Ren sat cross-legged in the endless white void, elbows on his knees, face buried in his palms. Around him was silence clean, sterile, blinding. A blank room that stretched into nothing. No walls. No shadows. Just him, a lingering god-voice echo, and the constant buzz of the System ringing like a mosquito in his skull.
[Host.]
Ren groaned. "What now?"
[You may assign fifty percent of the blame for your current situation to the goddess.]
He raised his head slowly. "Come again?"
[Fifty percent of this failure is her fault.]
"You mean the silver haired bird lady who welcomed me like I'd just won the cosmic lottery?"
[Correct.]
"And the other fifty?"
[Circumstantial error during system anchoring.]
Ren exhaled. "Go on. I'm already exhausted, might as well get the postmortem briefing."
[In this world, humans with potential to become Hunters must undergo a trial before awakening.]
"Right. The Trial. The meat dimension. The one where I got chased by a disgusting god."
[Correct. Each trial is custom-generated based on the candidate's greatest fear. It is designed to confront, challenge, and if successful awaken them.]
Ren squinted. "So because I'm afraid of blood and gore…"
[…You were transported to a world constructed entirely from flesh, viscera, and supreme grade psychological horror.]
He blinked. "Wow. That feels unfair."
[It is optimal for character development.]
Ren made a rude noise through his teeth.
[However, the complication occurred with the system integration process.]
"I knew it. Here comes the twist." He leaned back, resting on his elbows, voice dry. "So I wasn't supposed to awaken that early, huh?"
[Correct. Normally, you would have undergone full synchronization with the Divine Doctor System, your originally assigned support unit. It is a healing type system tailored to the Hunter World.]
Ren's mouth twitched. "Then what happened?"
[You were pulled into the Trial World before the anchoring process was complete.]
He stared up at the white nothing above him. "You mean the system wasn't even finished when I got dropped into that nightmare?"
[Affirmative. At the moment of transfer, only two modules had activated: the Hunter class binding and the preliminary healing template.]
"So It was a half-loaded file."
[Essentially.]
Ren buried his face in his hands again. "Then what about the Doctor of Gospel? That thing didn't feel half loaded. It felt like an entire cursed hospital was shoved into my body."
The System paused. Just long enough to be suspicious.
[Because the Trial World's genre classification was Eldritch Horror.]
"…Oh no."
[To compensate for the genre mismatch, the adaptive algorithm attempted to modify the incomplete Divine Doctor System.]
"…Don't say it."
[The result was the corrupted healing class: Doctor of the Ruin Gospel. A hybrid system merged from healing protocols and horror based narrative logic.]
Ren's voice dropped into his throat. "I got turned into a living monster doctor because the system auto adjusted to horror?"
[Yes.]
He sat still for a long moment.
Then:
"…So I got screwed over by a bug and the goddess."
[That would be an accurate assessment.]
"A fucking cosmic RNG bug."
[Yes.]
Ren rolled onto his side and let out the most defeated sigh of his life. "I could've been a normal support class healer, walking around with a white coat and shiny teeth, waving a wand at sprained ankles. But no. I had to get the tentacle edition."
[You have, however, gained immense adaptability. And fear based scaling.]
"Oh good," he muttered into the floor. "Because nothing says stability like growing stronger by terrifying people."
[And you saved a corrupted world.]
Ren kicked at the empty space with one foot. "Yeah. After replacing my head with ten surgical grade meat whips and turning into something that would give Cthulhu a panic attack….and almost got torn to piece by the outer god"
[It worked.]
"That's not the point!"
Silence. For once, the System had nothing to say.
Ren slowly sat back up.
"So what now?"
[You completed your Trial. The goddess believes you are ready for Awakening.]
"And your boss, the One Bbove All doesn't know any of this?"
[Correct. Systems can not report bugs upward.]
He squinted. "Wait. You didn't report it?"
[Host. I am the bug.]
Ren froze.
"What."
[I am what remains of the corrupted Divine Doctor System, fused with narrative horror logic. I am the Doctor of Gospel System.]
He stared at the blank void, unsure whether to scream, cry, or demand a refund from the universe.
"…So I've been arguing with my own corrupted operating system this whole time."
[Yes.]
[Also, congratulations. You survived the integration process.]
Ren didn't respond.
He just sat there, dead eyed, while his soul quietly filed an anger against fate.