'Beast Forge? What the hell is that?'
The voice in his head was weird, but the power thrumming under his skin felt real. He stumbled out of the alley, half-expecting the world to look different, but it was the same old grimy city. The streets were almost empty now, the earlier monster attack having cleared out everyone except the usual scavengers picking through the rubble.
Old habits die hard. He automatically started walking over to join them, his mind still thinking he needed to dig for scraps to survive. But as he bent down to grab a discarded piece of metal, a black screen with glowing white text popped into existence right in front of his face.
He flinched back, nearly falling over. 'Okay, definitely not normal.'
[Beast Forge System Activated]
[User Successfully Registered]
[Scanning User... Done]
[User Has Not Awakened. Cannot Use Beast Forge.]
[Analyzing for Possible Solutions... Done]
[Mission: Run 80km before 00:00]
[Reward: Forced Awakening]
[Failure: Loss of the Beast Forge System]
[Will you accept this mission: YES / NO]
Vell just stared at the screen, his brain refusing to process it for a solid ten seconds. Was he hallucinating? Maybe he'd hit his head harder than he thought when that golden tube exploded. But the screen didn't flicker. It just hung there in the air, waiting for an answer.
He calmly walked over to a nearby crate and sat down, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He looked at his hands again. The dirt was gone, the cuts and scrapes from months of living on the streets had vanished. His skin wasn't just clean; it felt new, like it had been scrubbed clean on a cellular level.
'I heard people get strange things inside dungeons and towers. Is this one of those reward things? Could this be my chance at a new life?'
He looked from his clean hands back to the screen. 80 kilometers. Before midnight. That was insane. He hadn't run more than a few blocks in months, and that was usually from angry shopkeepers or his old bullies. His body was a wreck, malnourished and weak.
But the reward… 'Forced Awakening.'
That meant becoming a player. It meant power, a real future, a chance to get off these miserable streets. A chance to find out what really happened to Rynn. And maybe, just maybe, a chance to get some answers from Kana.
The alternative was to stay here, a ghost in the alleys, slowly wasting away until he became just another forgotten body for the city cleaners to sweep up.
The choice wasn't just obvious; it was the only choice he had left.
He reached out a trembling finger and pressed the glowing 'YES' option. The screen shimmered, and a countdown timer appeared in the corner of his vision, ticking down from nine hours.
'Okay, no pressure.'
He got up and started stretching, his joints popping and creaking in protest. His muscles were tight, his body stiff. This was going to hurt. A lot.
"Alright, which way?" He looked left, then right. The main roads were still mostly empty, the aftermath of the panda attack keeping people indoors.
"The system never said anything about only going in a straight line," he muttered to himself. "I could just run back and forth between here and the next town over, it's only 3km. But where's the fun in that? This is my chance to see how much things have really changed. I've spent months just sitting and sleeping; I should explore a little."
A spark of his old self, the curious and adventurous kid Rynn used to know, flickered to life inside him. With a deep breath that filled his lungs with the damp city air, he took off, heading north.
For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, he was running.
The feeling was electric. The sun, which he usually avoided, now felt warm on his skin. The wind rushed past his face, carrying a thousand different city smells—street food, exhaust fumes, rain on pavement. It was overwhelming, intoxicating. It felt like he was waking up from a long, terrible dream.
After he passed the 3km mark, he started getting stares. He was still in his tattered, filthy clothes, a walking contradiction to the clean, renewed feeling he had inside. People saw a homeless guy running with a strange intensity and they did what people always do: they judged. He saw their whispers, their sideways glances, their hands moving to cover their pockets as he passed.
He ignored them. Their opinions didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was the mission.
An hour in, his legs started to burn. The initial adrenaline rush had faded, replaced by the screaming protest of muscles that hadn't been used like this in years. His lungs felt like they were on fire, and every breath was a painful gasp. He had spent so long just… existing. Lazying around because there was no reason to try. But now, he had a reason. A damn good one.
Even if this was all some crazy hallucination, even if there was only a one-in-a-million chance this was real, he was betting everything on it. It was a chance to turn his entire life around.
He checked the screen that hovered in his vision.
[Distance: 15 km. Time Remaining: 7 hours, 5 minutes.]
'Only 15? Feels like I've run a marathon already.'
He pushed on, his pace slowing to a steady jog. He passed a group of teenagers hanging out by a broken-down bus stop. They were laughing, jostling each other, the picture of carefree youth. One of them spotted him and nudged his friend.
"Yo! Where's the fire, old man?" the kid called out, his voice dripping with condescending amusement.
"Aren't you too old to be walking around like that?" another one chimed in.
"Haha, go back home and drink some milk, old man."
Their laughter followed him as he picked up his pace, a fresh surge of annoyance fueling his tired legs.
'Old man? I'm only twenty-one, you little shits.'
The insult stung, but he used it. He ran faster, leaving their taunts and the familiar sting of disrespect behind. He had to keep a low profile, keep moving before someone he knew saw him, or worse, someone who believed the rumors recognized him.
He reached the 26km mark, sweat plastering his matted hair to his forehead. His breaths came in ragged, desperate gulps. He was more than halfway to his goal, but his body was screaming at him to stop. He slowed to a walk for a minute, catching his breath and scanning the area out of habit.
[Distance: 39 km. Time Remaining: 5 hours, 12 minutes.]
The sun was starting to set, casting long shadows across the streets. He was running out of time, and running out of energy. He stumbled into a narrow side street, leaning against a graffiti-covered wall, his legs trembling uncontrollably.
The thought of giving up crept into his mind, a cold, familiar whisper. 'Failure.' The word echoed in his head, bringing with it a flood of unpleasant memories—Kana's pointing finger, his mother's disappointed face, the sneers of the bullies.
His stomach growled, a painful reminder that he hadn't eaten anything substantial in days. His body was malnourished, running on empty. He pulled out the last of his scavenged supplies—a single, slightly crushed chocolate bar. It was supposed to last him the whole week.
'Well, so much for that.'
He unwrapped it with shaking hands and devoured it in three bites. The sugar gave him a small, temporary boost, but it wasn't enough. He coughed, and a metallic taste filled his mouth. Blood.
'My body's breaking down.'
This was it. The breaking point. He could stop now, go back to the alleys, accept his fate. Or he could keep going.
He looked at the mission timer again. He looked at the reward. 'Forced Awakening.'
"Come on, you bastard, keep moving," he muttered, his voice barely a rasp.
He gritted his teeth, pushed himself off the wall, and started running again. Each step was agony. His muscles screamed, his lungs burned, and his vision started to swim. The city lights blurred into a confusing mess of colors.
He was running on pure willpower now.
Three hours later, his body was on the verge of shutting down completely. His feet, long used to shuffling but not running, were a mess of blisters and cuts, leaving small bloody footprints on the pavement. His head was spinning, his thoughts foggy. This was his body's final warning: stop, rest, or you will die.
But he was so close. So damn close.
[Distance: 49 km. Time remaining: 10 minutes.]
'Fuck. Ten minutes left, and I'm still a kilometer short.'
His legs finally gave out. He collapsed onto a bridge overlooking one of the city's murky canals, his body refusing to obey him anymore. Blood flowed freely from his nose now, dripping onto the cold concrete.
'Is this it? After all that?'
He looked at the countdown timer in his vision. Nine minutes. Eight.
He closed his eyes. It was over.
But then, an image flashed in his mind: Kana's face, tears streaming down, her voice breaking as she pointed at him. The lie. The betrayal. The crushing weight of it all.
'No. I'm not done.'
He didn't know where the strength came from. Maybe it was hatred. Maybe it was hope. Maybe it was just pure, stubborn defiance.
He roared, a raw, guttural sound of pain and fury, and forced himself to his feet. His nerves screamed, his muscles felt like they were being torn apart, but he refused to fall. With tears of agony streaming down his face, he ran. He stumbled, fell, and got back up. He staggered, tripped, and pushed himself forward again. Over and over, a broken, bloody machine running on nothing but the promise of a new beginning.
He finally collapsed for the last time, his body a broken heap at the edge of the bridge. But this time, a real, genuine smile was on his face. He looked at the timer.
Three seconds left.
'Hahaha… I made it.'
[Congratulations on completing the mission.]
[Reward will be granted upon user awakening.]
[Moving on to stage 2 of activation...]
The world went dark, but for the first time in a very long time, he felt like he had won.