Arya didn't move from her spot behind the marble counter. She froze like a statue of ice. The rhythmic tapping on the glass had transformed into a disgusting metallic scratching, as if something were trying to find a crack in her armor.
Who...?
She crept closer, holding her breath. She tilted her head, just barely, peering through the narrow gap. The answer made her stomach churn.
In that moment, it wasn't terror that seized her—it was a single question.
How?
How did it get here? The doors are locked. The fence is high. Did it climb the walls? Does it have that kind of ability?
It was no Common Monster. This was a grotesque creature with unnaturally elongated limbs, ending in hooked claws that were sunk deep into the wooden window frame. It clung to the kitchen wall like a massive insect, distributing its weight in a way that let it deliver powerful strikes with its free hand.
---
[Creature Status Board]
Type: Crawler Monster
Rank: E
Health: 200/200
Strength: 22
Constitution: 20
Agility: 17
---
There was no intelligence in it—not a shred. It pounded the glass with its fist, random and savage, driven by blind, ravenous instinct.
It's not looking for an entrance. It just wants to destroy whatever's separating it from me.
Arya retreated slowly across the kitchen floor. With each blow, the glass shrieked. Cracks spread like spiderwebs, branching wider and wider.
She backed away, her eyes locked on the creature, its gray veins bulging with every impact.
Rank E. Strength: 22. She compared the numbers in her head, cold sweat beading on her forehead. Its stats crush my raw strength. And its speed—17—means running is just sprinting toward my own grave. That glass won't hold for more than five more hits.
She looked at her trembling hand. A direct fight against a wrecking machine this size, in her exhausted state—pure suicide.
It's acting on animal instinct. The second the glass breaks, it'll charge straight in. It won't look at its feet. It won't care about anything but the prey in front of it.
But even through the paralysis, a cold idea sparked in her mind.
If the system turned the world into numbers, it didn't cancel the laws of physics. If I don't have the strength, I'll use my mind. The monster has the stats. I have the environment. It has instinct. I have the ability to turn that instinct into a trap.
Her eyes flicked to the chemical cleaners under the sink. Then to the bottles of oil.
It's fast—17 Agility. But speed means nothing when your feet lose all grip. Strength is useless when the floor becomes your enemy.
The tremor in her hand stopped. In its place: a focus sharp as a blade.
With quick, desperate movements, Arya began preparing a kill zone directly beneath the window. She pulled the caustic cleaning bottles from under the sink and poured them out in thick, generous streams. She followed them with a full liter of frying oil. The floor became a slick, burning sheet. She moved in absolute silence, balancing her body to keep pressure off her injured shoulder, fully aware that every second was dragging her closer to the moment the glass would blow.
She grabbed a broken broomstick. Using duct tape, she lashed the wide kitchen knife firmly to its end, crafting a crude spear—something that would give her reach. That crucial safety distance.
This is my last line of defense. Reach is all I have left.
CRAAACK!
The glass exploded. Fragments scattered like silver rain through the kitchen. The Crawler Monster surged through the opening like a cannonball of flesh and claws.
The instant its long limbs hit the contaminated floor, exactly what Arya had anticipated happened.
Its hooked claws skidded violently. It lost all control of its surging body mass. The monster crashed face-first onto the floor, now soaked in caustic chemicals. The hiss of its burning flesh filled the air, thick with a nauseating chemical reek. It scrambled to grab anything, but the oil had turned every surface into a mirror.
Now!
Arya bore down against the tearing pain in her shoulder. With all the weight she had left, she drove the crude spear toward its exposed throat as it thrashed in helpless fury. She felt the resistance of its tough hide—then the wet crunch of bone giving way under the spear's pressure. The monster convulsed, its long legs kicking at the air in a final death struggle. Its body began to dissolve, crumbling into fine gray dust.
The creature's body faded.
Arya stood alone in the wrecked kitchen, gasping, the crude spear shaking in her grip. Her eyes fell on something gleaming in the debris. Beside it, the system's message bloomed with its usual coldness.
---
[Target Eliminated: Crawler Monster — Rank E]
[Experience Gained: +10 XP]
[Reward: 7 Bronze Coins]
[Material Drop: Core Shard — Rank E]
[Skill Book Drop: Ice Arrow — Rank E]
---
Arya dropped to her knees, the oil soaking into her clothes, and she didn't care.
I killed it...
It wasn't a triumphant declaration. It was a trembling confession. Her hands were still clenched around the spear, even after the body had vanished into gray dust, already scattering on the air currents drifting through the shattered kitchen.
She let out a long, ragged exhale. The spear slipped from her fingers and clattered softly onto the slick floor.
Her heartbeat began to slow.
Her mind didn't.
She stared at the spot where the monster had been.
That thing—that thing that would have torn her apart if she'd made one wrong move.
I... I really fought something like that.
It wasn't like the video games she was used to. In those, losing was just a reset. A reload.
Here, every wrong choice meant death.
She lifted a trembling hand and wiped a dried streak of blood from her forehead. She forced herself upright. Her knees were shaking, but her body was beginning to reclaim some of the warmth it had lost.
Only then did she remember the system message.
She looked toward the faint light still hovering in the air, the rewards suspended above the floor. She moved closer, slowly.
A Core Shard—slightly larger than the last one. And beside it, a small book with a pale blue cover. The cover was made of a substance like leather, but tougher. Denser.
She reached for the coins first. They dissolved into the air the moment she touched them. A small window appeared.
[Balance: 32 Bronze Coins]
Then she picked up the Core Shard.
It settled into her palm, radiating a faint warmth, as if the remnants of the monster's energy were still churning inside it.
A Rank E Core Shard...
She stared at it for a moment. That creature's power had nearly torn her Shadow apart before. But power hadn't been everything. A slight tilt in the floor. Precise timing. One strike at exactly the right moment.
That's all it had taken.
She closed her fist around the shard. Monsters might be stronger.
But they weren't smarter.
What truly seized her attention, though—was the book.
She picked it up slowly. The second her fingers brushed the cover, a system window opened before her eyes.
---
[Skill Book: Ice Arrow — Rank E]
Description: This book contains a simple spell from the arts of ice. When read, the mage learns to launch an ice arrow that pierces the air, dealing moderate damage to the target, with a chance to reduce the opponent's speed.
· Base Damage: 20 damage
· Additional Effect: Reduces target's movement speed by 15% for 6 seconds
· Mana Cost: 15 Mana per use
· Cooldown: 1 minute between uses
· Skill Range: 20 meters (fired as a long-range arrow)
· Usage Requirements: Minimum Level: 10 | Class: Mage
---
Arya's eyes widened.
A skill...?
She turned the book over in her hands, astonished, as if she expected to be able to flip through its pages like a normal book. She ran her fingers over the cold blue cover. A prickling sensation bit into her skin, like tiny needles of ice.
Ice Arrow. Long-range damage. She whispered it, the wonder mixing with a bitter disappointment that surfaced on her face the moment she read the requirements line.
Level 10? Class: Mage?
She let out a bitter laugh, looking at her hands—still stained with oil and grime.
I'm barely Level 1. I don't even have a Class. The system hands me a weapon, then tells me I'm too weak to hold it.
The book weighed more in her hand than paper and leather. It weighed a future she hadn't reached yet. She slipped it into her pocket next to the Core Shard. She felt its coldness press against her thigh—a permanent reminder of how small she was in this deadly game.
Her contemplation didn't last.
The stench of the fading monster still hung in the air. The shattered window was a gaping hole, screaming at her false sense of safety. She looked out at the street through the opening. Darkness was beginning to creep in. The silence outside wasn't comforting.
It was the silence before the next predator.
No time to stand here stunned, she said, her voice hardening. Skills won't protect me. If one got in, more will come. I have to seal the entrances.
After the monster was gone, the weight of her body and the exhaustion pressed down on her. But she didn't stop. She knew temporary safety wasn't safety at all.
She started dragging heavy furniture behind doors, shoving tables and cabinets to block passageways, creating barriers against anything that might try to slip in next. Every movement was grueling. But it left its mark on the oil-and-cleaner-slick floor.
Then she made her way carefully up the stairs, her eyes scanning everything. At her room, she barricaded the door with a table and shoved her wardrobe in front of the window. If anything tried to reach her, it would have a fight just getting through.
The full weight of the day was on her. Her clothes were stained with oil, chemicals, the remnants of gray dust blown from a monster's corpse. Before she could even think about rest, she knew a shower wasn't optional.
She moved in tired, shuffling steps to the bathroom and shut the door firmly behind her. She turned the tap. Warm water began to flow, washing the battle from her skin. Relief crept through her with every drop, the heat easing her fatigue, the water cleansing away the filth and the stinging chemical smell.
As she gently scrubbed her body, she thought of the Core Shard and the skill book lying on the table just outside the bathroom door. She smiled—faintly. But it wasn't just relief.
She reminded herself of what had happened only hours ago. The monster slipping into her home. The helplessness she'd felt against its strength. How one wrong move would have meant death. The scene replayed with brutal clarity: the shattering glass, the reek of cleaners, and the shard that had kept her alive.
I can't rely on luck and traps forever. I have to become stronger.
If I want to survive this new world, I have to build my strength and my skills myself.
She resolved it quietly, but with absolute certainty.
After she finished showering, she dried her hair and pulled on clean clothes. The simple feeling of being clean gave her a fragile calm. A thin layer of confidence.
Finally, she reached her bed, drained after a day of battles and survival. She sat on the edge, holding the book and the Core Shards beside her, feeling the faint warmth of the energy still lingering in the shards. As she lay back, her eyes found the Shadow Restoration timer on her Status Board.
2 hours and 40 minutes remaining.
Time crawled. But she wasn't only thinking about rest. Her mind was already turning toward the future, toward the dangers still coming.
As the Shadow Restoration timer ticked slowly down, Arya began to imagine how she could use the Core Shard to strengthen herself without it harming her. How she would wield the Ice Arrow skill once she reached the required level. Every thought was a form of training—mental, before the physical—preparation for the monsters ahead.
What happens when the restoration finishes? Will I face higher ranks? Will I survive? Will I become stronger? If the monsters are already this powerful, what comes through when the integration timer hits zero?
Despite her exhaustion, Arya felt a strange mix of alertness and caution. Every second was a chance to learn. Every failure held a potential lesson. Every reward was a new means to forge herself stronger.
She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to recover her energy. But her mind didn't stop—analyzing, planning. And as she wondered what the future held, Arya drifted into a quiet sleep...
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