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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/ralo_ramone on 2024-11-29 22:29:39+00:00.

The Man in Yellow sat cross-legged behind the bamboo bars. His yellow shirt was smeared with mud, the left sleeve was torn, and his tortoiseshell glasses were crooked. His arms were scrapped as if he had been dragged through the dirt. The beginning of his adventure in this world had not been smooth. He had arrived in a dangerous world where humans weren’t the dominant species but mice hiding in caves, and the System wasn’t a thing yet.

Two warriors guarded the bamboo prison, seemingly unaware their prisoner was tinkering with runes. I approached. To my surprise, it wasn’t the Access Rune that the Man in Yellow was engraving on his skin.

“If it isn’t my favorite teacher,” a familiar voice came from behind me.

I turned around to find the System Avatar in the middle of the cave, his shirt spotless and his body healthy. Thick Corruption lines showed under his skin, almost like oil ran through his veins instead of blood. It wasn’t a reassuring sight. The Avatar’s silence, Astrid’s Corruption, and the Lich’s rise didn’t augur good news.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I am a copy of the consciousness of that guy behind bars, so technically, I’m not alive. As a System subroutine, I’m starting to accumulate errors,” the System Avatar said, his tone unsettlingly devoid of feelings. “The code is hanging from a thread. The Zealot Quest routine is about to crash, and the Safety subroutine is flagging healthy parts of the code as errors. Corruption is snowballing, and I’m not sure the System will see the end of the next decade.”

Still, he sounded defeated, unlike the previous time we had met.

The humans in the cave continued working without paying attention to us.

“A decade is plenty of time to fix whatever is failing. I can learn how to properly runeweave. I just need guidance,” I said. The words automatically came to my mouth. So far, I’ve been trying to guess the rules of runeweaving the best I could, but I needed a teacher. I needed a solid foundation from which to construct my knowledge.

The System Avatar gave me a sardonic smile.

“You don’t understand, Robert Clarke. It’s not just about runeweaving. The System processes the mana of millions of users. Hundreds of thousands of users cast skills every second. The amount of Fountain mana the System transforms into safe, usable mana is immeasurable. Even if I guess how to inject runes into your Rune Encyclopedia, you wouldn’t be able to touch the System without the mana currents burning you to ashes,” the System Avatar said. “We need time for your body to get used to the true strength of runes.”

I knew the System Avatar had been withholding information, but I wasn’t expecting that.

“Can’t we shut down the System for a day for repairs?” I asked.

The System Avatar laughed. 

“Come on, Robert. I’m not that stupid. I created the thing, and I know everything about it. Like the human brain, the System isn’t built to shut down,” he said. “I need you to be skilled enough to move through energy currents without dying while channeling similar amounts of energy to engrave the runes. Like fixing a nuclear plant while it’s working.”

I massaged my temples.

“Couldn’t you tell me that from the beginning?”

“Would it have changed your answer?”

Probably. I glanced at my left arm. Channeling mana through my body wasn’t something I was eager to do ever again.

“Why did you give me the Access Rune and that weird set of coordinates if I’m so unprepared to fix the System?” I asked.

The System Avatar sighed.

“Forget about it. Maybe I was wrong from the start. Creating the System was a mistake. No matter how much we push back, humans can’t stop nature. Without the System, Corruption will slowly disappear. Sure, people will have no Classes to fight the already existing Corruption, but some will survive.”

Logically, that was a sound solution. To eliminate Corruption, one had to eliminate its source. I looked around. The living standards of ancient humans were far from good. If the System stopped existing, we’d be sentencing Ebros and all the other human kingdoms to ruin.

Suddenly, the realization hit me. 

“That was Byrne’s solution,” I said. “He refused to fix the System because he wanted to destroy the source of Corruption.”

The System Avatar raised his hands like saying, ‘You caught me’.

“Byrne wanted to introduce key technologies before the System’s collapse, create a haven, save a few thousand, and ensure the survival of our species,” the System Avatar said. “But playing defensively never worked for humanity. I know what life was like before the System, and no haven is safe. No matter what you do, this world is too cruel for humanity to thrive.”

I couldn’t help but think of the ramblings of a dying man.

“Look.” The System Avatar pointed out one of the holes in the ceiling.

An instant later, a red wyvern slipped through the hole and dropped into the lair near the mage’s circle. I tried to identify it out of instinct, but the skill didn’t respond. Before anyone could react, the monster caught a magician and crushed it with its maw. Chaos ensued. The guards jumped the beast, wielding their spears, but it took only a tail flick to send them crashing against the jagged walls.

Just like the System Avatar had said, there was no true safe haven in this world.

I expected the red wyvern to clear the human settlement, but a lightning bolt hit the drake, blowing a hole through scales and muscle. The bamboo cage was reduced to splinters, and specks of pure-white natural mana fluttered around the Man in Yellow’s hands. Then, a second drake entered the cave. The Man in Yellow created a lighting ball in his hand and threw it, blowing the monster’s head off.

“Despite my looks, I played a lot of baseball,” the System Avatar pointed out, satisfied with the act of his past self.

A rune gleamed in the palm of his hand.

“How long had you been in this world when that happened?” I asked, surprised. The amount of mana he could channel was outlandish, even by my standards. That wasn’t the tame blue System mana I was used to, but wild Fountain mana.

“A few days? My first contact didn’t go as well as yours. I blame the culture of that time. They believed I was a spy sent by the elves or the orcs,” the System Avatar said.

The scene continued. The sound of a horn broke the silence, and the warriors rushed towards the entrance while others helped the wounded. The Man in Yellow followed. Outside, between the treetops, a flock of wyverns drew circles above our heads. I’ve never seen so many monsters gather together. Hundreds of dragons darkened the sky.

The human sentinels panicked, but the Man in Yellow remained calm.

“For the record, that wasn’t my first time seeing that flock,” the System Avatar pointed out.

“The Farlands were a wild place, uh?” I pointed out.

The scene was breathtaking.

A black dragon with a wingspan like a small plane darted through the wyvern flock. The trees around us creaked and shattered, and the human sentinels who weren’t holding to anything were sent flying against the rock. The black dragon landed a few meters away from the entrance. A woman dismounted from its back. She was dressed like an office worker: a navy cardigan, a pencil skirt, and loafers.

“Your dragons killed two people inside the cave, Rebecca,” the Man in Yellow nonchalantly said.

“I’m not Rebecca anymore. You will call me Beck, Queen of Dragons, from now on, Jeremiah,” the woman said, pissed.

I raised an eyebrow, looking at the System Avatar. I just noticed he had been avoiding telling me his real name all this time.

“Call me Jeremy, and I’ll nerf every single one of your skills, Rob,” the System Avatar replied.

Meanwhile, the woman named Rebecca walked up to the Man in Yellow. She was shorter, but the black dragon at her back gave her a poise that was hard to mimic. 

“We should be looking for a way back to Earth, not terrorizing random people with a horde of dragons,” the Man in Yellow said.

The woman broke into hysterical laughter. It wasn’t hard to see that something was wrong with her head. She laughed for a long minute, holding onto the black dragon beside her to avoid falling. She wiped a tear from her eye.

“No. I’m not going to return to Earth. Nobody will. From now on, you and your tribal friends will serve me; we will expel those green skins from the lowlands, and everything in this valley will be mine,” she said.

The Man in Yellow remained unfazed.

“Come on, Rebecca, this is not okay. You are not like this.”

“You always lacked vision, Jeremiah. When was the last time you got a promotion? Oh, wait, you haven’t, despite being one of the older hires in your department,” Rebecca grinned.

Her eyes were the ones of a crazy person, and the Man in Yellow seemed to be aware she was about to burst.

“Remember the Conflict Resolution Training, Rebecca.”

That seemed to trigger the woman.

“Kill him, Umbra.”

The black dragon roared, but the Man in Yellow was faster. He pointed his finger at the woman, and a lightning bolt hit her in the chest through her cardigan and blouse. The woman fell flat on her back, and the dragon seemed to wake up from a trance. Above our heads, the wyverns screeched and charged into each other. 

“In my defense, she was from human resources,” the System Avatar said. “She wasn’t the worst of the lot, though. Corporate America doesn’t attract the most virtuous people.”

“How many more came here with you?”

The System Avatar closed his eyes in deep focus…

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