Silas stared at it. It was a human heart. Blood dripped from the torn veins, slipping through the man's fingers and hitting the dirt.
Silas couldn't speak. His mind raced, but his voice was gone. The heavy weight in his chest pulled him down. His knees hit the hard dirt road. He caught himself with his hands, panting, and stared up at the stranger.
The man stopped a few feet away. He looked down at Silas with calm, tired eyes.
He raised his hand and tossed the heart. It landed in the dust right in front of Silas with a wet slap.
The man stood over Silas. He did not speak. His face was completely blank. He reached into his coat and pulled out a small, empty glass bottle.
He crouched down. He reached out and scraped the rim of the glass against Silas's bleeding chin, catching a few thick drops of warm blood. He pressed a small cork into the bottle and put it back into his pocket.
The man stood up and turned around. He started walking down the dirt road toward the capital.
Silas tried to breathe, but his lungs wouldn't work. His vision grew dark at the edges. As the man walked away, the moonlight hit the back of his coat. There was a symbol stitched into the fabric. It was a white circle with a jagged black line running through the center.
That was the last thing Silas saw. His eyes rolled back. His body collapsed against the hard dirt. He stopped breathing.
Hours passed. The sky started to turn pale gray with the early morning light. The sound of horse hooves and wooden wheels broke the silence on the road.
Four armed men walked alongside a merchant wagon. They wore the cheap leather armor of a local patrol. The man in the front stopped and pointed his spear at the ground.
"Got a body over here," he called out.
Two of the other men walked over. They looked down at Silas. One of them kicked Silas's ribs with his heavy boot. Silas didn't move. His skin was pale and stiff.
"Dead," the man said. He looked around and spotted the canvas bag lying in the dirt a few feet away. He picked it up and untied the top. He dug through the clothes and pulled out the heavy leather pouch. The sound of gold coins clinked in the quiet morning air.
The man grinned and shoved the pouch inside his armor. He left the canvas bag on the ground.
"We don't have time for a report," the merchant called out from the driver's seat of the wagon. "Just clear the road."
"Grab his legs," the first guard said.
Two men grabbed Silas by his boots and his collar. They dragged him to the edge of the road, swung his lifeless body back and forth on the count of three, and let go.
Silas tumbled down a steep dirt bank. He crashed through the brush and landed flat on his back in a ditch of tall, dry weeds.
The guards walked back to the wagon. The wheels rolled on, and the sound of the patrol slowly faded away.
The sun climbed higher, warming the dirt in the ditch. Insects buzzed in the weeds.
Suddenly, Silas gasped.
His eyes snapped open. He took a massive, greedy breath of air, his chest heaving. He rolled onto his side and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, coughing violently.
He touched his chest. The crushing pressure was gone. He pressed two fingers against his neck. His pulse was beating fast and strong. His skin was warm.
He wasn't dead.
He sat back on his heels, breathing hard. He looked at his dirt-covered hands, then looked around at the steep walls of the ditch. He didn't understand. He remembered dying. He remembered the cold taking over his body.
Ding.
A soft sound rang in his ears. It sounded like a small silver bell.
A bright blue light flashed in the air right in front of his face. Silas flinched and raised his hands to protect himself. But the light didn't burn. It stopped moving and formed a flat, glowing square.
It looked like a window made of pure light, floating right above the weeds. Clear, white words appeared across the center of the blue screen.
[System Activated]
Silas stared at the glowing blue square. He reached out and tried to touch it. His fingers passed right through the light. It wasn't solid.
He pulled his hand back and touched his own chest again. He felt his ribs under his shirt. No open wounds. No blood. Just dirt. He remembered the cold feeling. He remembered the strange man with hollow cheeks, the bloody heart, and the glass bottle. He remembered taking his last breath.
"I died," Silas whispered to the empty ditch.
The blue screen blinked. The words [System Activated] vanished. New text quickly appeared on the floating glass.
Name: Silas Level: 1
Class: Unassigned
Mana: 2/2 Skill:
Data Analysis (Passive)
Silas frowned. He read the text over and over. "Level? Class?"
It looked exactly like a ledger.
In his old life on Earth, he looked at screens like this every day. He understood categories and numbers. His brain, still foggy from waking up in a ditch, latched onto the familiar format. But he didn't have time to figure out what it all meant right now.
He looked up at the steep dirt bank. He grabbed handfuls of dry weeds and pulled himself up. He crawled over the edge and rolled onto the hard dirt road.
The road was completely empty.
He saw his canvas bag lying a few feet away. It was open. His extra shirts and wool socks were spilling out into the dust. Silas walked over and picked it up. It felt way too light.
He dug his hand inside. The heavy leather pouch was gone. Eighty gold pieces. Every single coin he had saved from his years of accounting work was missing. Whoever had found his body had robbed him.
Silas quickly reached into his front coat pocket. His fingers brushed against the small cloth pouch. He pulled it out and opened it.
Five silver coins.
They hadn't checked his pockets. They just took the obvious heavy bag and threw him away.
Ding.
The soft silver bell rang in his ears again. The blue screen hovering in his vision suddenly flashed and turned a deep, harsh red. The text on the screen wiped away, replaced by sharp, jagged letters.
[New Directive: Asset Recovery] Target: Local Road Patrol (4 hostiles) Objective: Retrieve 80 Gold Pieces. Parameters: Intercept the wagon heading east. Reclaim your property. Condition: Total elimination. Tear them apart. Leave no survivors.
Silas stared at the red screen. His new heart beat steadily in his chest, drumming out a strange, cold rhythm. He was an accountant. He didn't know how to fight. He had never killed anyone in his life.
"What..." Silas muttered, his voice dry in the morning air.
He looked down at the wagon tracks in the dirt.
"They stole from a dead body," he said quietly, trying to reason with the floating text. "It is a crime, yes. But they thought I was a corpse. I don't think they did something that deserves..."
He trailed off. He didn't want to say the word 'murder.'
Ding.
The red screen shifted. The harsh, jagged letters collapsed into neat, organized columns.
Four smaller blue windows popped up, floating side-by-side in the air. Each one had a crude, pixelated drawing of a man's face.
[Target 1: Garret] Role: Patrol Leader. Hidden Data: Takes bribes from local highwaymen to look the other way. Rents his own wife to tavern drunks every weekend to pay off gambling debts. Probability of reform: 0%.
The blue screen blinked, bringing up the next face.
[Target 2: Ryon] Role: Spearman. Hidden Data: Smuggles stolen goods. Routinely beats vagrants to death in the outer slums for entertainment. Probability of reform: 0%.
[Target 3: Tomas] Role: Swordsman. Hidden Data: Steals emergency grain shipments meant for the district orphanage. Sells it back to the black market at triple the price. Probability of reform: 0%.
[Target 4: Vane] Role: Guard. Hidden Data: Stole gold pieces from an unconscious old women. Has assisted in covering up three previous murders by dumping bodies in local ravines. Probability of reform: 0%.
Silas stopped talking. The morning wind blew across the empty road, rustling the dry weeds in the ditch behind him.
He read the text over and over. He looked at the numbers. Probability of reform: 0%.
He slowly raised his hands and looked at them. They were covered in dirt and shaking slightly. He was an accountant. His hands were meant for holding pens and turning pages, not swinging a weapon.
He let out a long, slow breath. He curled his fingers into fists, and the shaking stopped.
"If I can't even do this," Silas muttered to the empty road, "how do I plan to pay back those five silver coins?"
The Princess was surrounded by an army. The Knight Captain was the strongest warrior in the outer lands, carrying an aura that could choke the air itself. If Silas hesitated to eliminate four corrupt, low-level thugs who threw his body in a ditch, his revenge was already over.
He took another deep breath. His hand moved to his chest, pressing flat against his shirt.
His thoughts drifted back to the dark road a few hours ago. Who was the man sitting on the rock? He hadn't cast a spell. He hadn't chanted or drawn a magic circle like the nobles did. The man had just looked at him, dropped an invisible, crushing weight on his lungs, and pulled his heart right out of his body. It happened in seconds.
Silas pressed his fingers harder against his ribs. He felt the steady beat of his blood, but beneath it, there was that strange, freezing hum. The man with the hollow cheeks had taken his real heart, but whatever this System was, it had put something else in its place to wake him up.
The four blue windows displaying the guards' faces vanished. The red directive returned to the center of his vision, glowing brightly.
[Condition: Total elimination. Tear them apart. Leave no survivors.]
Silas didn't try to argue with the screen anymore. He accepted the data. He reached down and picked up his half-empty canvas bag. He didn't have a sword. He didn't have a spear. He had a muddy mana pool of two and a passive skill for reading information.
He looked down at the dirt road. The heavy wooden wheels of the merchant wagon had left deep, clear tracks in the dust, heading straight east toward the capital.
Silas adjusted the strap on his shoulder, kept his eyes on the tracks, and started walking.
He walked for about ten minutes, his boots kicking up small clouds of dust. The rational part of his brain was still calculating the risk. He had accepted the task, but he was still an unarmed teenager. He couldn't punch four men in armor to death.
Ding.
The soft bell rang again. The red screen pulsed, and a new line of text appeared below the main objective.
[System Notice: Severe physical deficit detected. Initiating basic equipment provision for first-time operation.]
[Item Generated: Beginner's Blade]
The air in front of him shimmered. A horizontal streak of blue light expanded, pulling apart like a torn seam. Something solid dropped out of the light and hit the dirt road with a heavy, metallic clank.
The blue light vanished.
Silas stopped. He stared at the object in the dust.
It was a sword, but not like the broad, heavy steel blades the Royal Guards carried. It was a katana, a weapon from Earth. The blade was long and slightly curved. The metal wasn't shiny silver; it was a matte, flat black. The hilt was wrapped in dark, tightly woven cord.
Silas dropped his canvas bag and crouched down. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around the hilt.
It was cold.
He stood up, lifting the katana with him. He gripped it with both hands, testing the balance. The rough cord pressed into his palms. He ran his thumb lightly against the flat side of the blade. It was hard, dense steel.
Any lingering doubt in his mind vanished. This wasn't a hallucination from blood loss. He wasn't lying dead in a ditch dreaming up a fantasy to cope with dying. The weight in his hands was absolute, undeniable proof. The system was real, and it was actively arming him.
Silas looked down at the dark metal. The corners of his mouth twitched. Slowly, a small, tight smile broke across his face. It was the first time he had smiled since his mother died, and there was no warmth in it.
"Well," Silas said quietly to the empty road. "Someone has to do something."
He didn't know how to swing a sword properly. But he knew how to learn. He let his bag hang off his shoulder, gripped the black katana firmly in his right hand, and picked up his pace, his eyes locked on the deep wagon tracks leading east.