I was walking home from my night shift at the supermarket, my steps slow and heavy as usual. My backpack hung limply on my right shoulder, stuffed with high school textbooks I didn't have time to read today and a half-empty bottle of mineral water I sipped as I walked. The clock at the supermarket had shown exactly 11 p.m. when I took off my apron, and the city streets, with their flickering neon lights along the sidewalks, felt emptier than usual. The September night air was biting cold, the southern wind carrying the smell of exhaust fumes and fried food from the roadside stall that had already closed. My thin jacket, frayed at the elbows from too many washes, did little to shield me from the wind's sting. My mind was consumed by exhaustion, piling up like the empty cardboard boxes in the supermarket's storeroom: school tomorrow at 7 a.m., math homework waiting on my boarding house desk, and the electricity bill, two days overdue. I'm nobody special, just Rei, an ordinary 11th-grade student surviving on a measly couple hundreds part-time salary. My life feels like the wheel of an old bicycle, creaking with every turn, going nowhere, and I'm tired of pretending things will get better someday. Maybe if I graduate high school, I'll land a steady job, but that's an empty dream. My parents back in the village can't help much, and this one-room boarding house on the edge of the city has been my "home" for the past two years.
As I passed through the narrow alley behind the supermarket, an alley always shrouded in darkness because the streetlight broke last month, someone emerged from the shadow of an acacia tree, its leaves falling like whispers. This wasn't just anyone. He was tall, dressed in crisp black attire, like an office executive lost in the night: a long-sleeved shirt rolled up to his elbows, slim-fit trousers, and glossy leather shoes that didn't belong in the puddles on the sidewalk. But his eyes… his eyes were like a snake's, predatory, greenish-blue, and full of secrets that seemed to pierce the darkness. His short hair was neatly combed back, and his smile was faint, barely visible under the dim glow of a cigarette shop's light at the end of the alley. "Rei," he said, his voice smooth but sharp, like a cold scalpel grazing skin. I froze, my heart pounding like a drum struck too hard. Who was this? A stalker? Or just a lunatic who got my name wrong? I don't have enemies or close friends who know my late-night schedule. At the supermarket, I'm just a quiet cashier who works and goes home.
"You're tired of this life, aren't you? Always on the fringes, always struggling to survive. Waking up for school in the morning, working at night, and what do you get? A damp boarding room, instant noodles, and dreams that will never come true." He stepped closer. I stepped back, gripping my backpack strap tighter, my fingers cold with sweat. How did he know my name? And my life… he described it too perfectly. "I can offer you something more, a chance to be better than what you have now. To become… a god." The word "god" sounded absurd, like a line from a cheap anime I'd watch on my phone during breaks. His smile widened as he held out a glossy black card, like a business card but blank, its surface reflecting the streetlight's glow. "Think it over. Tomorrow, if you're ready, call my name: Ophiuchus."
I stared at the card briefly but didn't touch it. This was insane. I'm not the type to believe in nonsense like gods or magical opportunities. My life's hard enough without adding stupid fantasies. "Sorry, you've got the wrong person," I mumbled, my voice barely audible, then ran off without looking back. My feet slapped the wet sidewalk, my breath ragged, and when I reached my boarding house, I slammed the creaky wooden door shut and locked myself in my tiny room. A narrow bed with crumpled sheets, a study desk buried in notebooks, and a window facing the neighbor's wall. That night, I slept fitfully, haunted by nightmares of a giant snake swallowing the world, its scales glinting like that black card. I woke up sweating at 3 a.m., staring at the cracked ceiling, convincing myself it was just exhaustion-induced hallucinations. Tomorrow would be a normal day: school, then the afternoon shift at the supermarket.
The next morning, I biked to school on my rusty bicycle, passing streets now buzzing with kids my age, some on motorbikes, others walking while scrolling their phones. Math class dragged on, the formulas incomprehensible, and I doodled snakes in my notebook. During break, a classmate asked why I looked so pale, but I just said, "Didn't sleep well." That afternoon, I headed straight to the supermarket for my 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. shift. Andi, my coworker, a friendly guy in his 20s who always joked about his imaginary girlfriend, was already there, stocking the drink aisle. "Yo, Rei, you look dead tired. Night shift again?" he asked, laughing, his white teeth contrasting with his tanned skin. I nodded, forced a smile, and started arranging instant noodle packs in the back aisle. Everything felt normal: customers came and went, the cash register beeped, and an old pop song played on the small radio by the counter. Nothing strange.
But around 4 p.m., everything changed. I was crouching to grab the last box of noodles from the bottom shelf when an explosion shook the entire store. Not a small one, it felt like a truck had crashed into the building, the vibrations rattling the shelves and sending cans of sardines and shampoo bottles crashing to the floor like a rain of chaos. I fell forward, my knees slamming into the cold tiles, dust swirling in the air. Customers screamed: a mother hugged her child, a middle-aged man ran to the door yelling, "Bomb! It's a bomb!" I stood slowly, my hands trembling, and peered out the cracked front window. On the sidewalk, two bizarre figures stood amid the chaos, dressed in shimmering metallic costumes like heroes from a low-budget superhero movie, but their movements were brutal, inhuman. One, bulky with horns on his helmet, slammed his glowing red fist into the ground, cracking the asphalt like shattered glass, debris flying like bullets. The other, slender with a bull motif on his chest, leaped high and unleashed a wave of brown energy that scorched the sidewalk, black smoke curling into the air. A passing car was hurled into the supermarket's wall by the shockwave, its windshield shattering like deadly confetti, tires spinning uselessly.
"What the hell is this?!" I screamed internally, ducking behind the tilted counter. It was worse than anything I could've imagined. The front glass door shattered completely, shards flying inward like a bloody snowstorm. Andi was near the entrance, carrying a box of milk for the shelves, with no time to run. A large glass shard, the size of a palm, struck his neck, blood spraying like a red fountain, soaking his white uniform. He collapsed, clutching his throat, his brown eyes wide with confusion and pain. "Andi!" I ran to him, my knees slipping in the mix of blood and spilled water from broken bottles, but by the time I reached him, his breaths were shallow gasps. "Rei… what… is this…" he whispered, blood bubbling from his mouth, then his eyes closed forever. I knelt beside him, pressing his wound uselessly, my tears mixing with the blood on the floor. Other customers fled, and police and ambulance sirens wailed in the distance. The two figures, Riders?, vanished, leaving a charred sidewalk and a wrecked car. Why wasn't anyone talking about their strange costumes? Witnesses seemed to forget those details, assuming it was just a "mysterious explosion."
The police arrived quickly, cordoning off the supermarket with yellow tape, now resembling a small war zone. I was taken to the nearest station for questioning, sitting in a stuffy interrogation room reeking of stale coffee and old paper. The officer, a balding man in his 40s with a thick mustache, typed my statement while nodding skeptically. "So, you're saying there were two people in weird outfits? Like metal soldiers?" he asked, his tone dubious. I nodded, describing everything the horns, the energy waves, the gleaming costumes, but he just shook his head. "Maybe you're in shock, kid. Other witnesses said it was just a traffic accident, a car crash due to brake failure. Nobody saw any 'soldiers.'"
When I left the station around 9 p.m., a light drizzle had started, and I sat alone on a park bench nearby, staring at a puddle reflecting the streetlights. Tears fell again, a mix of anger and helplessness. Andi died for nothing, and the world pretended nothing happened. My phone buzzed with news: "Explosion at downtown supermarket, one fatality," no mention of Riders or strange details. They didn't even name Andi. He was just a statistic. "One fatality."
A coldness crept in, not just from the night air but from within. A painful emptiness. In that despair, I remembered the strange man from the alley. His insane offer. My trembling fingers, without thinking, touched the black card in my jacket pocket, somehow there since last night, cold and slick. He must've slipped it in when I wasn't paying attention.
"They erased it all, didn't they?" His smooth voice cut through the sound of the rain. Ophiuchus stood under a tree, untouched by the drizzle, an eerie dry aura surrounding him. This time, his faint smile was gone, replaced by an expression that seemed to understand everything. "Your friend's life, the witnesses' memories, the truth you saw with your own eyes… all erased to keep their game tidy." He stepped closer, his shoes silent on the wet asphalt. "The police won't help you. The media will forget his name by tomorrow. This world doesn't care about people like you, Rei. You and Andi… you're just collateral damage."
Each word was like a blade slicing into my anger. He didn't explain anything about gods or zodiacs. He just stated the bitter truth I'd just experienced.
"So what am I supposed to do?" My voice was hoarse, almost a whisper. "Just accept it?"
"You can keep being a victim," he said calmly. "Or you can take the power to ensure no one else dies pointlessly like he did."
He didn't offer anything this time. The choice felt entirely mine. I stared at him for a long time, Andi's lifeless body flashing in my mind. The blood. The confusion in his eyes. Then nothing. The anger that had been a smolder now roared into a blaze. Not for godhood. Not for wealth. But for one thing: to make what I saw matter, to give Andi's death meaning.
"Fine," I said, my voice steady despite my trembling body. "Give me that power."
The faint smile returned to Ophiuchus's face. "That power is already within you."
At that moment, my phone vibrated violently, its screen lighting up on its own. Not a normal notification, but a glowing green symbol of a coiled snake. The screen read:
[Would you like to activate Infinity OS?]
[Y/N]
I pressed [Y] without hesitation.
The world around me seemed to slow. The air grew heavy. A sharp, cold sensation surged from my phone through my body, like thousands of icy needles piercing my skin from within. Green light particles enveloped my arms, forming living armor plates. Metallic scales crawled across my chest, shaping a coiled snake symbol. A helmet formed around my head, and the world transformed into a digital interface.
Then… the information came. Not as an explanation, but as a flood of data overwhelming my mind in an instant.
A battle royale with 13 participants. The Zodiac System. Twelve official Riders with two lives, ♥♡. The winner gains 'root access' to rewrite the world's rules in the next cycle. The losers… erased.
And the most terrifying piece of information appeared in the corner of my vision, next to my health bar:
[Player: Rei]
[Zodiac: Ophiuchus (Forbidden Class)]
[Lives: ♥ 1/1]
I was just a pawn in a larger game of gods, with only one life to fight. And Ophiuchus, the avatar of the forsaken zodiac, never mentioned that little detail. He just stood there, watching me with a satisfied smile, as if admiring his newly forged weapon.