The first thing I registered was the taste of dirt and copper.
Not the clean, mineral taste of pennies. The thick, warm copper of fresh blood. My blood, judging by the way my skull was currently trying to split itself in half from the inside.
Where the hell am I?
I tried to lift my head. Something hard and heavy pressed down on the back of my neck, grinding my cheek deeper into cold stone. A boot. Someone's boot.
"—said we'd carry him to Floor Five and dump him there," a voice said above me. Male. Bored. The kind of voice that belonged to someone who'd never had to worry about rent or where his next meal came from. "Three floors is generous. He's dead weight."
Dead weight?
Memories slammed into me like a freight train with no brakes.
The Tower. The Awakening Ceremony three days ago. Standing in that sterile white room while a floating blue screen scanned my soul and spat out the worst possible result: [Class: Healer (F-Rank)] .
The humiliation. The laughter from the B-Rankers in the corner. And then Kael Voss—golden boy, A-Rank Swordsman, leader of the "Valorous Dawn" party—strolling up to me with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"Hey. F-Rank Healer. You want to climb or you want to rot in the lobby forever? We need a portable med-kit. Keep your mouth shut, keep us topped off, and we'll let you leech experience. Deal?"
I'd said yes. Of course I'd said yes. What choice did an F-Rank have?
And now here I was. Face-down on Floor Three. Boot on my neck. Listening to my "party" debate how soon to abandon me.
"Kael said to bring him back," a female voice cut in. Sharper. More clinical. "We're burning daylight. Pick him up."
The boot lifted from my neck. I sucked in a breath that tasted like mold and something rotting just out of sight. A hand grabbed the back of my collar and hauled me upright.
I blinked, vision swimming.
The Tower's third floor looked like someone had taken a medieval dungeon and let a team of sadistic botanists redecorate. Bioluminescent fungus pulsed on the walls in sickly greens and blues. The air was thick enough to chew. And standing in a loose semicircle around me were the five people who'd apparently decided my life was worth less than the weight of my own body.
Kael Voss stood at the center. Tall. Blonde hair that caught the fungus-light like he was in a damn shampoo commercial. One hand resting on the pommel of a sword that probably cost more than my entire life savings back on Earth.
Next to him: Mira Chen. B-Rank Ranger. Dark hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. Compound bow slung across her shoulder. She was the one who'd told them to pick me up. Not out of kindness, I realized, studying her flat expression. Out of efficiency.
Behind them: Darik. The one whose boot had been on my neck. C-Rank Brawler. Built like a refrigerator someone had slapped a face onto. And two others whose names I hadn't bothered learning because they'd made it clear on Day One that F-Rankers weren't worth remembering.
"You're awake," Kael observed. Not concerned. Just cataloguing. "Good. We found a hidden chamber twenty meters east. High mana density. Probably a mini-boss."
"And?" My voice came out raspier than I wanted.
"And you're going in first." Kael smiled that smile again. "Standard Healer protocol. You check for traps. You aggro anything that moves. We clean up. You heal whoever needs it."
Translation: You're the canary in the coal mine. If you die, we lose nothing.
Something hot and bitter coiled in my chest. I'd spent three days watching these people. Watching how Kael's "Valorous Dawn"—broadcast to millions of adoring fans across the global Tower Network—was built on a foundation of using people like me as disposable tools.
I opened my mouth to argue.
And that's when the screen appeared.
[System Notification]
[Error: Skill Index Corruption Detected]
[Skill: Restorative Touch - Recalibrating...]
[Recalibration Failed]
[Rerouting...]
[Rerouting Failed]
[New Subroutine Unlocked: Hemorrhagic Command]
[Class Designation: Pharmacy Lich (Unique)]
[Warning: This skill violates Standard Tower Protocol. Do you wish to report this error to Administration?]
[Yes] / [No]
I stared at the blue text floating in my vision. The others couldn't see it. System messages were private. One of the Tower's few mercies.
Pharmacy Lich?
Hemorrhagic Command?
I thought about my last life. The crushing student debt. The sleepless nights memorizing pharmacokinetics and drug interactions. The way my professors had sneered at anyone who wasn't gunning for a residency at a top hospital. The way I'd died—alone, exhausted, choking on cheap noodles—while the world kept spinning without me.
And then I thought about Kael's boot. Metaphorical now, but it had been literal five minutes ago.
My finger hovered over the [No] option.
I selected it.
[Acknowledged. Skill integration complete. Good luck, Pharmacy Lich.]
The screen vanished.
"Ren." Kael's voice cut through my thoughts. "Move. Now."
I looked at him. At Mira's flat, assessing gaze. At Darik's meaty hands, the same hands that had ground my face into stone.
"Fine," I said quietly. "I'll go first."
---
The "hidden chamber" was a circular room carved from black stone. The fungus here pulsed faster, like a racing heart. In the center, a pedestal. On the pedestal, a chest. Standard Tower fare.
What wasn't standard was the creature lurking in the shadows behind the pedestal.
It was a Goblin. But not the scrawny, waist-high nuisances from Floor One. This one stood nearly my height. Muscles corded under green-grey skin. Eyes that gleamed with something that might have been intelligence. And in one three-fingered hand, it clutched a jagged bone dagger.
It hadn't seen me yet. It was watching the entrance, waiting.
I stepped fully into the chamber. The Goblin's head snapped toward me. Its lips peeled back, revealing teeth filed to points.
Behind me, I heard Kael's voice, low and amused. "There it is. Hold position, Ren. Let it come to you. We'll flank."
Let it come to you.
Be bait.
The Goblin charged. Fast. Faster than anything that size had a right to move. Its bone dagger caught the fungus-light as it raised it to strike.
Time slowed.
I should have been terrified. I was terrified. But underneath the terror, something else was humming. A new awareness. Like I could suddenly feel the wet heat of the Goblin's circulatory system from six feet away. The rush of blood through its carotid. The thrum of its accelerated heart rate. The exact pressure in its femoral artery.
Hemorrhagic Command.
The skill name floated through my mind, and with it came understanding. Not academic knowledge. Instinct.
The Goblin reached me. The dagger came down.
I didn't dodge. I reached out and pressed my palm flat against its chest.
Heal it, I thought desperately. Calm it down. Make it stop—
[Skill Activated: Hemorrhagic Command]
[Target: Goblin Scout (Level 7)]
[Effect: Vascular Control]
The Goblin froze mid-swing.
Its yellow eyes went wide. The bone dagger clattered to the stone floor. Its mouth opened, but no sound came out. A dark stain began spreading across its chest beneath my palm. Not external blood. Something deeper. Something wrong.
The Goblin's veins turned black.
I could see them now, a dark web spreading up its neck, across its face, into the whites of its eyes. The creature shuddered once. Twice. Then it went completely still.
I pulled my hand back, heart hammering so hard I thought it might crack my ribs.
The Goblin didn't fall.
It stood there, head slightly tilted, black-veined eyes fixed on me. Waiting.
[New Asset Acquired: Goblin Scout (Vascular Subjugated)]
[Duration: Until Command Override or Asset Destruction]
[Current Command Queue: Empty]
"Holy shit."
The voice came from behind me. Darik. I turned slowly.
The entire party was standing at the chamber entrance. Kael's smug expression had frozen on his face. Mira's bow was half-raised, arrow nocked but not drawn, her eyes darting between me and the motionless Goblin.
"Ren." Kael's voice was careful now. Controlled. "What did you just do?"
The Goblin—my Goblin—shifted slightly at the sound of his voice. Not aggressively. Just... repositioning. Like it was placing itself between me and a potential threat.
I looked down at my hand. At the faint black tracery now visible just beneath my skin, like ink bleeding through paper.
Then I looked back at Kael. At the man who'd pressed a boot to my neck. At the party that had planned to use me as monster bait and leave my corpse on Floor Five.
I smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.
"I think," I said slowly, "that we need to renegotiate the loot split."