The message blinked out.
The room didn't rush back so much as unstick. The hum in the conduits returned one filament at a time. Dust hung like static, slow-swirling in the glowstrip wash. I realized my jaw was clenched hard enough to ache and made myself unlock it. No chime. No tidy System bow. Just the feeling of a door closing somewhere I couldn't see.
I sat there for a second, still staring at where the pop-up had been.
Hagar noticed. He frowned.
"You good?"
I didn't answer right away.
Then, after a beat:
"What's the Universal Hub?"
He froze. Like actually froze, bottle halfway to his mouth, expression gone flat.
His fingers around the bottle's neck, not tightening, just stopping, like every tendon had been told to hold very, very still. One eye twitched; not fear, calculation. I saw the old soldier under the alcohol, scanning for exits in a room with none.
"...How the fuck do you know that name?"
I hesitated. Hard.
Because saying it out loud felt like lighting a match next to something flammable.
But whatever that... squirrel-thing was, it hadn't just been noise. It had *known* something. About me. About the System. About all this. Should I really talk about this?
Fuck it, If Hagar wanted me dead, I'd already be dead.
I exhaled, slow.
"I get these messages sometimes. Not System ones. Not really. They come with a tag like.."
I mimicked the format with my hands in the air and told him the general content.
"**[UNSANCTIONED ROOT INTERACTION DETECTED]**
Origin: External – Non-System Entity."
That got a twitch out of him.
He leaned forward.
"You're getting flagged mythic feedback?"
Him saying it out loud left an echo. I hated that. Like I'd just volunteered to be an antenna for something with teeth. What if the messages weren't to me so much as through me? What if every time it glitched the UI bone-white it left fingerprints under my skin? I rubbed at the back of my neck and felt the memory of claws that weren't there.
"...Sure. Let's call it that."
"What's it saying to you?" he asked.
I rubbed the side of my face.
"He, *it*, said I need the Contender Tag to reach the Universal Hub. That if I get logged in and get to the universal hub I'd learn more. Also told me to choke the System with my Root, in a way that sounded a little too enthusiastic..."
He scrubbed a hand over his face. Paused. Looked at me again, like I'd just told him I'd gotten prank-called by a sealed god.
"...Shit," he muttered. "It's talking to you *already? Through the System? Is it logged, the messages?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Most Legacy Users never get whispers. The few that do? Happens way later. After years. After names."
I didn't know what to say.
I just sat there, arms heavy, bones humming with exhaustion that went deeper than muscle.
Hagar didn't speak either.
The silence stretched.
It's stupid, but the word stuck. Tag. Like something you wear so people can't ignore you anymore. I remember being a kid, trying to fit in, trying to twist myself into something people could use or at least tolerate.
Never worked. I was always too much or not enough. And the System? It's just the same damn thing, scaled up sure but still basically middle management.
But this tag, this one? If I get it, they can't ignore me anymore. But is that enough?
The chair dug into my spine. The stew settled into a hot stone in my gut. Every bruise announced itself like it wanted a vote.
If the body keeps score, mine was a ledger written in knife marks.
Six more levels? Each one worse than the last? The thought felt like a mouthful of nails.
Finally, I muttered:
"I don't think I want to do it."
Hagar didn't move.
I shook my head, stared at the wall like it owed me something.
"I'm tired. I know that sounds weak, but I am. Every level's been worse than the last. Every win felt like losing slower."
I laughed, short and bitter.
"Now both of you, you and that glitched-up god or whatever, want me to keep going? Push six more levels deeper into this bullshit meatgrinder so I can get tagged like some rare bird they are researching the mating habits of?"
I slammed my palm on the table. "For what? So I can buy soup without being ignored?"
Hagar just nodded, slow.
Didn't argue. Didn't try to convince me.
"You don't have to," he said. "No one's holding you here. You've got more reason to quit than most ever did."
He took a drink. "I'll back whatever choice you make. I mean that. You have earned it by coming this far"
For some stupid reason, Hagar's understanding hurts more than his scorn would have. I can handle anger, shouting, someone telling me to man up, that's easy. But acceptance? Him basically saying "It's okay if you quit"?
That feels like he's already picturing my grave. It digs under my skin, tender and infuriating all at once, until I'm pacing just to shake it off. I'd almost prefer he yelled at me. At least then I wouldn't feel this... this ache where my anger usually lives.
The lights didn't flicker, but the color did, like the room took a breath through a different lung. The hair on my arms rose. Cold threaded through the warmth of the stew and knotted behind my heart. Then the air split open.
[UNSANCTIONED ROOT INTERACTION – PRIORITY THREAD INTERJECTION]
Origin: External – Non-System Entity
Attempted Identifier: R_T_T_S_K_R
Commentary (Unfiltered):
"Yeah, you're right.
Tylen's stronger.
Prettier, too.
Way more heroic.
Definitely deserves all those beauties around him."
I stopped walking.
Stared at the empty air like it had just spat in my face.
My breath hitched. Then came the heat.
"Oh, you little shit."
The pressure behind my ribs tightened to a wire. The Bear paced. The Blue watched. Between them, something like a blade took shape, anger honed to a point. I knew he was provoking me, but it was working.
Hagar looked over, confused.
My hand curled into a fist.
I could feel it starting to pulse, that pressure behind my ribs.
Just the blank space where the message had been.
Then I started talking.
Out loud.
Because the words didn't fit in my head anymore.
"Fuck all of you."
"I don't want to be forgotten. I don't want to be tolerated. I don't want a class, or a medal, or your goddamn loot drop of respect."
"I want to be undeniable."
Undeniable means even your enemies have to use your name. Means the System has to put you in its little pop-ups and pretend it planned for you. Means when a door shuts, my bootprint lives in the paint.
"I don't accept that some golden asshole like Tylen is better."
"Stronger? Maybe. Smarter? Who knows. But better?"
"Hell no."
I felt it coiling again. The pressure. The Root.
"You built this to break me. To erase me.
Fuck your predictions."
"And you know what? I'm starting to really warm up to the idea of making this prissy little System choke and gag on my Root."
A pause.
One more breath.
The air didn't change. But I did.
Because I've been forgettable before.
I bent, I twisted, I shrank myself until I barely fit in my own skin.
It didn't work then, and it won't work now.
If I'm going to be seen, it'll be as me.
"I won't be forgotten. I won't be quiet. I won't fucking bow. You can fucking bend over"
Behind me, I heard a grunt.
Hagar.
I turned. He was still sitting in the same spot. Same bottle. Same spot on the wall.
But now he was watching me like I'd just grown a second head.
"...You were about to quit," he said.
Flat. Not accusing. Just confused.
"Yeah," I muttered.
He scratched his jaw, brow furrowed like he was doing long math.
"Then you stood up, started swearing at the System, and decided to continue."
"Yup."
Another long silence.
He looked at his bottle. Then looked at me. Then back at the bottle.
Finally:
"...You always talk to yourself when you change your mind about death?"
I shrugged.
"Only when I mean it," I said, and heard how calm I sounded. Hagar didn't like that.
He didn't answer. Just sat there, eyes narrowed, like he was trying to figure out what part of the room had just caught fire without smoke.
"The insane ones are fucking terrifying."
Then louder,
"For now go to sleep. You'll want to be rested for tomorrow, because if you're going to continue this path, I'm gonna do my goddamned best to make sure you survive, whether you like it or not."
"One more thing," he said, not looking at me. "You finish all ten levels? Get the Tag?"
He scratched at his jaw.
"It doesn't just change things for you."
He let that hang in the air a little too long.
I frowned. "I thought getting the tag was the win."
He didn't answer. Just turned slightly.
Finally, he exhaled.
"It also opens a door."
The way he said door didn't sound like a metaphor. It sounded like a lever hidden under the world. I pictured a rusted hatch no one remembered, the handle fused shut, until someone bled on it just right.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
He looked at me. Finally.
"For the ones the System already gave up on. Those that have already failed"
"What the hell do you mean?" I asked.
"System protocol." He said it like it tasted bad. "If a Legacy from a given origin world finishes the tutorial, the System's forced to flag that planet's legacy as conditionally viable."
He glanced back at me. "That opens retroactive access for the others. Failed Legacies. Ones who quit. Dropped."
"They get ghosted," he added. "But a cleared path sometimes reactivates old threads. Lets them log. Gives them a second shot. Under your umbrella."
He didn't smile. "The System hates it, but it's legal. Legacy laws old."
I didn't respond at first. I didn't have words.
That twist in my chest, the sharp, irrational one, started coiling again.
I fucking hate seeing people get stepped on.
Even more when no one else notices.
I saw them without wanting to: faces I didn't know yet wearing the same empty look I'd carried—people the System had stepped around like spills on a clean floor. The thought of them flickering back into view because I refused to disappear did something ugly and bright behind my eyes.
I looked down at my hands. Bruised. Still shaking.
"So if I get the Tag..."
"You don't just get seen," Hagar said.
"You make the System see themtoo."
I narrowed my eyes. "Wait. You're saying if I finish, they get pulled back in? The System just... flips a switch?"
Hagar shrugged, slow. "Not flips. Cracks. Like a hairline fracture. Doesn't happen automatically. Doesn't happen clean. But the System can't fully ignore a flagged Contenders. Especially one tied to a raw Root. And the more tagged contenders a integrated world have the better for all Legacy"
I hated how fast that lodged under my skin. Like a splinter made of guilt and old instincts.
And that?
That twisted something in me.
I didn't ask to carry anyone. I'm not a hero, hell, I barely qualify as a functional person.
But if getting this tag means dragging a few other freaks, dropouts, or rejects into the light with me?
If it pisses the System off and spits in the face of whatever checklist said we weren't worth logging?
Yeah.
Maybe it's time someone started digging the forgotten ones up, and made the shiny bastards choke on their names, too.
I want to be undeniable.
Not because I'm stronger. Or smarter. Or some golden god dripping with fucking potential.
But because I've been ignored. Erased. Labeled optional like I was some rounding error.
And fuck you.
I'm done pretending that's okay. I'll be undeniable.