The sun had barely risen over Mossbridge, but the guild was already buzzing.
Ash sat alone in a corner booth near the back wall, sipping lukewarm broth. Riven was off restocking supplies—though he kept sneaking suspicious glances at Ash like he expected him to glitch again.
Ash's thoughts, however, were fixed on the system log.
> [Entity Encounter: Recorded]
[Threat Level: ???]
[Passive Trace: Residual Signature Embedded in Interface]
Advise: Run a Deep Clean? (Y/N)
He didn't select either option. Not yet.
"Unusual for a newbie to come back from the sewers." The voice was calm, curious—too calm.
Ash looked up.
A woman stood before him. Mid-30s. Elegant but armored. Her coat bore the silver sigil of the Mossbridge Guild, stitched with winding oak leaves. Not just a rank—authority.
"You're Ash, right?" she asked. "I'm Guild Officer Serana."
Poker face: activated. "That's me."
"You and the kid triggered three glyphs on the emergency channel," she said smoothly. "That hasn't happened in a decade."
Ash kept his tone level. "We were just lucky."
"I don't like lucky." She pulled up a wooden chair and sat across from him. "I pulled your registry. Riven signed for your identity. No memory, no background, no weapon training—but you fought off a Fangbeast barehanded, then escaped a system anomaly with your brains unscrambled."
He didn't respond. Let her talk. Let her reach.
She leaned in slightly. "I've seen mages, mutants, and godspawn. I've never seen someone like you. So here's the question—"
> [SYSTEM WARNING: Magical Interrogation Detected]
[Mental Resistance Test: PASSED]
[STAT LEECH – Passive Status: DORMANT]
Ash felt it—like a hand brushing the surface of his mind. Serana was reading his aura. Not deep, not invasive—but testing for fractures, for lies.
He stared at her with a calm that wasn't fully his. "You done?"
She blinked, surprised. "Most people flinch."
"I'm not most people."
"No," she said, standing. "You're not."
Serana turned to leave—but paused at the last step.
"When the archive lights up red," she said over her shoulder, "it means something from the Old Systems just moved again. It lit up last night—and your name showed up in it."
Ash didn't breathe.
Serana didn't smile. "Don't worry. I'm not the only one watching you."
She walked away.
> [SYSTEM LOG UPDATED]
> [Serana, Guild Officer | Alignment: NEUTRAL | Awareness: 31%]
Note: Her records predate your system by 9 years.
Ash set the empty bowl down carefully. The world around him moved, talked, laughed—but in his corner, the shadows felt deeper than ever.
Whatever that entity was, it had a name for him.
And others might remember it too.
---
In this world:
Only the MC (Ash/Daniel) has a visible, game-like system interface—an advanced and hidden one called the AWI (Adaptive World Interface).
This system is completely secret. No one else knows he has it. He's intentionally pretending to have amnesia to avoid suspicion.
There are rumors and legends in the world about "blessed ones" or "ancients" with strange powers, but they're considered myths or relics of the past. Serana's reaction in Chapter 8 hints that Ash's system may be connected to those old legends—which is why she's wary.
Some powerful mages or entities might sense "something strange" about him, but they don't know about the system unless Ash slips up.