliminated]**
**[F-rank Wanderer eliminated]**
**[Experience gained: +24]**
**[Quest progress: 5/5 — COMPLETED]**
**[Total experience: 60/100]**
**[Hatred Orb: 80%]**
Eighty percent.
The number stayed displayed for a moment longer than the others. As if the System wanted to make sure he saw it.
Then a new notification appeared.
**[Hatred Threshold 80% reached]**
**[New skill unlocked: Predator's Instinct — Lv. 1]**
**[Effect: increased perception of enemy weak points. Permanent passive.]**
**[Kindness Fragment lost: 1/10]**
Quentin read the words twice. *Kindness Fragment lost.* The System didn't say which one. It didn't say what had disappeared. But Quentin felt something—a tiny, almost imperceptible emptiness, like a note removed from a chord. The melody continued. But it sounded different.
He lowered his eyes to the three Wanderer bodies slowly dissolving into the concrete, leaving behind only dark stains.
He felt nothing. No pride. No disgust. No satisfaction.
Only the cold certainty that he would come back tomorrow.
**[Bear's Fury — deactivated]**
**[Cooldown: 24 hours]**
The micro-Rift closed with a sigh. Silence fell over the industrial district. Quentin wiped his hands on his jeans, put his earbuds back in, and started home.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. A message from Kévin.
*“You'd better have my homework tomorrow.”*
Quentin read the message. He didn't reply. He didn't delete it, either. He left it there on the screen, like a relic from a world that no longer concerned him.
**[Hatred Orb: 80%]**
Somewhere in his chest, where kindness had lost its first fragment, something new was taking root. Not cruelty yet. Not darkness yet.
Just silence, where there had once been softness.