My God-Tier Slacker System Is Out Of Control

Chapter 2 The System Just Woke Up

Doni stared at the ceiling of his cramped apartment, the $5,000 envelope tucked under his pillow like a cursed tooth fairy gift. His heart was hammering against his ribs in a rhythm that screamed anxiety attack. The flash drive he’d "accidentally" stolen sat on his nightstand, blinking a dull, rhythmic red light that felt way too much like a countdown timer.

"Okay, system, let's have a talk," Doni whispered, his voice cracking. "I know you're there. You’re that blue floating thing that looks like a glitchy arcade game from the nineties. I want out. Seriously. Just give me my couch, my cheap noodles, and a world where I don't accidentally become a corporate savior."

A neon-blue window flickered into existence right in front of his nose.

[SYSTEM STATUS: ONLINE. LEVEL 2 SLACKER EVOLVED.]

[CURRENT QUEST: THE SABOTAGE STRIKE. APPLY FOR THE JUNIOR PROJECT ASSISTANT POSITION AT 'KENSINGTON HEIGHTS CONSTRUCTION.']

[OBJECTIVE: FAIL SPECTACULARLY. REWARD: ??]

"Kensington Heights? That luxury high-rise project that’s been in the news for being a death trap of bureaucracy?" Doni groaned, rubbing his face. "Are you kidding me? If I go there, I might actually have to lift something heavier than a TV remote. No. Absolutely not."

His phone buzzed. A text from his mom. "I saw your bank notification for the Titan deposit! I knew you had it in you! Don't get lazy, Doni! I've already set up an interview for you at my friend’s property firm for a part-time consultancy role. It’s right near your place. DON'T. BE. LATE."

"Oh, come on!" Doni shouted at the empty room. "Does everyone in the universe have a copy of my schedule except me? And how did she see my bank notification?! Mom, stay out of my digital life!"

The system chimed. It sounded suspiciously like a slot machine winning the jackpot.

[QUEST UPDATED: MOTHER'S WRATH AVOIDANCE ACTIVATED. HEAD TO THE SITE NOW.]

"Fine! Fine! I'll go! But I'm gonna be so bad at this job that they’ll blackball me from the entire construction industry!" Doni scrambled out of bed, grabbing the first pair of jeans he found on the floor. "You want a sabotage? I’ll give you a masterpiece of incompetence."

Thirty minutes later, Doni was standing in the middle of a muddy wasteland in the North District. Giant yellow cranes loomed overhead like mechanical dinosaurs. The air was thick with the smell of diesel, wet dirt, and the panicked sweat of underpaid laborers. A man with a neck as thick as a tree trunk and a neon vest that looked like it was struggling to contain his muscles stomped toward him.

"You the consultant's kid? Doni?" the man barked. He had 'Foreman Rick' stitched onto his chest, but he looked more like 'General Destructo.'

"Uh, yeah. That's me. Here to assist and, you know, probably get in the way mostly," Doni said, offering a weak, intentionally lazy hand. He didn't even grip the man’s palm. He let his hand stay limp, like a cold, dead fish.

"I don't care who your mom's friend is. This site is behind schedule. The surveyors are idiots, the investors are breathing down my neck, and if we don't hit the primary groundwater depth by noon, heads are gonna roll," Rick spat, pointing a muddy finger at a massive industrial drill rig. "Think you can handle standing there and making sure the operator doesn't hit the gas line? Or is that too much work for a suit-wearer like you?"

Doni smirked. This was it. The perfect setup. Gas line? Primary depth? All he had to do was give the most idiotic directions possible, cause a minor (but safe) catastrophe, and he’d be kicked out of the mud and back to his couch by lunchtime.

"Oh, I can definitely handle that, Rick. I’m a professional 'stand-arounder.' Tell me, which way is the drill pointed?" Doni asked, walking toward the rig with a fake swagger.

"Directly into the southeast quadrant. We’re aiming for the soft silt layer," Rick explained, walking beside him. "The charts say it's clear of obstructions. But something feels off."

Doni looked at the controls. A young operator was looking at him with desperate eyes, waiting for a command. Doni didn't look at the charts. He didn't look at the site map. He pointed toward a rocky, elevated mound that was clearly marked with DANGER: NON-SURVEYED BEDROCK.

"Nah, Rick. My intuition—and trust me, it’s basically magical at this point—says the silt is that way," Doni pointed to the most obstructive, hardest-looking piece of earth in a three-mile radius. "We should drill there. Deep. And fast. Full throttle. Trust the 'consultant's instinct,' right?"

Rick stared at the mound, then at Doni. "That’s bedrock, kid. If we hit that too hard, we’ll snap the diamond bit. That's a quarter-million-dollar mistake."

"Is it? Or is it a 'bold tactical maneuver'?" Doni countered, leaning against a pile of pipes. "If you want to play it safe, sure. But your deadline won't wait. I say go for the gold. Crank it up."

Rick hesitated. The pressure from the investors was clearly rotting his brain. "You're sure? If this bit breaks, it's on your head."

"A hundred percent. My neck is on the line," Doni lied, suppressed glee bubbling in his chest. Yes, break the bit! Make a huge mess! Ruin the project! I'm finally gonna get fired for real this time!

Rick signaled the operator. "You heard him! Shift the rig to the east mound! Maximum torque! Let's find out if this kid is a genius or a suicide case!"

The machine groaned. The massive drill bit swung around like a hungry beast, biting into the dry, hard earth. The vibration was enough to rattle Doni’s teeth. Smoke began to rise. The smell of burning metal and pulverized stone filled the air.

"It’s not breaking!" Rick yelled over the roar of the engine. "Why isn't it breaking?!"

"Just give it more power!" Doni shouted back, hoping for a spectacular explosion of hydraulic fluid. "Don't be a coward, Rick! Push it!"

Suddenly, the drill hit something. Not a soft silt layer. Not even bedrock. There was a sound like a giant’s tooth cracking—a sharp, wet THWACK—followed by a sudden, violent release of pressure. A massive geyser of thick, sludge-like mud exploded from the borehole, shooting fifty feet into the air like a chocolate-flavored volcano.

"GAH!" Rick screamed as the brown slurry rained down on him, covering his neon vest, his face, and his expensive clipboard. The operator was blinded. Everyone within twenty feet was instantly transformed into a swamp creature.

Doni, however, had leaned back just as a stray piece of plywood blew over, perfectly shielding him from the spray. He was pristine. Not a single speck of mud had touched his jacket.

"Look at you!" Rick roared, wiping sludge from his eyes. "You ruined it! You absolute moron! I’m gonna kill you! You're fired! You’re blacklisted! You’re—"

Rick stopped. He looked down at the mud puddle at his feet. Something was sticking out of the ground, pushed up by the force of the mud geyser. It wasn't a broken drill bit. It was a pale, curved object that looked like a giant, petrified ivory horn.

"Wait a minute," the operator whispered, climbing out of the rig. "Is that... a bone?"

Doni blinked. "A bone? Did we hit a cow? Did I accidentally dig up a pet cemetery?"

Rick knelt in the mud, his anger forgotten as he brushed away the dirt. His hands started to shake. "That’s not a cow bone, kid. That’s... that looks like a tusk. A mammoth tusk. And look at that thing next to it! Is that a whole skull?"

A car screeched to a halt at the edge of the site. A woman jumped out—the same woman Doni had seen earlier near Titan Global. Dona. She was holding a tablet and wearing high-end boots that looked far too expensive for a construction site.

"Stop the drilling!" she yelled, running toward the hole. She skidded to a stop near Rick, her eyes widening as she saw the white shapes protruding from the mud. "Is that a Ceratopsian jawbone? Are you telling me this site just struck the largest fossil bed in the tri-state area?"

"Wait, what?" Doni's stomach dropped. "No, no. This is a construction site. We were supposed to find groundwater. Or a gas line! Or a sinkhole! This is supposed to be a disaster!"

Dona turned to Doni, her gaze piercing. "Disaster? Do you have any idea what this means? The University of Paleontology has been looking for this strata for decades. If you’d drilled ten feet to the left, you’d have missed it. If you’d used less torque, you wouldn't have triggered the pressure release that cleared the fossils."

"I was just... trying to break the drill," Doni stammered, his brain scrambling for a way out.

"Liar," Dona whispered, stepping closer to him. "I saw you pointing at this specific mound. You ignored the surveyors' maps. You went against every logical geological protocol. You didn't do this to 'break' the drill. You did it because you knew what was under here."

Rick stood up, covered in mud but grinning like a maniac. "Kid! I thought you were a liability! But this... the government is gonna pay us triple to pause construction for an excavation! The finder's f*e alone is—oh man, it's gotta be in the six figures!"

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: MISSION FAILED SUCCESSFULLY!]

[Result: Targeted Sabotage resulted in the discovery of a 'Million-Dollar Fossil Bed.']

[REWARD: 50,000 USD 'GEOLOGY DISCOVERY GRANT' & 200 SLACKER EXPERIENCE POINTS.]

[LUCK RANK: LEVEL 3 — 'ACCIDENTAL ORACLE.']

"Fifty thousand dollars?" Doni leaned his head against the rig, a hollow laugh escaping his lips. "I tried to be an idiot. I really, truly tried. Why won't the universe let me be a failure?!"

"Because you're not an idiot, are you?" Dona asked, her voice dropping to a dangerous, low hum. She tapped her tablet. "I’ve been tracking your activity since the Titan incident. The sprinkler blind spot? The orange juice 'hush money'? And now a prehistoric discovery within thirty seconds of arriving at a site? You’re either the luckiest man in human history, or you’re a genius strategist playing a game none of us understand."

"I'm really not," Doni pleaded. "Look at my shirt. It’s cheap. Look at my posture. It's terrible! I don't even like museums! I hate mammoths! They’re just hairy elephants that were too dumb to not go extinct!"

"Funny," Dona said, ignoring his outburst. "Because the museum directors are on their way. And they want to talk to the 'Visionary Geologist' who predicted this find."

A black sedan pulled up, and two men in suits—one looking like he belonged in a university faculty lounge—rushed out with cameras. "Who is he?! Who found it?!"

Rick grabbed Doni by the shoulder, shoving him toward the scientists. "This is him! The kid’s a freaking bloodhound for fossils! He didn't even use a map! He just pointed and said 'Push it!'"

"A prodigy!" one of the scientists gasped, shaking Doni’s hand vigorously. "You have an instinct for stratigraphy that borders on the divine! Please, tell us, how did you know to target the bedrock shelf?"

Doni looked at Dona, who was watching him with a smug, knowing smile. He looked at Rick, who was already calling his wife to tell her they were buying a boat. He looked at the neon-blue system window floating in the air.

[NEW QUEST TRIGGERED: THE RUNWAY WHISTLEBLOWER.]

[Description: A high-fashion startup is looking for an 'Intuititive Risk Consultant' for their catwalk gala. Requirement: Try to ruin their reputations.]

"Is there... is there a way to delete this system?" Doni whispered to himself.

Dona leaned in, her breath cold against his ear. "By the way, Doni... the flash drive you took from Titan Global? The CEO wants it back. And he’s hired some very 'efficient' people to make sure nobody else reads what's on it. I suggest you keep playing the 'genius geologist' part for as long as you can. It’s the safest place for you to be right now."

Doni felt his blood turn to ice. He reached into his pocket and felt the hard, rectangular shape of the encrypted drive. The high of the discovery grant was replaced by a crushing weight of dread. This wasn't just a luck game anymore. It was a conspiracy, and he had accidentally stumbling right into the crosshairs.

"Listen, man," Doni said to the scientist who was still shaking his hand. "I really just want to go home and play video games."

"Oh, such modesty!" the scientist chuckled. "A true legend in the making. Let's get the press over here!"

As the flashbulbs began to pop, blinding him, Doni looked desperately for a way to escape. He saw the way Dona was looking at him—like he was a puzzle she was determined to break piece by piece. His phone buzzed again. This time, it wasn't his mother.

The message read: "The fossils won't hide you forever. Give us the Master Key, or the next geyser on that site will be your own blood."

Doni swallowed hard, his knees feeling like jelly. He looked up at the sky, searching for some cosmic mercy that clearly wasn't coming.

"Can I get my 'Consultant F*e' in cash?" he asked the scientists, his voice trembling. "I have a feeling I’m gonna need to skip town very, very soon."

Across the mud-filled site, Dona tucked her phone away and whispered to herself.

"Let's see how much luck you have when people are actually trying to kill you, Doni Kusuma."