The pre-dawn air over Ironpeak had teeth.

  Cold enough to bite through cloth, sharp enough to make every breath feel like it scraped on the way out. Torches burned along the street anyway, their light smeared by mist and forge-smoke. The town was awake before the sun bothered to show—wagons rolling, vendors shouting, Drifters arguing like noise was a resource they had to spend before it expired.

  Null stood outside the militia barracks with his hood up and a recurve bow in hand.

  Light. Cheap. Practical.

  It felt wrong in his grip, like holding a tool meant for someone else’s life. The Phoenix Kiss sat sealed in his inventory, exactly where Zwei told him to put it. Null didn’t like leaving it there.

  He understood why he had to.

  A cluster of Drifters waited near a sputtering torch at the gate, shifting from foot to foot. The same faces from yesterday, just more tired.

  Jax was the first thing you noticed—because he made sure he was. Broad-shouldered, mismatched plate strapped over padded leather, sword slung like a banner. He gestured while he talked, and the faint rune on the back of his hand caught the torchlight.

  Null’s eyes flicked to it out of reflex.

  Same mark as his.

  Same Drifter stamp.

  Sora and Mina stood nearby. Sora’s staff looked polished for show. Mina kept checking her interface, fingers twitching like she was counting cooldowns before they even left town.

  Jax spotted Null and grunted. “You showed.”

  Null didn’t respond as if it were a compliment.

  Jax’s gaze dropped to the bow. “So you’re an archer today. Thought you were a dagger guy.”

  “Training,” Null said.

  “Right,” Jax said, already bored with the conversation. He jerked his chin at the last man in the group.

  Lean. Quiet. Leather worn in the right places, not shop-fresh. His attention wasn’t on menus or stats. It was on the barracks entrance, the sentries’ pacing, the angles of the courtyard. Like his brain never stopped mapping exits.

  “This is Blitz,” Jax said. “Rogue. Level 13. So at least one of us won’t trip over his own feet.”

  The rogue gave Null a short nod. “Blitz in here. Lucas Blake outside.”

  His voice was calm, flat, like he didn’t waste sound unless it bought him something.

  Null returned the nod. “Null.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Mina muttered without looking up. “Jax wouldn’t shut up about recruiting a ‘quiet one.’”

  Jax shot her a glare. “We move or what?”

  They filed into the barracks.

  Inside, the smell changed—less ale and sweat, more cold iron and old parchment. Militia rooms always smelled like the inside of a locked drawer. Captain Hargin waited behind a scarred wooden table, beard split by an old wound that looked like something had tried to tear it off his face. His eyes were sharp enough to make a person stand straighter without meaning to.

  He didn’t welcome them.

  He assessed them.

  His gaze hit their hands, the faint rune, the way they carried their weapons—then he jerked his head toward the board behind him.

  A chime snapped into Null’s vision.

  System Message: New quest acquired.

  [Quest: Foothill Suppression & Training]

  Rank: D

  Description: Assist the Ironpeak Militia in securing the Grey Slopes. Maintain formation discipline. Eliminate hostile packs encountered on patrol routes.

  Minimum Level: 10

  Recommended Party Size: 5–10 Drifters

  Failure Condition: Abandon post during engagement.

  Reward: Militia pay (scaled by contribution) + EXP

  Captain Hargin’s voice grated like stone. “You’re here to learn how not to die like idiots.”

  Jax puffed up like the world had finally given him a stage. “We’ve done subjugations.”

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Hargin stared at him a beat too long. “Good. Then you can fail in new ways.”

  His stamp hit the contract with a dull thud.

  System Message: You have been assigned to Militia Patrol Unit 3.

  System Message: Formation compliance will be evaluated.

  Outside, the militia moved first—twenty soldiers in a tight, quiet column, boots striking gravel in the same rhythm. They didn’t talk. They didn’t drift. They didn’t look at the scenery like it existed to entertain them.

  Behind them, the Drifters broke into their natural state: noise.

  Jax complained about the pace within the first two minutes. “We’re walking like we’re escorting a funeral.”

  Sora rolled her eyes. “Better than escorting letters for thirty copper.”

  Mina chimed in, half-yawning. “If this quest splits EXP like the others, I swear—”

  Null walked with them, but not with them.

  He kept his eyes forward and his senses open. The road. The wind. The gaps between militia ranks. The way the soldiers’ heads turned as one when the trees rustled.

  Blitz slid into step beside Null without asking permission. “You hide your level.”

  Null didn’t look at him. “Lots of people do.”

  Blitz’s tone stayed even. “Not like you. You hide it like it matters.”

  Null kept walking.

  Blitz watched him for a few steps, then spoke again, softer. “Your bow is new.”

  “It is.”

  “You don’t carry like a newbie.”

  Null exhaled once through his nose. “You talk a lot for a rogue.”

  Blitz’s mouth twitched—not quite a smile. “I talk when it buys info.”

  Null let the silence take the rest.

  The militia halted so suddenly that the Drifters almost crashed into them.

  Captain Hargin raised a fist, then pointed two fingers toward a ravine ahead. Movement there. Shapes in the half-light. Yellow eyes.

  Mountain Hounds.

  Eight of them—stony hide, lean frames, hungry enough to get stupid.

  Captain Hargin didn’t draw his weapon. He turned his head just enough to look over his shoulder.

  “Drifters,” he barked. “Front. Show me what your skills look like when something bites back.”

  Jax straightened like the world had finally given him a reason to exist. “Finally.”

  He charged.

  “[Shield Bash]!”

  The skill fired. The system helped.

  And still, his boot slipped on loose rock.

  He caught himself, but the recovery was wrong—weight too far forward, sword arm stiff, stance locked like he expected the skill to do the rest. The hound didn’t care about his skill name. It snapped at his calf. Jax yelped, then swung wild, blade scraping hide with an ugly screech.

  Sora started throwing firebolts immediately—each one too bright, too big, too wasteful. Mina’s hands lit with healing every time Jax’s HP dipped by a sliver, burning mana like it was free.

  Null didn’t move at first.

  He watched.

  Not judging them. Cataloging them.

  Practitioner logic. System dependence. Skill triggers without fundamentals.

  Then he watched Blitz.

  Blitz didn’t shout anything. No dramatic callouts. He moved like a line drawn clean—two steps in, one step out. Blade to joints. Blade to eyes. Not powerful. Efficient. Like he’d watched someone better do it and copied until it stuck.

  Null lifted his bow.

  The string pulled back. His fingers found the right pressure without him deciding it. That familiar ghost-thrum of Muscle Memory hummed through his arms—approving of the shape of the motion even if it didn’t belong to him.

  A hound feinted toward Jax, then snapped sideways—straight at Mina’s exposed flank.

  Null loosed.

  The arrow punched into the hound’s shoulder mid-leap, knocking its trajectory off just enough. It hit dirt instead of Mina’s throat, rolled, snarled—

  Blitz was there, finishing it with a clean stab under the jaw.

  Mina didn’t even see what almost happened. She was too busy dumping healing into Jax’s pride.

  Null loosed again. Not kill shots. Control shots. Disruption. Timing.

  The militia watched without stepping in.

  This wasn’t their fight. It was a test.

  When the last hound dropped, the Drifters stood panting, armor scuffed, potions already lighter. Jax’s shield had fresh gouges. Sora looked proud, as if her fire had carried the day. Mina looked relieved like she’d survived a storm by praying at it.

  Null lowered his bow.

  He felt nothing.

  Not pride. Not adrenaline. Just that cold, uncomfortable distance that always followed when his body did something better than his mind could explain.

  “Loot!” Jax shouted immediately, like the battle had been a door he’d kicked open and now the room belonged to him.

  He jogged to the largest corpse and tapped it.

  System Message: [Iron-Jax] has activated Auto-Loot.

  The hound dissolved into light. Drops flashed—hide, fangs, a small mana-touched bone shard—gone into Jax’s inventory in a blink.

  Sora hurried to claim another. Mina did the same.

  By the time Null and Blitz reached the pile, there was nothing left but scuffed dirt and fading system particles.

  Blitz’s head snapped up. “What the hell?”

  Jax didn’t even look guilty. He looked satisfied. “Front line loot.”

  “That wasn’t agreed,” Blitz said.

  Jax finally turned, grin smug. “It’s Mirror rules.”

  Sora nodded like it was obvious. Mina shrugged. “We’ve been doing it like that for days.”

  Blitz’s eyes sharpened. “He saved her.” He jerked his chin toward Mina, then toward Null. “Twice. Arrow work. He covered your back while you were tunnel-visioning.”

  Jax waved a hand. “Rear is rear. You want loot? You take hits. You burn pots. You get dirty.”

  Null looked at the empty ground.

  He thought of Kael’s dismantling knife. The way Kael said auto-loot was for lazy fighters. The way Valeriana owned her mistake when it mattered. The way professionals didn’t pretend fairness—they built it, enforced it, and didn’t rewrite it mid-fight.

  Here, the rules moved whenever Jax wanted them to.

  Null met Blitz’s gaze for a moment, then looked away.

  “It’s fine,” Null said.

  Blitz stared at him like he expected anger. Expected a fight.

  Null didn’t give him one.

  Not because he didn’t care.

  Because he did.

  And because the lesson was already complete.

  Captain Hargin barked a command to move out again. The militia column resumed its disciplined march as if nothing had happened. The Drifters fell in behind them, chattering again, already discussing what they’d “earned.”

  Null adjusted his grip on the bow and walked.

  He didn’t look back at the dirt where the corpses had been.

  He didn’t look at the gold Sora was already calculating in her head.

  He just walked forward with the quiet certainty of someone who’d finally understood what Eins meant.

  He hadn’t needed a monster to learn the difference between allies and a crowd.

  He only needed a table of empty ground.