I died alone. At my desk. Solving a math problem.
No truck. No final words. No noble sacrifice.
Just me. A stack of half-solved equations. And a sharp, blooming pain as my heart stopped mid-calculation. The pen slipped from my fingers. My vision fractured like glass. Somewhere between recursion and the answer, my life blinked out.
Seventeen years old. Top of my class. Zero friends. No family.
Cause of death?
Exhaustion.
Turns out, genius doesn't come with a health bar.
When I opened my eyes, I expected... something. A tunnel of light. Maybe a clipboard-wielding angel. An old man with a beard grading my life.
What I got was screaming. Fire. A sky like spilled blood.
Chains bit into my wrists, my neck, my ankles.
My first breath was mud and smoke. My second ended in a scream as someone slammed into my back. Another body. Another slave. I barely caught myself before my face hit the ground.
Then a voice, like gravel and thunder:
"Move, Drudge! Or die with the fodder!"
Drudge?
My head spun. Colors too bright. Sound too loud. But my body — this broken, starved thing — moved anyway. Stumbling forward, dragged along by a tide of equally doomed souls.
Dirty tunics. Shackles. Hollow eyes. No one spoke.
And then, the monster arrived.
It didn't walk.
It fell.
Wings of leather. Rusted steel scales. A roar that split the sky like a blade.
A wyvern.
I froze.
Somewhere in the static of my mind, logic screamed. Analyze. Survive. Run.
But fear was louder.
This was real.
This wasn't a dream.
Wasn't the afterlife.
It was worse.
A boy stumbled past me — or what was left of one. Ripped open from the waist down, guts steaming in the cold air. A number branded on his chest. No armor. No weapons. Just a corpse waiting to stop twitching.
I stared.
Then someone shoved me.
"Move it, meat!"
I hit the ground hard. Mud in my mouth. Firelight in my eyes.
My body trembled. Thin. Weak. Malnourished.
I wasn't built to fight monsters.
I wasn't built to survive.
So why the hell was I here?
A soft chime answered me. Too quiet for the battlefield. Too calm.
A voice, genderless. Cold and final. Like a scalpel sliding into still water.
[Welcome, Aspirant.]
[You have entered the Trial World: Virellia.]
[Classification: Drudge.]
A translucent screen blinked to life in the corner of my vision.
🧾 Name: Itsuki Amagi
Class: Drudge
Level: 1
HP: 10Strength: 1
Agility: 1
Magic: 1
Luck: -30
Intelligence: ∞
Trait: [Hyper Cognition]You are capable of processing information far beyond mortal limits.Side Effect: You will always know just how screwed you really are.
I stared at it.
Not a game.
No tutorial. No sword. No glowing quest marker.
Just stats. Broken ones.
Negative luck. Trash-tier everything else. And one cruel, cosmic joke for a Trait.
Hyper Cognition.
The brain of a demigod in the body of roadkill.
I laughed. Once. Dry and bitter.
Then the wyvern screamed.
It dove low. Claws like guillotine blades tore through the front line of slaves. Blood sprayed across the mud. Limbs. Screams. Chaos.
Someone fell beside me, their legs crushed like twigs.
I didn't move.
Not from fear.
From calculation.
Three seconds. That's all I had.
Run = trampled.
Fight = suicide.
Beg = ignored.
Hide…
Yes.
There. Behind a collapsed wagon. Half-covered by a corpse. Close enough.
I ran.
Not like a hero.
Like a rat.
Slipping in the blood and muck, crawling behind the wreckage. I curled up, shaking, breath shallow, every nerve screaming.
The wyvern passed overhead.
The ground shook.
It didn't see me.
Yet.
My heart thundered. Not from fear. Not even from the cold.
From something older.
A pressure. Deep in my chest. Coiled and waiting.
Rage.
I didn't ask for this.
I didn't want another world. Another life. Another death sentence.
But if this was the hand I'd been dealt…
Then I'd play it the only way I knew how.
Like a goddamn strategist.
I rose to one knee. Peeking past the broken wagon. Eyes scanning every angle. Every movement. Every weakness.
And there it was.
A path. A plan.
A way out.
And maybe… just maybe…
A way to win.