Chapter 44: The Calculus of Mercy

An icy rage thrummed beneath Michael’s skin as he absorbed the wounded student’s words. The plan he had spent hours constructing within the university walls was gone. His vanguard had fractured, driven by the volatile, irrational engine of human emotion to save people across the smoking ruins of Vienna who were most likely already dead.

Michael felt a sharp, personal knot of urgency tightening in his chest. His own family’s desperate messages burned in his memory. Andrea’s phone was offline, Gabriel was already moving through a warzone, and every second he wasted idling in this ghost building was a direct penalty to their survival. He needed to logistically optimize his path, leave this sector, and begin his own rescue mission. He could not lose another single tick of the clock.

Wasting no more time on the rambling cynic, Michael pivoted cleanly on his heel and strode toward the main exits.

„Please! Don’t leave us behind like the others did!“ a desperate voice shrieked from the floor.

Michael didn’t stop. His heavy boots clicked sharply against the blood-slicked granite, a steady, unyielding metronome.

„We will die if you go! Please, just help us!“

From the clusters of the left-behind, a few wounded students groaned, pushing themselves up from the debris. Their bodies were wounded, clothing stained with dark blood, but a raw, terrifying survival instinct forced them to their feet. They staggered forward, their hands outstretched, trying to cross his path, trying to block his trajectory with the sheer weight of their misery. They wanted to argue, to plead, to convince the unblemished warrior to become their sword and shield.

Michael didn’t even adjust his stride. His gaze remained locked on the exit corridor, his expression an unreadable mask of cold pragmatism. In a global apocalypse, dead weight was a terminal system error. Wasting time playing the savior to those who couldn’t swing a blade was a net-negative investment. He bypassed them like obstacles, his shoulder brushing past a reaching, bloody hand without a word.

He didn’t even make it past the threshold of the main hall.

A sudden, sharp echo of heavy, rhythmic padding reverberated from the adjoining hallway. Through the shattered glass framework of the department doors, three figures burst into the hall, sprinting with terrifying, focused speed.

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Michael’s eyes narrowed into slits. *Level 3 monsters. I’ll kill you all!*

They were massive, easily the size of large wild boars, their dense bodies packed with raw muscle and bone-like ridges running down their backs. Unlike the sleek, nimble hound-foxes of the first wave, these upgraded predators moved with a higher mass, their heavy claws gouging chunks out of the floorboards as they locked onto the scent of fresh blood and the cowering wounded.

Instantly, Michael’s hand shifted on the textured hilt of his new matte-grey shortsword. His neural pathways, supercharged by his Level 5 attributes and his talent, accelerated his perception of time. He prepared the mental command for **[Teleportation]**. He mapped the spatial coordinates—he could flash instantly across the intervening meters, materialize directly near the monsters beast’s blind spot, and drive the sharp edge through its spinal column before its nervous system could process the displacement. One strike, one kill. Repeat three times. It would take less than two seconds.

But just as the spatial energy began to ripple around his ankles, the cold, analytical engine of his brain brought his muscles to an absolute, grinding halt.

*Wait,* Michael calculated, his mind running the math of the encounter with ruthless efficiency. *If I kill these monsters myself, I gain nothing. I am already Level 6; the experience from standard Level 3 mobs will be not that much effective for my progression. More importantly, by executing them here, I wouldn’t even save those injured guys in the long-term. The moment I leave this university, the very next stray monster that wanders through these doors will slaughter these left-behind cripples anyway.*

A different tactical strategy formed in his mind. He didn’t want to play the savior, but he could force them to become self-sustaining tools.

„Who among you is closest to a level up?“ Michael’s voice boomed across the ruined hall, flat, commanding, and entirely devoid of pity. „And what are your current Experience Points? Answer me! Now!“

The wounded students, startled by the sudden, booming authority, froze for a fraction of a second. After a jagged, panicked reaction time of two to three seconds, a chaotic chorus of terrified, overlapping voices erupted from the huddle.

„I—I need ten experience!“

„I’m at ninetyfive out of a hundred! Five EXP!“

„Twenty! I only need twenty more!“

Michael’s brain cataloged the information and the required amount instantly, and created a ranking. His eyes locked onto three specific individuals who could still support their own weight. „You, you, and you,“ he called out, his finger flicking toward two young men and one girl. „Take your weapons and get ready. You’re leveling up in a minute.“

The entire situation had triggered a deep, boiling anger inside him. The absolute, unbuffered reality of the global collapse—the imagination of his sister Andrea screaming out of fear, his parents trapped in a cellar, the sheer vulnerability of his family—it made him furious. He needed to vent the volatile pressure, to discharge the cold adrenaline humming through his veins, but he would do it with calculated concentration. He can’t just go out of control. Losing control meant death and death meant not being able to reach his family. Despite his anger, his rationality still managed to keep the upper hand.

Michael dropped his center of gravity, sinking low to the floorboards in a tight, coiled stance. His body angled forward, mimicking the low, predatory posture of a hunter preparing to shear the left leg off a charging beast.

Then—*pop*.

He vanished.