Free Web NovelChapter 3: I am a fraud
[Origin path: □□□□□□ gained]
[First phase unlocked: Fraud]
"Fraud?"
Oliver just stared at the words in front of him for a long moment, as if the system had personally offended him.
Then, dragging a hand through his hair, he let out a sigh and said in a slightly bratty voice, "Bro... seriously? I suffered through all that pain and you couldn’t even make it sound cool?"
With no other choice, he summoned the system screen again and started looking through it.
It was the first time he could actually see it properly.
Earlier, everything had been automatic and he couldn’t control anything about the system. But now, he could do whatever he wanted with the system.
[STATUS]
[Oliver Graves]
[Rank: Drifter]
[Origin path: □□□□□□]
[Phase 1: Fraud]
Then, as he thought about getting more information on what exactly his path could do, the system responded.
[FRAUD]
You are, quite literally, a mistake.
Your intent fails to reach your actions, and your actions refuse to represent your intent.
What you attempt is not what occurs,
and what occurs is rarely what you intended.
It is a... flaw.
And yet, your adversaries seem to suffer more from it than you do.
Curious.
---
Reading what the system had to say about him, Oliver gave a small, wry smile and whispered,
"A mistake, huh?"
He read further into the description and became even more confused.
"What I try to do won’t occur... and what happens isn’t what I intended... a flaw that my adversaries suffer more from...?"
He paused as he thought.
"How the hell is this even supposed to work?"
Letting out another sigh, he continued,
"Hey... can I even do something? Any skills? Any abilities?"
He frowned slightly.
"Doctrines are supposed to give everyone at least an attribute, right? Even if I don’t have a doctrine and got a path instead... I still deserve something, don’t I?"
And then, as if something actually heard him, more words appeared in front of him.
[Origin Attributes]
[Horns of Fate]
You are intricately connected to the nexus of fate and stand at a unique crossing within it’s hidden tapestry, as such distant entities have turned their eyes your way.
[Apostle of Disorder]
A hidden presence ??? has marked your soul and given you their blessings. Should fate permit it, you may one day carry their legacy.
[Eyes full of Lies]
Nothing about you arrives truthfully.
Your intent twists before it reaches reality, and your actions rarely unfold as they were meant to.
Deception does not merely exist in your words... it lingers within your very existence.
Those who attempt to fool you often find themselves misled first.
Even reality appears uncertain of what you truly intend.
[Firecraft]
Flame answers to your will.
It does not burn indiscriminately.
It burns what you decide is worth burning.
---
"Damn."
Oliver’s eyes widened as he stared at his attributes.
Normally, a person only gained one or two attributes after obtaining their Doctrine, but he had four.
As he looked into them more carefully, his mind immediately began racing.
For now, he ignored the other attributes and focused mainly on the second one, ’Apostle of Disorder’.
More specifically, the words "has given you blessings."
"Am I... already blessed by a deity?"
His breathing quickened slightly as he pondered.
"So I don’t need to gain someone’s recognition just to survive past my first month?"
A sudden thought crossed his mind as he wondered how he had got someone’s blessings.
"Did I impress someone by giving my life for that girl?"
But just as quickly as that thought emerged, he dismissed it as well.
Humans were selfish creatures and far too clever for their own good.
If there really was even the slightest rumor that sacrificing your life could earn you a golden ticket to a divine blessing, then people would have already started making strange plans and strategies to ’heroically’ save others and gain favor from the gods.
There was no way something like that would remain unknown or unpopular.
And even beyond that, the idea itself was impractical. It was already common knowledge that, aside from the Four Orthodox Deities, most gods held little love for humanity.
Thinking about the Orthodox gods, Oliver instinctively paid his respects inwardly—especially toward the Goddess of Purity, Lady Agnes.
"Praise the Maiden of Silver Light", he whispered in his heart.
Lady Agnes, the Goddess of Purity, was the only one among the Four Orthodox Deities whose true name was publicly known to the masses.
Other than this she was also the goddess Oliver’s parents had worshipped when they were alive, and because of that, both Oliver and his sister Olivia had been raised to do the same.
And while Oliver himself was nowhere near as devoted as his sister, some habits still remained. Things like muttering a prayer after sneezing, or instinctively remembering the goddess in strange moments like this was quite normal for him. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
And so, almost unconsciously, he had previously muttered the words, ’Praise the Maiden of Silver Light’ which was a common phrase uttered to pay respects to the goddess.
After spending a few more moments wondering about the blessing and the hidden presence ’???’, he shifted his attention toward his other attributes.
The first one was ’Horns of Fate.’
From the name alone, it was obvious that the attribute had some sort of connection to fate, and while Oliver didn’t know much about such things, the description alone made one thing very clear, his future days were probably not going to be very easy.
Then came the attribute:
’Eyes Full of Lies.’
Seeing the name, he couldn’t help but think in an amused way,
"Wowww... even this system is more poetic than me."
As he read its description, he noticed that it was quite similar to the description of his Path.
"This must be the main attribute I gained thanks to my Origin Path... but it’s still so confusing. How am I supposed to use this?"
"And what does deception in my very being even mean? Aren’t I such an honest guy?"
It is often said that people could lie to the world, put on masks, deceive enemies and friends alike very easily...but lying to oneself was different.
The human mind supposedly rejected that sort of thing by nature, yet Oliver seemed to have bypassed that rule entirely.
After cursing the attribute and the system for baseless slander, he finally, turned his attention toward the last attribute, ’Firecraft.’
It was perhaps the simplest attribute to understand out of all the ones he had gained and, at least for now, the most useful.
But even then, he still couldn’t help but wonder,
"The first two attributes are probably because some being is observing me, and the third one is due to my Path... but why did I gain a fire related attribute too?"
