I sat on a bed, my gaze lost in the darkness of the shared room. The massive destruction caused by those two aliens and the thousands of deaths had left an indelible mark on my mind.

  But what I would never forget was the exact moment my mother sacrificed her life to save me.

  My dry, red eyes could no longer shed any tears. I remembered my father, rotting in jail because of some corrupt officials, and my empty expression began to transform: first confusion, then absolute coldness.

  { Ding! Host memories successfully recovered... Choosing the system that best suits the Host... System found... VILLAIN SYSTEM }

  { Villain System Rank: Weak but intelligent child. Store: (Locked - Get Gold) (Gold: 0) Stats: (Open) Quest: (1)

  [Appendix: Power Level Guide] Level 1: Mediocre (Current Status) Level 3: Normal (Average Adult) Level 5: Professional (Athlete/Elite Soldier) Level 7: Superhuman (Captain America/Batman) Level 10: Supernatural (Spiderman/Low Metahumans) Level 15: Divine (Thor/Wonder Woman) Level 20+: Cosmic Scale (Comparable only to Supreme Entities). }

  I showed a slight smile. "This is better than going to heaven," I thought, "but also much more dangerous."

  I looked at the newspaper on my bed: the fight between Superman and General Zod had razed the city. Further down, there was news about Tony Stark.

  My recovered memories from my previous life confirmed my suspicions: this world was a chaotic amalgam of the DC and Marvel universes.

  I opened the system. My Stats were pathetic, those of a normal 11-year-old boy. But when I read the Quest, I broke into a cold sweat.

  { Main Quest: Prove your worth as a rookie: Steal a fragment of Kryptonian Alloy. Failure: Your system will downgrade to "Gangster System." Success: The system remains, and you will obtain exclusive benefits. }

  "What kind of suicidal hazing is this?" I thought, frowning.

  Instinctively, I looked around for a "Welcome Package" or "Starter Gift" button. Nothing. The Inventory didn't even exist.

  There were no gifted divine Skills, no super-soldier serums, and no harem of beautiful women magically waiting for me.

  For a second, I felt the usual irritation of a gamer, but I crushed it immediately. A cynical, mature smile crossed my childish face.

  "Better," I whispered through clenched teeth. "In my previous life, I learned that nothing is free. If this system gave me divine power right now, I'd be a pet, not an owner."

  I looked at my small, weak hands.

  "If I want to be a god among these monsters, if I want absolute power and the most beautiful women in this world at my feet, I'll have to earn it myself."

  "No one is going to hand me the throne. I'll have to build it on top of corpses."

  Without wasting any more time complaining to a screen that wasn't going to answer, I closed the system.

  I let out a sigh and focused. I had to take a three-hour bus ride to Ground Zero, the perimeter where those "gods" had fought.

  I felt a deep hatred bubbling in my chest. Even though I had recovered my memories, this orphan boy's feelings were mine too. I was him.

  I waited for my roommates to fall asleep and slipped into the kitchen. I grabbed the sharpest knife I could find, but stopped dead in my tracks before leaving.

  "Fingerprints," I thought. "If I leave a single fingerprint at the scene, they'll track me."

  I stealthily returned to my room and rummaged through my things. At the bottom of the drawer, I found a pair of black winter gloves; the ones my mother bought me.

  Touching them, I felt a fleeting pain in my chest, an echo of my new life, but I had to suppress it instantly. There was no time for mourning.

  I put them on, securing the knife, and walked out into the streets of Queens, hiding my childish features and trying to move with the confidence of an adult with dwarfism.

  I snuck into the luggage compartment of a Greyhound bus. It was a three-hour hell amidst suitcases and dust, but necessary. No one looks for a runaway orphan in the cargo hold.

  Upon exiting, I dusted myself off. I was 11 years old, small, and looked harmless. That was my best weapon.

  After a while, the containment perimeter loomed before me. Fences, turrets, and patrols.

  "A.R.G.U.S.," I recognized the black uniforms. "They aren't S.H.I.E.L.D., they're more aggressive."

  I spotted my target: a guard at the eastern edge. Every three minutes, he touched a photo on his vest. A father. Nostalgic. Distracted.

  I messed up my hair, rubbed dirt on my face, and stepped out of my hiding place with staggering steps.

  "Sir!" I squealed with a trembling voice. "Help me, please!"

  The soldier swung a heavy, futuristic-looking rifle toward me, but lowered it slightly upon seeing a crying child.

  "Halt!" he shouted. "What are you doing here? This is a restricted zone."

  "It's my dog, Bucky," I sobbed, pointing to some distant rubble. "He went in there and something fell on him. He's bleeding!"

  The soldier touched his radio: "I saw something, going to check it out." Short. Then he looked at me.

  "Alright, kid. Let's go quick so we can get you out of here."

  We walked toward the rubble. To see into the darkness of the hole, the soldier knelt down and turned on his flashlight, turning his back to me for a second.

  That was the moment. I let the mask drop.

  My left hand yanked his helmet strap backward, exposing his neck. My right hand drew the knife hidden at my waist, moving it straight to his throat.

  I didn't cut deep, I just buried the tip. A trickle of hot blood stained my fingers.

  "Don't. Even. Think. About. It," I whispered into his ear with a voice of ice. "If you move, you bleed out. Drop the rifle. Now."

  The man, tense, let his heavy weapon fall to the ground with a dull thud.

  "The photo on your vest," I continued, while using my free hand to snatch the secondary pistol from his waist with a dexterity improper for my age. "You have a son, right? Speak if you want to see him grow up."

  I brought my mouth close to his ear, lowering my voice.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "Give me a safe entry point. And no lies. I've already mapped the perimeter; I just want a confirmation. So, if I catch you lying..."

  I paused, pressing the knife tip just enough for him to feel the shallow cut.

  "...I have no problem killing you and luring over another one of your buddies who might be more 'honest.' So tell me: how do I get past the seismic sensors, the cameras, and the rest of the security?"

  The soldier swallowed hard. The fear in his eyes shifted; it was no longer just panic about dying, but the certainty that he couldn't fool me.

  "Sewer 4-B!" he gasped in terror, spitting out the truth. "They reboot for sixty seconds at 19:00 hours! It's the only window!"

  "And the drones?"

  "They track thermal patterns... cover yourself with a blanket or stay close to the fires... I swear!"

  I remained silent for a few seconds, processing the intel while the man desperately repeated that it was the truth.

  "Thanks," I said softly.

  "Are... are you going to let me go?" he asked, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

  I looked at him, and in that instant, time seemed to stand still. A cold equation formulated in my mind:

  He saw my face. He knows I'm a child. He's an elite A.R.G.U.S. soldier. If I let him leave here alive, Amanda Waller will have my physical and psychological profile in less than an hour.

  My life, my quest, my freedom... it will all end before it even begins. It's an unacceptable statistical risk. It's him or my future.

  For a split second, I searched inside myself for fear or guilt. In my previous life, I was an ordinary citizen, someone who had never taken a life. I should be trembling; I should feel nauseous at what I was about to do.

  Yet, I found nothing. Not a shred of remorse, not a tremor in my hands. Only a cold, absolute silence in my mind.

  I decided to ignore that strange and terrifying emotional void for the moment; analyzing my psyche could wait, but my survival couldn't.

  The hesitation vanished. I acted with brutality, driving the knife in with the intention of slashing sideways and slitting his throat from ear to ear.

  But I failed to calculate the force. My eleven-year-old body didn't have enough power to slice through an adult's tense muscle in a single clean slash.

  Before I could finish the job or shove the gun into his mouth to silence him, the soldier's survival instinct kicked in. He grabbed me with one hand and tossed me like a rag doll against the rubble.

  "Agh!"

  I felt a crack in my back as I slammed into the concrete. The pain knocked the wind out of me for a second, and I feared I had fractured a rib. But adrenaline forced me to stand up on wobbly legs.

  I looked up, expecting the soldier to shoot me. But he didn't.

  The man was on his knees, his eyes bloodshot with pure panic, clutching his throat. He was trying to scream, to call for help, but no sound came out. My first slash, though not instantly lethal, had severed his vocal cords and part of his trachea.

  His spasms were violent. He tried to get up to reach me, driven by fury, but blood gushed in black spurts between his fingers, drowning him.

  I watched him without a hint of disgust as his body convulsed, waiting patiently until the spasms ceased and he became nothing more than dead weight.

  The sensation of feeling nothing in the face of death frightened me for a second, but I didn't have time for psychoanalysis.

  [Achievement Unlocked: Cold Blood!] [Hidden Quest Completed: First Strategic Kill] Reward: +5 Stat Points / +2 Intelligence.

  Ding! [Attribute Evolution Alert!] It has been detected that the User's Intelligence has surpassed the average human threshold. [Calculation: Adult Mind (Level 3) + Bonus (+2) = Intelligence Level 5 (Professional)]

  [New Status: Tactical Genius] Description: Your processing capacity, photographic memory, and deduction speed now rival those of elite agents and expert scientists. For a child your age, you are a cognitive anomaly.

  I blinked. The world suddenly seemed... slower. It wasn't that time had stopped, but that my mind was now processing information much faster than reality was moving.

  I looked at the soldier's corpse. I no longer saw just a body; I saw vectors, timings, escape routes, and mathematical probabilities floating over it.

  "Level 5..." I whispered, and my own voice sounded more calculating. "Interesting."

  I checked the time: 18:54. I had 6 minutes.

  I hid the body under the trash, and when I went to collect his gear, my fingers brushed against the rifle he had dropped earlier. A wide smile crossed my face.

  [Hidden Achievement: Obtained Sonic Weapon (A.R.G.U.S. Prototype)!]

  Seeing the big toy, I felt a pang of pain in my "gamer" soul. It weighed too much for my childish arms. I couldn't carry it and run at the same time.

  "Damn it," I whispered through gritted teeth.

  I hid it amidst some rubble further ahead, away from the body, mentally marking the location for the future. I kept only the pistol and the knife.

  I ran to the sewer. As I entered, the system chimed again.

  {Reward for passing a secured perimeter}: Passive Skill [Basic Stealth (Lv. 1)] learned.

  I slipped out of the sewer mouth, taking advantage of my small stature to move between the shattered concrete blocks like a rat in a maze.

  The air up here was heavy, saturated with an acrid smell of ozone and burnt metal that rasped against my throat. I was on the outskirts of Ground Zero.

  Suddenly, a digital sound resonated directly in my skull.

  Ding! [Quest Progress Updated: 50%] Area scan completed. Deploying Tactical Map...

  A translucent holographic blueprint superimposed itself over my vision, floating ghostly above the real ruins. It was a 2D bird's-eye view of my immediate surroundings.

  Several blue dots blinked, scattered among the debris: fragments of the World Engine ship.

  "Handy," I muttered, adjusting my view. "Without this, I would have been looking for black needles in a gray concrete haystack."

  I headed toward the nearest blue point, about twenty meters away. I advanced in a crouch, placing my faith in the new Skill the system had granted me. My worn sneakers, which should have crunched over the loose gravel, barely emitted a whisper.

  Every calculated step, every held breath, felt more natural than the last.

  Ding! [Stealth Mastery: 1.0 ? 1.1]

  'It works,' I thought with satisfaction. Practice in a real situation was worth more than any theory.

  Upon arriving, I saw it embedded in the wall of a collapsed office building: a piece of black and silver metal, irregular and barely larger than my fist.

  It emanated an unnatural cold that pierced the skin even before touching it with my gloves. I grabbed it firmly and pulled.

  The density was absurd; it weighed much more than its size suggested, almost three kilos of compact alien mass.

  I yanked it from the concrete with a grunt of effort, feeling how my childish fingers and weak wrists protested against the dead weight.

  Ding! [Main Quest Completed: Scrap Collector] You have obtained: Kryptonian Alloy Sample (Low Grade).

  [Rewards Delivered] 2,000 Gold Coins. Store Unlocked: Gold can also be used to upgrade Skills (Note: It is recommended to upgrade your Skills through real training; use gold only in emergencies or bottlenecks).

  I felt a slight satisfaction, but I suppressed the smile immediately. Emotion clouds judgment. I was still in enemy territory, and carrying a three-kilo rock would fatally slow me down.

  I was calculating the escape route, thinking about where to hide the stone, when a new window—golden colored this time—blocked my view.

  [Chain Quest Unlocked: The Looter's Ambition] The System has detected a large amount of high-value materials in the zone. A true villain does not settle for crumbs.

  Objective: Collect 10 fragments of Kryptonian Alloy before leaving Ground Zero. Time Limit: 30 minutes (Before the A.R.G.U.S. guard change).

  [Temporary Aid Granted]: Active Skill: Dimensional Inventory (5x5 Space). (Note: The Inventory is temporary. If you complete the Quest, the Skill will become Permanent. If you fail, it will be lost and the items will be ejected).

  I narrowed my eyes, feeling my heart skip a beat.

  The Spatial Inventory.

  It was the Holy Grail of any self-respecting reincarnator. The ability to transport supplies, weapons, and loot without physical weight was an insurmountable logistical advantage in this world. Losing this opportunity was not an option.

  I looked at the map. There were at least 15 blue dots within a two-hundred-meter radius, counting the fragment I already had. It was risky, yes, but the reward justified any danger.

  "Accept," I said without hesitation.

  Immediately, I felt a strange mental connection, as if a drawer opened in the back of my mind: an empty black cube, waiting. I looked at the metal fragment in my hand and concentrated.

  In the blink of an eye, the rock disappeared from my physical hand and appeared floating inside that mental space, occupying the first square of the grid.

  I seized the momentum and stored my knife and the heavy pistol as well, making sure to leave the safety off and ready to fire. The relief in my body was instant; I was light again.

  "Good. Let the harvest begin."

  I checked the map again to plot an optimal route. I couldn't go in a straight line; I had to avoid the surveillance drones buzzing in the sky like metallic flies seeking carrion.

  I adjusted my sneakers, took a deep breath, and dashed toward the next point, staying low and silent. The game had just started for real.

  The clock was ticking. I needed just one more fragment to complete the initial ten.

  The map guided me toward a half-collapsed concrete structure, what used to be a parking lot or a lobby. I approached cautiously, but when I peeked around a column, I froze.

  There were no A.R.G.U.S. soldiers there.

  There was a young man, maybe 19 or 20 years old, dressed in a bespoke suit that cost more than my orphanage's entire annual budget. The contrast between his impeccable clothes and the dust of the ruins was insulting.

  He had red hair and a gaze of predatory intelligence that analyzed everything it landed on.

  Lex Luthor.

  He was standing there, holding an alloy fragment with long tongs, examining it with scientific fascination.

  By his side, two private bodyguards, armed to the teeth and wearing tactical headsets, scanned the perimeter with much more competence than the government soldiers.

  The fragment I was looking for was in his hands.