Third Person: The Silence Before the Storm
Time seemed to stretch, becoming dense and heavy like the air before a thunderstorm. Behind the air conditioning unit, the man, whose name in a forgotten world was Leo, held his breath until his lungs burned. Every muscle in his body was a knot of tension, a spring compressed to its limit. He had been in worse situations—ambushes in dark warehouses, interrogations that dragged on for days—but the sheer strangeness of this surpassed everything before.
In front of him, barely a few meters away, Laura Bodewig was the embodiment of controlled predation. She didn't rush. She analyzed the evidence: the solitary shoe, the tampered vent grille. Her brain, undoubtedly a product of Germany's most rigorous engineering and training, processed the variables. The intruder was clumsy, but had managed to reach the rooftop undetected. He was an unknown, an anomalous factor in her perfectly controlled environment. A glitch in the matrix.
Her eyes, or rather her visible eye, narrowed, scanning for possible hiding spots. The midday sun eliminated most shadows, but the large AC unit's casing offered the only viable cover. It was a conclusion so obvious it was almost insulting.
Leo watched her hand move, not towards a weapon she wasn't carrying, but to adopt an unarmed combat stance. A slight shift in her weight distribution, squared shoulders, head tilted slightly. She was ready to strike. He, for his part, braced for one of three desperate options:
Sudden Negotiation: Step out with hands up and deliver the most convincing monologue of his life. Probability of success: near zero. She'd probably break an arm before he finished the first sentence. Distraction and Evasion: Throw his other shoe at her face and run like the devil himself was chasing him. Probability of success: slightly above zero, but with a high likelihood of being intercepted and painfully neutralized within five seconds. Futile Fight: Use the environment. Perhaps he could tear off a piece of metal and use it as an improvised weapon. He'd be facing a teenage super soldier with a piece of scrap metal. It was a madman's plan.
As his mind evaluated these suicidal options, Laura took the first step. Slow, deliberate, the sound of her boot on the concrete was like a judge's gavel delivering a verdict.
"I know you're there," her voice said, calm and emotionless, but with a pure steel edge. "Come out now. Resistance will only make your capture more... unpleasant."
Ah, the classic offer you can't refuse, Leo thought. Straight from the good captor's manual. I wonder if she also offers coffee and a friendly chat after dislocating my shoulder.
He was about to opt for option 2, preparing to sacrifice his footwear for a half-second opportunity, when the universe decided his situation wasn't absurd enough.
Second Person: An Ill-Timed Intervention
Just as the world has narrowed to you, a German soldier girl, and a piece of metal separating you from considerable pain, something happens. It's not a noise. It's not a movement. It's a light.
A translucent blue screen, like a piece of sci-fi ripped from a movie, flickers and springs to life directly in your field of vision. It floats a meter from your face, perfectly in focus no matter where you look. It's only for you.
[Initiating Survival Support System V1.0][Calibrating... Calibration complete.][Binding to host... Soul detected. Compatibility: 98.7%. Binding successful.][Welcome, User.]
You blink. Once, twice, thrice. The screen doesn't vanish. This has to be a hallucination. The "Particle Accelerator" didn't just give you a hangover, it fried your synapses. You've gone from alcoholism to psychotic delirium in a single night. It's a new personal record.
Survival Support System? What is this, a video game? Does the afterlife have a user interface?
Laura takes another step. She's closer. You can see the detail of her eye patch.
And the screen in your face, oblivious to your existential crisis and imminent danger, continues its unsolicited tutorial.
[Host Status Analysis:]
Physical Condition: Hangover (Severe), Dehydration (Moderate), Fatigue (High). Mental Condition: Stress (Extreme), Confusion (Critical), Sarcasm (Chronic, Incurable). Current Situation: Imminent Mortal Danger (Threat Level: BODWIG).
Oh, great, not only am I crazy, but my hallucination is telling me how screwed I am and can also name my problem, you think, with a hysteria bubbling just below the surface of your training. And what the hell is 'Chronic Sarcasm'? Is it a pre-existing medical condition? Will my insurance cover it? Oh, no, wait, I don't have insurance. Or a world. Or an identity.
Laura stops. She's about to round the AC unit. Playtime's over.
And that's when the System offers you the crown jewel.
[New User Welcome Pack Detected!][Contents: One (1) GACHA Ticket x10.][Gacha is the fastest way to obtain skills, items, and companions to aid you on your journey!][System Suggestion: Probability favors the bold. Immediate use highly recommended.]
[PRESS TO PULL]
A huge, glowing button with the words "PRESS TO PULL" flashes in the center of your vision.
You're hidden, terrified, about to be captured by a teenage human weapon, and your own mind, or some cosmic entity with a terrible sense of humor, is offering you loot boxes.
It's the stupidest, most insulting, most desperately ridiculous thing you have ever experienced.
Laura lunges.
In that instant of pure desperation, with the sound of displaced air in her wake, with no other remotely logical option on the horizon, you do the only thing a man in your position would do.
You close your eyes and scream inside your mind: PRESS! PRESS THE DAMN THING!
First Person: Gambling My Life
The world dissolves in an explosion of light and sound that only I can see and hear. I forget Laura, I forget the rooftop, I forget my pathetic existence for one glorious, chaotic second. An animation that would make a Las Vegas casino blush takes over my vision. Ten orbs of light shoot out from nowhere, spinning in a cosmic whirlwind before my eyes.
This isn't happening. This is definitely an aneurysm.
The first orb stops and shatters.
[Common Item Obtained: One (1) Slightly Bent Fork.]
Fantastic. Now I can eat my last meal with a touch of imperfection.
The second orb explodes.
[Common Item Obtained: Half a Turkey Sandwich (Condition: Questionable).]
Great. Lunch is served. I wonder if my hallucination knows health regulations.
The third orb.
[Common Skill Obtained: One-Handed Shoe Tying (Efficiency: Slow).]
Just what I needed! A useless skill that requires two shoes, and I'm missing one.
The animation continues at a dizzying pace. A single sock. A 2-for-1 bowling alley coupon that probably doesn't exist in this universe. A rubber chicken. A f**king rubber chicken! What am I supposed to do with that? Threaten Laura with its lethal squeak?
Nine out of ten orbs have revealed their useless treasures. Junk. Pure, unadulterated cosmic garbage. My brief hope, born of the purest desperation, flickers out. I'm about to be beaten unconscious, and my only defense is an arsenal of novelty items and defective cutlery.
But then, the tenth orb. It's different. It's not white or blue. It glows with an intense, pulsating golden color, almost blinding. It emits a low hum, a note of power that resonates in my chest.
The golden orb slowly cracks, light spilling from the fissures. And then it explodes in a shower of golden particles.
[CONGRATULATIONS!!!][Rank A Trait Obtained!]
[LUCK (RANK: A)]
Description: The universe tends to conspire in your favor in unexpected and often chaotic ways. Causality bends around you. What seems like bad luck for others often turns into an opportunity for you. And vice versa. Be careful what you wish for.
Luck? Rank A? I don't have time to process what that means. The animation fades, and reality slams back into me with the subtlety of a freight train. Laura is in mid-air, less than a meter from me, her face a mask of lethal concentration.
And then, my new "luck" decides to make its debut.
It's not a heavenly lightning bolt. It's not divine intervention. It's the most horrifying sound I've ever heard: the sharp, tortured groan of metal subjected to stress it was not designed for.
I look up. Directly above us, one of those automated window cleaning platforms, which had been inactive, suddenly springs to life. A motor sputters, black smoke billows, and one of the suspension cables snaps with a reverberating CRACK that echoes across the entire rooftop.
The platform, freed from one of its anchor points, doesn't fall. It swings. Like a gigantic, murderous pendulum, it descends in a massive arc.
Laura, with her super soldier reflexes, reacts instantly. She aborts her attack on me and leaps backward, dodging the platform's swing by centimeters. The mass of metal whistles past the spot where we both stood a second ago, with enough force to turn us into a smear on the concrete.
But it doesn't stop there. It continues its trajectory and slams directly into a massive satellite dish on the other side of the rooftop.
The result is an apocalyptic CRAAAASSHHH!!! An explosion of shattered metal, sparks, and electronic components. The clang is so loud I feel the vibration in my bones. It's the kind of noise that doesn't go unnoticed. It's the kind of noise that puts an entire military base on high alert.
In the sudden commotion, Laura is facing away from me, staring at the disaster. Her priority has shifted from "capture intruder" to "assess major threat."
It's my chance. My only chance.
Luck has given me a distraction. A distraction the size of a small car that has just destroyed a multi-million dollar piece of communications equipment.
Thanks, I guess, chaotic universe and insane Gacha System.
I don't think twice.
Third Person: The Ghost's Escape
The man moved with a speed born of pure desperation. As Laura Bodewig turned to face the source of the destruction, he burst from his hiding spot. He ignored the ventilation duct; that plan was dead. His only objective was the rooftop door, the one the girl had left open in her confidence that no intruder could escape from her.
He ran. His legs, still heavy with hangover, protested, but adrenaline was a more potent fuel. He shot past Laura like a blur. She heard him. She turned, her eye wide with surprise at his audacity. She shouted something in German, an order or a curse, but he was already out of her immediate reach.
He reached the door and plunged through it without slowing, entering a metal service staircase. He bounded down the steps two by two, three by three, the sound of his footsteps echoing like gunshots in the stairwell. He knew she would come after him, and she would be much faster.
He couldn't keep going down. She'd catch him on the lower floors. He needed to disappear.
On the first landing, he saw a door. He yanked it open. A long, empty, clinically white hallway. Left or right? A split-second decision. He went right, sprinting down the deserted corridor. Alarms began to blare throughout the complex, a wailing siren adding to the cacophony of his pounding heart.
Classroom doors swung open, students and teachers peering out, confused. He was an anomaly, an adult male desperately running through a girls' school. Every glance was a risk, every witness a problem. But his luck, or perhaps his training, kept him one step ahead of the chaos he left in his wake.
He saw a door with a sign he didn't need to read to understand: a pictogram of a mop and a bucket. A janitor's closet.
Without hesitation, he turned the knob. It was unlocked. He slipped inside, pulling the door shut just as he heard Laura's quick, precise footsteps reaching the end of the hallway. He flattened himself against the wall in the darkness, surrounded by the smell of bleach and dust. He held his breath, listening.
He heard Laura run past the door, not stopping. She presumably continued downstairs, thinking he'd try to reach the main exit. For now, he was safe.
He slid down the wall to sit on the floor, trembling from the adrenaline rush. The darkness of the closet was a welcome respite. He was alive. He was not captured. And it was all thanks to an absurd, destructive stroke of luck.
He looked up, and there it was again, glowing softly in the gloom. The System screen.
[Situation: Temporarily Secured.][LUCK (RANK: A) trait has been used.][Side Effect: Academy Property Destruction (Estimated Cost: ¥15,000,000). Academy Alert Level raised to Orange.][System Suggestion: Enjoy your slightly bent fork.]
I stared at the last line of text. Then I looked at my hand, and as if I had summoned it, there it was. A cheap metal fork, with two of its prongs twisted. It wasn't an image. It was real. I could feel its cold weight in my palm.
I burst out laughing.
It was a silent, humorless laugh, the laugh of a man who has stared into the abyss, and the abyss has offered him a gacha system. I'm trapped in an anime, hunted by a super soldier, I've caused millions in damages, and my only tangible gain is a defective eating utensil.
My Rank A trait isn't luck. It's a chaos generator with my name on it.
And I'm at the center of the storm.