The SSS Talent That Wasn't Supposed to Exist

WHY F-CLASS?

The dense golden glow from the giant system window reflected in Arka's eyes, leaving a string of slowly pulsing letters in the empty air:

(Would you like to know why you were given an F?)

Arka’s heart hammered in his chest. That question was not merely an interface puzzle; it was the master key hidden by the world’s system order all this time. Beneath the screen's hovering cursor, two menu choices rested with a faint glow: [YES] and [NO].

Without a single moment of hesitation, Arka raised his fingers, still trembling from the lingering mana waves, and aimed them toward the [YES] button.

However, right before the tip of his finger touched the screen...

BZZZZT!

A high-frequency electrical burst shook the air. The golden-framed giant screen suddenly flickered wildly, spraying blood-red static sparks. All the corruption codes and ancient text were sucked into a single point, then shattered into digital ash.

Arka’s private interface blinked once more before reverting to its rigid, boring standard display:

[Name: Arka Pratama] [Talent: Storyteller (F-Class)] [Mana Core: Unranked]

The secret message vanished without a trace. The golden glow extinguished completely, leaving an eerie silence in the cold underground archive room.

Arka stood stunned, slowly pulling back his hand. His brow furrowed deeply. The system had just opened the door to the truth, then forcibly slammed it shut—as if an external boundary or high-level safety firewall had prevented him from accessing that information before his time came.

"Arka?"

Elena’s voice broke the silence. The silver-haired girl knelt beside him, her breathing still ragged. Her golden pupils reflected Arka’s bewildered expression. Elena had caught a glimpse of the extraordinary golden light filling the room moments before, but the next second, it had all vanished into thin air.

"What... what light was that?" Elena asked, her voice laden with deep worry and curiosity. "Your system just now... your face is so pale. What actually just happened?"

Arka stared at Elena for a moment. He clenched his palm, feeling the lingering warmth of ancient mana still flowing faintly through his bloodstream. He knew Elena was reliable, and the girl had already seen too much. But the secrets of the Storyteller and the origin of this system were too massive to share carelessly—especially while they were still inside an enemy base facility.

Arka slowly stood up, brushing off his slightly rumpled clothes. He shook his head softly.

"It's nothing," Arka answered in a controlled, flat tone. "Just a regular system glitch. An error left over from the Aegis scanner earlier."

Elena narrowed her eyes, staring sharply at Arka. As a Truth Seeker Talent holder, her instincts screamed that Arka was hiding something massive. Yet Elena also saw the armor-plated calmness behind the youth's eyes—a defense wall that could not be breached simply through coercion.

Before Elena could press further, the sound of heavy combat boots thundering down the underground corridor echoed out.

CRACK! CLOMP!

"Check every corner of the sector! Make sure no intruder gaps are left!" shouted the stern voice of an Aegis officer from a distance, followed by the sweep of tactical flashlights cutting across the corridor walls.

The Aegis security forces were finally waking up from the paralysis effect caused by The Archive intruder earlier. Their time had run out.

"The Aegis guards are awake," Arka said quickly. "We have to get out of here right now, through the exhaust ventilation shaft at the end of the corridor."

Elena let out a soft huff, shifting her gaze even though her curiosity was still burning. "Let's go. If we get caught here, things are going to get complicated."

The two moved fast, slipping into the shadows of the side corridor before the Aegis soldiers' flashlight beams reached the main server area.

Minutes later, after the area was completely abandoned and grew quiet once more, the atmosphere inside the Level 0 Sealed Archive Room became deathly still.

The intruder from The Archive organization who had stood there earlier had long since evaporated without a trace. There were no footprints, no leftover mana, no signs of human presence—except for one small thing left behind on the marble floor right beneath the console table.

A small object shaped like an old metal coin engraved with a faded spiral pattern lay there. The coin did not emit light, but its surface vibrated softly with a frequency synchronized to the mana pulse inside Arka's body.

Amidst their escape outside the building, Arka's footsteps suddenly came to a halt.

A sudden warm sting pricking the tip of his right finger made him look back, staring at the dark hallway they had just left behind.

"Arka? Why did you stop?" Elena whispered warningly, pulling the sleeve of Arka's jacket. "The Aegis guards are getting closer!"

Arka didn't listen. There was an invisible magnetic pull, drawing his consciousness back into the archive room. Without realizing it, Arka broke away from Elena's grip and stepped backward slowly, as if pulled by an unseen thread of fate.

He slipped back alone into the dim corners of the server room. His eyes instantly locked onto the small object lying on the marble floor: a spiral-engraved metal coin.

Without a second thought, Arka crouched down and reached out his index finger, directly touching the surface of the metal coin.

THUMP.

The world around Arka suddenly froze. The sound of Aegis guards' footsteps outside, the pouring rain, even the sound of Elena's breathing calling his name from afar—everything vanished instantly, swallowed by total silence.

Before Arka's eyes, the empty air fractured and emitted a blinding golden glow. His personal system interface window forced its way out, displaying two bold lines of text written in digital blood ink:

[Story Fragment Detected.] [Would you like to read the previous Storyteller's final memory?]