The girl inside the cracked orb blinked slowly, as if waking up from a dream made of math, murder, and memory leaks.
Her silver eyes flickered like a loading screen that didn't quite finish. Her voice, though soft, echoed unnaturally—like twelve versions of her were speaking over each other in different timelines.
> "One of you broke the system."
Yue Lan instinctively stepped between Arin and the floating orb, hand on her sword. Yura hovered just behind her, eyes narrowed, nine tails lightly fanned and twitching with tension.
Arin, on the other hand, was squinting at the girl like she was an optical illusion wrapped in a scam wrapped in plot armor.
> "Wait," he said, raising a finger. "You're not a system."
> "Correct," the girl replied.
> "You're not a user."
> "Correct."
> "You're not even from this world."
> "Also correct."
He paused. "So you're either the real administrator… or you're the result of a divine patch update that crashed halfway through."
Jun Bai muttered, "We should destroy her before she destabilizes the ruins."
> "If we did that every time something was unstable, you'd be gone already," Arin shot back.
The girl slowly floated to the ground, broken wing fragments glowing like ghost feathers behind her. The orb cracked fully and dissolved into motes of corrupted light. She touched her chest—there was a faint scar shaped like the system logo, but twisted and half-burned.
> "I am what remains," she said. "Of what you were never meant to see."
Yura whispered, "I hate vague cryptic girls with glowy eyes."
> "Same," Arin said. "Also, I think she's pretty."
Yue Lan elbowed him.
> "Ow. Fine, I think she's ominously pretty."
The girl looked directly at Arin now.
> "You," she said. "Your system is a failed version. A discarded test. A trash prototype."
Everyone went silent.
Even the system did.
No "ding." No message. Just a dead quiet.
Arin blinked. "...Excuse me?"
> "Your system was never meant to be deployed. It was unstable. Unethical. It ignored core protocols for wish-fulfillment morality locks."
> "I KNEW IT!" Arin pointed to the sky. "You hear that, you corrupt software? You gave me garbage and LIED ABOUT THE UPGRADES!"
> [System Message: Hello! We're currently undergoing scheduled silence due to divine exposure. Please try your outrage later.]
> "I will uninstall you with a divine spoon."
The girl's expression didn't change. "It didn't just lie. It stole."
Jun Bai crossed his arms. "Stole what?"
"Rewards. Paths. Potential. It rerouted them—sold them to higher-ranking system networks. You weren't receiving your destiny."
Arin just stared.
Then slowly sat down.
On the floor.
Cross-legged.
And put his face in his hands.
> "You mean I could've been cool this entire time?"
> "Your system was selling your fate like in-app purchases."
Yura whistled. "I always said he had 'low-budget protagonist' vibes."
Yue Lan, however, frowned. "Why tell us now?"
The girl looked up—toward the ceiling, or perhaps beyond it.
> "Because I am waking up. And when I do... systems will die."
The room pulsed with unstable qi. A rune circle formed under her feet, crackling with divine circuit patterns.
Jun Bai instinctively raised his sword. "She's initiating something."
> "System Transfer Protocol," the girl whispered.
> "I don't want a new system!" Arin yelled. "I can't even handle the trash one!"
> "I am not a system," she said. "I am the penalty."
Everything exploded into white light.
---
When Arin could see again, he was lying face-down on a dirt path.
He groaned, lifted his head—and realized they weren't in the ruins anymore.
They were in the middle of a forest. Birds chirped. Light filtered through trees. It was almost peaceful.
Jun Bai was on one side, looking bruised and confused. Yue Lan was kneeling, checking her sword. Yura sat on a branch, half-in fox form, eating a dumpling she did not have earlier.
Arin coughed and said, "Okay. Who else thought we died?"
Jun Bai raised a hand.
Yura shrugged. "Honestly, I was kind of hoping for it."
A voice—faint, echoing, but warm—spoke from nowhere.
> "Welcome to the next arc, Arin."
Arin froze.
> "...That's not my system's voice."
> "That's because you've entered a shared space. Between systems. Between failures."
Arin looked up at the sky.
> "So I'm the bug now?"
No reply.
Only a wind that felt like it came from the code itself.