Ares Valentine walked slowly through the campus garden, still trying to piece together the strange seconds that had just happened. The midday breeze carried the scent of damp soil and sun-warmed leaves, but everything felt distant… like a thin layer of reality that wasn't quite touching him.
Every step sounded louder than usual, as if the world was waiting for what he would do.
The System whatever it was had been silent since the motorcycle incident. No more voices, no flashes of light, no cracks in his vision. Total stillness.
Too still.
"So… you only show up if I'm about to die?" Ares muttered softly.
Of course, no answer.
He took a deep breath and chose to sit on a bench. Students streamed past in front of him: some laughing loudly, some fiddling with their earphones, others wandering without a clear destination. An ordinary sight.
But Ares never saw the world as "ordinary."
Before what happened earlier, everything still made sense anxieties, habits, small lies, personal ambitions. But now… he felt something new creeping in, slow but certain.
"I need confirmation," he thought. If this system was real, there would be a way to lure it out.
Ares focused on a student jogging lightly while balancing a cup of coffee. The guy was clearly in a rush. Unsteady steps, tense brows, stiff shoulders.
Based on his gait, he would trip in less than three seconds if his right foot didn't adjust his center of mass.
Ares observed and calculated.
One second. Two seconds.
The guy glanced elsewhere, losing focus. His right foot landed wrong on a slightly lower tile. His body tilted forward.
Ares prepared.
If the system truly worked based on probability, then…
> [Minor scenario detected.] [Path correction available.]
Ares tensed. That voice… it appeared again. Calm, neutral, cold like pure logic.
> [Minimal action output: shift right foot by 12°.]
Without hesitation, Ares shifted his weight slightly forward, adjusting his step so subtly no human would ever notice.
The guy blinked, his body stabilizing. The coffee survived, he survived, and the world kept moving.
No one noticed the intervention. No one saw anything.
Ares held his breath. This wasn't coincidence. The system was real.
But before he could ask anything else, the same voice returned this time with a different tone.
> [Warning.] [Anomaly approaching.]
Ares turned slowly, his body instinctively on guard. The campus garden looked the same, nothing visibly strange. Students were busy with their own lives. No sign of danger.
But the system couldn't be wrong.
> [Subject with unknown pattern entering radius 8 meters.]
Ares sharpened his focus. He scanned faces, small movements, breaths, posture rhythms.
Five people passed. Three girls chatting.
One guy looking down at his phone.
A tall student in a black jacket walking without paying attention to anything.
Normal. All of them normal.
Except… him.
The student in the black jacket reflected no pattern at all. No sense of purpose, no body tension, no anxiety, no ambition. All humans had patterns even chaotic ones.
But that person? Empty. As if he wasn't truly there.
Ares stood up slowly.
> [Recommendation: do not make contact.]
"Can't do that," Ares muttered.
The student stopped suddenly, as if hearing something unspoken. Then, with no clear reason, he turned around.
Their eyes met.
And in that split second, Ares felt something strike his mind not a physical attack, but a soft pressure, a "push" attempting to pierce into his thoughts.
His body instinctively twisted, reducing the angle of the intrusion. The system immediately responded.
> [Light psionic interference detected.] [Activating cognitive protection mode.]
Fine lines appeared again at the edges of Ares's vision, like mathematical patterns moving rapidly, blocking something unseen.
The student in the black jacket smiled faintly. A smile that wasn't natural not human.
Then he simply walked away, disappearing toward the main building.
Ares didn't chase him. Not today.
But one thing became clear:
The motorcycle incident wasn't an accident.
This system wasn't some random force that woke up out of nowhere.
And he was no longer just an ordinary student.
Something else was moving. Someone else already knew the system had activated.
And whatever came next, Ares understood:
He had entered the game long before he even realized the game existed.