Jake stood over him for exactly two seconds.
That was all he allowed himself. Two seconds to look at Adil lying face-down in the corridor dust—blood from his forehead dark against the concrete, his chest moving in shallow pulls that didn't sound right, the particular stillness of someone who had run completely out of whatever they'd been running on.
Then Jake locked it down, crouched, and hauled Adil up onto his back.
Adil's weight settled across his shoulders. Solid. Real. Alive, technically—which was the only thing that mattered right now, and also somehow not enough.
You can't die on me, Jake thought. The words arrived from somewhere underneath the urgency, from the part of him that didn't perform for anyone. I still have to beat you. That's the deal. That's always been the deal.
He kept moving.
Behind his eyes, something pressed against the inside of his skull—a low, quiet heat, purposeful, like an ember that had been waiting for someone to stop smothering it.
He pushed through the medical room door with his shoulder.
Garu was at the hunter's bedside, hands working efficiently through the last of the bandaging, when the door opened. He turned.
He saw Jake first. Then he saw what Jake was carrying.
His hands stopped.
Not gradually. Just—stopped, mid-motion, the bandage still held between his fingers, every efficient, focused part of him suspending itself at once. Something raw moved across his face that he didn't bother controlling, because there was nobody in this room he needed to hide it from.
Then it was gone. Locked down. Filed away.
Garu crossed the room and helped lower Adil onto the nearest bed without a word. But his hands, when they settled Adil's shoulders against the mattress, didn't let go immediately.
They stayed a second longer than necessary.
Garu reached for the bandages. His hands knew what to do. They'd always known what to do—assess, prioritize, act. It was how he operated. It was the only way he knew how to help when helping was the only thing left.
He pressed the cloth against the wound on Adil's chest.
Too high. He adjusted. Too much pressure on the wrong side. He adjusted again. The bleeding didn't slow. The bandage sat wrong, covered the wrong angle, and he couldn't understand why—because his hands knew this, he knew this, he'd read enough to know this—
He repositioned. Tried again.
Wrong again.
His jaw tightened. The bandage. The wound. The blood that kept coming despite everything he was doing. Simple. It should be simple. Why couldn't he—
A hand closed over his and moved him aside. Gently. But without asking.
The hunter sat up from the adjacent bed with the careful, deliberate movement of a man taking inventory of what his body still had available and choosing to spend it anyway. Not fully healed—that much was obvious in the tight set of his jaw, in the way one arm favored itself, in the shallow quality of his breathing. But functional. Enough.
He took the bandages from Garu's hands without a word and got to work.
Garu stayed where he'd been moved, staring down at his own hands. They weren't shaking. He almost wished they were—shaking would have made more sense than whatever this hollow stillness was.
The hunter worked in silence.
His hands moved with the efficiency of someone who had done this in worse conditions, in darker places, with less to work with. The kind of knowledge that lived in the muscle memory rather than the head. He examined the wound first—pulling the torn fabric back, studying the edges with the focused attention of someone confirming a suspicion.
He reached into his tactical vest and produced a small vial of dark glass stoppered with wax, the thick liquid inside moving slowly. He broke the seal with his thumb without ceremony and drew it into a syringe from the same pocket.
"This will hurt," he said. Not a warning. Just a fact delivered for the sake of completeness.
He injected it directly into the wound.
Then he dressed it—methodically, compensating for his own damaged arm without acknowledging it, working around his limitations the way water works around stone. When he finally tied off the last bandage, he sat back and wiped his brow.
"Done," the hunter rasped. "The poison won't kill him now. But he needs rest—his body has to finish the work."
He reached for his dagger and pulled out a sharpening stone. The soft, rhythmic scrape of metal on stone filled the room. But his purple eyes stayed on the boy in the bed for a moment longer than necessary—on the scars that had no business being on a student, on a body that read like a record of something nobody had thought to mention.
Then he looked away and focused on the blade.
Jake looked over at Garu. "I think I deserve an explanation."
Garu didn't look up immediately. He was still looking at his hands.
"So... we all have a system? Like an in-game UI?" Jake asked, trying to summon his screen.
A pale blue panel materialized in front of him:
NAME: Jake
NUMBER: 721
VERDICT: [Ignite]
Garu summoned his own interface alongside it:
NAME: Garu
NUMBER: 998
VERDICT: [Eclipse]
"I don't think it's like a game system," Garu said, studying the text. "It reads more like judgment notes."
"I think your friend is awake," the hunter interrupted, the rhythmic scrape of his sharpening stone pausing.
Garu quickly rushed over to the bed.
"Ah... my head," Adil groaned, his eyes fluttering open. "Am I in heaven?"
Garu stared down at him. "No, idiot."
"Oh... so I'm in hell."
Jake crossed his arms. "Even in this state, you still have that arrogant smirk."
"Says the one who was missing the whole time," Adil replied, giving him a deadpan look.
Jake opened his mouth to defend himself, but Garu cut him off bluntly. "He was taking a nap."
Adil looked at Jake with genuine, exaggerated awe. "Jake, I think you deserve a Nobel Prize."
"It's called being efficient," Jake replied with a bitter grin.
"What kind of plot armor does this guy have?" Adil muttered, exchanging glances with Garu.
Meanwhile, Garu peered through a small hole in the reinforced metal door, watching a cluster of shadowy creatures roaming the corridor outside. A single question burned in his mind: Where the hell did they come from?
Jake stepped up beside Garu, looking through the gap as well. "What are those?"
"Those are the creatures Adil was fighting earlier," Garu answered.
Jake turned to look at Adil, puffing out his chest. "If he can fight them, then so can I."
Adil looked Jake up and down. "Jake, if you fight one, your first instinct is probably going to be to punch it, right?"
Jake nodded proudly. "Yup."
Adil stated the obvious: "Yeah... that's the problem."
...
"So, what's the plan now?" Jake asked, looking between them.
Adil waved his hand casually toward the hunter. "Hey, Hunter."
The hunter stopped scraping his blade and looked up, raising an eyebrow. "Hunter?"
Adil shrugged. "Well, I don't know your name, so based on your getup, that's the best I've got."
Amused, the hunter replied, "Fair enough. Call me Eron."
Adil pointed a thumb at his own chest. "I'm Adil." He gestured to Garu. "That's the Depression DLC." Finally, he pointed at Jake. "And that's our Professional Sleeper."
All three of them stared at Adil in dead silence.
"Alright, alright, kidding," Adil sighed, waving a hand. "That's Garu, and that's Jake. So, what's the plan?"
Jake glared at Adil, his mind screaming, Isn't that literally what I asked two seconds ago?!
Eron pulled a worn map from his tactical pouch and began quietly studying it, ignoring the banter.
Jake leaned toward Adil. "Ask him about the history of this world."
Adil glanced at Eron. "What does a hunter do?"
"Hunt," Garu replied flatly.
Adil turned back to Jake. "Right?"
Jake frowned. "Yeah…"
"Don't write a journal about the world," Adil said deadpan.
"You don't watch isekai?" Jake asked.
"I prefer Dragon Ball," Adil replied.
"...Death Note," Garu added quietly.
Jake stared at both of them. "I'm surrounded by weirdos."
Adil laid back down on the bed. Suddenly, a chime echoed in his vision:
[Inventory Access Granted]
Adil blinked, looking at his screen. He reached into the inventory interface and pulled out the Corruption Shard he'd looted earlier. He held it up to the light, observing it closely, but a strange smell drifted off the crystal.
Why... does it smell like shit?
Eron folded the map and turned to them. "We need to move now."
"But there are Zogs wandering outside," Garu replied.
Eron looked at him. "How many?"
"Ten."
Eron rubbed his chin. "Not a big deal… but it'll cause a bit of trouble given my current state."
Adil blinked. A bit of trouble?
Eron caught the look on his face. "Zogs are the weakest creatures in this region."
Silence.
Jake looked at Adil. "...The weakest?"
Eron ran through their weaknesses in a few clipped sentences—soft joints, slow reflexes, no coordination past a straight charge.
Adil just shrugged. Yeah. I already figured that out the hard way.
He rose from the bed and stepped onto the floor. His body felt heavy, his muscles cold and stiff from the poison and the spirit attacks, but his legs held his weight. Enough to fight.
"So what's the plan?" Adil asked.
Eron gave his dagger a single, sharp swing. The blade caught the dim light with a soft metallic whisper. "Direct ambush."
Adil stared at him. "…So no plan."
Jake cracked his knuckles. "I think it's a pretty cool plan."
Adil sighed and immediately began scanning the medical room for empty glass bottles. Garu watched him, already knowing exactly what his friend was up to.
Adil shattered the bottles against the edge of a steel table, wedged the sharp fragments between his knuckles, and bound them tight with strips of medical cloth. He flexed his fists, testing the weight.
"Then let's do it."
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small object, and tossed it to Garu.
"A pen?" Garu looked down at it—the exact same pen that had nearly gone into his throat in Chapter 2.
Jake looked at Adil. "What about me?"
Adil stayed silent for a beat. "Jake, you're already gifted with a strong body. You don't need a weapon."
Jake smirked, rubbing the back of his neck and puffing out his chest—right up until Adil added: "Except you're predictable."
It took Jake a few seconds to process the insult. "What?"
Garu murmured, "You seem pretty confident in him."
"Because he's strong," Adil said. "Fun fact—every time we spar, Jake holds back."
Garu frowned. "Why? Doesn't he always want to beat you?"
"If he didn't hold back," Adil said flatly, "he'd probably break my bones."
Garu went quiet, letting that sit as heavy as it was meant to.
Eron was already at the door, hand resting light and ready on the handle. "Ready?"
"WAIT." Adil pressed the heel of his palm into his temple—a pulse of pain, or maybe just a completely unhinged, brilliant idea taking shape. "I've got an idea."
Jake raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Better to show than tell." Adil tested the glass knuckles.
Eron studied him, his voice low and cautious. "How sure are you this works?"
"Ninety percent."
"Why ninety?"
Adil wiped a smear of dried blood off his jaw. A sharp, dangerous grin cracked across his pale face. "Because if it fails, I'm the one taking the hit."
"Garu, Jake, Eron—get out into the hallway first," Adil instructed, his tone dropping to a low whisper. "Stand on either side of the doorway. Stay silent."
Garu didn't question it, slipping out into the dim corridor with Jake and Eron right behind him. They flattened themselves against the exterior concrete wall, pens and blades ready.
Adil stayed inside the medical room.
He cracked the heavy metal door open just enough to clear the threshold, keeping both feet firmly inside the room's boundaries. Then, drawing in a deep breath, he screamed at the top of his lungs into the room:
"YO! UGLY BASTARDS! COME GET SOME!"
Outside, ten pale heads snapped toward the source of the noise. Because the shout originated from inside the utility room, the corridor's ambient ghosts didn't react—but the Zogs right outside the door certainly did.
A chorus of guttural, screeching roars tore through the doorway as the entire pack swarmed forward, funneling straight into the room after the sound.
Eron, watching from the hallway shadow, widened his eyes in sudden realization. He didn't break the corridor rule. He lured them inside where it's safe to be loud!
Adil backpedaled deep into the room, baiting the pack like a matador with nothing to lose. The Zogs poured through the entrance in a tangled, screeching mass—
Adil waited. Counted them without counting. Waited for the exact half-second the last creature crossed the threshold—
—and threw his weight sideways, sliding low across the dusty floor.
Carried by their own blind momentum, all ten Zogs slammed headfirst into the far concrete wall with a sickening crunch, plaster dust exploding into the air.
Adil was already up and diving through the open doorway into the corridor.
The second his boots cleared the threshold, he grabbed the heavy door, slammed it shut, and drove the steel bolt home from the outside—sealing all ten Zogs inside the room.
The heavy door rattled violently as the trapped pack began clawing at the reinforced steel from the inside.
"Run," Adil muttered, wiping his brow.
They sprinted down the corridor.
Eron's purple eyes stayed fixed on the back of Adil's head the entire way, his mind racing faster than his feet.
He exploited the rule boundaries of the facility, Eron realized, a flicker of genuine shock cutting through his fatigue. He used the room to amplify his voice to draw the beasts, avoided the corridor spirits entirely, and turned the room into a cage. It's so simple it's almost insulting... but under that kind of pressure, the kid's tactical instincts are terrifying.
Eron shook his head, a quiet laugh escaping his chest, and kept running.