The feeling was like drinking hot soup on a cold night, except it filled every bone in his body. Power. Warmth. Growth.

Leo flexed his hands. He felt... more. Sharper eyes. Lighter feet. A body that had just done a day's worth of exercise in a heartbeat.

**【Status】**
**Name: Leo**
**Class: Farmer (Hidden: ???)**
**Level: 2**
**XP to next: 4/15**
**Skills: None**

A status screen. He had an actual status screen now.

"Devourer," Leo said carefully. "What exactly did you do?"

**【I consumed what the world wastes.】**
**【Every creature that dies sheds a residue of its experience — its skills, its instincts, its years of growth. The world lets it fade. I do not.】**
**【You kill. I eat. We grow.】**

Leo's mouth went dry. "So... I can absorb levels from anything I kill?"

**【Yes. But do not be greedy, little farmer. Your body has limits. Devour too much too fast, and you will shatter like a glass cup filled with fire.】**

The warning was cold, but Leo could hear the hunger underneath it. The system *wanted* him to feed it.

He looked at the dead rabbit. Its body was already shrinking, drying into a husk. The blue light was gone.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. Let me test this."

The field outside the village was crawling with life. Field rabbits, stray dogs, a herd of wild boars rooting around the treeline. Leo had spent years watching players hunt these exact spawns. He knew their patterns, their aggro ranges, their weak points. He had boosted a hundred characters through these same fields.

Now he would do it for himself.

---

The first test was a rabbit.

It charged the way they always did — straight line, head down. Leo stepped aside and brought the hoe down on its neck. One hit. He had watched pros do this a thousand times.

**【You have killed a Field Rabbit (Lv. 2).】**
**【Devour? Yes / No】**

"Yes."

**【Experience Devoured. +8 XP. Level Up! You are now Level 3.】**

Twelve XP in thirty seconds. At this rate, he would be Level 10 by sundown.

The second rabbit came faster. He killed it, devoured it, gained another eight XP.

Then a stray dog wandered close. **Stray Dog — Level 4.** It growled at him, hackles raised. In the old world, Leo would have backed away slowly. Here, he had a hoe and a new secret.

"Come on," he whispered. "Come get your dinner."

The dog lunged. Leo swung the hoe like a bat, caught it in the ribs, and finished it with a second strike while it was still rolling.

**【+15 XP. Level Up! You are now Level 4.】**

"Too easy," Leo breathed. "This is too easy."

The blue light was intoxicating. Every kill made him faster, stronger, more aware. By noon he had cleared the eastern field of every creature that moved. His level read **6**.

His body hummed with stolen power. His arms, his legs, his back — all of it felt like it had been remade. He cracked his neck and felt his joints move with an ease he had never known.

"Level 6," he said to no one. "One day. From Level 1 to Level 6."

A voice answered him.

"Oy. You. Farmer."

Leo turned. A village guard stood at the field's edge, arms crossed, a spear slung over his shoulder. He was a broad man with a scar across his nose, and the name tag over his head read **Guard Belloc — Level 11**.

"You," Belloc said again. "What are you doing with my hunting ground?"

"Your hunting ground?" Leo frowned. "This is the village field. I live here."

"You live here, and yet you've been out here all day making noise." Belloc walked closer, boots crunching in the dry grass. He looked at the pile of rabbit and dog carcasses and his eyebrows rose. "You did all this?"

"Rabbits," Leo said. "They attacked me."

"Rabbits don't attack farmers."

"This one did. And that one. And those three over there."

Belloc stared at him. Leo stared back, and for one terrible moment he wondered if his level showed the truth. He was Level 6. He had no right to be Level 6. Everyone in this village had been Level 1 or 2 for years, because nothing around here gave enough experience to grow.

But the tag above Leo's head still read **LEO — Level 1**.

**【Hidden Skill: False Tag.**】
**【Your level appears as it was before the Devourer. The world sees a farmer. You are more.】**

Leo nearly laughed. The system had even hidden his growth.

"Right," Belloc said, shaking his head. "Whatever you say, boy. Just don't let the boars eat you. The big one in the treeline's been bullying the herds for a month. Even I won't touch it."

"What level is it?"

"Some say eight. Some say nine. Either way, it's a monster, not a meal." Belloc turned away. "Get back to your field before dark. The wolves sing at night, and they don't care whose field it is."

He walked off, and Leo stood alone among the carcasses.

A boar. Level 8 or 9.

His hands tightened on the hoe.

**【Devourer System suggestion:】**
**【The boar is dangerous. Its experience is rich.】**
**【Hunt it. Eat it. Grow.】**

Leo looked at the treeline. Somewhere in the shadows, something big grunted.

"One more," he said. "Just one more."

---

The boar was a mountain of muscle and tusks.

Leo found it rooting under an old oak, churning up the earth with its snout. It was the size of a small car. Each tusk was as long as his forearm. The name tag above its head pulsed a warning red.

**【Wild Boar King — Level 9.** Boss-class mob.】**

Boss-class. Of course it was.

Leo circled wide, keeping to the grass. He had a plan. The boar had a blind spot — a narrow arc directly behind its left shoulder where its tusks couldn't reach. He had seen a pro player exploit it once, two years ago, to solo a similar mob.

He just had to be fast enough to reach it.

The boar grunted, ears flicking. Leo froze. The creature's head swung toward him, nostrils flaring, and its small red eyes locked onto his position.

It charged.

Leo ran sideways, not away — sideways. The boar's tusks tore the grass where he had stood. He kept moving, circling behind it, and as it skidded to turn, he saw it: the blind spot, open and waiting.

He drove the hoe into the boar's flank with every ounce of stolen strength.

The boar screamed.

The hoe stuck. The boar twisted, yanking the handle from Leo's grip, and then it rounded on him, tusks lowered, blood in its eyes.

"New plan," Leo gasped. "New plan!"

He ran for the tree, climbed three branches high, and the boar slammed into the trunk below him. The whole tree shook. Leo clung on, heart hammering.

The boar backed up, pawed the ground, charged again.

The tree groaned.

Leo looked down. The hoe was still buried in the boar's flank, and the wound was deep. All he had to do was wait. Bleed it out.

"I can wait," he told the boar. "I've waited three years for a life. I can wait for you to die."

The boar charged the tree four more times. Each impact was weaker than the last. Finally it stopped, swayed, and crashed onto its side.

**【You have killed a Wild Boar King (Lv. 9). Boss-class mob.】**
**【Residual experience: LARGE.】**
**【Devour? Yes / No】**

Leo dropped from the tree, landed beside the dying beast, and pressed his hand to its flank.

"Yes."

The blue light that came out of the boar was not a marble. It was a torrent, a river of pulsing energy that flooded into his chest and filled him until he thought he would burst.

**【Experience Devoured. +80 XP.】**
**【Level Up! You are now Level 7.】**
**【Level Up! You are now Level 8.】**

The world snapped into focus. Colors brightened. Sounds sharpened. Leo stood up slowly, feeling the boar's strength settling into his bones like a second skin.

**【New Skill Unlocked: Taste of Power.**】
**【Briefly sense a foe's weakness before battle. Cost: 5% stamina.】**

Leo laughed. It was a raw, ragged sound, half relief and half madness.

"I'm coming for you, world," he said to the empty field. "I'm coming for all of you."

The sun was setting. In the distance, the village bell rang for supper.

And in the shadows of the treeline, a pair of yellow eyes watched him, then turned and vanished into the dark.

---