He opened the "Defense Preparation" menu, but the system displayed a new warning:
[Warning! Primary follower's loyalty has decreased by 30%.]
[Reason: Disturbance in the Village Core.]
"For crying out loud, now the peasant is losing his loyalty?!" He slammed his fist on the table. He didn't even know villagers could feel disturbed.
But amidst all the chaos, there was a glimmer of light. Or rather… a glimmer of shadows.
He remembered something: "Authority of the Shadows"—the ability that creature had granted him… or "talent," so to speak. It was pinned to his ability list, but it couldn't be deleted, moved, or even disabled.
"Even though it was given to me by that cursed Council… it's mine alone now," he said with a half-mad smile.
The description he read beneath it was short and terrifying:
[Description: The ability to imitate the essence of another entity and clone a part of its being within your domain of control.]
That single sentence was enough to spark an appalling idea.
"If this virus is already running through the village… why don't I plant my own virus in return?"
He stood up slowly, his eyes gleaming with an arcane light, the system screen reflecting his face as if he were smiling from within it.
"Simple… I won't fight the virus. I'll make the virus work for me."
He took a deep breath and began whispering a mad plan to himself. "Authority of the Shadows… if you really are what I think you are, I'll make you a weapon."
He opened the ability window, then pressed [Activate – Limited Scope]. The screen flickered, and the surrounding atmosphere changed, as if the air itself had grown heavier.
A strange notification appeared in the center of the interface:
[Warning! You are about to copy the target entity's essence. Failure may lead to the collapse of the Village Core.]
[Do you wish to proceed?]
[Yes / No]
Shaun laughed bitterly and pressed "Yes." He had nothing left to lose.
The next moment, shadows inundated the Village Center. And from the midst of the darkness, he heard a familiar voice…
"My… Lord… I heard the call…"
Shaun slowly raised his head to see his farmer standing at the entrance to the square, but his face had changed. His eyes were sunken, his skin grey, and his chest pulsed with a faint, black light.
[Success: A portion of the Shadow Essence has been transferred to the primary follower.]
[New Status: Leet (Dark Follower – Level 1+)]
Shaun smiled, a mixture of horror and elation washing over him. He had done it. He had turned the virus into his own personal, magical bioweapon.
But elsewhere, far, far from his village…
In a coldly lit hall in one of the game's US administration branches, a team of supervisors stared at a screen in stunned silence.
One of them spoke, his voice trembling, "Did… did you all see what I just saw? Player 1-9034-α just extracted 'Authority of the Shadows' without an admin override! That ability is locked in the source files!"
Another replied, typing furiously at his keyboard, "Impossible… What exactly did Lloyd do?!"
The conference room door burst open, and a man in his fifties entered, wearing a grey suit and glasses. He was the director of technical security.
"Who the hell tampered with the ability library?!" he roared.
A technician answered fearfully, "Sir, no one tampered with it… We believe there's an external intervention in the system. It's not a human virus—it's… a code that originated from inside the game itself."
Silence.
Then another technician added in a low voice, "We tried to isolate the file, but it's self-replicating inside the server simulations. And worse… it signed itself with a valid administrative signature."
The director raised his eyebrows. "A valid signature? Whose?"
The technician looked at the screen, then said slowly, "Lloyd… the original system programmer."
The director's eyes widened, his features twisting into a mask of genuine fear. "But Lloyd disappeared years ago…"
At that moment, a new message flashed across the screens:
[CENTRAL SYSTEM WARNING: Data crossover detected between administrative protocols and internal game AI. Unknown entity is using "Creator" privileges.]
[Name Detected: L-L-OYD.]
After only three hours inside the game world, everything had changed irrevocably.
Shaun Evander stood before what remained of his central plaza, where the very earth had merged with the shadows, as if the village itself was pulsing with a strange, inhuman life. Before him, lined up in formation, was what could be described—at least figuratively—as his "little army."
Shadow Soldiers.
E-Rank – Level 1.
Their faces were void of visible emotion, their slender bodies writhed like smoke, and their eyes glowed with a faint red light, pulsing with every command he issued. Even the sound of their footsteps was inaudible, merely a cold vibration in the air, as if they moved between worlds.
They looked just like… vampires?
"Twenty-three…" Shaun muttered after opening his inventory and checking his stats. "Huh, that's better than I expected for a first summoning attempt."
But despite the light sarcasm in his voice, a shadow of frustration lingered in his eyes. He had already risen to Level 2 thanks to his insane consumption of his village's magical energy and a good number of basic resources—a rapid achievement compared to other new players—but his personal magic regeneration was slower than it should be.
The pooled magic limit in the Village Center had risen encouragingly, and yet… it was, like everything else in this game, abnormal.
Shaun opened the system window, the new data appearing with a dark glow:
[Personal Magical Energy: 31 / 200]
[Pooled Energy in Center: 23 / 200]
He looked up at "Leet," his dark farmer, who was now digging at the soil with an implement resembling a scythe, faint black flickers emitting from it with every movement.
"Who would have thought the first farmer in the village would become… this?" he said with a half-smile.
No one answered, of course, but the surrounding shadows seemed to tremble as if sharing a quiet laugh.
"Leet" was completely different after the transformation. He no longer spoke much, but he had become more obedient, more efficient, as if his humanity had been shed and replaced by a more… computational system. Stranger still, he now sometimes acted before being ordered, as if he could perceive his master's intentions.
"At least you don't complain about the working hours," Shaun muttered as he watched him.
The resources were increasing with a strange, steady rhythm every few seconds:
[+12 Food / +5 Wood / +10.5 Magical Energy]
The system had never registered resources like this before. Even the icon next to them had changed—it was no longer the sky-blue of normal resources, but a dark, blackish-grey.
Shaun closed the interface with a sigh. "Fine… fine. Even if the game curses me, I'll turn its curse into a resource."
He then lifted his gaze to the grey horizon above the village. The sun no longer rose here in the normal way; it was now just a pale red orb behind a permanent black fog.
And yet, he didn't feel the same fear as he had the first time.