CLERIC
DRUID
ARCHER / RANGER
BARDO
MONGE
PALADIN
NECROMANCER / SUMMONER
ASSASSIN
Below, a line pulsed with a lighter shade.
OBSERVATION:
ASSASSIN RECEIVES PARTIAL SYNERGY FROM LADINO.
Ambush, stealth, and critical damage bonuses apply.
"Choose your class already," the voice said. "Remember that the Assassin still comes with the Rogue bonus. That's not a detail. That's a gift. You already kill people professionally, you speak little, you think about angles, cover, timing, and escape. If I were to make a character based on your psychological profile, it would come out with a hood, a knife, and a serious intimacy issue."
Mike didn't answer immediately. He studied the list like he would study an avenue before firing a shot. No fantasy. No romanticism. Class, in that world, wasn't about aesthetics. It was a tool. The wrong tool was death with a pretty title.
"Give me the summary that matters," he said.
"With pleasure, since you finally asked the right way. Warrior or Fighter gives you versatility. Uses weapons, uses armor, withstands hits better, can grow into a tank or consistent damage dealer. Good for those who will face the challenge head-on. Barbarian is violence on legs. Lots of damage, lots of resistance, less technical defense. Suitable for those who solve everything by yelling. Not your case, thanks to some strength above the statistics. Rogue is stealth, traps, mobility, fine thievery, critical strike. Very useful, very treacherous, requires brains and timing. Assassin takes that and puts it to execution. Ambush, quick elimination, absurd synergy with weapons and silent death, but demands positioning and reading. If you miss the approach, you don't compensate with brute force. Archer or Ranger would be good if your identity was pure distance and terrain adaptation, but you're not a woodland archer. You're a precision predator. Mage? No. I refuse. Cleric? Funny, but no. Paladin? Not even the universe deserves this comedy. Monk… maybe in another [game/world]. "Existence. I might even find necromancer amusing, but you'd kill your own servants out of impatience."
Mike left the list hanging as he observed the field. The flow of people was decreasing. Not because there were fewer humans. Because the living had already spread out too much to seem like a single mass. Small groups disappearing along different routes, each believing they had found the best solution to a problem they barely understood. The wind shifted slightly, bringing a new smell. Rotten, damp, too vegetal. Something bigger existed in that direction.
"If I get Assassin," Mike said, "what changes now?"
The voice answered without hesitation, which to her was almost a demonstration of affection. "Your axes shift. Your body begins to be molded to act better according to the logic that is already yours. More efficiency in surprise. More damage at the moment of opening. Better reading of vital points. Better stealth. Better short-range movement. Better absorption of rogue mechanics through synergy. In short, you stop being just a trained human assassin and become the prototype of something worse. Which, frankly, fits this world."
Mike remained motionless on the outside, working on the inside. He thought about the roof. About the man in the light blue shirt on the balcony. He thought about the comfortable weight of the rifle on his shoulder. He thought about how he had used the butt and knife on the last monster to conserve ammunition. He thought about the kind of fight that world would demand later, when the tutorial ended and the dragon ceased to be an aerial spectator and became a real problem. Assassin made sense. It made too much sense. The only danger of choices that make too much sense is that they usually come at a high cost in blind spots.
"The synergy with the rifle?" he asked.
The voice almost sighed with relief. "Finally, an intelligent question in the kind I like. Yes, it exists. Not directly as a pure marksman class, but the Assassin's principle revolves around precision, elimination, initial strike, vulnerability reading, and decisive attacks. Your rifle remains your longest tooth. But I recommend from the outset: don't treat it as your only religion. A precision weapon in a world of monsters, desperate people, and a goddamn economy demands backup, improvisation, and a body that knows how to move."
The panel opened another sub-window, a more technical one.
ASSASSIN:
PRIMARY FOCUS:
AMBUSH
STEALTH
CRITICAL DAMAGE
Vital Point Analysis
SHORT MOBILITY
SECONDARY BONUS:
Synergy with Rogue
Efficient use of blades
Tactical integration with precision weapons.
RISK:
LOW TOLERANCE FOR ERROR IN PROLONGED HEAD-ON CONFRONTATION
"In other words," the voice said, "you fade quickly. If the fight turns into a long arm wrestling match in the mud, the chance of getting screwed goes up. But that was already true in your old life. You were never a man of open warfare. You are a surgical cut with professional resentment."
Mike almost smiled again. Almost.
A few meters away, behind a smaller group of rocks, a human figure emerged. A woman. In her early twenties, maybe older. Her hair was haphazardly tied back, her right arm was bloody, her breathing was shallow, her eyes wide open. She saw Mike. She saw his position. She saw the gun. She stopped for a second. She didn't approach. Nor did she run away immediately. This meant something between courage and desperation.
"Hey," she said, her voice rough. "There's more coming from below."
Mike didn't answer immediately. He only tilted his head just enough to signal that he had heard.
The woman swallowed hard. "I'm not asking for help. Just… don't think there's only one bad side."
Good. Smart enough not to beg. Smart enough to warn and perhaps buy future goodwill with cheap information. Mike liked that a little more than he liked most of his kind.
"How many?" he asked.
"Four. Maybe five. Small. Quick."
Mike nodded once. The woman stepped back immediately afterward, without waiting for an invitation. Even better.
"See?" the voice commented. "A social ecosystem is beginning to emerge. Information for survival. Primitive trade. Delicious."
"Shut up."
"No. But you can pretend you ignored me."
Mike glanced at the class list once more. The wind whipped against the carbon fiber pipe, making the suppressor cover fabric tremble slightly. The sky above remained vast and impersonal. The field below, less populated and more deadly by the minute. Behind the rock to the right, he heard the dry sound of light paws touching hard ground. The woman was right. More were coming from below. Small. Fast.
The voice understood at the same time. "The time has come. Decide."
Mike raised his left hand, not because he needed to touch anything, but because the gesture helped transform intention into choice. His finger hovered before the list, invisible to any other living being on that planet.
"One thing," he said.
"Of course. One last dramatic indecision before the baptism."
"If I choose Assassin... I can still use it my way."
The answer came without irony, for the first time in quite some time. "You'll use it better."
Two creatures emerged from the low side of the rocks, crawling too fast, their skin stretched, their eyes hungry. A third appeared right behind, climbing crookedly up a slope of earth. Mike didn't waste any more time.
ASSASSIN.
The word wasn't spoken aloud. It was a thought pushed forward with enough force to become a command.
The panel responded with a cool glow, without fireworks, without fanfare. Just the right way.
SELECTED CLASS: ASSASSIN.
ROGUE SYNERGY APPLIED.
Initial integration into the process.
For less than two seconds, the world seemed to breathe differently. Not light. Not theatrical pain. Not colorful energy licking arms like cheap anime. It was something more intimate and more dangerous. Mike's body recognized it first. The perception of distance became more precise. The edges of things seemed to gain extra definition. The rhythm of his own heart slowed down a notch, as if a part of him were saying, "Okay, now it's my turn." The weight of the rifle remained the same, but the awareness of the time between seeing, deciding, and acting shortened. Not much. Just enough to be terrifying.
INITIAL SKILLS ACQUIRED:
BLIND STEP I
A LOOK OF DEPRESSION I
SILENT HAND I
AMBUSH BONUS I
INITIAL VITAL READING
"Beautiful," whispered the voice, pleased. "It looks beautiful on you."
The first animal jumped.
Mike turned less than he would have before. The sight didn't even reach the eye. His body already knew where the target was in space. A short, muffled shot entered the creature's open mouth and extinguished the back of its skull before it completed its arc. The second monster tried to use the first's body as cover, lacking the brainpower to name the tactic. Mike dropped the rifle against his shoulder for a fraction of a second, slid a step to the left in a movement almost too silent for the rough terrain, and plunged the knife into the animal's side of the neck, exactly where his new instinct told him to go. The blade found a soft spot. Black blood splattered onto his forearm. The beast died writhing low.
The third one hesitated.
Fatal error.
Mike pulled the knife back, let the monster see the body movement for half a second, and when it decided to jump, it found the tip of the hilt rising from below with enough force to break its jaw and neck alignment. The animal fell awkwardly. Mike stepped on its head and finished it off with the knife, dry, short, without ceremony.
Confirmed kills x3.
EFFICIENT AMBUSH.
Ammunition savings recorded.
LOOT:
CORE x3
GASOLINE x 10 GALLONS
BANANA x12 DOZEN
.300 WIN MAG Ammunition x30
Antibiotic medicine x10
The voice let out an imaginary whistle. "There it is. Do you see the difference? It no longer looks like just a desperate human with expensive equipment. Now it looks like a planned accident."
Mike took a deep breath. The world was clearer. Not easy. Never easy. Just more legible. As if the planet were still hostile, but had agreed to show a larger font to those who chose the right page.
The wounded woman behind the other rock saw part of the fight and widened her eyes, not in hysteria, but in practical conclusion. This one was dangerous. Good. Better than thinking he was a savior.
Mike stowed the items in his inventory almost without paying attention, his gaze already returning to the horizon, to the escape routes, to the next moves. The class had been chosen. The system kept chattering in his head. The dragon was still circling too far away to touch. The blood tutorial continued. And, for the first time since the ground had ripped him from the roof, he felt he had regained some form of center.
"So," said the voice, amused again, "now we really begin."
Mike ran his thumb along the side of the stock, wiping away a trace of dark blood that wasn't his. The wind picked up, hotter, bringing dust, the smell of new death, and some promise of worse things beyond the tree line. The dark instrument panel flickered discreetly in the corner of his vision. Class defined. System integrated. Survival in progress.
He raised the rifle again.
And it was finished.