The rhythm of misery established itself with brutal efficiency. Leo's world shrank to the dimensions of Pen Seven: the scrape of the squeegee, the heavy push of the mop, the endless, indifferent squeaking and grunting of the Rock Rats, the ache in his lower back that became a permanent tenant in his body. The brand on his hand was a constant, low-level itch, a visual whisper of his place in the world. Elara's silent bread-roll charity was not repeated, but a new, unspoken routine formed. They did not speak, but their paths crossed in the yard, at the water pump, in the mess line. A fleeting glance, a slight, almost imperceptible nod—these became the fragile currency of their shared exile.
For Leo, every waking moment not spent moving filth was spent in a state of coiled, frustrated observation. He watched Janus. He watched the guards in the distant yard. He studied the rats, not as pests, but as potential targets. The grim equation—killing blow for MP—looped in his mind, but the "how" remained a locked door. He had no opportunity, no method, and a weapon that was one clumsy swing away from becoming kindling.
The monotony was shattered one afternoon by the rumble of iron-rimmed wheels on the cobblestone service road. A rugged cart, pulled by two patient, plodding mules, rolled into the menagerie yard. Its cargo was a large, reinforced wooden cage, and inside the cage was chaos contained.
Tunnel Weasels. Three of them. They were longer and leaner than Rock Rats, with sleek, mud-brown fur, needle-sharp teeth, and frantic, intelligent black eyes that darted around their confinement. They moved in a blur of nervous energy, pacing, climbing the bars, chittering with a sound like grinding pebbles.
CREATURE DETECTED: TUNNEL WEASEL
LEVEL: 2
NOTE: AGITATED. TERRITORIAL.
The notification was superfluous. The dangerous energy rolling off the cage was palpable. A group of young Iron-rank adventurers, looking eager and slightly nervous, trailed behind the cart, shepherded by a bored-looking Silver-rank warrior. This was a training delivery. The weasels, captured from the foothills, were to be used for live combat drills—controlled spars to teach newbies how to handle fast, low-level monsters.
Janus emerged from his shack, wiping his hands on his apron. "Pen Three is cleared and reinforced," he grunted to the Silver-rank. "Try not to let 'em dig through the stone this time. It's a bitch to patch."
The atmosphere in the yard shifted. The stable hands paused in their work, watching with a mixture of dull interest and mild anxiety. Predators, even small ones, were a different category of problem than Rock Rats.
The transfer was meant to be simple. The cart was backed up to the gated entrance of the newly prepared Pen Three. The Silver-rank adventurer supervised while two of the younger Iron-ranks, a boy and a girl looking terribly proud of their responsibility, began the process of shifting the cage.
The mechanism for transferring the weasels was a sliding door that would align the cage with the pen's gate. The new guard on yard duty, a pimply youth barely older than Leo, who had been assigned the thrilling task of "keeping the workers back," stood too close, his hand resting on the cart's frame.
The Iron-rank boy fumbled with the heavy iron pin that secured the cage's sliding door. It jammed. He yanked at it, frustration on his face. The weasels, sensing the disturbance, went into a frenzy, throwing themselves against the bars with frantic force.
"Easy there," the Silver-rank murmured, but it was too late.
The guard, startled by the sudden violence from the cage, jumped back. His hip slammed into the cart's corner. The jolt, combined with the boy's final, forceful tug, did the trick.
The pin came free. The heavy sliding door, designed to be moved slowly and carefully, shot open with a rusty shriek.
For a heartbeat, there was silence. The weasels stopped their frenzy. They peered out into the open space, the pen gate not yet aligned.
Then, with a unified burst of feral instinct, they exploded from the cage.
It was a blur of brown fur and panic. The weasels didn't attack the humans immediately. They were terrified, cornered animals in a new, wide-open space. They shot off in three different directions like loosed crossbow bolts.
Chaos erupted.
"CLOSE THE GATE!" the Silver-rank bellowed, but it was pointless.
The pimply guard yelped and fumbled for his sword.
The Iron-rank trainees shouted, tripping over each other.
From his shack doorway, Janus's roar cut through the din. "EVERYONE! INSIDE! NOW!"
The stable hands didn't need telling twice. They dropped rakes, buckets, and brooms, scrambling for the door of the main stable or Janus's shack. The yard became a tableau of fleeing workers and converging guards from other posts, their boots pounding on the cobbles.
Leo stood frozen in the open doorway of Pen Seven, his mop in hand. His heart hammered against his ribs. His eyes tracked one of the weasels as it streaked along the fence line, disoriented and hissing.
His gaze snapped to a flash of movement by Pen Six. Elara hadn't run to the stable. She'd been collecting eggs from the Glitterhen nests and was now trapped on the wrong side of the yard, halfway between the hen pen and safety.
One of the weasels, cornered between a water trough and the Glitterhen fence, saw her. Its escape route blocked, its fear curdled into aggression. It coiled, a low, continuous growl vibrating in its throat, its black eyes fixed on her.
Elara pressed her back against the wooden fence of the hen pen, her hands raised. The soft, dappled-green light of [Calm Animal] sprang from her fingertips, washing over the creature.
But this wasn't a skittish chicken. This was a Level 2 predator in a blind terror. The calming magic seemed to slide off its frenzied mind like water off oil. The weasel's growl intensified. It took a step forward, then another, its body low to the ground, teeth bared in a needle-filled snarl.
Leo saw the panic in her grey eyes—not for herself, he thought later, but for the failure of her only useful skill. She was a Beast-whisperer who couldn't whisper to this beast.
Leo didn't think. There was no calculation, no thought of MP or skill tests. He saw Elara cornered, saw the weasel about to lunge, and his body moved.
He hefted his cracked mop like a spear and ran out from the relative safety of the rat pen, his oversized boots slapping clumsily on the stones. He had no plan. He was going to swing, to distract, to put himself between that thing and her.
He never got the chance.
A guard, a veteran with a salt-and-pepper beard and moving with a calm, terrifying speed Leo had never possessed, blurred past him. The guard's sword was already out, held low and ready.
The weasel, sensing the new, greater threat, spun towards the guard with a shriek.
The guard didn't break stride. His sword arm came up in a tight, economical arc. And there, clearer than Leo had ever seen it—even clearer than in the training yard—the skill manifested. A sheath of solid, compact brown light, like polished oak, flashed into existence around the blade. It wasn't a flicker. It was a definitive, weighty presence.
The weasel leaped.
The sword fell.
THWACK- The sound was clean, final. The brown-light-enhanced edge met the weasel's neck mid-air. There was a brief, gruesome resistance, then a wet chop. The weasel's body crumpled to the cobbles, its head rolling a few feet away, the frantic light in its black eyes instantly gone.
TUNNEL WEASEL (Lvl 2) DEFEATED.
SKILL DETECTED: [POWER STRIKE] (MASTERY: HIGH)
...REPLICATION ATTEMPTED. SKILL ALREADY IN COPY SLOT.
The notifications scrolled, clinical and absurd against the backdrop of sudden, violent death. The guard stood over the corpse, his sword already dripping. He barely seemed winded.
Then the guard's eyes, hard and annoyed, found Leo, who was standing ten feet away, mop held uselessly in a defensive stance, his mouth agape.
"You!" the guard barked, gesturing with his bloody sword towards the stable. "Defective! What are you doing out here? Get inside before you get someone killed!"
The words were a physical blow. They stripped the momentary rush of adrenaline away, leaving only the familiar, cold sludge of shame. He hadn't been brave. He'd been a liability. A complication.
But the shame was overshadowed by something else, something that rooted him to the spot. His eyes weren't on the guard's contemptuous face. They were locked on the dead weasel.
The guard's skill had been so clear. The timing, the focus, the result. It was a masterclass in lethal efficiency, and his System had seen it all, even if it couldn't copy it again. That perfect brown flash was now etched into his memory, a benchmark of what [Power Strike] was supposed to be.
The guard stomped off towards the other commotion, yelling orders. The Silver-rank had another weasel cornered. Janus was bellowing at the trembling Iron-ranks.
In the sudden bubble of stillness around the corpse, Leo remained frozen, staring. The coppery scent of blood mixed with the ever-present smells of dung and wet straw. He wasn't seeing a dead monster. He was seeing a lesson. A finished equation.
That, he thought, his mind cold and clear amidst the fading chaos, is how you do it.
He finally turned, his limbs moving stiffly, and trudged towards the stable door, the image of the brown-lit sword and the separated weasel head playing on a loop behind his eyes. The guard's yelled insult still hung in the air, but it no longer stung. It was just noise. The signal, the thing that mattered, was lying dead on the cobblestones. And Leo had finally, truly, seen it.