The smell of burnt sugar and cheap coffee was the first thing Kael registered. He was sitting on a metal bench outside the Arcadia Gate Station, watching the evening commuters funnel through the massive, obsidian-black archway. It was a mundane scene for the city of Veridia, yet the Gate, humming with latent magical energy, was anything but.
"Relax, Kael. It's not the end of the world."
Kael turned to see Lyra slide onto the bench beside him. Her uniform—the crisp, sterile white of a Licensed Healer—was already smudged with a bit of dried mud. Two years ago, the System had granted her the coveted support class.
"Easy for you to say, Lyra," Kael muttered, pulling his hoodie tighter. "You're an S-Class Band-Aid. Everyone loves a Healer. What if I get something useless? Like Scribe? Or worse, a Sewer Cleaner?"
Lyra laughed, a bright, clear sound that eased some of the nervous knots in his stomach. "Then we'll just buy you a really expensive notepad and some solid boots. Look, tomorrow, at the stroke of midnight, the System will give you exactly what you need. It's the unbreakable rule." She tapped the silver wrist cuff she wore—the interface all powered people used.
Kael's wrist was bare. Seventeen hours, thirty-four minutes until the System decided his fate.
"It's not the job I'm worried about, Lyra," Kael admitted, dropping his voice. "It's the Zeroes."
Lyra's smile faltered. The Zeroes were the tiny, insignificant fraction of the population ignored by the System. They received no status, no power, and no Occupation. They were untouchables in a society built on power.
"You're not a Zero," Lyra insisted, placing a warm hand on his arm. "Your energy signature is brighter than anyone I know. Besides, we're a team, right? You get your power, we clear enough low-tier Slime Dungeons this summer to buy a decent apartment, and we finally get out of this neighborhood."
Kael looked at the Gate again. A squad of high-level Knights were emerging, their armor dented and smoking, but they were triumphant. They were the privileged, the powerful. He wanted his own small slice of that destiny, but when he looked at the black archway, he felt an unnatural, deep cold bloom in his chest, a reaction he'd never heard anyone else describe. It felt like the Gate wasn't just near him, it was calling to him.
"Did you ever hear that story?" Kael asked, trying to shake the chill. "The old legend about why the System 'woke up' thirty years ago?"
"The one about the meteor? Everyone knows that," Lyra said dismissively.
"No, the other one. The one my old history professor got fired for teaching. He said the System didn't crash onto the Earth, he said it rebooted. And that the first message it ever broadcast wasn't about the Gates appearing, but a warning. A single line."
Lyra leaned in, intrigued despite herself. "A warning about what?"
Just as Kael opened his mouth, the entire Arcadia Gate, which usually emitted a steady, low hum, shuddered. The obsidian surface briefly shimmered, reflecting the city lights in a chaotic burst of purple and black energy. It was gone in an instant. The Knights leaving the Gate didn't even stop walking.
But Lyra saw it. Her hand tightened on Kael's arm. "What was that?"
Kael looked at the massive archway, feeling the cold in his chest intensify into a sharp, almost painful pressure.
"He said it read: 'The True Monster Has Been Awakened.'"
The Gate Station's emergency lights flickered once, then died.