The SSS Talent That Wasn't Supposed to Exist

THE FIRST STORY TELLER

The liquid-cooled archive room fell completely silent, leaving only the rushing wind from the server cooling fans chilling the concrete walls. Outside, heavy rain slammed against the Aegis underground facility, but none of the three shifted their focus from Arka’s hovering, dimly lit system screen.

The porcelain-masked man pulled his hand back from thin air, letting Arka’s interface slowly fade. He reached back into his black cloak, halting the subtle motion of mana spores in the room.

"Who are you people, really?" Elena pressed, taking half a step forward. The protective magic in her palm radiated a strong golden glow, attempting to pierce the invisible veil surrounding the intruder. "This attack... this forced system hacking... it's no ordinary Hunter operation. Are you dimensional rift terrorists?"

The masked man let out a low chuckle, his raspy voice sounding like old sheets of paper scraping together. "Terrorists? A narrow label from the perspective of a shallow system."

He flicked his cloak sleeve. A thick physical document bound in aged animal hide landed on the metal console table. The book looked remarkably fragile, its corners blackened by age, releasing a sharp smell of decayed paper amidst the sterile ozone air.

"We are The Archive," the man said flatly. "Keepers of records behind the narrative gaps that the current world order seeks to erase."

Arka stepped toward the console. His hand hovered over the leather binding, sensing a strange ancient cold radiating from the cover—a presence of ancient mana he had never encountered in any lecture literature.

"A physical book?" Arka raised an eyebrow, his glasses reflecting the faint writing on the front cover. "In an era of digital soul registration... you keep records on decayed paper?"

"The system can hack, alter, and delete digital files at will," The Archive member replied calmly. "But the system cannot alter what has been written in ink and blood upon physical reality without permission from the story's owner."

The man opened the leather volume using his gloved fingertips. Weathered pages filled with old typewriter text and dense black ink handwriting were exposed.

On the very first page, a faded profile file was clearly displayed. In the upper right corner, the document's issuance date was stamped: April 14, 1909.

117 years ago.

Arka looked down, his pupils expanding as he read line after line of the archaic text.

[Subject Profile: UNKNOWN] [Registered Talent: Storyteller] [Classification: Out-of-Bounds / System Anomaly]

Elena peeked over Arka's shoulder, then gasped softly. "1909? Impossible... The Awakening System and dimensional rifts only reached Earth fifty years ago! How could there be a Talent record from the early 20th century?!"

"Because the order you call the 'System' was not created fifty years ago," the masked man interrupted coldly. "It was merely reconnected to your civilization fifty years ago. And this..." He pointed to the final line on the ancient record. "...is the record of your predecessor, Arka."

Arka read the final paragraph written in dull red ink at the bottom of the page. His hands clenched into fists at his sides as his eyes traced the written words:

When the next Storyteller emerges and begins to re-spell his narrative, the foundations of this system will begin to collapse from within.

Silence enveloped the three of them for several long seconds. The text was not merely a record of fate; it was a technical prophecy—a logical warning regarding the data corruption phenomenon that had just occurred on Arka's system interface at the hall and the Aegis isolation chamber.

"This first Storyteller..." Arka's voice was remarkably calm, yet a subtle vibration resonated in its depths. "Who was he? What actually happened to him after he wrote this record?"

The man from The Archive crossed his arms inside his cloak, shaking his head slowly. "We do not know."

"You don't know?" Elena interjected suspiciously. "You kept his document for a century, yet you don't know where its owner went?"

"He vanished from all records of reality," the masked man answered without hesitation. "As if his existence was forcibly struck from world history. No grave, no descendants, no memories left among the people of his era. Only this physical document was salvaged by our organization's founder before total erasure occurred."

Arka stared at the faded, blurry photo on the profile sheet—a shadow of a faceless human figure obscured by paper damage pixels.

"If you don't know what happened to him..." Arka looked up, his eyes locking onto the two black sockets of the intruder's porcelain mask. "...why are you so sure that I am the 'next Storyteller' you've been waiting for 117 years?"

The masked man stepped back half a pace, retrieving the old leather volume from the console table. He closed the book with a soft tap that echoed through the underground room.

"We know," The Archive member answered, his voice suddenly shifting into a heavy tone, emanating an odd vibration that shook the concrete floor beneath their feet. "...because we know one thing that is not written in your university textbooks."

The man tilted his head, gazing at Arka with a look that seemed to cross a span of hundreds of years.

"The person from 1909... was not the first human to receive that Talent."

Arka froze completely. Behind his glasses, his eyes widened as a wild correlation exploded inside his mind.

Not the first.

That meant the existence of the Storyteller was not merely a random anomaly in human history... but a recurring entity that was continuously summoned and erased by the system in an endless cycle of civilizations.