Jack leaned onto the wall, exhaling before shaking his head in shame while laughing amusement.
'Sorry, Lucy...' he muttered to himself and glanced behind the wall towards their table only to jump when a girl suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his view.
"Lucy… you scared me," he said, trying to recover with a tight grin.
"Here, sir," she replied, offering him a cold bottle of sparkling water.
Jack blinked. That was fast.
"Thanks," he said quietly, guilt pricking at him again.
"Shall we head out?"
"Yeah."
Instead of returning through the same passage, Lucy led him down a narrow alley toward a flight of metal stairs that sank into the ground. In front of an ordinary vending machine, she pressed a strange sequence on the keypad.
With a muted click, the floor split open and a lift rose from the darkness.
Jack blinked. "You've got to be kidding."
Without a word, Lucy stepped on. Jack followed. The platform dropped silently, swallowing them into the steel veins below the city.
When they emerged, the hangar stretched before them—massive and dim, humming with machinery.
As they walked, a group of three passed by in plain clothes. One of them, a towering teenager, with a large frame, barely out of high school, stopped abruptly.
"Hey! You guys new here? Got your ranks yet? We need help!" he said towering over them with at almost three heads.
"David," groaned the eldest of the trio. "Stop bothering people."
Another man, maybe late twenties, started dragging the teen away while bowing apologetically.
David squirmed free. "But we really need help, Senior! These two look capable!"
The older man sighed and gave Jack a polite smile. "Sorry about him. He's new."
Jack chuckled lightly. "It's fine." He glanced at Lucy—but she'd already moved behind him, silent as ever.
Curiosity tugged at him as he discreetly activated Appraise.
[Simon Holemart]
[Level 27]
[Age: 28]
[Kill Count: 34]
[Race: 41 % Elf, 30% Human...]
[David Roar.]
[Level: 18]
[Age: 16.]
[Kill count: 0]
[Race: 51% Vargan, 13% Human, 14% Dwarf]
Wait... this David kid was the one punching concrete like a toy earlier, Jack realized.
"You seem to be in trouble," Jack said. "If there's something I can do, I'll try."
He surprised himself saying that. It had been a while since he'd talked to anyone besides Lucy or Brian.
David's face lit up. "See, I told you, Senior! My instincts are never wrong!"
Jack caught the senior's skeptical look. They both knew he didn't mean it. Still, he pressed. "What's the job?"
David eagerly explained—they were short on members for a Class B capture mission against a rogue awakened. Two of their teammates were hospitalized, and the company wouldn't let them deploy unless replacements were assigned.
Jack's smile faded with each word. Class B? Rogue awakened? None of it made sense.
"I'm sorry," he said finally. "We can't take on something like that yet."
"It's alright," the senior said, as if expecting that answer.
David slumped, disappointment plain on his face. Jack felt a twinge of guilt. He'd offered out of politeness, not commitment.
As they walked away, Jack sighed.
'Of course, I can't help with something like that.'
Back in his quarters, Jack immediately turned on the laptop. Lucy settled onto the couch with her coffee, as quiet as a shadow.
Jack scrolled through files, eyes darting. Nothing. No reports, no directories, not even company protocols. The public GS Securities site was just a shell.
Frustrated, he leaned back. So much for easy research.
But he discovered something.
His mind felt sharper—clearer than before. His vision seemed to shift as every word he read left a trail of glowing symbols behind his eyes.
Holo-screens appeared around him, forming a whirlwind of text. It was like his brain had become a scanner.
It didn't take a genius in him to figure out it was the effect of the passive skill Speed Reading.
Despite this though, the data he wanted stayed locked behind restricted folders.
He hesitated, then glanced at Lucy.
Thinking it over, he exhaled, choosing the right words not to raise suspicion. But before he could get the words out, a notification suddenly popped up.
Then the screen glitched.
The cursor froze, the background flickered red, and static filled the speakers.
Jack blinked. "What the—"
[Access granted.]
The message wasn't from the laptop's OS. It was from his system. Jack froze as the laptop whirred violently.
Then the screen went black.
A new interface appeared—neither a website nor software—just a seamless blend of his system's aesthetic layered onto the laptop's display.
[The System will now take over.]
A pulse ran through the room. For a moment, Jack swore the air itself vibrated. The smell of ozone filled his nose.
Lucy looked up. "Sir?"
He forced a smile. "Just a glitch."
But it wasn't.
Panels unfolded midair, blending into his system's familiar holographic light. The laptop display synced perfectly with them. The System—his system—had hacked itself into real-world hardware.
[Welcome back, Awakened.][Special Rank: White.]
Jack's pulse jumped., but he saw the GH Securities logo floating faintly behind the text.
"What the hell…"
Lines of text scrolled, like fragments of an old employee database.
'Special rank?'
[Special Rank: A ghost classification. Neither high nor low. Operates independently. Known for excelling beyond the mind, body, and spirit limits of ordinary awakened.]
He scrolled further, his finger trembling slightly. Then his eyes caught on a familiar tag.
[Codename: White]
[Status: Retired (Five Years)]
[Access Level: Restricted until account reactivation.]
'Is White that guy's name? Why did he retire five years ago?' Jack thought.
Unfortunately, what happened five years ago was not included in his dream. What all Jack knew was that the man craved an ordinary life.
Jack then found himself looking at a small icon that sat beside the codename White: a stylized goat's head rendered in silver.
A goat.
For some reason, it unnerved him. It wasn't random; the symbol pulsed faintly, like it was alive.
Jack opened the next tab.
'What does it mean by saying I can reactivate this account?' Jack thought. 'Where do I even reactivate it?'
As if reading his thoughts, the system then popped up with new panels.
[Access Denied: Retired Personnel]
[0 Active Income]
[Note: Find Brian. Sign a new contract with GH Securities to reactivate account.]
[Employee Income Chart]
[Rank 1— 50,000 Credits monthly]
[Rank 2— 60,000 Credits monthly]
[...]
Making sure Lucy cannot see what he was doing, Jack kept the laptop open, but now was looking at the system panels in front of him. He discreetly scrolled through mission protocols.
'So if I sign a contract, I can receive money?' Jack internalized.
'50, 000 credits monthly! With that amount of money, one could buy a motorcycle. Not exactly expensive, but you could buy one.'
It wasn't exactly the money one could just dismiss. In the civil service in the ordinary world, that was already very high and that was just the base salary for the lowest rank employees. Higher ranks increased in increments of ten thousand.
Jack, while staring long and hard, had his thoughts drifting to his family. His father worked tirelessly to keep them afloat, his brother still studying, and his youngest sibling still a toddler. He never butted in because he only felt shame but there were times his parents argued over a lot of things. And even the stupidest person gets it, it can all be solved with money.
For years, Jack had been drifting—relying on allowances, chasing an ordinary life that never really fit. But now… he had a chance.
There was just one problem. The previous user of the system—whoever he really was—had made some kind of mysterious agreement with the company years ago. Accordingly, he had chosen to sever all ties and live an ordinary life. For some reason, the organization honored that decision, as if bound by an unspoken debt.
'Why am I even thinking about that?' Jack thought, shaking his head, looking at the numbers, 'It doesn't matter to me. It shouldn't.'
He remembered the man in his dream who thanked him with a smile in his face for apparently freeing him. Jack still didn't understand what that meant. He could understand it was dangerous, but somehow, that does not involve him, right?
'That guy wanted peace. I want that too, only financial peace,' Jack thought, clenching his fists as determination sparked in his chest. 'This time, I decide what happens next.'
And besides… money was a factor that he of all people could simply ignore. At least not him.