Overflow Novice: 10,000 Years in Tutorial Hell

Chapter 3: The S-Ranker's Gaze

Ryu  lowered his hand slowly, his fingers twitching with a residual hum of kinetic energy. "Right. Paper-thin world. Got it," he muttered to himself, his voice sounding raspy after centuries of only talking to a pig.

The three scavengers, two men and a woman who had been seconds away from becoming Void Hound kibble, weren't moving. They weren't even breathing. One of them, a guy with a rusted pipe and a 'Hard Hat' that offered exactly +2 Defense, dropped his weapon. It clattered against the cracked asphalt, the sound echoing through the artificial canyon Ryu had just carved into the skyline. To them, it wasn't just that the monster was gone; it was that the reality of the city itself had been edited out of existence by a casual wave.

Ryu looked at his palm, then at the three-story building that now looked like a half-eaten graham cracker. "I really meant to just shoo it away. Like a fly. You know? Shoo?" He made a much smaller, much more delicate flicking motion.

A nearby mailbox exploded into shrapnel.

"Damn it," Ryu hissed, tucking his hands into his pockets. "Everything is so... soft."

Before the scavengers could find their voices to either scream or worship him, the air temperature skyrocketed. The sky above the ruined block turned a violent, bruised shade of orange, and a streak of crimson fire tore through the clouds. It wasn't the chaotic fire of an explosion, but the controlled, terrifying heat of a high-rank skill.

BOOM.

A pillar of flame slammed into the earth twenty feet from Ryu, incinerating the remaining debris and glass. As the heat dissipated, a woman stood in the center of a smoldering circle. She wore sleek, obsidian-grade light armor etched with glowing red runes. A massive broadsword was strapped to her back, its hilt shaped like a Phoenix’s wing.

Pyra Solstice, the 'Flame of Seoul,' didn't look happy. Her eyes scanned the path of destruction, the three-hundred-yard trench of absolute nothingness, and then landed on Ryu, who was currently trying to use his toe to push a piece of rubble over a crack he’d made in the street.

"Report!" Pyra barked, her voice carrying the weight of someone used to commanding legions. "Where is the Calamity-class entity? Did it retreat into a spatial rift? Is the Void Hound Alpha still active?"

Ryu blinked. He looked at the scavengers. They were still vibrating. He looked back at Pyra. She was glowing. Like, literally emitting a soft aura of 'I am very important and probably have a high level.'

"The dog?" Ryu asked, tilting his head. "It... uh, it popped."

Pyra’s brow furrowed. She ignored Ryu for a second, her eyes glowing with a faint blue light.

[Skill: Eye of Truth (Rank S) Activated.]

Ryu felt a slight tingle, like a static shock. In his peripheral vision, his own blue system screen flickered, struggling to process the intrusion. For a split second, it flashed 'LEVEL 99,999' in a font so large it bled off the edges of the window, before the 'Error Overflow' code kicked back in and suppressed the display.

Pyra gasped, her knees nearly buckling.

"Level 1?" she whispered, her eyes wide with disbelief. "You... you’re just a civilian? A Level 1 survivor?" She looked at the scavengers, then back at the trench that had leveled a city block. "The mana signature here is... it’s non-existent. There’s no residual spell trace. Just pure, raw displacement. This wasn't a monster. This was... an atmospheric anomaly? A vacuum collapse?"

Ryu exhaled a breath he’d been holding for about three minutes. "Yeah. Atmospheric... thingy. That’s what I was thinking. Crazy weather we’re having, right?"

Pyra stepped toward him, her footsteps hissing as the heat from her boots melted the asphalt. She looked him up and down. He looked like a hobo who had been living in a gym for a decade, his clothes were tattered rags, but his muscles were defined with a terrifying, marble-like precision. "You’re uninjured? You were at the epicenter of a localized tectonic shift and you don't have a scratch?"

"I've got thick skin," Ryu said, which was technically true, given that his 'Physical Resistance' stat had maxed out around year 4,000 when he started headbutting mountains to pass the time.

Pyra reached out, grabbing his arm. Ryu instinctively tensed, and for a terrifying moment, he thought the friction of her grip against his bicep might cause her hand to combust. He forced his muscles to go limp, a technique he called 'Wet Noodle Style', developed specifically for not breaking things he didn't want to break.

"You’re coming with me," Pyra said, her voice softening slightly. "This zone is crawling with Void-touched remnants. If a Level 1 survivor managed to live through whatever just happened, it’s a miracle. I’m escorting you to the Sector 4 Safe Zone for debriefing and medical evaluation."

"Is there food?" Ryu asked. The question was so sudden and so earnest that Pyra actually paused.

"What?"

"Food. Real food. Not blue translucent berries or roasted pig tail," Ryu said, his stomach letting out a growl that sounded like a tectonic plate shifting. "I haven't had a carb in ten thousand, I mean, in a long time."

Pyra stared at him, bewildered by his lack of fear. She was an S-Rank Hunter. People usually fainted or started stuttering in her presence. This guy was looking at her like she was a glorified Uber driver.

"The Association provides rations," she said tentatively. "Actually, if we get back before the mess hall closes, they’re serving spiced chicken curry and rice today."

Ryu’s eyes lit up with a glow that rivaled Pyra’s fire aura. "Lead the way, fire lady. I will follow you to the ends of the earth for spiced chicken."

Pyra shook her head, muttering something about 'post-traumatic shock manifesting as hunger,' and began to lead him away from the crater. The scavengers were left behind, still staring at the trench, probably wondering if they should start a religion or just find a new place to scavenge.

As they walked through the skeletal remains of the city, Ryu found himself walking on his tiptoes. Every step felt like he was walking on a frozen lake that was only an inch thick. He had to calculate the exact Newton-force of every stride to ensure he didn't accidentally launch himself into the stratosphere or stomp a hole into the sewer system.

"You're very... bouncy," Pyra noted, glancing at his strange gait.

"I have a lot of energy," Ryu lied, sweating from the mental effort of not being a walking natural disaster.

They turned a corner into a wider boulevard that had been cleared of most debris. In the distance, a massive, fortified wall rose up, bristling with mana-cannons and guards in tactical gear. But their path was blocked.

A group of hunters in silver-and-blue uniforms stood by a fleet of armored SUVs. In the center of the group was a man with hair as white as frost and eyes like a wolf. He was leaning against a massive claymore, picking his teeth with a combat knife.

"Solstice," the man called out, his voice a low, arrogant growl. "I heard a shockwave that sounded like a dragon’s sneeze. Found the source yet, or were you too busy playing babysitter to a stray?"

Pyra’s hand went to the hilt of her sword, her aura flaring up. "Tiberion. This is a restricted investigation site. What are you doing outside your sector?"

Tiberion Wolf straightened up, his eyes sliding past Pyra and locking onto Ryu. He sneered, a predatory glint in his gaze. "The Association doesn't like 'anomalies,' Pyra. And the sensors went haywire in this exact spot. Then I see you walking out with a Level 1 peasant who looks like he’s never seen a shower in his life."

He stepped forward, his 'Wolf Soul' aura pulsing, putting a heavy, crushing pressure on the air around them. "Move aside. I’m going to scan the newbie myself. If he’s hiding something, my blade will find it before your 'Eye of Truth' even blinks."