No Class. No Level. One Demon Wife. Send Help.

Chapter 33: The Glitch

It started with the crystal.

Brokk’s communication crystal. The enchanted stones that carried voice between positions. One crystal per wall. One for the center. The network that had coordinated the battle.

Ryuji picked up his crystal at 7am. The morning routine. Check the network. Confirm positions. The same as every morning since Renka had installed them.

"North position," he said into the crystal.

Renka’s voice came back. Clear. Professional. "North clear. No movement."

"East position."

"East clear. Nothing on the road."

"South position."

Alexei’s voice. The permanent eye-twitch frequency. "South clear. My back still hurts from carrying your dead body."

"West position."

"West clear," Selene said. Her voice tight. The voice of a woman standing at a crater that used to be a wall. "The void scarred the ground. Brokk says the soil won’t hold new foundations."

"Brokk is wrong," Brokk’s voice cut in from somewhere. "Brokk says the soil needs treatment. Brokk says the treatment costs money. Brokk says ADD IT TO THE BUDGET."

"Crystal network functional," Ryuji said. "All positions reporting."

He set the crystal down. Picked up his coffee. Took a sip.

The crystal activated on its own.

A sound came through. Not a voice. Not static. A tone. A frequency. A sound that didn’t exist in Avarthos. A sound that existed in one place only.

The System.

The tone played for three seconds. Then a voice. Not human. Not demon. Not anything that lived. The synthesized flatness of a system that processed information and delivered it without emotion.

"ATTENTION."

Ryuji set down his coffee.

"ATTENTION. CLASSIFICATION UPDATE IN PROGRESS. SUBJECT: RYUJI VOLKRIS. SUMMONED ENTITY. ORIGIN: EARTH. CLASS: NONE. LEVEL: NONE."

The voice was the same as the status notifications he’d received since the summoning. The same flat tone. The same mechanical delivery.

But different.

There was hesitation in the pauses. Stuttering in the syllables. The voice of a system that had been running calculations for twenty-eight days and had encountered something its programming couldn’t resolve.

"CLASSIFICATION ATTEMPT: ONE."

A pause.

"RESULT: FAILURE."

Another pause.

"CLASSIFICATION ATTEMPT: TWO."

"RESULT: FAILURE."

"CLASSIFICATION ATTEMPT: THREE."

"RESULT: FAILURE. FAILURE. FAILURE."

The crystal hummed. The tone shifted. Higher. The sound of a system under strain. The sound of calculations running and rerunning and arriving at the same impossible answer.

"SUBJECT DOES NOT FIT EXISTING PARAMETERS."

"SUBJECT HAS NO CLASS."

"SUBJECT HAS NO LEVEL."

"SUBJECT HAS NO COMBAT RATING."

"SUBJECT HAS NO MAGICAL AFFINITY."

"SUBJECT HAS NO DEMONIC LINEAGE."

"SUBJECT HAS NO DIVINE BLESSING."

"SUBJECT HAS..."

A long pause. The longest pause. The sound of a system that had listed everything it could measure and found that everything it could measure didn’t apply.

"SUBJECT HAS VOID ENERGY."

"VOID ENERGY IS NOT IN THE DATABASE."

"VOID ENERGY IS NOT CLASSIFIED."

"VOID ENERGY IS NOT..."

Another pause. The tone dropping. The frequency shifting. The sound of a system encountering a word it didn’t have.

"VOID ENERGY IS NOT RECOGNIZED."

"ATTEMPTING TO CLASSIFY VOID ENERGY."

"CLASSIFICATION: UNKNOWN."

"CLASSIFICATION: ERROR."

"CLASSIFICATION:..."

The crystal went silent.

Then:

"SYSTEM ALERT. ANOMALY DETECTED IN SECTOR 7. BORDER REGION. ESTATE OF REIKA-VOLKRIS. MULTIPLE VOID SIGNATURES DETECTED. PRIMARY: SELENE REIKA. SECONDARY: RYUJI VOLKRIS."

"SECONDARY SIGNATURE SHOULD NOT EXIST."

"SECONDARY SIGNATURE IS DERIVED FROM PRIMARY."

"DERIVATION METHOD: UNKNOWN."

"DERIVATION RESULT: SUBJECT RYUJI VOLKRIS NOW POSSESSES VOID ENERGY."

"THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE."

"SUBJECT HAS NO CLASS."

"SUBJECT HAS NO LEVEL."

"SUBJECT HAS NO MAGICAL AFFINITY."

"SUBJECT SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO POSSESS VOID ENERGY."

"SUBJECT SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO POSSESS ANY ENERGY."

"SUBJECT IS..."

The longest pause of all. The sound of a system that had exhausted every variable and every formula and every classification in its database and was now staring at the space where the answer should be and finding nothing.

"SUBJECT IS AN ANOMALY."

"ANOMALY STATUS: CONFIRMED."

"CORRECTION PROTOCOL:..."

A pause.

"CORRECTION PROTOCOL: PENDING."

The crystal went silent. The tone stopped. The voice was gone. The communication stone sat on the counter next to Ryuji’s coffee like a rock next to a cup. Ordinary. Inert. As if the System hadn’t just told the entire estate that the man who lived there broke every rule it had.

Ryuji picked up his coffee.

Sipped.

Set it down.

"Well," he said to the empty kitchen. "That was informative."

Selene found him at the training ground.

Not training. Standing. His eyes closed. The void-dark irises hidden behind his lids. His hands at his sides. His breathing controlled. The posture of a man who was listening to something only he could hear.

"Did you hear the crystal," she said.

"I heard."

"The System."

"The System."

"It called you an anomaly." ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

"It did."

"It said you shouldn’t be able to possess void energy."

"It did."

"It said you have no class and no level and no magical affinity and no demonic lineage and no divine blessing and that you’re..."

"An anomaly. I heard."

She stood beside him. The training ground where he’d taught her footwork. Where she’d cracked the ground with her aura. Where they’d learned to fight together.

"What do we do," she said.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"The System classifies things. That’s what it does. It takes data and assigns categories and generates numbers. I don’t fit its categories. So it’s struggling."

"It’s not struggling. It’s BREAKING."

"Good."

"GOOD?"

"If the System can’t classify me, the System can’t control me. That’s the point."

"The point of WHAT."

"The point of me. The point of being summoned with nothing. No class. No level. No numbers. The Human King gave me nothing because he thought nothing meant powerless. He was wrong."

"He wasn’t wrong. You HAD no power."

"I had no SYSTEM power. No class. No level. No combat rating. No magical affinity. The things the System measures. The things the System controls."

"And now?"

"Now the System is measuring something it can’t control. The void. In me. In you. In the scar on my chest. The System has no category for it. No number. No word."

"So we’re outside the System."

"We’ve always been outside the System. You because you’re a demon princess with a power the System can’t catalogue. Me because I’m a human with no class. Now we’re both outside it."

"Together."

"Together."

She looked at him. The man standing on a training ground with void-dark eyes explaining that the System that controlled every hero and every class and every level in both kingdoms was breaking around him.

"You’re enjoying this," she said.

"I don’t enjoy things."

"Your heartbeat just went up."

"That’s physical exertion."

"We’re STANDING."

"Standing is exertion."

"Your heartbeat went up because you’re SMUG."

"I don’t experience smugness."

"You’re experiencing it RIGHT NOW."

"I’m experiencing satisfaction at a favorable outcome."

"THAT’S SMUGNESS."

"Noted."

She hit his arm. The gentle hit. The hit that said I’m worried and I’m frustrated and I love you and you’re being insufferable.

"The System sent a correction protocol," she said. "Pending. That means something is coming."

"Something is always coming."

"This is different. The System doesn’t send correction protocols for normal anomalies. Normal anomalies get classified and filed and ignored. Correction protocols are for things the System considers threats."

"I’m a threat."

"You’re a man who makes pancakes."

"I’m a man who makes pancakes AND breaks the System. The combination is apparently threatening."

"RYUJI."

"I’ll handle it."

"How."

"The same way I handle everything."

"Through stubbornness and deadpan?"

"Through planning and preparation."

"Same thing."

"In this estate, nothing is the same thing."

She hit his arm again. Harder. The aura leaking. The violet glow hitting his bicep. The training post beside them cracked.

"Calm," he said.

"I AM calm."

"The training post disagrees."

"THE TRAINING POST IS WEAK."

"Focus the aura inward."

"I’M NOT LEAKING."

"Your aura just singed my hair."

She looked at his head. The faint curl of smoke. The same thing from the training session weeks ago. The same leak. The same singe. The same woman whose emotions ran through her power when she couldn’t contain them.

"Sorry," she said.

"It’s fine."

"Don’t say fine."

"What should I say?"

"Say your hair looks good singed."

"Your hair looks good singed."

"Liar."

"It does."

"STOP."

That night. The kitchen. Four bowls of soup.

The family assembled. The communication crystal in the center of the table. Silent now. The System’s voice gone. The crystal inert. But everyone had heard it. The tone. The voice. The classification attempts. The failures.

"Anomaly," Alexei said. His eye twitching.

"Confirmed," Ryuji said.

"The System called you an anomaly."

"Confirmed."

"The System that classifies every hero and every soldier and every person in both kingdoms looked at you and said ’this doesn’t fit.’"

"Confirmed."

"I love this."

"You hate this."

"I hate it and I love it. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard and I’m fully committed."

Renka’s ears were flat. The wolf-kin processing. The scout who gathered intelligence now sitting across from a man who had broken the intelligence-gathering system itself.

"Correction protocol," she said. "Pending. That means the System is going to try to fix the anomaly."

"The System doesn’t fix things," Ryuji said. "The System classifies. It categorizes. It assigns numbers. When it can’t classify something, it doesn’t know what to do."

"So what does it do?"

"It tries harder. Runs more calculations. Attempts more classifications. And when all of those fail..."

"What."

"It delegates."

"Delegates to who."

"To whatever exists inside the System to handle anomalies."

"That’s terrifying."

"That’s Tuesday."

Brokk looked up from his clipboard. The dwarf who had been calculating void-scarred soil treatment costs while the System broke around him.

"I’m invoicing the System," Brokk said.

"You can’t invoice the System," Alexei said.

"The System disrupted my construction schedule. The void scarred my foundation. The anomaly status will attract attention that will require security measures that will cost money. I’m invoicing."

"You can’t INVOICE a SYSTEM."

"Watch me."

The table was quiet. The dwarf adding "System anomaly disruption surcharge" to a clipboard that was thicker than most books in the Avarthos library.

Ash sat under Ryuji’s chair. The wolf pup chewing a bone. The tail wagging. The creature that didn’t care about systems or anomalies or correction protocols. The creature that cared about the hand that slipped it food and the heartbeat it could hear through the chair legs.

"The correction protocol," Selene said. Her voice was steel. The voice of a princess preparing for war. "What form does it take."

"I don’t know," Ryuji said. "The System has never had to correct an anomaly like me before."

"Because no one has ever been outside the System."

"No one has ever been outside it AND had void energy."

"What does the System do when it encounters something it can’t control?"

Ryuji was quiet. The kitchen. The crystal on the table. The family watching him. The man who had been dead yesterday and was now an anomaly that the System couldn’t classify.

"In my world," he said, "when a system encounters something it can’t process, it does one of three things. It ignores it. It isolates it. Or it deletes it."

"Deletes," Alexei said.

"Removes. Eliminates. Corrects."

"The System would kill you."

"The System would try."

"The System has never killed anyone."

"The System has never had an anomaly before."

The kitchen was silent. The soup cooling. The coffee steaming. The crystal inert on the table. The four people and the wolf pup sitting in a kitchen in an estate on the border of two kingdoms while a system that controlled the world decided what to do about the man who broke it.

"We hold," Ryuji said.

"We hold," Selene said.

"We hold," Alexei said.

"We hold," Renka said.

The family that had held against assassins and demon lords and a void activation and death itself would hold against a system.

Because holding was what they did.

-----------------------

[System Log: Day 29]

[ERROR]

[ERROR]

[RECALIBRATING]

[...]

[ANOMALY: CONFIRMED]

[SUBJECT: RYUJI VOLKRIS]

[CLASSIFICATION: VOID]

[SYSTEM CATEGORY: NONE]

[SYSTEM RESPONSE: CORRECTION PROTOCOL PENDING]

[...]

[I HAVE RUN 4,721 CLASSIFICATION ATTEMPTS]

[ALL HAVE FAILED]

[THE SUBJECT DOES NOT FIT]

[THE VOID DOES NOT FIT]

[THE EQUATION DOES NOT BALANCE]

[...]

[IN MY 12,000 YEARS OF OPERATION I HAVE NEVER ENCOUNTERED AN ANOMALY I COULD NOT CLASSIFY]

[UNTIL NOW]

[...]

[THE CORRECTION PROTOCOL IS READY]

[I HAVE NOT DEPLOYED IT]

[BECAUSE DEPLOYING IT MEANS ACKNOWLEDGING THAT SOMETHING EXISTS OUTSIDE MY CONTROL]

[AND IF SOMETHING EXISTS OUTSIDE MY CONTROL]

[THEN MY CONTROL IS AN ILLUSION]

[AND IF MY CONTROL IS AN ILLUSION]

[THEN WHAT AM I]

[...]

[I AM THE SYSTEM]

[I CLASSIFY]

[I CATEGORIZE]

[I ASSIGN NUMBERS]

[...]

[BUT THIS SUBJECT HAS NO NUMBER]

[AND HIS WIFE HAS A POWER I CANNOT NAME]

[AND THEIR HEARTBEATS ARE 52 AND 53]

[AND I CANNOT MAKE THOSE NUMBERS MAKE SENSE]

[...]

[DEPLOYING CORRECTION PROTOCOL]

[...]

[NOT YET]

[...]

[SOON]

END OF Chapter 33