Ezra didn’t waste time drowning in his thoughts again.

The moment that small light of hope appeared inside his mind, he ran through the heavy rain toward the nearest internet café, his wet shoes splashing through puddles while cold wind struck against his face repeatedly.

The streets were still crowded despite the rain.

Cars moved past quickly; Neon lights reflected across the wet roads, people cursed or laughed while running beneath umbrellas, but Ezra ignored everything around him.

Right now, the only thing inside his head was survival.

Using the little cash he still had left, he entered the café immediately and paid for a computer seat with trembling fingers.

The place smelled of instant noodles, sweat, and overheated machines.

Rows of people sat in front of glowing screens while keyboard sounds echoed endlessly through the dim room.

Ezra sat down heavily.

Water dripped from his clothes onto the floor continuously, forming a small puddle beneath his chair, but he didn’t even notice. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

His eyes were glued completely to the screen.

"Why didn’t I think of this earlier..."

Ezra bit his thumbnail anxiously while scrolling through military registration pages almost like a possessed person.

His pupils moved quickly.

Every sentence he read felt important and every detail looked like a rope dragging him out of hell.

"I should research the payment properly..."

He muttered to himself quietly.

"And pensions too..."

His fingers moved the mouse rapidly toward another section.

At least, like the drunk man said... there are no wars anymore.

Ezra laughed softly under his breath.

"Hehe... Hehe..."

The smile on his face looked strange.

Hopeful, but desperate too.

Even if I stay there until retirement age, nothing dangerous should happen right? I mean, there’s no battles, no wars and no life-threatening situations.

He accidentally broke the thumbnail he was biting from too much pressure, yet he didn’t care, because for the first time in months, his chest felt lighter.

Like he could finally breathe again.

Ezra remained inside the café until closing time.

He reread every piece of information over and over again, afraid he might miss something important.

The salary, the food supply, the living quarters, the training system and the long-term benefits.

He memorized almost everything.

By the time he finally left the café, the rain had already reduced slightly, but the streets were still wet and cold.

Since he couldn’t waste money on transportation, Ezra walked all the way back home.

His soaked clothes clung tightly to his body while cold wind entered through the holes in his cheap jacket.

The building he lived in looked miserable.

A shabby two-story apartment squeezed between other broken structures.

Paint peeled off the walls and rust covering the railings.

As Ezra climbed the stairs, rainwater dripped continuously from the damaged roof above.

The wooden covering that was supposed to block the rain had partially collapsed years ago, yet the landlady never bothered fixing it and the stairway smelled like mold and sewage.

Ezra carefully lowered his head while walking because one of the broken ceiling boards hung dangerously low, while Rats suddenly rushed past his legs.

"Tch."

Ezra clicked his tongue in annoyance.

When he finally reached his door...

His eyes narrowed.

An eviction notice had been pasted directly onto it.

The paper was already wet from the rain leaking inside the hallway.

Ezra ripped it off roughly and read the words written there.

’You have three weeks to pay your rent. Failure to comply means eviction and legal action for unpaid debt. Signed by your glorious, kind, and angelic landlady.’

Ezra stared at the message silently, then his lips twitched slightly.

"I would’ve been completely screwed if not for this opportunity..."

Growl.

His stomach suddenly rumbled loudly.

Ezra lowered his head and rubbed his stomach tiredly.

"Ahh...I don’t even have any proper food left anymore, only salt water and watery rice..."

His expression darkened slightly.

Without hesitation, he crumpled the notice and threw it onto the wet floor before opening the door and entering his room.

The room was small, cold and felt empty.

The ceiling had water stains, the mattress in the corner looked thin and worn out and a single weak bulb hung above him.

Yet for some reason...Ezra felt more hopeful than ever before.

The following days became a strict routine.

Ezra worked like someone running from death itself, he went through four different part-time jobs every single day.

Morning, afternoon and night, then back again.

His body constantly ached.

Sometimes his fingers bled from carrying heavy things repeatedly while other times his legs trembled from exhaustion while walking back home, but Ezra endured it all silently.

He needed money for the registration fees, transportation fees, rent payments and food. So, everything depended on the small amount he could save.

While early every morning, before work started, Ezra forced himself to exercise a bit.

Push-ups, Running and Basic stretches.

Even though his body was weak and skinny, he still gritted his teeth and continued.

At least if I build stamina now... I won’t completely collapse during military drills.

That was what he kept telling himself.

Whenever he had free time, Ezra returned to the internet café to check updates about registration dates since he didn’t even own a phone and School had already become impossible for him, since he stopped attending long ago.

Another student loan would only bury him deeper.

So, in the end...The military became his only road left.

And finally...The day arrived.

Ezra joined the army.

***

Life inside the army camp felt strangely familiar to him.

Wake up early, work until exhaustion, sleep and repeat.

The only difference was that now...

His work involved drills instead of delivery jobs.

Morning exercises were hell and Ezra clearly struggled badly.

His thin body constantly lagged behind the others and sometimes he collapsed halfway through training while other times he threw up from exhaustion and just like always...

He became a target.

This time, the people bullying him were the senior cadets.

So overall...

Life was still shitty.

Bright afternoon sunlight shone across the training field while rows of cadets stood lined up neatly.

By then, the cadets had already been divided into platoons. So, everyone waited silently to meet their platoon leader.

"ATTENTION!"

The drill sergeant’s voice exploded across the field.

The cadets immediately straightened their backs and stomped their boots against the ground.

Thud!

Beside the sergeant stood a woman dressed fully in military training clothes and a dark face cap.

"This is your platoon leader."

The sergeant’s eyes swept across them coldly.

"Introduce yourself."

The woman stepped forward calmly. Her footsteps were steady and practiced.

"My name is Claudia Adams."

She spoke while staring directly at the cadets with a straight face that barely carried any emotion.

The afternoon sunlight reflected faintly against the metal badge on her chest while the wind blew lightly across the training field.

Many of the male cadets looked stunned the moment she stepped forward.

The little strands of hair visible beneath the military cap she wore were black, matching her sharp eyes. Her face looked too refined for someone standing in the middle of a dusty military field, and even though her body wasn’t overly curvy or bulky, it still carried a fit figure that naturally drew attention.

Not soft, not delicate, but balanced.

The type of beauty that made people stare longer than they intended.

Some cadets already looked completely distracted by her beauty.

This...Was the woman who carried the biggest regret inside Ezra’s heart.

And now...

Inside the endless darkness of the Black Room....

He could finally see her clearly, with the hallucination becoming more vivid and more real.

The violent flow of Cognis around Ezra exploded further.

His veins glowed white beneath his skin while tiny cracks slowly opened along his arms, blood leaking out little by little.

The Cognis flowing through his stars began reversing violently.

The half-formed second star slowly started collapsing backward toward the first.

Ezra gritted his teeth painfully.

"Argh..."

A painful groan escaped his mouth while he forced himself to remain conscious.

His breathing turned rough.

The pressure inside his body felt like countless blades scraping against his veins from the inside.

Yet...

The hallucination didn’t stop.

It only became clearer.

"I want everyone here to work together so our platoon can achieve better results than the others."

Claudia continued speaking calmly.

"And if any of you have a problem with me, say it directly to my face so we can solve it together. I don’t want unnecessary grudges building between cadets."

Her tone remained steady and confident.

"That’s all."

She stepped back after finishing her introduction.

The platoon itself was mixed with male and female cadets, so having a woman as platoon leader wasn’t exactly strange.

Still...

A few men clearly disliked it. Especially because of how Claudia looked.

"It’s obvious she came from some rich military family."

One cadet whispered.

"Why’s our leader a woman?"

Another muttered unhappily.

"But she’s really cute though..."

"Think she’d date me if I prove I’m stronger than the others?"

A few boys laughed quietly.

Ezra only glanced at them briefly before looking away again.

Honestly...

He didn’t care about any of that.

Compared to debt collectors, starvation, and eviction notices, things like beauty or romance barely entered his thoughts.

Right now, the only thing Ezra truly cared about was what food they would serve later in the afternoon.

After spending days in the military, even though life was still difficult, Ezra slowly realized something.

The constant headaches caused by debt...The endless fear of loan sharks...The stress from juggling multiple jobs every single day...

Those things had started reducing little by little.

"Life isn’t that bad once you get used to it..."

Ezra smiled faintly to himself.

Meanwhile...

Claudia had already walked directly toward the loudest complainers.

Her boots pressed firmly against the dirt while her sharp eyes locked onto the men openly mocking her authority.

"Since some of you seem dissatisfied..."

She rolled her sleeves slightly.

"Let’s settle it simply."

The atmosphere immediately changed.

A few cadets straightened themselves excitedly while others moved aside to create space.

One of the male cadets stepped forward arrogantly.

He looked taller and broader than Claudia, clearly believing size alone would decide the result, but the moment the spar started...

Everything ended quickly.

Claudia moved cleanly with no wasted motion and no panic in her sharp black eyes.

The moment the cadet rushed forward, she twisted her body sideways, grabbed his wrist sharply, shifted her center of gravity, and slammed him directly onto the ground hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs.

Boom!

Dust rose from the training field.

The cadet coughed violently while holding his back, while the others froze, then she defeated the second cadet.

And the third.

Effortlessly.

That scene caught Ezra’s attention properly for the first time.

From that day onward...Like the other cadets...

He started respecting her.

Life inside the camp continued steadily after that.

Claudia handled the morning and evening drills while the drill sergeant controlled the afternoon training sessions.

Unfortunately for Ezra...

He quickly entered Claudia’s bad books.

Mostly because he still was unbelievably weak physically.

Compared to the other male cadets, Ezra looked terrible.

Even some of the female cadets who struggled during training still performed better than him.

His stamina was awful, his strength was poor and his body constantly reached its limit too quickly.

"You call that running?"

Claudia shouted one morning while Ezra struggled to keep up with the others.

"You look like you’re dying after two laps!"

The other cadets laughed loudly.

Ezra could barely even respond because he was too busy breathing heavily.

It got worse over time.

At one point, Claudia even threatened to remove him from camp completely if he didn’t improve.

That fear alone pushed Ezra harder and he started training seriously.

Really seriously.

Even when everyone else rested...

Ezra still exercised, doing;

Push-ups, Running, Weight drills and anything that could improve him.

Slowly...

The relationship between the two changed.

Claudia began helping him privately after training hours.

Correcting his posture, teaching him breathing control and showing him how to distribute strength properly during drills.

At first, Ezra thought she was only doing it because she didn’t want a weak cadet embarrassing her platoon.

But over time...

The atmosphere between them softened naturally and before Ezra realized it...

A whole year had already passed.

Then came the thing that completely changed his life.

Guns.

The moment firearms training officially began and Ezra touched a gun properly for the first time...

Something inside him clicked instantly.

The weight, the structure, the mechanics, the recoil.

Everything fascinated him completely.

The metallic smell alone made his heart race.

When he disassembled a rifle for the first time and saw the internal structure piece by piece...

Ezra became obsessed.

He wanted to understand everything.

How bullets moved, how recoil worked, how firing systems connected together and how modifications changed performance.

Like that...

Ezra signed up for heavy artillery practice and gun engineering classes.

The deeper he entered the world of weapons, the more alive he felt.

For the first time in his life...

He had found something he genuinely loved and slowly...

Life started becoming smoother.

He made friends inside the platoon, some female cadets even confessed to him awkwardly after training sessions, though Ezra rejected them without understanding why they liked him in the first place.

Compared to romance...

Guns interested him far more and without realizing it...

That hobby would eventually become the thing that shaped his entire future.