The S-Rank raiders left the corpses where they fell. Didn't even bother looting them.
Typical.
Kian crouched beside the dead guild leader, some hotshot named Gareth who'd talked mad shit about "bait having a leash" two hours ago. Now Gareth had a claw through his chest and a look on his face like the universe personally offended him.
"Rest in pieces, you condescending prick."
Kian yanked the sword free. Plain steel. Soul-Bound to a dead man, which meant it was worthless to anyone else. The System would just flash that smug red text: ITEM IS SOUL-BOUND. YOU CANNOT EQUIP THIS.
His display flickered.
Not normal. His HUD never flickered. It was a cheap piece of shit, but it was reliable cheap piece of shit.
[SYSTEM ERROR: DUPLICATE COMMAND DETECTED.]
[Instruction: $C_py_P_ste_Enabled]
Kian blinked.
The sword was still in his hand. No red text. No warning. Just... the sword.
He pulled up his inventory.
Steel Longsword (Soul-Bound: Gareth Vane)
Steel Longsword (Soul-Bound: Gareth Vane)
Two of them.
"What the,"
His heart did something weird. Not fear. The opposite of fear. The kind of quiet electric jolt you get when you realize you just found something you weren't supposed to find.
He dropped one sword. Picked it up again. The System didn't even twitch.
"No fucking way."
He looked at the dead guild leader. Then at the sword in his hand. Then at the second sword sitting in his inventory like a glitched miracle.
If this works on everything...
His eyes drifted to Gareth's armor. S-Rank Plate of the Iron Covenant. Unique-grade. Only three sets in the entire kingdom. The guild had spent eight months hunting down the materials for this one.
Kian reached out. Touched the chestplate.
Duplicate.
Nothing happened. No error. No flicker.
He almost laughed. Then he checked his inventory.
Plate of the Iron Covenant (Soul-Bound: Gareth Vane)
One. That was it.
"Of course." He exhaled. "Too good to be,"
Then he noticed the second entry.
Plate of the Iron Covenant (Soul-Bound: Gareth Vane)
It was buried three lines down. The System had stacked them. Like it couldn't decide whether to acknowledge what just happened.
Kian pulled out both chestplates. Held them up side by side. Same weight. Same glow. Same microscopic scratches in the metal.
He sat there in the blood-soaked dungeon corridor, surrounded by corpses of people who'd treated him like garbage disposal, holding two identical pieces of armor that shouldn't exist.
"Okay," he whispered. "Okay. Okay. Okay."
His brain was moving too fast. The implications kept crashing into each other.
The Guild Masters spent fortunes on single artifacts. Wars were fought over Unique-grade items. The Emperor's entire power base rested on the fact that he owned the only copies of certain weapons.
And Kian could just... make more.
He looked at Gareth's corpse. The man's face was frozen mid-scream, eyes wide, mouth open like he was about to demand a healing potion that never came.
"Hey," Kian said to the dead man. "Thanks for the gear, asshole."
He stood up. Brushed the dust off his scavenger rags. Started methodically stripping the body.
Duplicate.
Duplicate.
Duplicate.
His inventory filled up. Thirty steel swords. Forty health potions. A ring that boosted strength by 200%. Another ring that did the same thing. Another ring that did the same thing.
By the time he was done, Gareth's corpse was naked, and Kian had enough S-Rank equipment to outfit a small army.
He pulled up his status screen.
Kian Mizekito - Rank F
Class: Scrap Collector
Wealth: 0 Gold
He laughed. Loud. Hollow. The sound echoed off the dungeon walls.
Zero gold. But he was holding more value than half the guilds in the capital.
The System didn't know what to do with him. It had rules. Chains. A whole carefully balanced economy of scarcity and exclusivity.
And he was a bug in its code.
A voice echoed from deeper in the dungeon. One of the other raiders, probably wondering where their fearless leader went.
"Gareth? You get that core yet? We got shit to do!"
Kian looked at the two chestplates in his hands. Then at the naked corpse at his feet. A grin spread across his face, slow, sharp, not entirely sane.
He tossed one chestplate back on the body. Just to watch them figure that out later.
Then he walked toward the exit, inventory bulging with things that shouldn't exist, and started thinking about how badly he was about to break the world.
Let's see how fast this fucking system lags.