King sat on his worn-out sofa, staring at the translucent knight floating in his living room. He felt as though a bolt of lightning had struck his central nervous system. His fists were clenched tight enough to turn his knuckles white, and his eyes were glazed over with a mixture of shock and denial. Yet, even under that intense mental pressure, his defensive instincts, the "tough talk" he used to keep the world at bay, refused to yield.
"No... it's impossible," King stammered, his voice trembling despite his best efforts. "How could I ever have something like courage? I'm a coward. I'm a fake. I'm a guy who gets heart palpitations when the delivery man knocks too loud. There's no 'justice' in me, ghost. You've definitely got the wrong apartment."
Noah, watching from behind his golden visor, realized that words were no longer going to cut it. King's self-loathing was a fortress, and logic was a blunt instrument that wouldn't leave a scratch. To get through to him, Noah needed a demonstration - something visceral, something undeniable.
Perfect chance, Noah thought.
His gaze fell on the empty glass orange soda bottle sitting on the low coffee table. A wild, slightly reckless idea surfaced in his mind. It was the kind of gamble that could backfire and send King into another fainting spell, but it was also the only way to force the man to accept the truth in the shortest time possible.
Stubborn mouth, huh? Noah mused. You'll be singing a different tune in about ten seconds.
Without a word of warning, Noah reached down. His spectral hand solidified just enough to snatch the heavy glass bottle from the table. With a swift, practiced motion, he swung it upward and smashed it directly against his own armored forehead.
CRACK!
The sound of shattering glass echoed through the small apartment like a gunshot. Shards of orange-tinted glass sprayed across the rug.
"AGH-- OW! MY HEAD!"
Along with the sound of the breaking bottle came King's howl of pure agony. It wasn't a sympathetic cry; it was a scream of someone who had just had their own skull cracked open. King clutched his forehead, his face contorting in pain as he rolled off the sofa and onto the floor, groaning as if a brick had fallen on him from a great height.
The sound of the impact had been crisp and hollow, the unmistakable resonance of a first-rate head meeting a solid object.
"My head! It feels like it's splitting open!" King wailed, clutching his scalp and rolling around the linoleum. "You hit yourself! I saw you hit yourself! Why does it feel like you hit me?!"
As the initial sharp pain began to fade into a dull, throbbing ache, King looked up at Noah in sheer, wide-eyed disbelief. The wall of denial he had built was crumbling. He couldn't ignore the fact that he was currently growing a massive "goose egg" on his forehead from a blow he hadn't even taken.
Could he really be telling the truth? King wondered, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Is he actually the incarnation of my spirit?
"See? I told you," Noah said, his voice dropping into a grave, resonant tone. He looked down at King with a gaze that brooked no argument.
When Noah had picked up the bottle, he'd estimated the force perfectly. These soda bottles were thick enough to hurt but brittle enough to shatter if struck against a hard enough surface—like the reinforced spiritual armor of a Stand. At worst, King would end up with a nasty bruise and a lump that would take a few days to go down.
"As your spirit body, any wound I take reaches you," Noah explained, his voice echoing in the silence of the room. "We are bound by the same soul. Our nerves are intertwined. If I bleed, you feel the sting. If I fall, you feel the impact."
Noah extended his right hand, offering to pull King up from the floor.
"Likewise," Noah continued, "any harm that befalls you will echo to me. But because I am the embodiment of your justice and courage, I was born for conflict. I am your shield. Attacks that would shatter your bones will barely scratch my armor. I exist to absorb the world's malice so you don't have to."
King gingerly touched the rising lump on his head, his fingers trembling. Noah's explanation was starting to sound dangerously plausible. In fact, it was the only thing that made sense. There was no "technology" that could transmit the physical sensation of a cracked skull with such terrifying accuracy.
He looked at the armored knight standing before him. Noah stood nearly seven feet tall, his golden and silver plate-mail shimmering under the dim living room lights. He looked like a legendary hero pulled straight from the pages of the high-fantasy manga King loved so much.
If he really is the justice hidden in my heart... then maybe I'm not as hopeless as I thought.
King stared at Noah's outstretched hand, his mind drifting back to his childhood. As a young boy, he had lived and breathed comics and novels. He had spent his afternoons wielding wooden swords in the park, dreaming of the day he would become a hero who saved the innocent and vanquished evil.
But then he had grown up. The world had proven to be a cruel, cynical place where "justice" was a marketing term and "courage" was something only people with superpowers could afford.
Children can't wait to grow up; adults just want to be kids again. King had thought he'd gone numb to those dreams long ago. He had buried his inner child under layers of sarcasm, social anxiety, and thousands of hours of video games. Games were the only thread still tying him to that boy who believed in heroes.
And now, as Noah reached out to him, King saw a light breaking through the gloom of his self-imposed isolation. It felt as if the hero he had once dreamed of becoming had actually manifested to drag him out of the muck of his own life.
King stretched out both hands, desperate to seize that light.
"Huh...?"
His hands passed directly through Noah's armored gauntlets as if they were made of smoke. The longing in King's eyes turned to immediate disbelief as he wiggled his fingers through the "metal" of Noah's arm.
What was wrong? Why couldn't he grasp the hand?
"What's going on...?" King asked, his voice small.
Unwilling to accept the result, he tried to grab Noah again, and again, his hands met nothing but empty air. Because he had lunged forward with too much momentum, he lost his balance.
Seeing himself about to "kiss" Noah's breastplate, King squeezed his eyes shut and yelled for the knight to move. But instead of the cold, hard impact of metal, he felt his own body pass straight through the ghost, and he met the familiar, unyielding embrace of his own wooden floor with a dull thud.
King rolled over and stared up at Noah in shock. There had clearly been a "person" standing there. He had felt the wind move as Noah reached out. He had seen the glass break.
"Why can't I touch you?" King asked, looking at the glass shards on the floor for confirmation that the world was still real.
Facing King's questioning stare, Noah felt a secret thrill of delight. Whatever had happened with the "intangibility" mishap, he was now certain that King believed in him. King wasn't looking at him with fear anymore; he was looking at him with a desperate need for answers.
When someone asks another for the rules of the world, it means they have accepted their place in it.
"Then let's talk properly," Noah said, returning to his "seat" (which was actually him just hovering in a seated position over a chair). He motioned for King to sit back on the sofa.
Once King had settled, still rattling but significantly more attentive, Noah cleared his throat.
"The demonstration just now proved the truth of my words," Noah began. "Next, let me explain the 'mechanics' of our existence in detail. I know you like games, King, so think of this in terms you understand."
King's ears perked up at the mention of games.
"First," Noah said, "you haven't 'awakened' a superpower in the traditional sense. I am a Stand, a materialization of your spiritual energy. My strength, my speed, and my durability depend entirely on your mental power. If your heart is full of doubt, I am weak. If you find your resolve, I can shatter mountains."
"Second, we are a single unit. If you - the original, dies, I vanish instantly. As long as you live, I exist. Apart from the shared injuries I showed you, our bodies can pass through one another because we are made of the same soul-stuff. I can walk through walls, and you can walk through me."
"So... it's like a Summoner class?" King's mind, finally calmed by the logical framework, latched onto the analogy with the speed of a pro-gamer. "I'm the player who's rolled a Legendary Summoner, and you're my personal Guardian Spirit? You're here to help me grind mobs and win boss fights?"
Noah nodded, his helmet tilting slightly. "Exactly. You can see it that way. You provide the 'mana', your mental energy and I provide the combat prowess."
A flicker of genuine excitement sparked in King's eyes. This was a language he spoke fluently.
Me = Summoner. Tall Knight = Summon. We can grind monsters and level up?
With that thought in mind, King hesitated, then asked: "Wait... if you're my spirit, does that mean we can get stronger? Like, can we gain XP and unlock new abilities?"
Noah's heart skipped a beat. Had King noticed the System? He quickly replayed everything he'd said in his mind, making sure he hadn't mentioned the "Attribute Adjustment Scroll" or the "Rare Treasure Chest."
Good, no contradictions, Noah thought, breathing a mental sigh of relief. The System was his secret, the "OS" running in the background. If King found out Noah was a transmigrator with a cheat-code interface, the fragile trust they had just built might collapse.
"Yes," Noah said, his voice firm. "As the incarnation of your justice, I grow stronger every time we overcome a threat. Every victory refines your spirit and increases my power."
Those words struck King like a thunderbolt. The scattered, terrifying pieces of his day suddenly clicked into a cohesive, exciting whole.
"This... this is exactly like playing a real-life VR RPG!" King whispered, a slow, rare smile spreading across his scarred face. For the first time, he wasn't looking at Noah as a ghost, but as the ultimate "Power-Up."
DING-DONG! DING-DONG!
The urgent, rhythmic chimes of the doorbell burst through the apartment, shattering the moment.
King jumped, his heart immediately spiking into the "Emperor Engine" rhythm. He looked at the door, then at Noah.
"Who could that be?" King hissed. "I didn't order any more games!"
Noah narrowed his eyes, his spectral form shifting into a combat-ready stance. "I have a feeling it's not the delivery man, King. The Hero Association doesn't wait for an invite."