Morning came late in the slums. The sun didn't so much rise as leak between cracks in crumbling walls. Eren Vale sat on a wooden crate outside the bakery that never sold bread, watching smoke curl from chimneys like lazy ghosts.
He'd rewritten fate last night.
He was alive.
Someone else wasn't.
The thought should have horrified him. Instead, it sat in his stomach like a stone — heavy, undeniable, but not unbearable.
"Congratulations," he muttered to himself. "You survived the tutorial."
The System didn't reply.
It only flickered occasionally at the edge of his vision — faint red text, glitching like a dying monitor.
[Corruption: 1%. Destiny Status: Divergent.]
[Warning: Narrative equilibrium unstable.]
Eren ignored it. He had bigger problems.
The slum boss — Garlen — expected his cut of the protection money tonight. And since Eren's only method of making money involved stealing from other thieves, his odds weren't good.
He rummaged through his coat pockets. Two copper coins and a nail.
"Yeah, that'll buy me a funeral."
A soft ding echoed in his skull.
[New Sub-Event Generated: "Survive Until Dawn – 3 Days Remaining."]
[Failure Condition: Death.]
He laughed dryly. "You really know how to keep a man motivated."
The day passed in small acts of survival — scamming drunk guards, lifting bread from an unattended stall, ducking behind barrels when Garlen's men passed by. It was almost comfortable, this familiar grime.
Until dusk fell, and the air went sharp.
He turned into an alley to take a shortcut home — and froze.
The golden narration was there again, shimmering faintly in the air.
[Garlen's men find Eren Vale. His corpse is discovered at dawn.]
Eren exhaled slowly. "You again."
From the corner of his eye, movement — three men in ragged leather, blades glinting.
"Boss wants his payment, Vale," one growled. "Didn't think you'd run?"
"I didn't run," Eren said, stepping backward. "I just got lost on my way to dying."
They didn't laugh.
Fine.
If words wouldn't save him, maybe corruption would.
[Command: Rewrite Minor Event.]
The text shimmered. He focused hard.
Garlen's men find Eren Vale.
Rewrite… Garlen's men find… each other.
Reality folded — not with thunder or light, but a quiet snap.
The men blinked, then suddenly turned their blades on each other in confusion.
"What the—?! You stabbed me, you idiot!"
"I didn't— you—!"
Eren didn't wait to see who won. He ran, the echoes of chaos chasing him.
He collapsed in a hidden corner near the old fountain, gasping. The system chimed again.
[Corruption +2%. Destiny Altered.]
[Side Effect: Temporal Fracture (Minor).]
A flicker passed through the world — a stutter in time. The same beggar coughed twice. A cat froze mid-step, then resumed walking.
Eren wiped sweat from his forehead. "So every rewrite... breaks something else."
The voice that wasn't a voice whispered in his mind:
[Balance must be maintained.]
He grinned. "Then I'll just keep tipping the scales until they shatter."