The Manaless King Of Sigma

Chapter 9: The Price of an Unanswered Signal

The first thing Mateo noticed when he returned to the shelter was the smell.

Sweat, dust, disinfectant, and the sharp scent of food being cooked over a portable gas stove filled the underground parking structure. People moved between parked cars carrying boxes, bottles, blankets, and makeshift weapons. Some looked exhausted. Others spoke in low voices, trying to convince themselves that the strange blue sky outside was only a temporary disaster.

None of them knew how much the world had already changed.

Mateo paused at the entrance.

In his previous life, this shelter had been abandoned within three days. A group of armed survivors had taken control of the supplies, forcing everyone else to leave. Many of those who went outside never returned.

He had remembered the event as inevitable.

Now he understood that it had only been one possible outcome.

“Mateo!”

Gabriel hurried toward him, carrying a clipboard almost as large as his chest. His expression changed when he saw the dust covering Mateo's clothes and the blood on his sleeve.

“Are you hurt?”

“Nothing serious.”

“You always say that when something is wrong.”

“Where did you learn to question everything I say?”

“From you.”

Sofía appeared behind him, holding a small notebook. She looked from Mateo to Lucía, then toward the road outside.

“Did you find the source of the disturbance?”

“Not exactly,” Lucía answered. “But we found something that might explain it.”

That caught Sofía's attention.

“What kind of something?”

“An underground structure with a strange energy pattern. The system couldn't classify it properly, and it reacted when Mateo approached.”

Sofía looked at her uncle.

“You didn't touch it, did you?”

“No.”

Lucía raised an eyebrow.

“He came close enough to regret it.”

Mateo sighed. “I'm beginning to think both of you enjoy making me sound reckless.”

“We don't have to make you sound anything,” Lucía replied. “We only have to describe what happened.”

Gabriel almost smiled, but his attention returned to the blood on Mateo's sleeve.

“Sit down. Sofía and I have been organizing the supplies, and there's a first-aid station near the eastern pillar.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Then you can take care of yourself while sitting down.”

Mateo stared at his nephew.

Gabriel stared back.

For the first time that morning, Mateo recognized something encouraging in the boy's stubbornness. Gabriel was still impulsive, still too eager to prove himself, but he was beginning to understand that helping did not always mean charging into danger.

“All right,” Mateo said. “Show me what you've organized.”

Gabriel's expression brightened.

He led Mateo toward a section of the parking structure where supplies had been arranged on several folding tables. Water bottles occupied one table, canned food another. Medical supplies, batteries, flashlights, and tools had been separated into labeled containers.

A handwritten inventory hung from the nearest pillar.

Mateo examined it carefully.

“You counted everything?”

“Twice,” Sofía answered. “Gabriel counted the supplies, and I checked his figures.”

“I made only two mistakes,” Gabriel protested.

“Three,” Sofía corrected.

“One was a spelling mistake.”

“It was still a mistake.”

Mateo laughed quietly.

The sound surprised him. He had not laughed like that in years—not in the life he remembered, where every conversation had eventually become an argument about food, safety, or the next place to hide.

He forced himself to focus on the inventory.

“How long will the supplies last?”

“Based on the people currently here, about four days if we ration carefully,” Sofía said. “Less if more survivors arrive.”

“Can we extend that?”

“Possibly. There are vending machines near the sports center and a small supermarket two streets away. But going there would be dangerous.”

“Then we don't go until we have a plan.”

Gabriel shifted impatiently.

“We could go with a bigger team. If we clear the street, we could bring back more food.”

“That's possible,” Mateo said. “But we need to know what's waiting for us first.”

“We can't stay here forever.”

“No. We can't.”

Mateo looked at his nephew.

“You're right about that. But surviving isn't about taking the biggest risk available. It's about making sure the risks we take are worth it.”

Gabriel seemed unconvinced, but he nodded.

Mateo placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Keep organizing the supplies. If more people arrive, record what we have and what we give out. Don't let anyone take control of the inventory without a clear reason. And if something happens, you and Sofía leave together.”

Gabriel's expression hardened.

“You're doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Making plans for us as if we're only here to be protected.”

Mateo fell silent.

He had expected the objection eventually, but hearing it still hurt.

“I don't want either of you to get hurt,” he said.

“We don't want you to get hurt either,” Sofía replied. “But that doesn't mean we should spend the whole day sitting here while you do everything.”

Gabriel nodded firmly.

“We can help. Just tell us what we can do.”

Mateo looked between them.

In his previous life, he had lost both of them because he had been too weak to protect them. After returning, he had promised himself he would never let history repeat itself.

Somewhere along the way, he had started treating their independence as another threat to their survival.

He took a slow breath.

“All right. You want more responsibility? Then I'll give you some. But you follow the safety rules, and neither of you goes outside without authorization.”

Gabriel opened his mouth.

“That's not—”

“It's a starting point.”

Sofía considered the arrangement before nodding.

“We can work with that.”

It was not the freedom they wanted, but it was a beginning.

And Mateo knew beginnings mattered.

An hour later, Lucía had established a temporary research station near the shelter's eastern wall.

She had borrowed a folding table, two power banks, a laptop, and several pieces of equipment from survivors who had worked in engineering and telecommunications. The laptop's connection to the outside network was unreliable, but it could still process the readings she had collected near the transit station.

Mateo approached as she enlarged a graph on the screen.

“What have you found?”

“Three repeating energy patterns,” she answered. “The first came from the underground structure. The second came from the creatures. The third appeared when your anomalous trait reacted to them.”

“Do they match?”

“Not exactly. But they're related.”

She pointed at the graph.

“Look at these peaks. The creatures produce a repeating pulse. The structure produces a similar pulse, but its intervals are longer. Your readings fall somewhere between them.”

Mateo studied the lines.

“So I'm acting like a bridge?”

“That's one possibility. Another is that your condition responds to the same source that affects the creatures. We need more data before we can distinguish between those explanations.”

“Could the creatures be coming from the structure?”

“Possibly. But the energy readings alone don't prove that. They might have emerged from the drainage system for another reason.”

Lucía opened a second file.

“This is the part I find more troubling.”

The graph showed a brief sequence of irregular spikes followed by a flat line.

“What happened here?”

“The system interference. When we entered the maintenance level, my equipment recorded a pattern that shouldn't exist according to the measurements we currently understand.”

“Could it be a fault in your equipment?”

“I considered that. I ran the same test with two different sensors. Both produced similar results.”

She leaned back.

“The system is supposed to classify threats, monitor mana, and assign missions. Yet it couldn't properly identify that structure. If its information is incomplete, then the recommendations it gives us might also be incomplete.”

Mateo remembered the mission's initial threat rating.

Low.

That single word had encouraged inexperienced survivors to believe they could handle the creatures without serious preparation.

Several people might have died if he had trusted the rating blindly.

“The system isn't necessarily lying,” he said. “It may simply not understand everything that's happening.”

“That's worse than I expected.”

“Why?”

“Because people will trust it anyway.”

She was right.

The blue windows had appeared before every awakened human, offering information in a form that looked authoritative. People would naturally assume the system knew what it was doing.

But if the system had blind spots, blind obedience could be deadly.

Mateo pulled out a chair.

“What can we do with the information we have?”

“First, we establish a baseline. We record the energy patterns of the creatures, the underground structure, and your anomalous trait. Then we compare them whenever something changes.”

“And after that?”

“We investigate the source.”

Mateo glanced toward the entrance.

“The mission clock gives us less than two hours now.”

“Then we shouldn't waste the time we have by rushing back underground without a plan.”

He could not argue with that.

A movement beside the table caught his attention. Sofía had approached quietly, carrying her notebook.

“I heard you talking about the system,” she said. “Can I show you something?”

Lucía gestured for her to come closer.

Sofía opened her notebook to a page filled with handwritten observations.

“I recorded the system announcements since yesterday. Most of them appeared during the major changes, but I noticed something strange.”

She placed the notebook beside the laptop.

“The system announced that the First Awakening was complete. Then it announced the Initial Survival Phase. After that, the regional mission appeared.”

“Yes,” Mateo said. “What about it?”

“The order matters. The system gave us a phase announcement before assigning the mission. That suggests the mission is part of the survival phase, not part of the awakening itself.”

Lucía nodded slowly.

“That's a reasonable interpretation.”

Sofía pointed to another section.

“But the announcement from yesterday also mentioned an unregistered irregularity. It said the system was recalculating tutorial completion parameters. That happened before the First Awakening.”

Mateo's attention sharpened.

The memory of the strange symbol on his phone returned.

“Do you think the irregularity was connected to the structure?” he asked.

“I don't know. But if the system detected something before the Awakening began, the problem might not have started when the creatures appeared.”

Lucía looked at Mateo.

For several seconds, none of them spoke.

Sofía had identified a possibility they had overlooked. The underground structure might not be causing the entire disturbance. It might be part of a larger anomaly that had existed before the new world became visible.

“Good work,” Mateo told her.

Her face brightened slightly.

“Can I help Lucía organize the records?”

Lucía looked at the notebook, then at Sofía.

“If your uncle agrees, I could use another person who pays attention to details.”

Mateo hesitated.

The old instinct told him to refuse. Sofía was young, and the world outside had become dangerous overnight.

But she was asking to help with research, not fight monsters.

“Stay inside the shelter,” he said. “Don't handle unknown materials, don't go near the maintenance entrance, and make sure Gabriel knows where you are.”

Sofía smiled.

“Agreed.”

She returned to the inventory table to collect her notes, leaving Mateo with an unfamiliar feeling.

He had given her a responsibility instead of another warning.

It was a small change, but it was his choice.

The shelter's relative calm ended when Marcos arrived with a serious expression.

“We have a problem.”

Mateo stood immediately.

“What happened?”

“One of the creatures escaped.”

Lucía closed her laptop.

“Which one?”

“The one near the truck. It broke through the barricade while we were trying to move another vehicle into position. It headed east.”

Mateo's stomach tightened.

“Did anyone follow it?”

“No. I stopped them. We lost sight of it near the residential buildings.”

“Any injuries?”

“One volunteer has a deep cut on his arm. Nothing fatal, but we need to keep an eye on it.”

Mateo glanced toward the entrance.

The road was still unsafe. The mission remained incomplete, and the creatures had already shown they could coordinate their movements.

“Did the system update the objective?”

Marcos shook his head.

“Not that I've seen.”

Mateo's status window appeared.

A new regional notice flickered across it.

REGIONAL MISSION

SECURE THE EASTERN ACCESS ROAD

Threat containment: Incomplete

Safe passage: Not established

Regional disturbance: Unresolved

Time remaining: 1 hour, 56 minutes.

Warning: Hostile movement detected beyond the designated containment zone.

Mateo dismissed the notice.

“We need to protect the residential streets before that creature reaches more people.”

Marcos crossed his arms.

“With what? Half the people here can't fight, and the rest are exhausted. We can't keep chasing those things all over the district.”

“We shouldn't chase it. We should warn the nearby buildings, block the smaller streets, and force it away from the populated areas.”

“And if it attacks us?”

“Then we defend ourselves. But we don't send people into an unknown area without knowing what they're facing.”

Marcos looked toward the crowd.

“People are already asking whether this place is safe. If they hear that one of those things escaped, some will panic.”

“Then tell them the truth. The road isn't secure yet, and we're taking steps to protect the shelter.”

“You make it sound simple.”

“It isn't simple. But lying to them won't make it safer.”

Marcos studied him for a moment before giving a reluctant nod.

“All right. I'll organize the volunteers into small teams. One will reinforce the barricades, another will watch the side streets, and the rest will help with medical supplies.”

“Good. Nobody goes beyond the marked perimeter without reporting to you or me.”

Marcos turned to leave, then paused.

“One more thing. People are starting to ask why the system keeps assigning missions when we don't understand the rules. Some think completing them will make us stronger. Others think the system is trying to get us killed.”

Mateo considered the question.

“I don't know why the system assigns missions. I don't know who created it, or whether completing every objective is necessary for survival.”

“That's not reassuring.”

“It's honest.”

Marcos shook his head and walked away.

Mateo remained beside the entrance, thinking about the underground signal.

The mission's deadline was approaching, but the larger problem was no longer limited to one road. If the structure was connected to the creatures, returning underground might help them understand the threat. If it was not, they could waste valuable time investigating the wrong thing.

He needed a way to distinguish between the possibilities.

Lucía approached with her sensor in hand.

“I may have an answer.”

“What is it?”

“The energy pattern we recorded from the underground structure changed after we left. It didn't disappear. It became weaker, then began repeating at longer intervals.”

“Could that mean the structure is inactive?”

“Possibly. Or it could mean the source is moving farther away. We don't know.”

Mateo looked at the sensor.

“Can you tell which direction the signal is coming from?”

“Not yet. The readings are too unstable. But if we can collect another sample from the maintenance entrance, I might be able to compare it with the original recording.”

He considered the risk.

They could not send an exhausted team back into the tunnels without preparation. But perhaps they did not need to go all the way to the symbol. A short reading near the entrance might provide useful information.

“Let's return with two people who can help us carry equipment,” he said. “We'll stay near the entrance and leave immediately if the readings become unstable.”

Lucía nodded, though she still looked concerned.

“And if your trait reacts again, you stop. No exceptions.”

“Agreed.”

They began gathering their equipment.

Mateo had just secured the sensor case when a strange sensation passed through his chest.

The familiar pressure returned, faint but unmistakable.

He looked toward the eastern road.

For a fraction of a second, thin blue lines appeared across his vision, stretching from the distant buildings toward the transit station. They converged at a point beneath the city, then vanished.

Mateo gripped the edge of the table.

This time, the pain did not come.

Instead, he felt something like a distant pulse.

One.

Two.

Three.

Then silence.

A message appeared before his eyes.

ANOMALOUS TRAIT

Passive response detected.

Foreign pattern: Recognized.

Source location: Unresolved.

Synchronization stability: Low.

Caution: Repeated exposure may produce unpredictable effects.

Mateo stared at the final line.

Passive response.

He had not activated the ability. He had not looked at the symbol or entered the tunnel.

Something had reached him from a distance.

“Mateo?” Lucía asked.

He looked up.

She had noticed his expression, and her sensor was already producing a faint clicking sound.

“Did you feel that?” he asked.

“Feel what?”

He hesitated.

Then he decided to be honest about the part he could prove.

“My condition reacted again. I wasn't trying to use it.”

Lucía's face grew serious.

“Then we need to determine whether the response came from the structure, the creatures, or something else entirely.”

Mateo looked toward the exit.

The world beyond the shelter was full of unknown dangers, and the people inside were depending on them to make sensible decisions.

He could not afford to treat every mystery as a personal challenge.

But he could not ignore a signal that seemed to recognize him.

“Let's collect the readings,” he said. “Then we return here and decide what they mean.”

As they left the research station, the system announced another change.

A new line appeared at the bottom of Mateo's status window.

REGIONAL DISTURBANCE: PATTERN SHIFT DETECTED.

The message vanished before he could inspect it further.

Far beneath the city, the silver rings had begun to turn.

And for the first time since the First Awakening, the signal was moving.