Everything went black.
Not the black of Tower shadows or the dark inside the entrance gate. This was featureless, absolute, the absence of even the idea of light. Kael floated in it without a body, without breath, without heartbeat.
Then the logs opened.
Lines of text erupted into the void, stretching in all directions like a grid of glowing wires. Blue, green, red, white—each line tagged with timecodes, error levels, cryptic IDs.
[LOG: TOWER_17_F1_EVENT_342559]
[SEVERITY: MINOR]
[DESCRIPTION: FLOOR INSTABILITY DUE TO OLD PATCH REMNANT.]
[ACTION: ROLLBACK.]
[LOG: USER_KAEL_RYU_FLAG_LOW_HP_WARNING]
[SEVERITY: INFO]
[DESCRIPTION: PREDICTED DEATH INCOMING.]
[ACTION: DISPLAY WARNING.]
[LOG: UNAUTHORIZED_OVERRIDE]
[SEVERITY: CRITICAL]
[DESCRIPTION: PREDICTION MODULE OVERRIDDEN BY UNKNOWN PROCESS.]
[ACTION: ESCALATE.]
Somewhere, something beeping in panic.
[ALERT: ROOT PROCESS OFFLINE.]
[ALERT: FALLBACK HANDLER NOT FOUND.]
[ALERT: SEEKING TEMPORARY ADMINISTRATOR…]
Kael tried to speak. No sound came out. He wasn't sure he had a mouth right now.
A new window unfolded directly in front of him. Its border was static, flickering like a damaged monitor.
[EMERGENCY PROTOCOL: NO VALID ADMINISTRATOR PRESENT.]
[NEAREST COMPATIBLE USER: KAEL RYU.]
[COMPATIBILITY: 0.004%]
[PRIVILEGE LEVEL: GUEST (TEMPORARY).]
[DO YOU ACCEPT DEBUG ACCESS?]
[YES] / [NO]
"I already said yes," Kael thought, annoyed and terrified in equal measure.
The option [YES] lit up as if he'd clicked it.
[GUEST ACCESS GRANTED.]
[WARNING: USER MAY EXPERIENCE UNEXPECTED SIDE EFFECTS.]
[LOADING DEBUG LAYER…]
The darkness peeled away.
Kael found himself standing in a white void that wasn't empty at all. It was full of interfaces stacked on top of each other: translucent windows, spinning diagrams, strings of code forming and dissolving like smoke. Charts labeled DAMAGE CURVES and SPAWN RATES drifted past.
He looked down.
His body was there again. Same worn boots, same scuffed jacket, same faded jeans. When he raised a hand, light left a faint trail behind his fingers. His HP bar hovered at the edge of his vision.
[HP: 3 / 100]
"Okay," he whispered. "Okay. I'm… somewhere inside the System."
The thought should have broken his mind. Instead, it slotted into place with unnerving ease, like part of him had been expecting this all along.
A small window floated up to him, polite as a help desk pop-up.
[WELCOME TO DEBUG LAYER (GUEST MODE).]
[AVAILABLE COMMANDS:]
– [VIEW_LOGS]
– [INSPECT_OBJECT]
– [EDIT_FLAG] (LOCKED)
– [EXIT]
Another appeared beneath it.
[TUTORIAL QUEST ACQUIRED: "FIRST BUG."]
[OBJECTIVE: IDENTIFY AND PATCH A MINOR ERROR.]
[REWARD: +1 LEVEL, DEBUG PERMISSION UPGRADE.]
[PENALTY FOR FAILURE: ACCESS REVOKED.]
"T-There's a tutorial," Kael said, half laughing. "Of course there's a tutorial."
He forced himself to breathe, even if he wasn't sure the air here was real.
"Identify and patch a minor error," he repeated. "Fine. Start simple. VIEW_LOGS."
He didn't say it out loud this time. He just thought the command, focusing on the words the same way he might tap a menu icon.
A cascade of windows opened in front of him. Each one filled with lines of text:
[LOG: USER_JOON_LEVEL_UP_EVENT]
[LOG: TOWER_17_GOBLIN_SPAWN_TABLE]
[LOG: GLOBAL_DAMAGE_MODIFIER_PATCH_1.2.3]
[LOG: USER_KAEL_RYU_CLASS_ASSIGNMENT]…
His gaze snagged on that last one.
"Open," he said.
The log expanded.
[LOG: USER_KAEL_RYU_CLASS_ASSIGNMENT]
[STATUS: COMPLETE]
[RESULT: CLASS – SUPPORT: ANALYST]
[NOTES: LOW RISK, LOW IMPACT. ASSIGNED DUE TO HP ANOMALY.]
[HP FLAG: PERMANENTLY REDUCED BASELINE.]
[REASON: MISMATCH BETWEEN USER SOUL STRUCTURE AND STANDARD HEALTH METRICS.]
[ACTION: FLAG AS MINOR BUG – WONTFIX.]
His throat closed.
"They… they labeled me a bug," he whispered. "And just… tagged me as won't fix?"
Rage burned up his spine, sudden and sharp.
A smaller, yellow-highlighted line blinked at the bottom.
[SUGGESTED_COMMENT: IF USER SUBMITS TICKET, SEND RESPONSE: "NO ERROR DETECTED."]
He wanted to punch the log. Instead his finger passed through the window, rippling the text.
"Fine," he said, voice shaking. "If you won't fix your bugs, I will."
He closed the log with a mental flick.
"Quest says: patch a minor error." He glanced around at the endless sea of data. "Not starting with my own HP. That's probably flagged as critical under the hood. I need something small. Local. Something Tower Seventeen broke."
As if responding, several logs glowed faintly brighter.
[LOG: TOWER_17_F1_TRIPWIRE_ALIGNMENT]
[SEVERITY: MINOR BUG]
[DESCRIPTION: TRIPWIRE HITBOX OFFSET BY 2 CM.]
[STATUS: UNRESOLVED.]
[LOG: TOWER_17_F1_GOBLIN_SCOUT_PATHING]
[SEVERITY: TRIVIAL]
[DESCRIPTION: GOBLIN GETS STUCK ON ROCK 3% OF THE TIME.]
[STATUS: UNRESOLVED.]
[LOG: TOWER_17_F1_FLOOR_ROLLBACK_EVENT]
[SEVERITY: CRITICAL]
[DESCRIPTION: PARTIAL REVERT OF LEGACY PATCH CAUSING UNSCHEDULED PIT.]
[STATUS: ESCALATED.]
"Definitely not that one," Kael muttered, eyeing the critical tag.
He reached for the goblin pathing log out of curiosity. The text unfolded into a crude top-down map of the first floor, dotted with lines representing goblin patrol routes. One route had a highlighted rock where the goblin's path kinked awkwardly.
"So these are all the little annoyances Hunters just assume are part of Tower life," he murmured. "Tripwires that don't quite line up. Mobs behaving weird. And it's all… sloppy code."
He thought about all the times he'd watched higher-ranked Hunters curse at "random BS" deaths.
This wasn't random.
It was negligence.
"Fine. Let's do this the minimal-risk way."
He focused on the tripwire log.
[LOG: TOWER_17_F1_TRIPWIRE_ALIGNMENT]
[SEVERITY: MINOR BUG]
[ERROR: COLLISION BOX NOT MATCHING VISUAL REPRESENTATION.]
[CURRENT_OFFSET: 0.02 METERS.]
[SUGGESTED FIX: ALIGN COLLISION BOX.]
A faint button appeared beneath this: [PATCH?]
"This is too easy," Kael said suspiciously.
But the tutorial quest flashed at the edge of his vision, impatient.
"Alright. Let's see what happens." He brushed the [PATCH?] button with his thoughts.
[APPLYING PATCH…]
[RECOMPILING LOCAL ENVIRONMENT…]
[DONE.]
The log's status flipped to:
[STATUS: RESOLVED.]
Another window popped up, gratifyingly simple.
[QUEST COMPLETE: "FIRST BUG."]
[REWARD DISPENSED.]
He felt something surge into him, like leveling up inside a Tower but… cleaner. Less violent.
[LEVEL UP!]
[USER: KAEL RYU – LEVEL 5]
[HP: 3 / 100] (UNMODIFIED)
[NEW ATTRIBUTE: DEBUG POINTS +1]
[PERMISSION UPGRADE: EDIT_FLAG (MINOR) – UNLOCKED.]
His stats scrolled by.
[STATS]
STR: 7
AGI: 9
VIT: 1
INT: 14 → 15
PER: 12
LUCK: 3
"Debug points?" he said. "Edit flag?"
He opened the [EDIT_FLAG] command.
A warning filled his vision.
[WARNING: FLAG EDITING IS A HIGH-RISK OPERATION.]
[MINOR FLAGS ONLY. LOCAL OBJECTS ONLY. CHANGES MAY BE REVERTED BY ROOT PROCESS IF DETECTED.]
[ABUSE OF THIS PERMISSION WILL RESULT IN ACCESS TERMINATION.]
[DO YOU WISH TO PROCEED?]
[YES] / [NO]
He smirked faintly despite himself.
"Now we're talking."
He said NO. Not yet. He needed to see how this translated back into the real Tower.
"Exit," he thought, selecting the command.
The white void fractured.
He was back in the dungeon corridor.
Time snapped into place like a rubber band.
Lina still lay beneath him, breathing hard, eyes huge. Tae and Joon were still scrambling back from the pit. Dust still hung in the air in lazy motes. It was like no time had passed at all.
Except Kael's body felt… lighter. Sharper.
[USER: KAEL RYU – LEVEL 5]
[HP: 3 / 100]
[NEW SKILL: DEBUG SENSE I]
A tiny new icon pulsed at the edge of his vision: a small, glitching triangle.
"Are you—are you okay?" Lina stammered. "You just… froze for a second and then dragged me up like I weighed nothing."
"I…" Kael scrambled off her, offering a hand. She gripped it, and he pulled her fully to her feet. "I'm fine. Just… System lag. Did you get any notifications?"
"Just the unstable floor warning," Joon said, eyes flicking between the pit and Kael like he was trying to decide which was more unnatural. "Then nothing. No rollback. No patch notes. That was some serious bug, man."
Towers have bugs, Kael thought. And now I have a patch tool.
His new skill description slid into view.
[DEBUG SENSE I]
Allows user to perceive minor inconsistencies and errors in the System layer.
EFFECT: Nearby minor bugs are highlighted.
COST: None.
NOTE: Using this sense frequently increases the chance of detection by higher-level processes.
"Detection," he muttered.
Like the System noticing its unauthorized guest.
He tested it.
"Debug Sense," he whispered.
The world changed.
Thin red outlines appeared around certain objects: a slightly misaligned brick in the wall, a torch whose flame frame skipped every few seconds, a loose stone that should have been a trap but currently wasn't.
He could see the System's imperfections, scattered like freckles across reality.
"Kael?" Tae said slowly. "You sure you're good? You're staring, man."
"Yeah," Kael said. "I'm… I'm more than good."
He turned to the pit.
"Party vote," he said briskly, slipping back into Analyst mode. "We get out now, or we push deeper?"
"Out," Lina said immediately, voice still faintly shaking. "I nearly died."
"Yeah, but the loot past the first room…" Joon began, then trailed off, eyeing the darkness below. "On second thought, maybe we test our luck another day."
Tae grunted. "I'm not scared of a hole. But I am scared of bugs I can't hit."
"Then we leave," Kael said. "Slow, careful. This floor's unstable. Whatever patch the System tried to roll back, it didn't go clean."
They edged around the pit, hugging the wall. Kael's Debug Sense painted tiny error icons in the air whenever they brushed near something misaligned. He guided them around each with inch-precise instructions, heart pounding for reasons that had nothing to do with monsters.
At the entrance gate, another System message appeared.
[EXIT FLOOR 1?]
[YES] / [NO]
They didn't hesitate.
The Tower spat them back into daylight.
Outside, the plaza looked almost offensively normal. Hunters shouted. Vendors haggled. The holo-billboard of Jin Hwa smiled down at the world.
Kael's party received their clear rewards—modest amounts of gold, a few shards, a scrap of leather armor that no one wanted. Lina and Tae muttered something about "taking a break from Seventeen for a while" and left together.
Joon lingered.
"You gonna tell me what that was about?" he asked quietly, once they were off to the side of the plaza, near a cracked pillar covered in old recruitment flyers.
Kael considered lying.
But the thing inside his vision—the Debug icon pulsing softly—felt too big to keep to himself. It thrummed like a heartbeat.
"It was a bug," he said carefully. "A serious one. The System rolled back part of the floor. Lina almost died. I… saw it coming."
"Like a prediction?" Joon frowned. "Some kind of future sight skill?"
"Something like that," Kael said. "New skill. Analyst upgrade."
"Damn," Joon breathed. "Maybe your garbage class wasn't garbage after all."
Kael smiled thinly.
If only he knew.
[NEW QUEST: "SECOND BUG."]
[OBJECTIVE: USE EDIT_FLAG TO MODIFY A LOCAL OBJECT.]
[REWARD: ???]
[PENALTY: INCREASED DETECTION RISK.]
The System's bland font didn't convey emotion, but Kael could almost feel it watching him, curious.
He looked up at Tower Seventeen, its black surface shimmering with streams of code.
For the first time since saying "yes" to the System ten years ago, he felt something that wasn't resignation or quiet fury.
He felt opportunity.
"Joon," he said.
"Yeah?"
"If I told you I might have found a way to make Towers less lethal," Kael asked slowly, "would you call me insane?"
Joon grinned. "Obviously. Then I'd ask how I can get in on it."
Kael laughed.
It felt raw, edged with something almost manic.
"Give me a few days," he said. "I need to test some things. And… if I'm right, we're going back in."
He glanced at his HP bar.
[HP: 3 / 100]
Still a joke.
But now he knew that particular "bug" had a log entry. A flag. A label.
Won't fix, the System had said.
He flexed his hand, feeling the phantom sensation of pressing the [PATCH?] button inside the debug layer.
"We'll see about that," he murmured.
Tower Seventeen hummed, oblivious.
Above it all, somewhere deep in the invisible architecture of the System, lines of code rewrote themselves around an anomaly named Kael Ryu.
And for the first time in a decade, the System was no longer the only one doing the rewriting.