It was quiet.
Unnaturally quiet.
The kind of silence that pressed down on your chest and made breathing feel like a crime.
I didn't know how long I'd been lying there — seconds, minutes, hours — but the pain had faded into something strange.
Not gone. Just… distant.
Like my body had decided it was too tired to feel anymore.
My eyes cracked open.
The first thing I saw was light — faint, golden threads drifting through the air like dust motes.
The mimics were still.
No — not still. Open.
Every single chest in the hall had burst apart, lids split, tongues shriveled to ash.
And scattered between their remains was light. Pure, shimmering light.
It drifted lazily, weightless, before being drawn toward me — no, into me.
Each spark vanished the moment it touched my skin.
[Loot Acquired: 157 items stored in Inventory.]
The voice echoed in my head — soft, distant, mechanical.
Almost comforting.
I tried to move, but the moment I did, I realized I was still half-buried in blood. My own.
But… it wasn't warm anymore.
The flow had stopped.
I looked down — the place where my legs should've been mangled was now… whole.
Pale skin. Faint steam rising.
Not a scar, not a trace of what had happened.
[Auto-use Triggered: Healing Potion ×7 consumed.]
[Auto-use Triggered: Elixir of Restoration ×2 consumed.]
[Status: Stabilized.]
My breath hitched.
What… what was happening?
I looked around.
The entire hall shimmered faintly in gold, as if the world itself was exhaling after a long scream.
And then I saw it —
the mimic that had bitten me in half, lying in front of the throne, its chest cavity cracked open like glass.
Inside, something gleamed.
A cube.
Small, metallic, softly pulsing with golden light.
It hovered slightly, humming with quiet rhythm — and then, before I could even reach for it, it drifted toward me.
Slowly. Deliberately.
It stopped right before my chest.
[Core Item Acquired: "Mimic's Heart"]
[Passive Acquired: Auto-Loot System – Active.]
[Passive Acquired: Auto-Use System – Active.]
I didn't even have the strength to react. I just let it sink into me — the light wrapping around my chest, fading beneath the skin like ink dissolving in water.
My heart pounded once, heavy and real.
The torches flickered.
The system voice echoed again.
[Skill Evolution Complete.]
[Box Opener → Lucky Box (Unique)]
[All unopened containers within vicinity: opened.]
[Loot distributed to owner.]
A laugh escaped me — dry, broken, half-delirious.
"Lucky Box, huh…? Some kind of joke…"
The room, once drenched in blood and fear, now glowed with soft warmth.
The corpses of mimics lay still, fading into motes of golden dust.
I should've felt relief.
But instead, all I felt was emptiness — like the light had burned everything away, even the terror.
My vision flickered again.
The world began to tilt sideways.
[HP Critical: Auto-use disabled until next cycle.]
[Entering forced rest state.]
I could barely register the words before darkness crept in from the edges of my vision.
The last thing I saw before everything went black
was the throne.
And sitting on it — for just an instant — was a faint figure made of light, watching me.
---
"Big brother, how long are you going to stay like that?"
Her voice was gentle — soft, like a bell from another time.
It came from behind the door, muffled by the walls of my room. I didn't answer. I just curled tighter under my blanket, staring at the empty glow of my phone screen.
"Mom's getting worried," she continued. "I know it hurts, but… they're not the only people out there, you know? There are others who—"
"Shut up, Miwa!"
The words ripped out of me before I could stop them.
"I can't trust anyone! Not even you—so don't act like you understand!"
Silence.
That silence… it lasted longer than it should have.
And then — footsteps, fading down the hall.
That was the last time we ever talked.
---
Am I really dying?
Is that why I'm seeing this again?
Of all the memories to come back to, why… this?
I regretted it. Every word, every scream.
But regret didn't matter anymore.
Because this — this was where it all started.
---
I used to have friends.
Real friends… or at least, I thought so.
"Yo, Inoue! You always roll the SSRs for me — how the hell do you do it, man?"
"Haha, no fair! Pull on mine next!"
"Hey, me too! You're our lucky charm!"
That's what they used to say.
We called ourselves the Pull Party — five idiots united by bad life choices and good gacha banners.
We hung out after class.
Arcades, karaoke, late-night ramen runs — we even ate lunch together on the rooftop while pulling for our favorite characters.
And every time… I rolled something amazing.
But never for myself.
My account? Always trash.
Their accounts? Always gold.
They'd laugh it off, pat my back, tell me, "Your luck is our luck, bro."
And I believed it.
I really did.
For a while, it felt warm. Like I mattered.
Like even if I was bad at everything else — sports, grades, life — at least I was good at something.
At least they wanted me around.
---
Until the day I saw it.
A thread on an anonymous school forum.
Someone showing off a pull.
A screenshot I recognized — same username, same team layout.
"Another SSR! Behold, peasants!"
I chuckled at first. It sounded like her — the girl I liked.
But then the comments came.
> "Did you really pull that yourself? Or did he do it for you again?"
"Lol, using your lucky charm again?"
"Don't tell me you're actually dating that gloomy guy for rolls?"
"Ew, as if! He's just useful, that's all. I wouldn't even talk to him if he wasn't so damn lucky."
My stomach twisted.
I kept scrolling, even when I didn't want to.
Every line dug deeper.
They joked about me — my voice, my awkwardness, how I'd do their homework when they asked.
All of them joined in. Every single one.
The same people I ate lunch with, laughed with… trusted.
Even her.
The girl who used to hold my hand when the trains got crowded.
Who cried on my shoulder after a breakup.
Who said, "You're the only one who gets me."
It was all a lie.
A performance built on convenience and pity.
---
Something inside me cracked that day.
Not loud — just a clean, quiet break.
I stopped replying to their messages.
Stopped showing up to hangouts.
Deleted every gacha app I had.
And when Miwa knocked on my door to ask what was wrong,
I shouted at her too.
Because I didn't know how to explain that the people I loved had only ever loved my luck.
That I wasn't unlucky — I was used up.
---
Even now, lying in this foreign world, half-dead and half-dreaming,
that old ache still feels the same.
It wasn't the betrayal that hurt the most.
It was realizing that when they stopped needing me,
no one stayed.
And maybe that's why…
when I see kindness now,
I don't believe it.
Because kindness always has a cost.