Rain hammered the broken window of a male dormitory at New York University, each drop striking the glass with the steady rhythm of a ticking clock.
"This weather is killing me."
I muttered it under my breath, staring out over Manhattan. The Hudson churned beneath a sky the color of old iron, as if the river had risen into the clouds only to collapse back down upon the city. The sound should have been calming.
It wasn't.
For a year, the climate had been unraveling like a frayed wire. Sandstorms swallowed parts of Nevada. Alaska thawed and refroze in the span of days. January burned with suffocating heat; July drowned in snow. Scientists filled television panels with theories. Washington blamed pollution. Other nations nodded along. No one understood.
Even when the sun shone over New York, people carried umbrellas.
They no longer trusted the sky.
And today, I had to go to work in the middle of this damned storm.
My name is Andrew Walker. Twenty years old. Six feet tall. Brown hair. Green eyes. Lean build. I train when I can. My father is a municipal employee in Queens. My mother teaches mathematics at a public school in Brooklyn. Ordinary people.
When I was twelve, they brought home a nine-year-old girl named Anna. Orphaned in a car accident. She became my sister. We became four. She attends a good high school in Manhattan now. Next year, she'll enroll at NYU.
I was digging through my closet for a heavier hoodie when the world struck back.
Not a tremor.
An impact.
The building lurched violently. Desks scraped. A framed photo shattered on the floor. I grabbed the wardrobe to keep from being thrown off my feet. Something punched me from the inside—my stomach twisting, lungs emptying. I doubled over, fighting nausea.
Ten seconds.
Silence.
Cold air seeped through the cracked window, but it no longer mattered.
A line of green text materialized in front of my eyes.
[Evolution Register System activated on Planet Earth. You may now view your Status Window at any time.]
"What the hell…?"
Another screen unfolded.
[Andrew Walker
Level: 0
Race: Human
Occupation: None
Title: None
Strength: 12 (10)
Agility: 11 (10)
Vitality: 10 (10)
Endurance: 10 (10)
Mana: 120 (0)
Magic Affinity: 120 (10)]
The numbers hovered in the air.
The figures in parentheses… average human statistics?
If that was true, I was slightly above average physically.
But Mana.
Magic Affinity.
Those weren't just above average.
They were absurd.
I took a slow breath, forcing my mind to steady. I'd read enough Japanese web novels and fanfiction to recognize the format. A system. Levels. Stats. Skills.
But this wasn't fiction.
A voice spoke behind me.
Calm.
Amused.
"Interesting. I did not expect to find a human with such high magical affinity so quickly."
I turned.
A woman stood in the middle of my dorm room as though she had always been there. Tall. Silver hair falling in smooth strands over her shoulders. Eyes blue and clear as winter ice. Her skin flawless—too flawless.
She wore a fitted midnight-blue coat etched with metallic lines resembling ancient runes. Beneath it, dark, practical attire—more warrior than model. High boots. Balanced. Controlled. Perfect.
Before I could speak, screams tore through the rain.
I rushed to the window.
New York was no longer New York.
People ran through flooded streets. Some slipped. Others leapt onto them—not fighting.
Biting.
A girl fell hard against the asphalt. One of the attackers pounced. Blood smeared its mouth. It sank its teeth into her arm. She screamed.
No one stopped.
Seconds later, she stopped moving.
Then she rose.
Unsteady.
Gray skin. Hollow eyes.
A zombie.
"Jesus…"
A sharp buzzing cut through the chaos.
An insect—an enormous bee the size of my fist—darted through the rain. It struck one of the undead with brutal precision. Its stinger pierced the skull. A clean puncture. The creature collapsed.
The bee split open the corpse's head and fed.
I watched it grow.
Then it turned toward the dormitory.
Toward me.
It shot through the broken window in a blur.
I didn't think. I grabbed the wooden chair beside my desk and swung with everything I had. The impact cracked against the wall. The bee fell, twitching.
I struck again.
And again.
On the third blow, it stopped moving.
A sphere of white light rose from its body and sank into my chest.
[You have absorbed Evolutionary Energy – Level 2 Creature: Mutated Giant Bee
Agility +2
Strength +2]
[Level Up: 1
Unassigned Stat Points: 2]
Heat surged through my muscles. My bones felt denser, heavier—stronger.
Beside the insect's corpse lay a dark crimson scroll.
I picked it up.
[Fire Control – Tier 1 Skill – Max Level 5
Allows manipulation of fire and thermal flow within limits determined by Affinity, Mana, and Willpower.]
Fire.
Power.
"A rare skill for a first-level human."
I turned again, gripping the chair tightly.
She hadn't moved. She watched me as if evaluating a specimen.
"Who are you?" I demanded.
A faint smile curved her lips. Confident. Almost indulgent.
"My name is Brunhilde."
She stepped closer, rainlight reflecting in her eyes.
"I am a demigoddess. Tier Five, Class High. Of the Norse Pantheon."
Outside, Manhattan burned and drowned beneath the same relentless rain.