'Damn… now I really lost my mind completely'
Suho read the notification three times before accepting that it was floating in the air in front of his face.
[Kang Suho. Third year. Chungwon Academy of Awakened. Rank: F.]
'And I suppose I have a system now?'
He tried to touch it with a finger and the notification dissolved, that confirmed to him that he was not dreaming.
He lowered his hand, but that hand was not his. It was thinner, younger, with a scar on the pinky knuckle that he had never gotten.
"Shit," he said.
The voice was not his either.
For some reason the name of 'The Jaws of the Shadow' came to his mind.
An ongoing webnovel of four hundred and eighty-two chapters, he had reached the latest chapter published yesterday in his bed, in his world, with the phone light glued to his face.
The protagonist was Choi Minjun of third year at the Chungwon Academy.
The typical MC with a tragic past who enters the elite academy with the help of a system.
He awakened a Spectral Knight in chapter two, got the Goddess of Shadows in forty-seven, won the tournament of the first arc in sixty.
The novel sold well and the author published three chapters a day.
Kang Suho, with whom he shared a name, appeared in chapter four as comic relief.
Just half a page, with only three adjectives: trembling, wet, pathetic.
He received a Blind Shadow Beast Puppy at the Assignment Ceremony, the puppy peed on the Binding Stone, the great hall laughed.
The narrator never mentioned him again.
A comment on the forum said 'hahaha the poor puppy peed on the stone' had two hundred likes and suho had been one of them.
Suho looked now at his borrowed hands and tried to remember exactly how he had laughed.
The clock on his wall marked eight fourteen and, for some reason, he remembered that the ceremony started at nine.
He only had forty-six minutes.
The plan was to go to the Ceremony, receive the puppy, endure the scene, leave through the side door exactly as the book said.
Without improvising, standing out or touching anything.
"Chapter four," he said in the empty room. "Endure chapter four and find a way to get out of here"
He just thought about how horrible it would be to stay as an F rank loser in that world, before leaving.
◆◆◆◆
The Chungwon Assignment Ceremony was three hundred teenagers squeezed into a gym smelling of cheap perfume, and a master of ceremonies speaking through a failing microphone.
Suho entered through the back side door, found the seat at the end of the last row and saw a girl in his year laughing quietly with her friend, all exactly as the book said.
Up to here perfect.
The first letters passed quickly. Each student put their hand on the Binding Stone and a creature appeared. Suho mentally crossed each name with the book and they all fit.
And then they called Choi Minjun.
Suho did not know that his pulse had accelerated until he heard the name. Minjun stood up from the fourth row.
He was exactly like the forum illustrations: tall, broad shoulders, posture of someone who already knows who he is.
He walked without rushing, put his hand on the stone and the stone emitted a three-note chord with a light so white that Suho had to squint his eyes.
[SYSTEM, PUBLIC BROADCAST] — Link established. Spectral Knight. Rank A. Traces of mythical evolution detected.
The gym exploded in applause.
Suho watched Minjun walk down the stage smiling and for a moment he wanted to clap too because he was the hero, he was the character he had stayed up for two nights.
Then he remembered who he was in this story and lowered the hand he had half raised.
◆◆◆◆
"Kang Suho."
He went down the bleachers and each step sounded louder than the last.
People were quieting down to look at him, and Suho understood that they were remembering his name only because it was the name that came after Choi Minjun's, and that by itself was already a joke that the author had written on purpose.
He reached the stage.
The surface of the stone was cold, he pressed his palm against it and closed his eyes.
'Out of tune tone, people laugh, the puppy pees on the stone, then I pick him up, go out and touch nothing.'
The stone did nothing for two whole seconds, until it emitted the sound.
The book had been kind when it described it as "an out of tune tone".
It sounded like a violin string breaking under the bow.
The laughter started in the third row, infected another two seats to the right and then three more in the back row, and by the time Suho opened his eyes the whole front half of the gym was laughing.
The master of ceremonies had lowered his head so it wouldn't be noticed that he was also laughing, which was worse.
[SYSTEM] — Link established. Blind Shadow Beast Puppy. Rank F.
Something warm touched his shoe, then was when suho looked down.
The puppy was small, the size of a closed fist, dark gray fur stuck to the body from being so wet, all four legs trembling, the eyelids sealed over the eyes.
The puppy turned its little head in a direction that was not towards Suho, then in another, then sneezed.
And then the puppy did what Suho already knew it was going to do, what he had read two nights ago and had gotten a quick laugh from when he read it.
What at this moment didn't seem so funny to him anymore because now he was the character it was happening to.
The puppy lifted a hind leg and peed on the Binding Stone.
The silence lasted exactly half a second.
Then the three hundred people laughed at the same time, and Suho heard them all as a single sound that lasted much longer than a human sound should be able to last.
Suho extended his hand.
The puppy sniffed the air in the direction of the fingers, walked wobbling and bumped against the palm with its forehead.
Suho picked it up, tucked it under his arm and walked toward the side door exactly as the book said.
◆◆◆◆
Back in the room, Suho sat on the bed and put the puppy on the sheets.
The little animal began to tremble harder because it was no longer against the heat.
"Don't get attached," he said to himself. "It's rank F, the book used it for a joke."
The puppy trembled.
Suho picked it up, took off his shirt and put it against his bare chest, because it was the only thing that was going to work to warm it up and because he was not the type of person to leave a dog trembling no matter what story he was trapped in.
'Master.'
Suho stopped breathing.
'Master. You are here. You are here you are here you are here.'
The voice was not the voice of a puppy. It was the voice of a woman.
[ Resonance Event detected. Compatibility: 100%. That should not be possible.]
Suho read the last sentence twice. The system, in four hundred and eighty-two chapters of the novel, had never made a comment about itself.
It only said what was happening.
'Link established. Level up.'
The system had no opinions, but it had just had one with him.
Hidden Trait detected: [Heart of the Primordial Tamer]. Status: AWAKENING.
This trait does not exist in the database. Generating new entry. Warning: requires authorization from the Author. Author: NOT LOCATED.
'Author not located? This is a fucking joke isn't it?'
The system had just detected that the variable was doing things that were not in its original code.
[Notification sent to Main Character: Choi Minjun.]
[Message: 'Anomaly detected. Origin: Kang Suho, Rank F. Investigation recommended.']
[Main Character has read the message.]
"No," Suho said out loud. "No no no wait!"
The puppy against his chest stirred and the voice entered through the back of his skull again, almost sleepy.
'Master, I'm sleepy, I'm going to dream of you.'
The puppy fell asleep.
And Suho, expecting a message from the protagonist who was already on his way, also fell asleep because his borrowed body gave him no option.
◆◆◆◆
In the dream there was a flat stone and he was lying on it looking at a starless sky, then a woman sat on his thighs.
Suho recognized her before she lifted her face.
She had extremely long white hair, erect wolf ears, pale skin and, when her eyes opened, they were the exact red of blood.
He had seen her a hundred times in the forum illustrations, on the cover of the anniversary edition, in the fanarts.
Ha Yeonhwa.
The Goddess of Shadows and the mythic level six link of the hero.
She was sitting on Suho.
"I found you," said Yeonhwa. "I finally found you, Master."
The tips of the white hair brushed his collarbones. Suho tried to move and the body did not respond.
"Don't let him have me," said Yeonhwa, and her voice broke.
"I know what's coming, I've seen it. He is going to come looking for me and I don't want to go, I found you first, I've been waiting for you all this time."
A tear fell from one eye and landed on Suho's chest, and the tear was hot, much hotter than a tear should be.
"If I have to kill him to stay with you," said Yeonhwa smiling, "I am going to kill him."
The smile was completely sweet, and Suho understood that she wasn't joking at all, She was going to kill whoever is supposed to be her master.
She was going to break the whole book because she had just found Suho and didn't want to leave.
Up until that moment the threat was that the hero would find him.
Now the threat was also that the goddess would find the hero first.
Yeonhwa leaned in all the way, rested her forehead on his forehead and whispered against his lips:
"Wake up, Master. He is already coming."
◆◆◆◆
Suho woke up suddenly, the puppy was on his chest with its ears flat and its tail wagging slowly.
Outside in the hallway, someone was walking.
Slow, heavy steps, until they stopped in front of the door of Suho's room.
[Choi Minjun has arrived at your location. Good luck.]