Varyan didn't breathe.
The handle turned fully. The door creaked inward.
No one stood there.
Just the empty corridor, torchlight flickering, shadows stretching like reaching fingers.
[Chaos Fragnt signature: fading.]
It was already gone. Or playing with him.
Varyan exhaled slowly, then locked the door—not that the flimsy bolt would stop anything truly dangerous. He pressed his forehead against the cold stone wall and forced his racing heart to slow.
*You are not the only one*, 「ECHO」had said.
That ant others had crumbs. Others were waking up. And so of them—Chaos-aligned—were already hunting.
He looked back at the blue screen, still hovering patiently.
[Quest: Survive the Onslaught – 71 hours, 58 minutes remaining.]
"Onslaught of what?" he whispered.
The screen flickered, then displayed:
[Demons. Monsters. Petty deities. And things older than nas.]
[Welco to the real world, Crumb-Bearer.]
Varyan laughed once—dry, humorless.
He was the son of a dying house. Ridiculed. Shunned. Sleeping in a closet while noble heirs feasted in halls nad after his ancestors.
And now he was being hunted by fragnts of primordial chaos.
[「ECHO」note: Your survival odds are currently 17%.]
"Thanks," Varyan muttered. "Very encouraging."
[「ECHO」note: Odds increase with information. Information costs power. Power requires risk.]
[First quest reward unlocked early for demonstration: "Crumb Sense" – Detects nearby Order or Chaos fragnts within 50 feet.]
[Active: One Chaos signature. Two floors below. Moving upward.]
Varyan grabbed his dagger tighter.
*It's coming back.*
He looked at the door. The window (too small to escape through). The rusted grate in the floor (blocked by centuries of gri).
No exit. No backup. No house to protect him.
Just a fourteen-year-old boy, a talking system, and an iron dagger against sothing older than the gods.
[Quest updated: Survive the Onslaught – Hide or fight. Choose.]
Varyan smiled—sharp, desperate, and absolutely nothing like the bored student from the assembly hall.
"Neither," he whispered.
[Clarify.]
"I'm going to make it follow . Through every trap, every narrow corridor, every bottleneck this academy has. And then I'm going to find out what it wants—before it finds out what I can do."
[Odds recalculating…]
[23%.]
"Improvent."
[Barely.]
Varyan eased the door open and slipped into the corridor, footsteps silent, golden-flecked eyes scanning the darkness.
The hunt had begun.
But for the first ti in his life—he wasn't the prey.
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