The rain had thinned to a fine mist by the time Kai reached the orphanage walls.
He kept to the deeper shadows, Desire Sense stretched outward like a nervous animal. Most of the signatures inside the building were dulled by sleep—soft blues and grays of exhausted children and the heavier, slower pulse of Miss Helga somewhere on the ground floor. One brighter knot of irritation burned near the main stairwell.
Garren.
Of course he was still awake. Commitment was his only real talent.
Kai circled toward the laundry shed the way Lira had described. The structure leaned against the east wall like it had given up years ago. Wet laundry still hung from sagging lines, dripping steadily onto the packed dirt. Behind it, half-hidden by a stack of cracked washtubs, was the side door.
The latch was exactly as promised—bent metal that no longer caught properly. A gentle lift and the door swung inward with only a soft complaint of old hinges.
Kai slipped inside and eased it shut.
The laundry room smelled of lye soap and damp cloth. He stood still for a count of ten, listening. No footsteps. No sudden shouts. Desire Sense confirmed Garren’s signature remained near the main stairs, steady and bored.
She was right. Of course she was right. Quiet girl with a stolen textbook and better instincts than the rest of this place combined.
He moved through the dark corridors on soft feet, sticking to the route that avoided the main hall. The thin mattress in his assigned room was still there, still lumpy, still smelling faintly of fever sweat and old straw. Kai closed the door, sat on the edge of the bed, and finally let his shoulders drop.
The System window opened without being asked.
[Tutorial Quest]
Time Remaining: 14 hours 22 minutes
Survive until dawn + full day cycle.
Current Desire Points: 105
He dismissed the timer and pulled up the two emotional signatures he had been turning over all evening.
Lira. Soft edges. Sharp mind. The kind of girl who would walk into the rain to call someone an idiot and still give them a safer way home afterward. Her dress had clung to her when she stood in the tavern—modest curves made more noticeable by the wet cloth, the narrow waist, the way the fabric had stuck to the tops of her thighs when she turned to leave. She wasn’t built like a fantasy illustration. She was built like a real person who hadn’t eaten enough for years. That somehow made the attention worse.
I want to see what she looks like when she isn’t holding that booklet like a shield. I want to know if she makes the same sharp little expressions when she’s not angry. I want—
Kai cut the thought off before the System could start awarding points for pure imagination. It had already proven it would.
Then there was Rena.
Different species entirely. The leather. The scar. The way she stood like the entire lower district was a room she had already decided she could kill her way out of if necessary. Compact muscle. Controlled hips. The short black hair that left the back of her neck exposed like a dare. She had looked at him the way people looked at tools they hadn’t decided whether to use or discard. That should have been a warning. Instead it sat in his gut like banked coals.
Two completely different problems. One still trapped in here with me. One already walking the streets like she owns the dark. The System is going to push for both. Degenerate Soul doesn’t do exclusive.
He lay back on the thin mattress and stared at the cracked ceiling.
Tomorrow the Tutorial would end. The training wheels would come off. No more gentle objectives about staying outside until nightfall or simply experiencing arousal. The real pressure would start—whatever the System actually wanted from a host it had labeled 97% compatible with pure degeneracy.
Kai turned the last copper coin over in his fingers in the dark.
Three copper from Rena. One spent on Lira’s stew. One left. A partial map of the lower district. A Claim Mark still unused. A quiet girl who had already taken a risk for him. A dangerous woman who had paid him and walked away without looking back.
It wasn’t much.
It was more than he had owned the morning he woke up in this body.
Outside, the mist kept falling. Somewhere in the building a child coughed in their sleep. Garren’s irritated signature finally began to drift toward a room on the upper floor.
Kai closed his eyes and let the grin return, small and private in the dark.
Fourteen hours.
Then we stop surviving and start collecting.
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