Overflow Novice: 10,000 Years in Tutorial Hell

Chapter 6: The First Real Meal

pyra's mouth hung open just wide enough for a fly to make a permanent home in it. Her "Eye of Truth" was screaming. It wasn’t a metaphorical scream; it was a literal, high-pitched ringing in her ears that usually preceded a System crash. Above Ryu’s head, the Level 1 icon was doing a frantic strobe light impression, vibrating so fast it looked like it was trying to escape into another dimension.

Ryu, meanwhile, was dusting off his hands. He looked less like a man who had just dismantled an S-Ranker’s pride and more like a guy who had just finished a particularly tedious grocery run.

"The curry?" Ryu prompted again, his voice echoing in the dead-silent arena. "You said there was chicken curry. Or Padang rice. I’m not picky, but I haven't had a spice that wasn't 'pixelated salt' in ten millennia."

Pyra finally blinked, her fire-red hair flickering as her mana stabilized. She looked at the crater where Tiberion Wolf, the 'Silver Fang' of the Hunter Association—was currently embedded like a piece of modern art. Tiberion’s claymore was snapped in half, and he was making a sound like a deflating accordion.

"You... you didn't use mana," Pyra whispered, her voice trembling. "I was watching. I was feeling for it. There was no surge. No activation. You just... you flicked your finger."

"Air compression," Ryu said, shrugging. "It’s basic physics. If you move your finger at Mach 15 in a controlled arc, the air doesn't have time to move out of the way. It becomes a solid projectile. They taught us that in the Tutorial... well, they didn't, but I had a lot of free time between the 40,000th and 50,000th year. You’d be surprised what you can do when the only other thing to do is watch grass grow at 144p resolution."

Pyra stared at him. She didn't understand half of what he just said, but the sheer casualness of it was more terrifying than a Dragon Raid. She realized then that the cameras were still rolling. The media drones were hovering like vultures, their lenses zooming in on the 'Level 1' glitch.

"We need to go," Pyra said, grabbing Ryu’s sleeve. Her hand sparked with heat, a reflex of her nervousness, but Ryu didn't even flinch. To him, her S-Rank flames felt like a lukewarm hand-warmer. "If the Association Auditors get here and see what you did to the testing grounds, they won't just give you an ID. They’ll put you in a vacuum-sealed box for 'research'."

"As long as the box has a buffet, I’m game," Ryu joked, though his eyes were sharp. He could see a squad of Enforcers, led by a man with a silver hawk emblem, likely Ravencrest Drake’s personal guard, moving toward the arena entrance.

Without waiting for her to lead, Ryu moved. To the onlookers, it looked like a blur. To Pyra, it felt like the world suddenly shifted ten feet to the left. Before she could gasp, they were behind the stadium’s service entrance, far from the prying eyes of the drones.

"Follow me," Pyra hissed, her heart still hammering. "I know a place. It’s... high-security. Private. And yes, they have the best food in the Seoul Reconstruction Zone."

Ten minutes later, Ryu found himself sitting in a booth made of genuine, non-synthetic leather. The restaurant was called The Celestial Hearth, a place where a single appetizer cost more than a mid-tier Hunter made in a year. Pyra sat across from him, her posture rigid, her eyes scanning the room. She had pulled a hood over her distinct red hair, trying to maintain some semblance of anonymity.

Ryu, however, was staring at the menu with the intensity of a man deciphering an ancient prophecy.

"Is this... real beef?" Ryu asked, his voice hushed with reverence.

"A-Rank dungeon cow," Pyra replied, watching him warily. "Succulent, mana-infused. Ryu, we need to talk about what happened back there. Tiberion is an S-Ranker. His durability stat is over 8,000. You broke his ribs with a flick."

"I told you, I held back," Ryu muttered, not looking up. "If I’d actually hit him, you’d be cleaning 'Silver Fang' off the moon right now. Now, do they have the spicy rendang? And the fried chicken? Actually, just bring me one of everything in the 'Specialties' section."

"Ryu, that’s enough food for a platoon!"

"I have 10,000 years of metabolic debt, Pyra. Don't judge me."

When the food arrived, the comedy of the situation reached its peak. Ryu didn't eat; he performed a high-speed logistical operation. His chopsticks moved with the precision of a surgical robot. A plate of spicy beef vanished in three seconds. A bowl of aromatic rice followed. He wasn't even chewing traditionally; he was processing the flavors with a look of pure, unadulterated ecstasy on his face.

"Oh god," Ryu moaned, a tear actually trickling down his cheek as he bit into a piece of braised chicken. "It’s not crunchy-textured air. It’s actually moist. There’s... there’s fat. There’s soul in this chicken."

Pyra watched him, her initial fear slowly melting into a strange, twisted form of pity. She saw the way his hands shook slightly when he tasted the spices. For all his terrifying power, he looked like a child who had been lost in the dark for a lifetime and had just seen the sun.

"How long were you really in there?" she asked softly, her own steak sitting untouched.

Ryu paused, a drumstick halfway to his mouth. The humor drained from his face for a split second, replaced by a gaze so old it made Pyra feel like a grain of sand. "The system says I was in the Tutorial for 24 hours. My brain says it was 100,000 years. Give or take a century. Time doesn't work the same when the clock is broken."

"I... I can't imagine," Pyra said. She looked down at her wine. "People think being an S-Ranker is a dream. They see the fame, the money, the fire. But it’s lonely. You’re always looking at people from a distance because if you get too close, you might accidentally burn them. The world is made of glass when you're this strong."

Ryu set the bone down. He looked at her, truly looked at her, seeing the burnout behind her bright eyes. "Glass? No. When you're as strong as I am, the world is made of wet tissue paper. You spend every second of every day making sure you don't breathe too hard or step too heavy. You’re not a hero, Pyra. You’re just a giant trying to live in a dollhouse."

Pyra felt a strange jolt in her chest. For three years, she had been the 'Flame Empress,' an icon to be feared or worshipped. No one had ever spoken to her like this, as an equal. As someone who understood the burden of being an anomaly.

"Maybe," she whispered, leaning in, "the dollhouse isn't so bad if there's someone else who..."

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

The romantic tension didn't just break; it shattered. Every smartphone in the restaurant erupted with a synchronized, soul-piercing wail. The emergency broadcast signal.

Outside, the sky, which had been a calm twilight, suddenly bruised into a sickly, pulsating violet. A massive geometric rift tore open directly above the city’s central plaza, less than two blocks away. The air pressure dropped so sharply that the restaurant’s windows cracked.

Pyra was on her feet in an instant, her casual clothes igniting as her combat suit manifested from her inventory. "That frequency... that’s not a standard portal."

Ryu didn't move. He was staring at his half-eaten plate of Padang rice, his expression one of immense, simmering disappointment.

"Warning: Grade-S Dungeon Break Detected," a mechanical voice boomed from the street speakers. "All citizens evacuate to Sub-Level 4. All available Hunters, report to Sector 7. This is not a drill."

A roar shook the very foundation of the building, a sound of grinding stone and ancient hunger.

"Ryu, we have to go!" Pyra shouted, her hands already wreathed in white-hot flames. "That's a World-Eater class event! If we don't stop it, the entire district will be leveled in minutes!"

Ryu slowly stood up. He reached out, took one last piece of chicken from the serving platter, and popped it into his mouth. He chewed slowly, swallowed, and then looked at the flickering violet rift in the sky.

"They interrupted my meal," Ryu said, his voice dropping an octave. The Level 1 icon above his head stopped flickering and turned a solid, ominous black. "I waited ten thousand years for that rice. And they interrupted it."

He stepped out of the booth, the floorboards groaning under a weight that had nothing to do with gravity.

"Pyra," Ryu said, crackling his neck. "Go do your 'Flame Empress' thing. I’m going to go see who’s responsible for the cold chicken. And then I’m going to make sure they regret being born into this simulation."

Before Pyra could argue, the front wall of the restaurant exploded inward as a three-story-tall, obsidian-scaled claw slammed into the pavement outside. The S-Rank Dungeon Break hadn't just begun; it was already on their doorstep.