"Oh, you four-eyed bastard. Finally decided to show up, huh?"
Derek's voice cut through the air like a whip just before his fist lashed out, slamming hard into James's stomach.
The impact folded James in half, driving the breath from his lungs as he crumpled onto the cold concrete. Derek didn't even flinch. He threw his head back and laughed, sharp and ugly, the sound echoing off the walls.
"See? This is what happens when you make me angry, bitch!"
His friends—still in their school uniforms, shirts unbuttoned and ties loosened—stood in a loose circle, laughing along with him.
None of them moved to help James. They only watched, shoulders shaking with amusement, as if the scene were staged for their entertainment.
"Okay, now hand over this week's money," Derek continued, his tone shifting into something almost casual, almost friendly.
"You know how it is between friends. Friends share, right? Come on, get up. It wasn't that hard."
One of Derek's friends stepped forward—the slim, short one with glasses who looked more like he belonged in the front row of class than back here in the shadows. He bent down, grabbed James under the arm, and hauled him roughly to his feet. There was no kindness in the grip.
While James was still steadying himself, the boy's other hand had already slipped into James's pocket with practiced ease. He pulled out ten five-dollar bills, the crumpled notes disappearing into his palm.
When he counted them, his expression darkened.
"What the hell is this?" he barked, voice rising. "Where's the other thirty dollars?"
James flinched at the shout, instinctively lowering his head, shoulders curling inward. His voice came out small and stumbling.
"They… they spent it on my mother's medicine—"
"Fuck! Who cares about your mother?" The boy's face twisted with rage. "How dare you spend my money on some old bitch!"
Without warning, he lunged forward and jumped on James, fists flying. James—noticeably bigger and stronger—didn't fight back. He simply took the blows, body tensing with each impact, arms half-raised in a useless shield.
He had fought back before. Once. But these pieces of shit never came alone.
They moved as a pack, and their parents were either powerful or rich enough that the school turned a blind eye—punishing the victim instead of the bullies every single time.
But James's silence only seemed to fuel the rage. Derek's friend whipped around, eyes blazing.
"What the fuck are you doing standing there?!" he shouted. "This motherfucker wasted our money! Beat him so he won't do that shit again!"
His shout snapped the others out of their daze. Realization hit them one by one, slow and ugly.
"Fuck, my weed!"
"God damn it, how will we get stash for this week if we don't have enough money?"
"I will kill him. How dare he use our money for something useless!"
With furious shouts they swarmed in. James was already on the ground, but the beating grew vicious as their tempers snapped. They became wilder with every blow, excitement twisting their faces, blind to how easily a beating could cross into killing.
James curled tighter under the storm of fists and feet, pain exploding through his ribs, his face, his skull. He barely registered the moment a hard stomp crashed down on his chest. The impact drove the air from him in a sickening jolt—and then his heart simply stopped.
For several long moments, the others kept going, lost in the frenzy. Only when James's body went completely still, offering no flinch, no twitch, no resistance, did one of them finally pause.
"Hey, hey, hey—stop! Stop! Something's wrong. Something's wrong!"
He shoved his friends back, breathing hard. Only then did they really look.
James lay motionless on the concrete, his body a map of fresh bruises blooming purple and dark. Blood trickled steadily from his nose and the corner of his mouth. He looked nothing like someone who had taken a "little" beating.
"Fuck! Check his pulse, quickly!"
The group scrambled backward in sudden panic, leaving the thin, intelligent one standing over the body. He swallowed hard, throat dry, then crouched down. His fingers pressed against James's neck. Nothing. He slid his hand onto the still chest. No heartbeat. He leaned close to the bloodied mouth and nose. No breath.
Slowly, he rose to his feet, face pale, and turned to the others.
"He… he is… dead."
The words landed like a spark in dry grass. The group of bullies erupted into instant chaos.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck—no, no, no! I didn't kill anyone! I didn't kill anyone!"
"What should we do, Derek? This all happened because of you."
"Yeah, who told you to bully people."
"Yeah, it was Derek who did it. I will go and call the teacher now."
"Me too. Let's go."
In a frantic scramble of shouts and pounding footsteps, the group bolted, abandoning Derek and his intelligent friend where they stood. The sudden desertion exposed the raw betrayal and the casual cruelty of their so-called friendship.
Derek remained frozen, stunned. While he was still reeling, even his intelligent friend turned and ran before he could reach out.
"Hey, wait—it was you—"
The words died in Derek's throat as cold understanding settled over him. He had been set up. The entire group had pinned the manslaughter on him, their leader, whether he had struck the fatal blow or not.
Yet Derek didn't linger on the killing itself.
He didn't think about whether James's death was wrong or tragic. He didn't think about the boy who had only his sick mother left in the world, the one person who depended on him. No.
All that filled his mind was the sting of betrayal—how his friends had turned on him without hesitation.
Cough... Cough...
But just as the world began to darken at the edges of his vision, a wet, ragged cough sounded from behind him.
Derek whipped around.
James was coughing up thick blood, but that wasn't what stopped Derek cold. The bruises covering James's face and body were visibly vanishing—purple welts shrinking, fading, dissolving into unmarked skin as though no one had ever touched him.
The sight made Derek's skin prickle with raw dread, the deep, instinctive feeling that he was witnessing something he was never meant to see.
Then James's eyes snapped open and locked directly onto him.
Shock slammed through Derek like ice water. He let out a raw, terrified yell and bolted, legs churning as he screamed, "Zombie! Zombie! James has become a zombie!"
James blinked in surprise at the sight of his bully fleeing in panic. He didn't chase him. He didn't even move. Instead, something else echoed inside his skull—cold, mechanical words that weren't spoken aloud:
{ Your body is fully repaired to its peak condition. Your ability, Breeding Bull Aura skill, is now fully turned on. }
{ Now please breed women to increase your lifespan or die in 2 days. }
{ Good luck in your journey, host. }
James stared at the hovering messages only he could see. A long, weary sigh slipped from his lips.
"Well… this was the best option after all."
After he was dead, he found himself in an endless void — a place where nothing existed. He had no sense of how long he lingered there; time felt both like a single fleeting moment and an eternity.
Then three stars drifted toward him. They were not stars at all, but Systems — something he had read about in stolen moments when he wasn't being bullied or working. The three Systems were the Godly Hypnosis System, the Breeding God Invincible System, and the Breeding Bull God System.
All three wanted him because of his virgin status and the giant personality that strained under his pants. He didn't know how that trait had survived death, but according to them, once a giant personality, it stayed a giant personality.
Does that mean if it was small in this life, it would remain small in the next life too? What a bad life to live.
James thought, though that wasn't the main point here.
The point was his impressive giant personality made them all compete for him.
Yet the Godly Hypnosis System and the Breeding God Invincible System could not revive him in his current life. They could only transmigrate him into someone else's body in another world, forcing him to abandon his identity as James.
So, as a good son, James refused when the Breeding Bull God System offered to revive him instead. The two rejected Systems drifted away in search of new hosts, while his chosen one remained.
"Well, I can revive you," it said, "but you won't be able to leave normally since you are already dead. To continue living in that world, you will have to spend breeding points just to survive. Only after becoming a D-rank individual can you live normally."
James felt as though he had been scammed, but he was dead and this was his only path forward.
He accepted the system. In that instant, he returned to his own world, carrying the memory of what death looked like.
His only comment of that experience was, "It really wasn't that great."
----
If you're enjoying this novel, please add it to your library. Comments and Power Stones are greatly appreciated!