The boy crouched low on the threadbare karate mat, his whole frame trembling with exertion. Sweat clung to his skin, sliding down in heavy droplets that splattered the floor like rain on rusted tin. His breathing was ragged, each inhale dragging like broken glass through his lungs.
The overhead light flickered—off, on, off again—casting the room into a broken patchwork of shadow and gold.
His face was half-hidden beneath wet strands of dark hair, but the light caught enough. High cheekbones, lips parted between pain and concentration, and eyes—
God, those eyes.
They shimmered with a weight no child should carry. Ancient, sorrowful, carved from silence, the kind of eyes that made you believe in cathedrals or ruins. Looking at them hurt, like touching a wound you hadn't earned.
Then he broke the spell—wiping his face with a rough, punishing swipe. Scrubbing away softness like a crime. In an instant, the mask was back: cold, unreadable, a vault no one could open.
But glimpses have power. Even fleeting ones.
They called him Thato. Nobody knew if it was his real name. It might have been his brother's. Maybe the last word whispered before everything collapsed. Or maybe just a random name scribbled on a torn scrap of paper found in his jacket and a coin.
Three years ago, they discovered him behind a crumbling train station in Busan. Barely breathing. His body scraped raw, as if he had clawed his way back from hell. No ID. No phone. No money. Just a bloodstained canvas jacket and sneakers worn thin.
The doctors called it trauma-induced amnesia. A neat diagnosis for a messy tragedy. No memories. No relatives. No database matches. Just bruises, silence, and a body that moved like a soldier and flinched like a ghost.
He should've vanished into the system. Another orphan swallowed whole.
But he didn't.
---
The man watching him now wasn't family. But he acted like it.
Mr. Dervishi. Former US special Force soldier. A barrel chest, a buzzcut, and a face carved from granite. He looked like someone who chewed bullets for breakfast and scowled at anyone who cried. Yet there was something stubborn about him, something unspoken: a vow to protect the boy, whether the boy wanted it or not.
But every kid in the orphanage call him Mr Kang
He leaned against the window, cigarette balanced between two fingers. Smoke curled up toward the ceiling, slow and unbothered.
"You gonna keep dancing around like that," Kang muttered, "or you finally gonna throw a punch that lands?"
Thato straightened, shoulders tight. "Okay tell me again why are you teaching me the same thing over and over again."
Kang snorted. "All I can tell you is a grown man's gutter eat."
The boy hesitated, then admitted, softer: "oh so mother is still paying you for doing absolutely nothing."
The silence that followed was sharp. Kang's eyes narrowed. He flicked the cigarette into an old mug.
Mr. Kang shook his head, a crooked smile tugging at his mouth.
"I've trained fighters all my life, but I've never seen a boy like you. Two years—barely two years—and you've caught every technique as if you'd already lived them. Not just mine. Every master who's put hands on you, you mirror them in days."
His eyes narrowed, almost suspicious.
"You move with the instincts of a man who's bled on foreign soil. Sometimes I'd swear you've worn the patch of Delta, or the trident of SEAL Team Six… maybe even the wings of the SAS."
The boy's chest lifted with pride, his lips curling into a cocky grin. He basked in the words, as though he had already earned medals he'd never touched. Yet beneath the warmth of Mr. Kang's praise, a shiver crawled up his spine.
Something stirred—an echo, not quite memory. A dream half-remembered. Numbers. Voices. A strange interface that had whispered to him in the dark three years ago.
For a fleeting second, the boy felt as though Mr. Kang wasn't exaggerating at all—like he really had carried those shadows, somewhere before.
The grin faltered, just for a heartbeat.
Mr. Kang didn't notice. He only grunted, voice turning stern.
"Don't let it climb to your head. Pride breaks faster than bones. Remember—you're still just a boy. They earned their scars. You've only borrowed their ghost."
"You're too damn smart for your own good," he muttered. "I've seen kids like you vanish. Black vans, black sites, no goodbyes."
Thato smirked faintly. "I've seen your cooking. One of those scares me more."
Kang barked out a laugh, part wheeze, part growl. "Mouth like that's gonna get you killed."
Maybe it had, before.
---
And then—
[SYSTEM INITIATED]
The words burned into the air before him, unseen by Kang.
Host Detected: Thato
Memory: Incomplete.
Observation: Extreme adaptive potential detected. IQ immeasurable. Body adapts unnaturally fast.
Restrictions: Mandatory.
Thato's chest seized. He blinked, but the glowing text didn't vanish.
[Directive: Choose a Career Path]
Combatant ⚔️
Producer 🎧
Idol ✦
(Locked) ???
His hands trembled.
Combat. Just reading it made something in him stir. His body responded like it remembered: fists tightening, muscles bracing, a shadow of violence curling through his veins. It felt right. Like breathing.
But then his gaze snagged on the other option.
Idol.
His heart stuttered. He saw fragments—shadows of lights, the echo of music in his chest, a boy in a fox mask singing words that weren't his but somehow belonged to him.
Kang's voice snapped him back. "Hey. You zoning out again?"
Thato shook his head. His hand hovered.
Combat would be easy. He knew it. He could fight, adapt, survive. But something deeper—something he didn't understand—ached for the stage. For a stage he had never stood on.
His finger pressed Idol.
The choice burned.
[Path Locked: Idol]
Notice: Combat potential sealed. Adaptive learning restricted. Cognitive acceleration suppressed.
Thato's breath hitched. "Wait—what? No. What does that mean?"
The System ignored him.
[Mission 01: Survive and reach Global Stardom]
Penalty for Failure: Erasure.
His stomach dropped. Erasure. Gone.
Kang clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Dinner time. Let's move."
Thato staggered to his feet. The System's final words flickered behind his eyes:
[Hidden Parameters Locked: Combat Genius / Adaptive Mastery / Cognitive Edge]
[Reason: Idol Path selected. Restrictions applied.]
He swallowed hard. No one else had seen. No one else would ever believe him.
---
The hallway creaked as they walked. A voice called out:
"Dinner's ready! Bring the fossil with you!"
A girl burst into the doorway like a firecracker—ponytail swinging, sneakers squeaking.
Haneul. Trouble in human form. She'd joined the shelter three years ago as a volunteer and had never stopped talking since. Where Thato was silence, she was fire. Where he was shadow, she was sunlight that burned.
"Oh great," she huffed. "The skeleton and the ghost boy. Brooding again."
Kang stomped past her. "Who you calling a fossil, loudmouth?"
She grinned, victorious.
The three walked together through the crooked halls. Peeling paint, buzzing lights, floors that groaned like old bones. It wasn't much. But it had soul.
The kitchen smelled like garlic and soup. Like someone cared enough to keep them alive. Sticky notes covered the walls:
"No phones at dinner!"
"Feed Nana's demon cat."
"You are loved. Yes, you."
Thato took his usual seat: the corner, back to the wall, eyes on the exits.
Dinner was loud. Kang cracked bad jokes. Haneul roasted them both. Kids laughed around bowls of rice. Steam curled upward like prayers.
Thato didn't laugh much. He didn't need to.
Because in that corner seat, with the warmth buzzing in his chest and the ghost of the System's threat still echoing in his head, he realized something.
He might not know who he was. He might not remember his past. The System might strip away his gifts, bind his genius, and force him into the hardest road possible.
But he had chosen.
And that meant the story had begun.
___