The world ended not with a bang, but with a mere notification chime.
It was a sound that bypassed the ears, resonating directly within the soul of every living human. A crystalline, system-like notification that echoed in the mind's silence. For a single, suspended moment, traffic stopped. Conversations died. The entire planet held its breath.
Then, the sky tore open.
It wasn't a crack of lightning or the roar of thunder. It was a silent, shimmering rip in the fabric of reality itself, edges bleeding impossible colors. From these wounds in the world, they emerged.
The first Goblins, no larger than children, spilling into a Tokyo subway with rusted knives and shrieking cries. A Gelatinous Cube, a transparent, acidic horror, oozing through a New York alley, dissolving concrete and steel. A Wyvern, scales the color of dried blood, circling the Eiffel Tower and unleashing a stream of corrosive bile.
Panic was too small a word. It was a global, systemic shock. Armies scrambled, but their conventional weapons were of little use against monsters that seemed to follow the rules of a nightmare. Bullets were absorbed by slimes. Tanks were ambushed by rampaging beasts rising from the very ground.
In the midst of the chaos, a new sound joined the symphony of destruction—the desperate, hopeful cries of the Awakened.
A office worker in London, cornered by a Hobgoblin, suddenly found her hands wreathed in fire. A soldier in Moscow, about to be overrun, felt an impossible strength surge through his limbs, shattering the monster's skull with a single punch. A student in Cairo, hiding in a library, began to float, pages from books orbiting her like shields.
They were the first Players. And with their awakening, the System made itself known.
Floating, semi-transparent screens materialized before their eyes, displaying text in their native language.
[Welcome, Player.]
[The World had began to change for the worse.]
[Survive. Grow. Ascend.]
It offered classes, skills, and a cold, numerical assessment of reality. Levels. Hit Points. Mana. The world had been quantified into a deadly RPG.
But the System was only the interface. Behind it, They watched.
In the mind of a young police officer in Manila—Terry Sau, clinging to a makeshift club made of rebar—a second, more intimate voice whispered. It was cheerful, clueless, and brimming with a strange, sympathetic power.
«Oh! Oh! You're one of the first! Don't worry, I'll help! I don't have much, but... here! Take this!»
A new, terrifying, and wonderful authority bloomed within him. The Authority of Envy.
Chaos was too small a word. It was a meat grinder of panic. Sau acted on instinct, his service pistol a useless weight in his hand. He saw a creature—a thing with too many legs and a lamprey-like mouth—latch onto a woman. He didn't think. He ran, grabbing a length of rusted rebar from a collapsed construction fence.
The first swing was clumsy. The second was desperate. The third was efficient. He felt the rebar crunch into something solid, and the creature recoiled. It wasn't heroic; it was butchery. A brutal, necessary act of survival.
And then, a voice, cold and absolute, spoke not to his ears, but to his very soul.
[System Initializing...]
[Welcome, Player.]
[Scanning Soul Composition...]
[Class Assignment: Pretender (Unique Class).]
A ghostly, blue interface flickered before his eyes. Where others would see clear, defined skill trees for [Warrior] or [Mage], he saw… nothing. An empty, shapeless void. A single, pathetic branch with a few locked passives. A [Skill Tree], the system called it, but Sau deems it more as a [Skill Shrub] rather than a [Skill Tree] the label dripping with ironic contempt.
[Unique Class Perk: Pretend - Active.]
[Unique Class Perk: False Data - Passive.]
Confusion warred with terror. He saw a man nearby suddenly sheathed in lightning, a [Elementalist]. A woman began chanting, golden light healing a wound. They had direction. They had power. He had a hollow name and the ability to lie.
Then, a second, more intimate whisper, this one filled with a strange, melancholic yearning.
[Patron Detected...]
[The Dragon of Envy acknowledges you.]
An image flashed in his mind: a small, anthropomorphic dragon girl, looking at him not with predatory hunger, but with a profound, sympathetic sadness. She saw his emptiness. She saw his nothing. And she envied those who had something to lose.
«Oh! Oh! You're one of the first! Don't worry, I'll help! I don't have much, but... here! Take this!»
[Authority Bestowed: Authority of Envy.]
[You may copy the skill, trait, or passive of any target once. The acquisition is permanent.]
[Warning: Authority of Envy negates standard stat growth per level. All progression must be earned.]
The weight of it crushed him. He could steal the power of others, but he would forever be starting from zero. He would always be behind. He would always be less.
Another monster, a larger, scuttling horror, charged him. On instinct, he focused his Pretend ability, mimicking the stance of a brawler he'd once seen. His body awkwardly adjusted. Then, he unleashed Envy on the creature, not for a flashy attack, but for a simple, ingrained instinct.
[Skill Copied: Keen Smell (Passive).]
It was a pitiful gain. But as the monster's own heightened senses flooded into him, he could suddenly smell its fear, its aggression, the weak points in its carapace. It was something. It was a foundation built on theft.
The fight was a blur of rebar and gore. When it was over, he stood panting, his makeshift club slick with black ichor. He looked at the rebar, bent and stained. Swords needed sharpening. Bows needed arrows. But this… this was simple. It was honest in its brutality.
A thought, not quite his own, echoed in his mind, tinged with childish curiosity. "Why a club? A sword is so much shinier!"
He didn't know how to answer the dragon in his head. He just looked out at the burning city, at the players with their clear, System-given destinies, and at the hollow, shapeless potential inside himself. "A club is a more practical weapon in a time like this, It doesn't need to be maintained, and you can practically find these everywhere."
The little dragon replied, "Ooh, but its all bloody, and messy, and bloody, and really messy," as the little dragon hovers over the mangled corpse of the Kobold Sau just ended.
He would survive. And he would make sure the world never knew the name of the man who started with nothing.
Gods, Demons, Angels, and things far older had turned their gaze to Earth. They were the Patrons, and they were choosing their champions.
Within days, the new geography of the world was drawn. The first Dungeons—pulsing, unstable portals—anchored themselves to ley lines and places of tragedy, spewing forth monsters on a timer. The first Towers—impossibly tall, silent spires of unknown origin—appeared in remote deserts and the hearts of ruined cities, their peaks lost in the clouds, promising untold power and secrets.
Governments fractured. Guilds formed overnight, some for protection, others for domination. And in a quiet office in Geneva, the remnants of global order scrambled to form the Free Players Association (FPA), a desperate attempt to bring rules to a world that had rewritten them.
It was the end of the age of man. It was the beginning of an era of chaos, miracles, and legends in the making.
For those who had power, it was a time of opportunity. For those who did not, it was a time of fear.
And for a select few, like Terry Sau, discarding his name and now refer himself as Nanashi, it was the day they were given a simple, life-altering choice by a mysterious, cheerful dragon and a silent, omnipresent System.
[Authority of Envy now fully initialized.]
[Your journey begins now.]
[Would you like to change the world?]