Chapter 1: Are You Qualified?

Alina City, Country F - one of the fairly developed countries near the equator.

It was a gloomy Saturday night with a full moon partly hidden by the grey clouds hanged high in the sky.

A girl quietly crying in one dark corner of a park suddenly jumped from fright. She was akin to a scared rabbit reaching out to her phone that suddenly vibrated, fearfully wondering why there was an unexpected notification.

'Is it the debt collector?'

'It could only be the debt collector, right?'

She almost couldn't breathe from all the nervousness, fright, and panic. With puffed-up eyes and shaking hands, she braced herself to read whatever message her phone received.

<System: Beeep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!>

This seemingly senseless word greeted her eyes the moment her phone came live. For a reason she failed to rationalize, the phone's background turned pitch black, the font contrasted it with white color. The girl's shaking hands became much more unsteady. She noticed that the photo which should have been her screensaver suddenly disappeared.

'Is my phone hacked? By those people?'

The thought almost pushed her sanity to the brink. The girl even thought of throwing the phone away.

But then, the catchy sound rang again.

<System: Beeep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!>

<System: Locked onto a useless target. Connection stabilized.>

<System: Beep! Beep! Here's to the idiotic girl crying senselessly on a dark corner of the world.>

<System: Yes, you! Stop looking around! Read me, stupid!>

<System: SO! Buried in an enormous debt left to you by your hateful drunkard of a father? Feel like your life is now hopelessly hopeless? No mother or relatives to rely on? Well, your life is hopeless, it is! Who ask you to be as useless as you are now that you can't even think of any solution to save yourself from your predicament? Just commit suicide already, suicide, you damn waste of precious space!>

The girl felt like she shouldn't breathe when she read the last part. She bit her lips and cried, feeling extremely wronged. For her, the words were very hurtful and mean, but she could only remain quiet because everything written in the message was correct.

<System: Tch. Yeah. Cry. Weakling! You are really so hopeless. But it's your luck that this mighty being took notice of you. Be grateful. I can grant you hope.... light up your path. Yeah. I will be your guide. I can show you to the real apex of this world!>

<System: The question is, will you grab this precious and rare chance?>

The girl wiped her tears away and carefully read what was currently displayed on her phone. She reread the questions again and again. She also did her best to think of her situation and tried to get a hold of what was happening.

With a deep breath, she asked. "Who are you? And why are you pestering me?"

Her voice just now was quite loud but fortunately, in this dreary place somewhere in a rarely visited park near her home, no one was currently around, aside from her.

<System: A mysterious AI of a mysterious but very useful system.>

The answer thoroughly bewildered the girl. It's a relief it's not her dreaded debt collectors, but the reply was still really unexpected. Sure, the name of the other party was the word system itself - but she thought it was an alias for this certain somebody who she couldn't guess if a blackmailer or a prankster.

<System: I don't care if you don't believe me. Just answer my question. It's just a yes, or, no.>

Her hand never stopped shaking. It's only at this moment that it hits her how the other party seemed to understand her question before... it even answered her when she had yet to type it as a reply.

'I-I verbally said my question but in a second an answer came? A-and there's nobody around?!'

The realization terrified her.

<System: Once again, yes, or no?>

The question that flashed in her phone summoned back her spooked soul to her body. In a fit of fright, she answered in a nervous and stuttering voice, "Y-yes!"

<System: Damn, took you so long to answer. But very good! You made the greatest decision of your life. However, are you really qualified to receive my help? Not sure, that's for sure. Haha.>

<System: So let's have a qualifying mission!>

[DING!]

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[System Prompt: Qualifying Mission]

System Task: Lose Your Innocence

System Introduction: This is an exalted System, you see. Prove you'll worthy of getting bound by this great System. Show some guts. Shed your innocence because this world is never as nice as you dream it to be. What do you need to do? Go to the third room of the highest floor of the nearest hotel within an hour. And do what the task asks you to do.

Quest Reward: Me, the great System

Failure Consequence: No System forever, Living a Rat's Life Forever

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