That night didn't feel special, and that was precisely what made it dangerous. The city moved as usual, vehicles passing by without meaning to anyone except those driving them, and streetlights cast cold reflections that made everything seem lonelier than it should. Crow walked along the sidewalk with steady steps, hands in his pockets, his mind wandering to things he didn't even particularly care about.
On his phone screen, one name had been appearing since afternoon.
Livia.
He didn't open the message. For several days, he had left it untouched, as if by ignoring it, everything would resolve itself. That was his habit—avoiding until something truly became unavoidable.
He stopped at the roadside, took a long breath, and finally opened the screen.
The message was simple.
"You still alive, right?"
Crow exhaled slowly, almost smiling. Of all the things she could have said, that was what she chose. Not demanding. Not forcing. Just… checking.
Ironic.
Because seconds later, that question almost received a different answer.
The sound of an engine roared too close.
His reflexes were too slow.
Headlight glare swallowed his vision before his body could move. In that fraction of a second that felt too long, Crow realized something strange—not fear, not panic, but emptiness. As if part of him had already accepted what would happen before it truly did.
The impact never came.
Instead, there was an unnatural silence.
Then a voice.
[System activated.]
[Synchronization complete.]
[Congratulations. You have been selected as: Main Villain.]
His consciousness returned as if forcibly pulled back into his own body. Crow opened his eyes slowly, finding himself still on the same street, with people beginning to gather and panicked sounds filling the air. The truck had stopped not far from him, its driver looked shaken, but not a single person approached him the way they should approach an accident victim.
Because he didn't look like a victim.
No blood. No wounds.
As if what just happened… only applied halfway.
Crow rose slowly, his body feeling light in the wrong way. His heart was beating, but there was a strange gap between each beat, like a machine running without natural rhythm. He stared at his own hands, opening and closing them, making sure he was still… there.
And that was when something appeared before him.
Not a vague hallucination, but a display too clear to ignore.
Quest: Proof of Existence
Target: Livia Hart
Instructions: Eliminate target within 24 hours
Reward: Life stability +30 days
Penalty: Permanent death
The world seemed to shift slightly.
That name immediately locked his mind, pushing aside all other possibilities he might seek to deny this situation. Not a stranger. Not a random target. But the only person still trying to pull him out of the half-hearted life he was living.
"This is the wrong person," he murmured softly, more to himself than to whatever was giving him this order.
Yet there was no correction.
No change.
Only silence… that felt like confirmation.
[Note: Failure will result in immediate death.]
Crow raised his gaze, staring at the road ahead that was beginning to return to normal, as if nothing strange had happened moments ago. People started leaving. The sound of vehicles returned to dominate. The world continued without care.
But he knew.
Something had changed.
Not outside.
But within him.
He took a deep breath, trying to calm his mind that was beginning to arrange possibility after possibility. If this was a system, then there were rules. If there were rules, then there were loopholes. And if there were loopholes…
Then this wasn't over yet.
His gaze returned to the phone screen in his hand.
Livia's name was still there.
The same message.
The same question.
You still alive, right?
Crow stared at it a few seconds longer, then slowly typed his answer.
"Still."
He paused for a moment, then added one more sentence.
"Let's meet."
Message sent.
And without him fully realizing it, that decision wasn't just the first step to complete the quest.
But the first step toward something he couldn't take back.
Far above the city, in a place unseen by ordinary eyes, a small device lit up with dim red light. Data flowed rapidly, stopping at one point that had just appeared.
Anomaly detected.
Seconds later, classification was given without hesitation.
Threat level: S
A man opened his eyes slowly, his gaze immediately directed to that point, as if distance meant nothing to him.
"Identified," he said briefly.
There was no emotion in his voice. No hesitation.
Only decision.
"Target elimination… initiated."
Below, Crow didn't look up.
He didn't know.
Not yet.
But something within him began to feel uncomfortable, like an instinct too late to realize that he was no longer part of the same world.
And that night that should have been ordinary…
had just changed into the beginning of something that couldn't be stopped.