The man lunged.
Lantern light spilled into the room as the door swung wider, casting jagged shadows across the floorboards. The attacker was lean, almost gaunt, his frame wiry rather than strong. Dark hair clung damply to his forehead, cut short and uneven, as if hacked away without a mirror. His clothes were plain—travel-worn leathers and a faded cloak—but worn carefully, deliberately, like a costume chosen to blend rather than impress.
In his hand was a dagger.
Not ornate. Not cursed.
Just sharp.
The boy rolled from the bed an instant before steel bit into wood. The blade struck where his throat had been, burying itself deep enough to splinter the frame. He came up low, barefoot on cold stone, eyes already locked on his attacker.
The man froze.
Not in fear.
In calculation.
His eyes were a dull hazel, unremarkable at first glance—until they moved. They never stopped moving. Measuring distance. Weight. Breath. Comparing posture, stance, readiness. As though he were looking not at who stood before him, but at what he himself lacked.
"You're faster than he was," the man muttered.
The boy didn't answer.
The attacker yanked his dagger free and came again, movements sudden and efficient. No wasted motion. No flourish. This wasn't rage driving him—it was precision honed by repetition, by watching others succeed where he had not.
Steel scraped past the boy's ribs. He twisted, grabbed the man's wrist, felt tendons strain beneath skin—
—and the grip slipped.
The man twisted free with unnatural smoothness, body folding and rotating like liquid shadow. He stepped back into the doorway, lantern swinging wildly, and for the first time the boy felt it.
Not mana.
Intent.
Cold. Focused. Envious.
The villagers' faces surfaced in his mind—how they'd looked at him. Not with hatred, but with something worse. Recognition warped by resentment. Admiration poisoned by comparison.
This man wasn't alone.
"You don't even know what you took," the attacker said quietly. His voice was flat, almost calm, but it trembled beneath the surface. "You pass through. You survive. You leave stories behind."
He raised the dagger again.
"I stayed."
The shadows behind him deepened.
They did not move unnaturally.
They simply seemed… more attentive.
The boy stepped forward, stance lowering, body aligning instinctively into a form he should not yet know. His muscles protested—too young, too worn—but his mind was steady.
"So you chose to become a blade," he said.
The man's lips twitched. Not a smile.
A crack.
"You chose to become a legend."
The lantern dropped.
Darkness swallowed the room.
The dagger came from below—silent, precise, aimed for the femoral artery. The boy barely twisted aside, pain flaring as steel kissed skin. He countered with an elbow, felt ribs compress—
—and hit nothing.
The man was gone.
No footstep. No sound.
The air behind him shifted.
He turned—
—and steel scraped against his spine.
The blade should have pierced his heart.
It didn't.
Something deflected it.
Not armor.
Instinct.
The boy staggered forward, breath sharp, and felt something new coil beneath his skin—an awareness of angles, of blind spots, of how killing intent folded itself into motion.
From the corner of the room, a voice spoke.
"Ah."
A second man stepped into the lantern's dying glow.
He looked identical.
Same height. Same build. Same face.
But where the first had been tense, this one stood relaxed, hands folded behind his back. His hair was neatly tied. His clothes were cleaner, darker, better fitted. And his eyes—
His eyes were hollow.
Not empty.
Reflective.
They mirrored the boy with unsettling precision.
"This is always the part where they realize," the second man said mildly. "That envy doesn't need to fight you itself."
The first man's breathing hitched.
"You said—"
"I said you could take his place," the second replied, tilting his head. "I never said you'd survive it."
The shadows moved.
They wrapped around the first man's limbs like grasping hands.
The boy understood.
This wasn't a Sin that crushed cities.
This wasn't Lust or Sloth.
This was Assassin.
Envy did not destroy the world.
It replaced people inside it.
The second man—Envy's true vessel—turned his gaze fully toward the boy, eyes glinting with something sharp and eager.
"Now," he said softly, "let's see how well you compare."
The shadows surged.
And the room vanished into motion.