"No! No! I had reached Level 15 half a year ago! How can I be in this state with one exchange?!"

Klein’s scream was a mixture of disbelief and terror. His face twisted into a scary mask that contrasted violently with his current weak state—broken ribs jutting out, blood frothing at his lips, and his limbs trembling uncontrollably. He was a seasoned adventurer, a man who had ground his way through the lower floors of the dungeon for years. To be killed so easily was simply a joke.

Igris stood over him, his expression calm, almost bored. He casually wiped a speck of blood from his jet-black blade, the [Gratting Sword].

"It’s not your fault actually," Igris said, his voice flat. "You’re just so unlucky to have met me."

"Go to hell!" Klein roared, mustering the last of his strength. He lunged forward.

Igris didn’t even blink. He didn’t use a fancy skill. He didn’t need to.

He easily swung his blade again in a simple, horizontal arc. It looked slow, almost lazy, but the air shrieked as the metal parted it.

Klein brought his weapon up to block, pouring all his remaining mana into the shaft of his mace.

"Clang!"

Igris’s blade didn’t stop. It collided with Klein’s weapon and broke it in half as if it were made of brittle glass. The jagged teeth of the [Gratting Sword] continued their trajectory, biting into Klein’s neck.

"Thud."

Klein’s head spun in the air, his eyes still frozen in that expression of shock, before landing in the dust. His body crumpled a second later.

[Ding! You have killed a Level 15 Human.]

[Experience Gained: +500 Exp]

[Loot Dropped: 50,000 Crowns]

[Passive Skill ’Asura Devoured’ has activated!]

[Devouring target’s essence... Strength +7!]

Igris felt a warm, rushing sensation flood his muscles as the invisible energy of the fallen warrior was absorbed into his body. He cracked his neck, feeling the new power settle.

"Tch. Level 15 and that’s all he dropped?" Igris muttered, though he wasn’t truly disappointed. Every point counted towards his multiplier.

He didn’t look back at the corpse. In the First Dimension, mercy was a luxury, and sentimentality was a death sentence. He stepped over the pooling blood and walked out of the alley, whistling a tune he remembered from his past life.

***

The streets of the Ancient Zombie City were a macabre painting of grey and crimson. The air was thick with the stench of rotting flesh and the distant groans of the undead.

Igris walked down the center of the cracked asphalt road, his steps light and rhythmic.

A group of twenty zombies, their flesh sloughing off their bones, stumbled out from a ruined convenience store. They smelled fresh meat.

Igris didn’t even unsheathe his sword properly. He gripped the hilt, and with a blur of motion—

"Swish! Swish! Swish!"

[100x Multiplier Activated]

He continued walking. Behind him, twenty heads simultaneously slid off their necks, cut so cleanly they didn’t realize they were dead until they hit the ground.

[Ding! You killed a Zombie. +100 Exp]

[Ding! You killed a Zombie. +100 Exp]

...

He ignored the notifications.

Suddenly, a massive shadow lunged from the rooftop of a burning bus. It was a Tyrant. It roared and slammed its fist down where Igris stood.

Igris side-stepped lazily. The fist cracked the pavement.

"Too slow."

"Slash."

The Tyrant’s leg was severed. As it fell, Igris decapitated it in a single fluid motion.

He encountered four more Tyrants on his way. Each one died in under three seconds. He was grinding, but it was boring grinding.

He reached the designated rendezvous point—the ruins of an old town square where a dried-up fountain stood as a monument to a dead world. This was where he and Serra had agreed to meet after splitting up.

He was walking the ancient street, the sun beating down on his neck, when he suddenly sensed a gaze.

He stopped and looked up.

Seated at the edge of a five-story building, her legs dangling over the edge like a child on a playground, was a figure.

Igris narrowed his dual-colored eyes, focusing his vision.

It was Serra.

But she looked... different.

She was dressed in another outfit this time.

Instead, she wore a short, stylish sundress with a floral pattern that hugged her curves tightly as it fluttered in the wind, exposing her creamy white thighs. Her head was tidily tied in a bun, a few loose strands framing her face as though she was going on a date.

"Been waiting a while for you," she called out. Her seductive voice rang out from above. "I almost left."

Before Igris could respond, she suddenly pushed off the ledge.

"BOOM!"

As she landed like a rod, the ground cracked in a spiderweb shape, spreading out from her feet.

Igris smiled softly when he saw her, she looked cute in the outfit.

"How long have you been waiting here for me?" he asked, walking closer.

"It doesn’t matter." She shook her head, her blond hair bouncing. She slowly walked towards him, her hips swaying with that hypnotic rhythm he remembered from the academy hallway.

"How’s Timothy doing?" He asked, referring to the tank of their group who had taken a heavy hit during their last encounter.

Serra pouted her lips, a cute gesture that revealed a deep dimple in her cheek. "Injured, but a healer has attended to him. He’s fine now. Whining like a baby, but alive."

She walked forward until she was just five inches away from him.

She was a head shorter than him, forcing her to tilt her head back to meet his gaze.

At that moment, her smell wafted towards him an compared to the blood and filth in the surroundings, she smelled like fresh rain and spring leaves at the same time, mixed with the sweet, intoxicating scent of jasmine.

"I’ve sent the video of the assignment forward," she whispered as she glanced at him. "We would most likely get first place, no doubt. But I really need the rune and the opportunity Professor Maggie will give out."

She stepped even closer, her balloon chest almost brushing against his.

"I promise I will make it worth your while," she purred, looking up at him through her thick lashes.

Igris swallowed hard. His [Asura] bloodline, which heightened his senses to a supernatural degree, picked up another scent underneath the jasmine.

It was a muskier, heavier scent.

His pupils immediately narrowed into slits as he immediately knows what that smell was!

He glanced down at her, then back to her eyes.

’She’s wet,’ Igris though as his heart pounded and he inhaled the smell deeply.

"You let me join your team," Igris said, his voice slightly hoarse. "It’s already reward enough."

Serra giggled. "Humans always say one thing but mean another. It’s always a mystery to us Elves how we can be so much physically alike, but mentally different."

She reached out, tracing a finger down his chest, stopping right at his belt. "Do you find me attractive?"

She held his gaze and asked the question point-blank.

Igris’s eyes twitched. He was many things but at this moment he couldn’t lie.

"Yes," he replied without hesitation.

"Good." Her smile widened, revealing slightly pointed canines. "What do you want as your reward? Ask me anything, and I will do my best to fulfil it."

Igris swallowed again. The scent of her arousal was clouding his mind, making his own blood boil.

’Wasn’t this girl too forward?’ he thought frantically. In his past life, girls played hard to get. In this life... they dropped from buildings and asked to be rewarded.

He shook his head, trying to maintain some semblance of composure. "There’s no need for a reward."

Serra sighed in disappointment. She took a step back, crossing her arms under her chest, pushing her breasts up. "If I wasn’t horny right now, I would have walked away immediately when I heard your cowardly reply."

Igris’s eyes widened in surprise.

’This girl is crazy.’

"Life is short in the this Dimension," she said, her voice turning serious. "We could die tomorrow. Why waste time?"

She stepped forward again, her eyes burning with a fierce, emerald light.

"Now, do you want to fuck me or not?"

Igris felt as though a bomb had gone off in his head. Never in his years of living, in either world, had he seen someone so forward!

His mind raced. The System. The danger. The mission.

’Fuck it.’

Before he could think further, his mouth opened up and blurted out: "Yes. I want to fuck you."

"Good."

Her lips curled up into a beautiful smile that dimmed the sun in the sky. The atmosphere around them shifted instantly.

She tapped her feet on the ground, bending her knees.

"Whoosh!"

She jumped straight up, sailing through the open window of the fifth-story building she had been sitting on previously.

Igris’s eyes traced her movement. As she flipped in the air, the hem of her sundress lifted.

His heart skipped a beat.

She wasn’t wearing panties.