I always thought rock bottom had a floor. Turns out, it's more like quicksand—the harder you struggle, the deeper you
sink.
My name is A. Just A. Not short for anything, not a nickname. My mother—whoever the hell she was—didn't even care
enough to give me a full name before she dumped me at the orphanage. Eighteen years of existing in this shithole of a
world, and I had exactly nothing to show for it. No family. No friends. No prospects. Just a one-room apartment that
smelled like mold and desperation, a part-time job at a convenience store that paid barely enough to keep me breathing,
and the crushing, suffocating knowledge that this was it. This was my life.
I stared at the cracked ceiling of my apartment, lying on a mattress that was more springs than padding. The water stain
above my head looked like a face—mocking me, laughing at the cosmic joke that was my existence. Twenty-three
hundred dollars in my bank account. Rent due in a week. No degree because I couldn't afford college. No skills because
nobody would hire me long enough to learn any.
Virgin? Check.
Loser? Double check.
The kind of person people's eyes just slide past on the street, like I was already a ghost.
I'd spent the evening the way I spent most evenings—scrolling through social media, watching people my age travel the
world, fall in love, achieve their dreams. Each post was a knife twist reminding me that I was fundamentally broken,
fundamentally less than everyone else.
The funny thing about despair is that it's boring. People think hitting rock bottom is this dramatic moment, but it's not. It's
just... gray. Everything is gray and flat and meaningless.
I was contemplating whether I had the energy to make ramen when it happened.
The air in my room changed. That's the only way I can describe it. Like reality hiccupped. The temperature dropped ten
degrees in an instant, and my breath came out in visible puffs. The flickering fluorescent bulb that barely illuminated my
shitbox apartment went dark, but somehow, I could still see—better than before, actually.
And then I saw it.
Floating in the air in front of me, about three feet from my face, was a panel. Not a physical object—I could tell that
immediately. It existed, but not in the same way the walls or my shitty mattress existed. It was conceptual, somehow
directly visible to my mind rather than my eyes.
WELCOME PANEL
Congratulations, Sovereign. You have been selected.
The Sovereign's Contract has awakened.
You are now the Admin of a reality-warping system that grants wishes in exchange for task completion.
I blinked. Then blinked again. My first thought was that I'd finally snapped—that years of isolation and misery had broken
something fundamental in my brain, and this was the beginning of a psychotic episode.
My second thought was: I don't care if I've gone crazy. This is the most interesting thing that's ever happened to me.
I reached out slowly, and my finger passed through the panel. It shimmered, and new text appeared.
The Sovereign's Contract
Prologue: The Awakening
SYSTEM OVERVIEW
As Sovereign, you possess total authority over the Contract.
Your powers include:
- Subject recruitment and management
- Task assignment with customizable parameters
- Reality manipulation through Point expenditure
- Absolute protection from external threats (Sovereign's Aegis)
- Complete immunity to Subject powers
- Automatic Point Tax from all Subject earnings (Default: 30%)
The Regulator serves as the systemic extension of your will, ensuring Contract integrity and your absolute safety.
To begin, navigate to the Subject Invitation Tab.
My hand was shaking. This couldn't be real. But at the same time, what if it was?
I'd consumed enough manga, light novels, and web fiction during my endless lonely nights to recognize the tropes here.
Isekai. LitRPG. System apocalypse. Wish-fulfillment power fantasies where the loser protagonist gets a cheat ability and
becomes god.
I'd read hundreds of them, probably thousands, because they were the only escape from the gray prison of my actual life.
And now, apparently, I was living one.
"Okay," I whispered to the empty room. "Okay. Let's see what you've got."
I focused on the words "Subject Invitation Tab," and the panel shifted, replaced by a new screen.
SUBJECT INVITATION TAB
This tab will populate with individuals after direct skin-to-skin contact post-awakening.
Current candidates: 0
Note: Only contact made after this moment of awakening is valid. Past contact is irrelevant.
Right. So I needed to touch someone first. That was... actually going to be difficult. I didn't exactly have a robust social
life. Going entire weeks without physical human contact was normal for me.
But this system—this Contract—it was offering me power. Real power. The power to grant wishes by rewriting reality
itself.
And if I could grant wishes... I could grant my own, couldn't I? The thought sent electricity down my spine.
For the first time in eighteen years, I felt something other than numbness.
I felt hungry