Chapter 2: The Cafeteria Massacre
The hallway stretched before me, littered with overturned desks and dark stains that might have been blood.
I had three bone spikes left. One kitchen knife. Goblin leather wrapped around my forearms like crude bracers.
And five goblins between me and the cafeteria.
I moved before they could organize.
The second goblin was checking on its fallen companion, poking at the bone spike lodged in its eye socket. It never saw me coming.
My knife found the gap between its neck and shoulder—the same spot I'd used a thousand times to bleed a pig. The blade slid through muscle like butter. The goblin gurgled and dropped.
\[Goblin defeated.\]
\[Agility +1\]
Two down.
The remaining four goblins turned as one. Their rusted blades glinted in the flickering lights.
I didn't wait. I threw my second bone spike.
It missed the third goblin's chest but caught it in the shoulder. The creature howled, stumbling back. That was enough.
I closed the distance, knife reversed, and drove the blade into its throat from behind. It collapsed without a sound.
\[Strength +2\]
Three.
The last three goblins charged together. Smarter than the others. They'd seen me pick off their companions one by one and decided numbers would win.
They were almost right.
The first goblin swung high. I ducked, felt the blade shear through my hair. My knife came up, catching it in the wrist. Bones crunched. The goblin's weapon clattered to the floor.
But the second goblin was already there.
Its blade carved a line across my ribs. Pain flared—not deep, but enough to slow me. I stumbled back, hitting the wall.
The third goblin grinned. It raised its weapon for the killing blow.
I threw my last bone spike.
It buried itself in the third goblin's eye socket. The creature dropped like a stone.
\[Strength +2\]
\[Skill upgrade: Dagger Mastery Lv.2\]
The remaining two goblins hesitated. That hesitation cost them.
I pushed off the wall, ignoring the fire in my side, and drove into them like a cleaver through bone.
Slice. Twist. Pull.
The first goblin fell with its throat opened.
\[Vitality +1\]
The second tried to run. I caught it by the arm, spun it around, and put my knife through its heart.
\[Agility +1\]
Silence.
Five goblins. Four bone spikes. One knife.
I stood in the hallway, breathing hard, blood dripping from a dozen small cuts. My ribs screamed where the goblin's blade had caught me. But the warmth from the kills was already working through my body, mending the worst of it.
\[Butchering Lv.1\] was already processing the corpses automatically. I didn't have time to harvest them properly—the hobgoblin was still in the cafeteria.
But I had enough.
I wrapped goblin leather around my wounded ribs, packed the wound with a strip of raw goblin meat. The healing paste I'd made earlier would work better, but I was saving that for the main event.
From the cafeteria, I heard a roar. The hobgoblin.
And a girl's scream.
---
From outside the cafeteria windows, a pigeon watched.
Its eyes were too bright, too focused. It sat on a branch, ignoring the chaos below, its head tilted as if listening to something far away.
Behind those avian eyes, a presence stirred. Boredom. Then, a flicker of interest.
"A Butcher," a voice whispered in no language a human could hear. "In this harvest cycle? How… nostalgic."
The pigeon's head turned toward the boy in the bloodstained school uniform. Its gaze lingered.
"Let's see how far you get."
---
I kicked open the cafeteria doors.
The hobgoblin turned.
It was sitting on the stage, surrounded by bound students. Han Seo-yoon was tied to a pillar, still unconscious. The other students—maybe fifteen of them—were huddled together, their faces pale, some crying silently.
The hobgoblin's eyes narrowed when it saw me.
"Little meat," it growled, its voice a gravelly rumble. "You killed my pets."
I walked forward slowly, knife held low. "They were pests. You're the main course."
It laughed—a deep, ugly sound. "Bold words for something so small."
It stood. Eight feet of muscle, scar tissue, and rage. A club the size of my torso hung from its belt, but it didn't reach for it. Instead, it cracked its knuckles, each pop echoing through the silent cafeteria.
"I'm going to break every bone in your body," it said. "Then I'll eat you while you scream."
I stopped twenty feet away. Close enough to see the veins in its neck, the tension in its shoulders, the way it shifted its weight onto its back foot before a lunge.
"You talk too much," I said.
It lunged.
---
Han Seo-yoon woke to the sound of breaking furniture.
Her head throbbed. Her arms were tied behind her, rough rope biting into her wrists. She opened her eyes to chaos.
The hobgoblin was tearing through the cafeteria, swinging its massive club. Tables shattered. Chairs flew. Students screamed.
And there, weaving between the destruction, was Kang Jin-ho.
Kang Jin-ho?
She blinked, sure she was hallucinating. The quiet boy at the back of the class, the one everyone ignored. He was fighting a C-rank monster with nothing but a kitchen knife.
The hobgoblin's club came down where Jin-ho had been standing a second before. The floor cracked. Jin-ho rolled, came up behind the monster, and slashed at its hamstring.
The blade barely broke skin.
The hobgoblin spun, backhanding him across the cafeteria. Jin-ho hit the wall with a sickening crunch.
Seo-yoon's stomach dropped.
He's going to die.
---
The hobgoblin stalked toward me, grinning. "See? Little meat breaks so easily."
I pushed myself up. My arm hung at a wrong angle. Blood dripped from my mouth. But I was smiling.
"I've been waiting for you to get close," I said.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small container.
The hobgoblin's eyes widened. It recognized the substance inside—goblin flesh, processed with something that made it glow faintly red.
"What is that?"
I threw it.
The container shattered against the hobgoblin's face.
The reaction was instantaneous. The healing paste—designed to work on human physiology—had the opposite effect on hobgoblin tissue. It burned. The creature roared, clawing at its face, its eyes already swelling shut.
I didn't wait.
I lunged, knife raised, and drove it into the hobgoblin's throat.
---
Seo-yoon watched, frozen, as the blade sank into the monster's neck.
Blood sprayed. The hobgoblin staggered, its hands still clawing at its ruined eyes. But it didn't fall.
It swung its club blindly, catching Jin-ho in the chest and sending him flying across the cafeteria. He landed in a heap, his knife clattering away.
The hobgoblin pulled the blade from its throat. The wound was deep, but not fatal. It turned toward Jin-ho, a horrible gurgling laugh escaping its torn throat.
"You… die…" it choked out, blood bubbling from its lips.
Seo-yoon's hands clenched behind her back. The rope was tight, but she was an A-rank Paladin. She had skills. She just needed to focus.
She closed her eyes and reached for her power.
---
My vision blurred. I could taste blood, hot and metallic.
Get up.
I pushed myself onto my knees. The hobgoblin was staggering toward me, its hands still clawing at its ruined face, its throat gushing dark blood. But it wasn't dead. C-rank monsters didn't die that easily.
I looked for my knife. It was ten feet away, under an overturned table.
I looked at my arm. Broken.
I looked at the hobgoblin.
It was still coming.
I grabbed a piece of broken chair leg—wood, sharpened by the impact—and forced myself to my feet.
The hobgoblin swung blindly. I ducked under its arm, felt the wind of its fist past my ear, and drove the chair leg into its ear canal.
All the way to the brain.
The hobgoblin went rigid. Its remaining eye went wide. Then it collapsed, hitting the floor like a falling tree.
I stood over it, breathing ragged, the chair leg still embedded in its skull.
\[Hobgoblin defeated. Experience gained.\]
\[Butcher skill activated. Processing…\]
\[Strength +10\]
\[Agility +8\]
\[Vitality +12\]
\[Skill acquired: Intimidation Lv.1\]
\[Skill acquired: Anatomy Knowledge Lv.1\]
\[Unique material obtained: Hobgoblin Core\]
\[HIDDEN PATH CONDITION MET\]
\[Harvested creature at least two ranks above current level.\]
\[Class upgrade available. Proceed to System Hub to evolve.\]
The warmth that flooded me this time was overwhelming. Bones knitted. Muscles strengthened. The fatigue that had been dragging at my limbs vanished, replaced by something electric.
I flexed my fingers. The broken arm was whole again.
Around me, the students were staring. Some with fear. Some with awe. A few were crying.
I walked over to Han Seo-yoon, ignoring the way the other students flinched when I passed. My hands were still covered in goblin blood. I probably looked like something from a nightmare.
I cut her bonds with a piece of broken glass.
She rubbed her wrists, then looked up at me. "You killed it."
"I processed it."
"Your class is Butcher." It wasn't a question.
I met her eyes. "That's right."
She was quiet for a moment. Then she smiled—a small, dangerous thing that didn't reach her eyes.
"The others laughed at you," she said. "They called your class useless."
"People say a lot of things."
She stood, brushing dirt from her uniform. When she looked at me again, something had shifted in her gaze. Respect? Interest? I couldn't tell.
"You saved us," she said. "That makes you responsible for us now."
I frowned. "What?"
"The guilds will come. They'll take over, conscript survivors, claim credit for the kill." She gestured at the hobgoblin's corpse. "But you killed it. That means you get to decide what happens next."
I looked at the students huddled behind me. Fifteen frightened teenagers who had just watched me butcher a monster twice my size.
"I'm not a leader," I said.
"You're not nothing," she replied. "That's more than most people can say."
---
From the window, the pigeon watched.
Its head tracked the boy as he moved among the survivors, binding wounds, distributing the goblin leather and healing paste he'd prepared. Efficient. Methodical. Cold.
The presence behind its eyes stirred again. Interest had sharpened into something like hunger.
"A Butcher who thinks," it murmured. "How rare."
The pigeon spread its wings and flew toward the broken window, landing on a rafter above the boy's head. No one noticed.
"Let's see what you become."
---
I looked down at my hands.
The blood was already drying, flaking off my skin. Underneath, the cuts I'd taken were gone, healed by the System's rewards. My body felt stronger, faster, more alive than I'd ever been.
But I wasn't done.
The System message was still glowing in my peripheral vision: Class upgrade available.
And somewhere out there, beyond this ruined school, the real apocalypse was just beginning.
I picked up the hobgoblin's club. It was too big to use, but the material was valuable. I'd process it later.
For now, I had survivors to protect. A class to evolve. And a world to carve my place in.
I turned to Seo-yoon. "Show me where the System Hub is."
She raised an eyebrow. "You're going to evolve your class? Already?"
"The bigger monsters won't wait." I hefted the club over my shoulder. "Neither will I."
She studied me for a long moment, then nodded. "Follow me."
As we moved toward the exit, a new System message appeared before me.
\[SYSTEM HUB: SEOUL ACADEMY BRANCH – LOCATED IN MAIN AUDITORIUM\]
\[WARNING: HUB IS CURRENTLY UNAUTHORIZED. GUILDS ARE CONTESTING CONTROL.\]
\[PROCEED WITH CAUTION.\]
Unauthorized. Contested.
I smiled grimly.
Of course it wouldn't be easy.
---
End of Chapter 2