Chapter 10 – Disappointment
Kai slowly climbed out of the crater, water dripping from his soaked clothes. Each step was heavy, his sneakers squelching against the fractured earth dropping water they were soaked as well. His breathing was shallow, his muscles tight with strain and cold. Around him, voices began to rise like a tide—whispers sharpened by curiosity, concern, and suspicion.
"Isn't that Hether's kid?"
"What the hell happened here?"
"Where's his brother?"
"Didn't he have brown eyes before?"
Kai blinked hard. His vision was distorted more than from just fatigue. runes and strange floating numbers hung in the air above everyone's heads. He didn't recognize any of it.
"What… what the hell is this?" he muttered, rubbing his temples. "System… turn it off. Turn off the damn eyes."
Nothing.
The system was silent. For the first time since his awakening, there was no mechanical voice guiding him, no notifications, no updates. Just numbers. Symbols. Information that meant nothing to him but somehow, he knew it could mean anything so he was worried about them.
He scanned the crowd, his pulse climbing. Almost everyone had some number or rune on them. Some blinked erratically. Others flickered as if fading away. But one man one of the people in a reflective vest had no number at all. Nothing above his head. A void.
That unsettled Kai more than anything.
The man approached, composed, sharp-eyed, and holding a air of pure authority. "Boy," he said, voice clear and unshaken, "what happened here?"
Kai kept his face blank. "I was running laps around the block. The ground gave way, and I dropped into some kind of flooded tunnel."
It wasn't a lie but it wasn't the full truth either.
He remembered bending the mana pipe. Remembered how the structure had weakened. Remembered how he'd kept running, lap after lap. The mana couldn't reach the lower soil anymore because of the damaged pipe and when the mana stopped flowing, the reinforced ground lost its support.
Then his footfalls did the rest.
The man knelt at the crater's edge. A soft glow passed over his eyes some sort of augmented lens and he studied the exposed infrastructure. The tall foundation tubes that were bent the ground cracks and all he spotted them and then another person walked over but he was in a full on construction suit.
"Captain," the second man said, "pipe's completely broken. It was supposed to channel mana into the foundation. Without it… this collapse was inevitable."
The captain stood slowly, brushing off his gloves. His gaze still glowing locked onto Kai.
"How many laps?"
Kai hesitated. "T- Thirty." His voice trembled he was scared of the man's unknown aura it felt powerful some how.
The captain stared at him for a long moment, the silence thick. Then, with a faint snort of disinterest, he turned away.
"You're free to go."
Kai stood there, unsure whether to feel relieved or insulted. There was no warning. No punishment. No gratitude. Just dismissal.
*Again,* he thought faintly, *less than air to them.*
He didn't argue. He just walked. The crowd shifted, murmuring in his wake.
Once he reached the edge of the crowd, where no one could see him anymore he crouched down, planting one hand against the concrete. His soaked clothes stretched tightly over his frame, every muscle in his body tensed like coiled steel.
Then he ran.
*BANG!*
The impact of his first step cracked the concrete beneath him, the sheer torque of his muscles launching him forward like a cannonball. In less than a second, he'd broken 30 kilometers per hour—and was still accelerating.
His feet hammered the ground. The world blurred. The wind tore against his skin. But he didn't care. He needed distance. He needed speed. He needed *something* to silence the questions screaming inside his mind.
*Why are my God Eyes still on? What are those symbols? Who was that man that captain or what ever why was he with out a number? What are the numbers? Where's the system now.*
No answer.
Just the rush of air and the burn of overworked muscles.
---
Ten minutes later, Kai finally slowed, arriving at the modest outskirts of the city where his home was nestled between old buildings and newer tech-infused housing. Sweat rolled down his back. His legs ached, but he didn't feel tired—he felt *frantic.*
The city lights glimmered faintly through his distorted vision. The God Eyes were still active, numbers still flickering over people far in the distance. It didn't feel like real life anymore. It felt like a simulation or worse, like he was seeing this all in a dream.
He wiped his face with the back of his hand. The sweat smeared dirt across his cheek, grounding him, barely.
He opened the door to his home, stepping inside quietly. His soaked clothes had mostly dried from the heat of his sprint. The familiar scent of home greeted him—cooked rice, synthetic soup, the faint trace of incense from his mother's room.
Inside the living room, his younger brother Ray sat in front of the television. Kai's eyes snapped to the symbols floating above Ray's head—different numbers now. Different glyphs. He wasn't imagining it.
On the screen was live footage of the crater.
*His crater.
And… his face.
Kai's blood ran cold.
"Shit."
The footage was from one of the street drones. Blurred at first, then zoomed in. His soaked figure climbing out of the debris. His strange glowing eyes. Someone had
recorded it and posted it too!
He stood frozen for a moment, heart thudding, until the thought hit him-
'Wait… when I bent that pipe and the collapse happened… did I finish the quest?'
He turned and left the living room without a word.
Once inside his room, he locked the door and moved into the bathroom. He shut that door too and locked it. For a second, he just stared at himself in the mirror.
He didn't recognize what stared back.
His eyes remined him of a dragons the way the where colored and where so unnatural
Kai sighed and "Shower on. Make it hot," he said softly nearly to him self.
The water obeyed instantly, pouring from the smart-faucet system. Steam began to rise, fogging the mirror, but Kai stayed still.
Only after several seconds finally move by that time he didn't see him self in the mirror just the foggy image of his two glowing eyes, he moved removing his clothes and stepping under the stream. The heat stung at first then dulled. The sweet washed off. The fatigue didn't.
Afterward, towel-dried and clean, he pulled on loose clothes and threw himself onto his bed.
No system. No voice. No answers.
Just silence.
Sleep took him instantly.
He was so tired he completely forgot about the last quest.