Kai never believed in fate.
Didn't matter. Fate never needed his permission to ruin his day.
His apartment was a tomb of greasy instant noodles and old dreams. The neon city outside was all noise and fireworks—inside, nothing but a blue-lit graveyard of ambitions. Graduation parties thundered through the walls. Kai celebrated alone: broke, jobless, dumped, and invisible.
He slumped at his desk, staring at the webnovel page that mocked him with its emptiness.
Zero comments. Zero collections. Zero motivation.
Maybe he deserved it. Maybe all those late nights grinding out trash chapters for zero readers had finally caught up to him.
Or maybe the universe just liked kicking people when they were down.
The blackout hit without warning.
Lights gone. Monitor dead. Street noise vanished, replaced by a silence so thick it pressed against his skull. Kai's phone refused to turn on, the whole world folding in on itself.
A rectangle of blue light flickered into existence above his desk.
[SYSTEM ACTIVATED]
[Welcome, Author.]
[Your story begins now.]
[You may write three lines.]
Kai sat frozen.
Stress hallucination? Or a prank? But nothing else worked—not his phone, not the switch, not even his own reflection in the window.
[Write three lines.]
[Anything you declare here becomes truth.]
[Afterward, the world will adapt accordingly.]
He swallowed, staring at the blinking cursor. If he was crazy, fine. If he wasn't… then this was his one shot.
Line 1: "I wish I could rewrite my life."
Line 2: "Let me become the author of my own world."
Line 3: "Give me the power to change reality."
He pressed enter.
The world dissolved.
His vision cracked, like a screen shattering under a hammer. He tumbled—weightless, directionless—through endless black. Letters and words spun all around him, streaming past in rivers of glowing text.
A cold, inhuman voice drilled into his mind.
[SYSTEM UPGRADE COMPLETE]
[Skill Unlocked: Edit Reality – Level 1]
[Command Prompt Unlocked.]
[Warning: Every edit has consequences.]
Pain split his skull.
He squeezed his eyes shut, gasping as the darkness spat him out—face-first, onto cold, wet grass.
He rolled onto his back, lungs burning. The sky above was a bruised violet, torn by strange constellations he'd never seen. The wind stank of ash and iron. Distant torches flickered, and shouts rang through the gloom.
For a moment, Kai lay there, dazed, just breathing.
Then adrenaline kicked in.
His hands patted himself down—no phone, no wallet, not even shoes. He felt… lighter.
But something new pulsed behind his eyes, like code waiting to run. A prompt. An empty line.
He thought: "Status."
[NAME: Kai]
[CLASS: Author]
[SKILL: Edit Reality – Lvl 1]
[INVENTORY: None]
[WORLD: Scripted Fantasy – Chapter 1]
Armored men with torches were storming toward him, swords drawn. Their shouts—foreign, harsh—cut through the night.
Panic clawed at Kai's throat. He scrambled to his feet, heart pounding so hard it hurt.
He had no weapon. No magic. But he had the System.
He focused on the mental prompt. He pictured the words.
Edit: "The guards trip over their own feet."
A ripple ran through the air—subtle, but real.
Suddenly, the first guard caught his toe on a root, flipping forward. The next one crashed over him. The last skidded and faceplanted, a clattering mess of metal and curses.
Kai staggered back, stunned.
It worked.
He actually did it.
A surge of manic energy shot through him—part terror, part triumph. For once, he wasn't powerless.
A red warning flashed in his mind:
[CONSEQUENCE: The world adapts to interference.]
[Stronger forces have noticed your edit.]
Not good. Not good at all.
He bolted, sprinting into the shadow of twisted trees as chaos erupted behind him.
Branches whipped his face, mud squelched under his bare feet, and the shouts faded as he ducked lower, pushing deeper into the woods.
He kept running, lungs burning, legs aching, until a fallen log forced him to stop. He crouched low, gasping for air, mind spinning.
He'd just broken reality—and reality was about to bite back.
Kai looked at his shaking hands and grinned, teeth bared.
For the first time in forever, he wasn't just a background character.
He was the author.
And now, the story was his to write.
He crouched beneath the twisted branches, trying to slow his breath. The forest pressed in on all sides—dense, tangled, alive with sounds that didn't belong in any city park. In the distance, torchlight flickered as the guards regrouped, their angry shouts echoing through the trees.
[SYSTEM WARNING: Initial edit detected. World parameters adjusting. Unpredictable variables introduced.]
He flinched as the message seared through his thoughts.
World parameters? Unpredictable variables?
He didn't know what that meant, but every instinct screamed that this wasn't some free cheat menu.
His body shook. The grass felt sharp and cold beneath his feet. He glanced down, noticing the strange script now crawling faintly across his forearm—like watermark text in another language, glowing blue then fading out.
[QUEST UPDATED: Survive the Night.
Reward: Skill Upgrade
Failure: Permanent Erasure]
Permanent erasure?
He swallowed hard. He wasn't going to test what "failure" meant.
The guards' voices grew quieter, but now a different sound filtered through the darkness: a low, wet growling, and the snapping of branches from something heavy circling just out of sight.
[RANDOM EVENT: Predator Spawned.
Type: Night Stalker
Threat Level: Deadly]
Kai's mind spun. Of course. Because running from angry guards in a strange forest wasn't bad enough.
He thought, frantically:
Edit: "The predator is blind."
A pulse of cold swept the air. For a moment, all the animal noises stopped.
Then the system flashed a new message, sharper and harsher than before:
[SYSTEM LIMIT: Edits restricted.
First edit already detected by local anomalies.
Further interference draws greater attention.]
So he couldn't just edit everything. Not without consequences.
Somewhere to his left, heavy breathing. Claws scraping against bark. A pair of dull, yellow eyes—no, three pairs—opened in the gloom.
Kai backed up slowly, eyes searching for anything—a stick, a rock, a miracle.
He'd written hundreds of "survive the night" scenes for nobodies in his webnovels. But when the shadows started moving for him, nothing felt heroic about it.
The system flickered:
[TIP: Every story needs supporting characters.]
He bit his tongue. Supporting characters? He didn't even know where he was, let alone who else was out here.
Suddenly, a voice cut through the dark—a girl's, sharp and trembling.
"Who's there? Get away from me! I have a knife!"
Kai whipped his head around. Torchlight bounced off a pale face—a girl, maybe his age, clutching a blade, eyes wide with terror. She stood backed against a fallen tree as the Night Stalker slithered closer to her, its hulking, shadowed form blending with the undergrowth.
He had a choice.
Run and maybe escape while the monster was distracted…
Or jump in, and hope his "Author" power could do something more.
[NEW OBJECTIVE: Save the Survivor.
Bonus: Unlocked Party Member
Failure: Increased Threat Level]
The beast lunged for the girl.
Kai had seconds to act. He gritted his teeth, forced his mind blank, and reached for the mental command line, feeling it resist—harder this time.
Edit: "The monster slips and falls."
The air shimmered.
The Night Stalker's massive form sprang, but its claws hit mud. It tumbled sideways, crashing into roots and howling in frustration.
The girl's knife flashed. She slashed at its face, buying a heartbeat.
Kai sprinted forward, adrenaline turning his fear into raw momentum.
[SYSTEM ALERT: Interference escalated.
Multiple anomalies tracking.
Warning: Incoming threat.
[Chapter End]]
A chill shot up Kai's spine as a shadow darker than night itself slithered through the trees behind him—eyes burning red, voice whispering words he almost understood.
He was out of edits. Out of time.
And the real monsters had finally noticed the new Author in their world.