The hospital room was quiet when Jin-soo slipped back through the window, his chest heaving. He scrambled into the bed, pulling the thin white sheets over his chest just seconds before the heavy click of the door handle echoed in the room.
Yooha walked in, carrying a plastic cup of lukewarm coffee. She stopped, her blue eyes scanning him with a suspicious intensity. "You're sweating," she noted, her voice dropping an octave. "And your heart rate on the monitor is jumping like you just ran a marathon."
"Just... a bad dream," Jin-soo lied, his voice a low rasp.
'Please don't notice the smell,' Jin-soo thought. The scent of the morgue—that thick, metallic smell of old blood and ozone—seemed to be clinging to his skin like a second layer.
Yooha lingered for a moment, her gaze drifting toward his shadow on the wall, which seemed just a fraction darker than it should have been. "Get some sleep, Jin-soo. The Academy called. Since I'm a High-Tier, they want me moved to the central dorms tomorrow. I won't be around as much to watch your back."
"I'll be fine, Yooha. Go. Become the hero you're supposed to be."
As soon as she closed the door, Jin-soo let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He didn't want to lie to her, but how could he explain that he was currently tethered to a dead man's soul?
'System,' he thought. 'Show me the shadow.'
The violet window flickered to life.
[SHADOW SOLDIER: UNNAMED]
[RANK: SOLDIER]
[SKILLS: QUICK-STEP (RANK D), BASIC SWORDMASTERY (RANK E)]
As Jin-soo stared at the status, a new prompt pulsed in his vision, darker and more aggressive than the others.
[PASSIVE SKILL: ETERNAL EXTRACTION ACTIVATED.]
[WOULD YOU LIKE TO EXTRACT A SKILL FROM THE SHADOW?]
[NOTICE: EXTRACTION DOES NOT WEAKEN THE SHADOW. THE MONARCH MERELY TAKES WHAT IS HIS.]
Jin-soo's breath caught. 'I can take their skills? Forever?'
In the world of the Divine Legion, your class was your destiny. A Swordsman stayed a Swordsman. A Healer stayed a Healer. You could level up your power, but you could almost never learn a skill outside your predetermined "path." But the System was telling him the rules didn't apply to him.
'Extract: Quick-Step,' Jin-soo commanded.
A black, ethereal thread snaked out from his shadow, coiling around his ankle. It felt like a bolt of ice shooting up his leg, knitting into his muscles and tendons.
[EXTRACTION SUCCESSFUL!]
[PERMANENT SKILL LEARNED: QUICK-STEP (RANK D)]
[DESCRIPTION: BURST OF SPEED ALLOWING THE USER TO MOVE 20% FASTER FOR 5 SECONDS. COST: 10 MANA.]
Jin-soo sat up, his eyes wide. He looked at his hands, which were trembling with a newfound, restless energy.
'If I can do this with one low-level soldier,' he thought, his mind racing through the possibilities, 'what happens when I kill a High-Tier? What happens when I harvest a monster from a S-Rank Gate?'
The realization was terrifying. He didn't need to train for decades. He didn't need the "Divine Light" to grant him a gift. He just needed to be at the end of the line when the bodies started falling.
He looked at the hospital room door. For years, that door had represented his limitations—the barrier between him and the "real" world of heroes. Now, it looked like a gate.
'I'm nothing,' Jin-soo thought, his lips curling into a sharp, dangerous smile that he didn't recognize. 'I'm just a side character after all... but I'm the only one who can steal the script.'
He stood up, testing his weight. He activated Quick-Step, and for a split second, the world slowed down. He moved from the bed to the window in a blur that the human eye couldn't track.
[MANA: 170/180]
He looked out at the city, at the glowing towers of the Divine Legion Academy. They were the suns of this world, blindingly bright. But the brighter the sun, the darker the shadow.
'Watch me,' Jin-soo thought, staring at the distant silhouette of the Academy spire. 'While you're all fighting for the light, I'm going to own the dark.'