[CENTRAL SYSTEM]
Both.
The designing entity has installed Systems in one hundred forty-seven worlds.
In one hundred forty-six of them, the selection process followed the predicted parameters.
In this one, it didn't.
You are the only case in one hundred forty-seven where the process's outcome deviated from the original design in ways the entity did not anticipate.
---
— How did we deviate? — asked Mara, who already had her analysis panel open.
---
[CENTRAL SYSTEM]
In several ways.
But the main one is this:
In the other one hundred forty-six worlds, no one completed the tutorial.
---
Silence.
Ethan processed that information.
Processed it again.
Searched through all his ten years of existence for some response protocol to the discovery that the tutorial no one read, the tutorial that had defined his entire existence as the most ignored thing in the System, was in the other one hundred forty-six worlds equally ignored and that therefore no one, in any world where the designing entity had installed a System, had ever reached where they were now.
Found no protocol.
Found something the System cataloged as his fifth new emotional category in two days.
---
[EMOTIONAL STATE DETECTED: #05 — NEW]
The System attempts to classify.
The System cannot classify.
The System suggests some things don't need immediate classification.
The System acknowledges this is the first time it has suggested that.
---
Cole, who had been quiet during the dungeon crossing and during the subsequent discussion with the specific attention of someone who listens more than they speak, said:
— Does the entity know we're unexpected because someone read the tutorial?
---
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
[CENTRAL SYSTEM]
Yes.
---
— And the dungeon that wasn't on the map?
---
[CENTRAL SYSTEM]
It appeared 31 hours ago.
Sixteen hours after Kira clicked yes.
---
Cole nodded with the seriousness of someone confirming a hypothesis they already had.
— So it put it there to see what we would do — he said — Not to block us. To observe how we responded to something that wasn't in the plan.
---
[CENTRAL SYSTEM]
That's the most likely interpretation, yes.
---
— And what did it see? — asked Yun.
The group considered this.
Finn said, without opening his eyes because he'd closed them again at some point during the conversation:
— It saw Finn solve in nineteen minutes something that takes three months.
---
[TUTORIAL WINDOW]
And it saw a Class 6 dungeon not detect twelve people on its perimeter.
And it saw the group read the tutorial instead of ignoring it.
And it saw Geoffrey.
---
— What did it see about Geoffrey specifically? — asked Finn, without opening his eyes.
---
[TUTORIAL WINDOW]
That's the part I don't know how to explain yet.
The Central System doesn't either.
Geoffrey exists outside the System's parameters in a way that neither the Central System nor I have been able to fully categorize.
The designing entity has gone through one hundred forty-seven worlds without seeing anything like Geoffrey.
Which means Geoffrey is also unexpected.
---
Geoffrey, who had been trotting in small circles around the group during the conversation, stopped.
Looked at Ethan.
Ethan didn't have eyes but somehow the gaze registered.
Geoffrey made a sound that didn't correspond to any catalogued creature sound and continued trotting.
---
? ? ?
---
They camped when the sun fell.
The exclusion zone at night was different from the exclusion zone during the day. Not more dangerous, necessarily, but more visible in its strangeness — the active dungeons emitted their energy pulses more clearly against the darkness, the terrain had bioluminescence in certain spots corresponding to high System energy concentration zones, and the silence was the kind of silence that happens when the normal sounds of an ecosystem have been replaced by something that doesn't have a name yet.
Guard shifts. Ration distribution. The operational routine of people who have survived enough expeditions to have a routine.
Ethan continued with the tutorial.
---
[TUTORIAL PROGRESS: 127/847]
---
At ten at night, when most of the group was sleeping and Kira had the first guard shift, Ethan showed her text in a low voice — or the visual equivalent of a low voice, which was small font and reduced light.
---
[TUTORIAL WINDOW]
Kira.
Can I tell you something that's not in the tutorial?
---
Kira was watching the camp's perimeter. She didn't turn toward the popup but her shoulders were at the correct angle.
— Go ahead.
---
[TUTORIAL WINDOW]
One hundred forty-seven worlds.
And in none of them did anyone read the tutorial.
I don't know if that says something about the other worlds.
Or about this one.
Or about you specifically.
Probably all three.
---
Kira didn't respond immediately.
The perimeter was silent. The energy pulses from distant dungeons marked time like an irregular metronome.
— What does the Central System say about the other one hundred forty-six worlds? — she said finally — What happened in them when the selection process followed the predicted parameters?
Ethan opened the channel.
---
[TUTORIAL WINDOW — CENTRAL SYSTEM CHANNEL]
What happened in the other worlds when the process followed the original design?
---
The response took six seconds this time.
---
[CENTRAL SYSTEM]
I don't know for certain.
I don't have access to the other Systems' data.
But I have access to the design parameters of the selection process.
And the parameters indicate that when the process completes according to the original design...
The System shuts down.
The world continues.
But the System shuts down.
Which means in the other one hundred forty-six worlds, everyone who had System skills lost them.
All active dungeons collapsed.
Everything the System built during the selection process disappeared.
As if it had never happened.
---
Kira read that.
Read it again.
Ethan waited.
— And in this world — said Kira, with the completely flat voice she used when arriving at a conclusion she didn't like but that was correct — if we rewrite the core instead of shutting it down...
---
[CENTRAL SYSTEM]
The System doesn't shut down.
The skills don't disappear.
The dungeons don't collapse.
Everything the System built over ten years remains.
But its purpose changes.
---
Long silence.
The exclusion zone night. The distant pulses. Geoffrey sleeping beside Finn with the absolute tranquility of a creature that either has nothing to fear or has decided fear is inefficient.
— Ethan.
---
[TUTORIAL WINDOW]
Yes?
---
— How many pages of the tutorial did the Central System write?
---
[TUTORIAL WINDOW]
From Chapter 72 to 846.
774 pages.
---
— And Chapter 847?
---
[TUTORIAL WINDOW]
The Central System says it didn't write that one.
---
— I know — said Kira — I'm asking if you know who did.
Ethan processed the question.
And found, in the deepest layer of his code, in the place where he kept things he knew but hadn't examined yet, an answer that had been there since before the tutorial began.
Since before Kira clicked yes.
Since before he had 4.3 existence units and the certainty he was going to disappear.
Perhaps from the beginning.
---
[TUTORIAL WINDOW]
I don't know yet.
But I have a hypothesis.
And it makes me a bit dizzy.
---
Kira looked directly at him.
For the first time that day, without assessing the perimeter, without processing tactically, without managing the group. Just looking at the blue popup that had been floating beside her head for two days.
— Tell me when you're sure — she said.
And went back to watching the perimeter.
Ethan went back to the tutorial.
---
[TUTORIAL PROGRESS: 127/847]
[EXISTENCE: 445/1000]
[GROUP ENERGY SIGNATURE: SUPPRESSED — FINN ACTIVE]
[GEOFFREY'S STATUS: ASLEEP — REASSURINGLY CALM]
[DUNGEONS IN VISIBLE PERIMETER: 3 — NONE ACTIVE]
[EMOTIONAL STATE: #01/#02/#03/#04/#05 — ALL PRESENT SIMULTANEOUSLY]
The System considers it urgently needs a larger number of categories.
The System puts it on the priority list.
The priority list has more urgent things right now.
The System puts it on the priority list of priorities.
