"Take cover!!"

  Boom!

  The ground jumped. A blast tore through a storefront across the street, flinging glass and twisted signage into the air. I dropped behind a cracked wall, hugging the concrete like it was the last solid thing in the world. My Mosin-Nagant shook in my arms. Heavy. Slippery. I couldn’t hold it straight.

  "Agh, my arm!!"

  "Calm down! Press it down hard!"

  The kid next to me was screaming. Blood ran down his elbow in thin streams. Our squad leader didn’t even glance over. His voice came out steady, dry. Like this wasn’t the first time he’d heard someone bleed out. This was supposed to be a game. But there was no game in this.

  The heat pressed in from every side. Sweat and smoke stuck to my skin. The rifle’s recoil rattled through my flimsy arms. My stomach turned every time a bullet cracked past my ear. The pain, the stink of scorched meat, the static ringing in my skull, none of it felt virtual.

  Footsteps thundered up the road. Dozens of them. Too many to count.

  They came out of the haze like ghosts in a firestorm. Red coats. Gray helmets. Eyes wide with fury. Charging with bayonets raised and rifles blazing. We weren’t going to hold this intersection.

  I clenched my jaw. Shifted my grip. Waited.

  "Fire at will!!"

  Bang!

  Muzzle flashes lit up the alley like a lightning storm. Our shots echoed off the buildings, sharp and ragged. The first row of enemies dropped hard. So did the second. Some slammed against walls. Others crumpled under their own momentum.

  Blood streaked the pavement. Smoke poured through broken windows. My ears rang. Thought collapsed into reflex. I kept firing.

  Then I saw her.

  A single woman, charging down the street.

  Silver hair tied in a loose braid. Crimson eyes that burned through the fog. A long officer’s coat trailing behind her, red like her flag. The Empire’s royal crest glinted over her heart like a trophy.

  No helmet. No armor. Just a sidearm and a blade. She didn’t slow down.

  We fired at her. Missed every shot.

  She wasn’t just fast. She moved like water, weaving past bullets, dipping between cover, sliding over debris like she’d mapped every step before she started running. Every pivot was clean. Every dodge made sense. Graceful. Mechanical. Untouchable.

  An elite.

  Not just skilled, engineered.

  She ran straight for the squad leader.

  I lined up my sights. Tried to breathe. Pulled the trigger-

  Click.

  The bolt jammed. My hands froze.

  "Ahhh!"

  She vaulted over a flipped police car. The blade was already in motion.

  It cut through the squad leader’s throat like paper.

  Blood sprayed the windshield. His body collapsed in the gutter.

  She didn’t even blink.

  The pistol came next. She dropped three of my squad members with three shots.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Each flash lit up the smoke for half a second, then it all went dark again.

  When the magazine clicked empty, she let the pistol fall and drew a second knife.

  We tried to raise our rifles. Too slow.

  She slipped between us like a shadow. Slashing, stabbing. One throat. One chest. One spine. Not a wasted motion.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Until only I was left.

  I stood there in an alley full of corpses, like a cornered animal, gripping a knife I barely remembered pulling. The Mosin was gone. I had dropped it without thinking. My arms were too weak to hold it anyway. She stopped in front of me. Calm. Relaxed. Not even winded.

  Her uniform was soaked with blood. None of it hers.

  She looked me up and down, then tilted her head.

  She spoke, her voice laced with disappointment.

  "...Your country must be desperate. They’re sending girls like you now? If they lose this war, they lose everything. Territory, leverage, national standing."

  "...Aren’t you a girl too?"

  "True. But I’m strong."

  "..."

  Cocky much?

  I almost said it. But I didn’t, because she wasn’t wrong. And because I wasn’t even supposed to be here.

  A week earlier, I was still on Earth.

  Just some broke teenager wasting time between shifts. If my part-time job didn’t feed me, I probably would’ve starved. I barely had energy to do anything except scroll. Web novels. Anime. Random isekai comics with overpowered protagonists and zero common sense.

  Then one day, a cube appeared in my room.

  There was no fanfare, no glow-up. It just hovered over my desk, humming like a microwave. It looked cheap, plastic, and lit up with pastel colors like some bootleg toy for toddlers.

  I blinked at it. It tilted toward me.

  "Are you bored? Do you want to become a hero?"

  Creepy.

  A normal person would've panicked.

  Me? I’d read too many webnovels for that.

  This was the classic opening.

  Like a dumb kid clicking a shady banner ad, I nodded.

  "Yes. Let’s go."

  The cube pulsed. Its lights twisted into a simple face. Wrong shape. Still expressive.

  "Place your hands forward. That completes the contract. After that, I will bind the system."

  System.

  Of course. The cheat code. The special buff. The usual junk that turns background characters into kings.

  I already saw it all in my head. Demon invasions, stat points, power-ups, maybe a harem if I played it right.

  I reached out.

  White light swallowed everything. Then nothing.

  ***

  When I woke up, it was cold.

  Bare concrete walls. Broken heater. Thin mattress that stank like mold. Light came through a cracked window. If the word ‘poverty’ could be turned into a scene, then this view would immediately come to mind. It looked less like a home and more like a pitiful shack.

  I tried to move, and paused.

  My arms felt too light. My balance was off. I stood slowly. My steps were small, uneven. My center of gravity had shifted.

  Then I saw the mirror.

  And I stopped breathing.

  A girl stared back.

  Pink hair, shoulder length. Pale skin. Violet eyes. Her expression looked hollow, like someone who had nothing left to lose.

  I raised my hand. So did she.

  I touched the glass. My fingers were thin. Soft. Weak. The voice that came out when I whispered was higher. Quieter. Not mine. That wasn’t my body.

  I looked down. A small blinking chip was embedded in my wrist. After a few taps, a faded blue message projected onto the

  wall.

  Nia – Civilian

  Unit 847-A

  Nationality: Kalazhi

  Age: 15

  No guardian. No job. No record.

  A complete nobody.

  No cube. No cheat. No floating UI. Just an old VR headset sitting on a milk crate.

  Still worked, though.

  I put it on.

  The interface flickered. Text scrolled across the display.

  “Welcome to the Defense Sector. Civilian Unit 847-A. Enlistment in progress.”

  That’s how I found out about Virtual Reality Warfare.

  After the world nearly nuked itself to death, every major nation agreed to settle conflicts in simulated battles. The pain’s real. The trauma sticks. You don’t die, but it still ruins people. Victory decides territory, diplomacy, power.

  To keep up, countries raise their best from childhood. Combat academies. Private instructors. Advanced rigs. Years of training. I had none of that. Just a timer. Seven days.

  I crammed everything I could. Rifle drills. Combat basics. Obsolete training footage meant for ten-year-olds.

  Then the timer hit zero.

  Inside the briefing room, a man in a dented uniform handed me a Mosin-Nagant.

  "You’re in."

  That was it.

  Everyone else looked like me. Civilians from poverty zones. No gear. No training. No future.

  We weren’t here to win. We were here to delay the enemy. Now I was the only one left.

  The street was covered in blood. My squad was gone. My body was shaking. My hands couldn’t grip the knife right.

  "You elites... just kill me."

  I tried to sound tough. It came out small.

  She smiled.

  "Kill you? Not yet. You’ll live. I want you to see what happens next."

  She opened a small military-grade tablet. Live drone footage flickered across the screen—smoke, chaos, red uniforms swarming the buildings. She turned it toward me and pointed.

  Enemy troops surged through the broken buildings. Red banners. Echoing footsteps. Shouting commanders. Our side had collapsed. Screams bounced off the walls. Gunfire cracked and faded. The frontline was gone.

  It was over.

  And I was still here.

  In a war that felt too real, inside a body that wasn’t mine, staring at someone I couldn’t hope to beat. And now she wanted me to watch?

  I looked at her, numb.

  Tch.

  I should’ve ignored the cube. Should’ve stayed on Earth, scrolling trash novels and working trash jobs. But there was no going back now.