Humans are evil.
Kyren had read that sentence in more web novels than he could count. The protagonist would always start out weak, often scorned by society, and then rise through suffering, awakening, and cleverness. Justice would be served, and evil would be punished.
But today, as his cheek slammed into the cracked concrete of the school courtyard, and his books scattered like broken wings, he didn't feel like the protagonist of anything. His ribs throbbed. His lips tasted like rust. The laughter around him was far too loud to be imagined.
"Come on, Kyren, don't you read those fantasy comics? You're supposed to awaken right now!" one of the boys sneered, nudging him in the stomach with the tip of his shoe. Not hard enough to injure—just enough to remind him that he could.
Kyren didn't respond. He stared at the ant crawling across the pavement in front of his face. Even the ant had a clearer sense of purpose than he did.
A foot crashed into his ribs. He curled, gasping.
"Still pretending to be the main character?" another voice laughed. "Wake up, loser. No one's coming to save you. Not in real life."
Their laughter was sharp and bright like shattered glass. It echoed in the empty courtyard, where most students had already gone home. The group always waited until after school. Fewer teachers. Fewer eyes. Less risk. Just enough time to remind Kyren of his place.
He used to fight back. Once. Twice. For a whole month in his second year, he trained after school in secret, running laps and doing push-ups and shouting in the mirror like the heroes he read about.
They broke his nose that month.
It hadn't healed quite right.
"Let's go," one of them muttered, growing bored. "He's not fun when he doesn't scream."
As they walked off, still laughing, Kyren slowly sat up, coughing once, tasting blood. He touched his lip—split again. His glasses were cracked on one side. Again.
The world blurred, the corners of his vision fuzzy. But not from the damage. From shame.
He stayed there, knees scraped, shirt stained, long after the sun began to dip behind the school's silhouette.
Kyren's bedroom was his sanctuary, even if the paint peeled and the air was too dry in winter. Bookshelves lined the walls—fantasy, sci-fi, manhwa volumes stacked like towers. His monitor glowed faintly as he sat cross-legged on his mattress, a cold bag of peas pressed to his cheek.
If I were the main character, I'd awaken by now.
If I were the protagonist, I'd have some hidden power. A system. A secret past. Anything.
But he didn't. He was just Kyren. Skinny. Quiet. Weak. The kind of person stories forgot.
He opened his favorite series again—The Sword of the Last Night. He'd read it three times. The protagonist started out as a slave, but he gained a sword that devoured lies. He changed everything.
Kyren didn't want a sword. He wanted meaning. He wanted his suffering to matter.
He read until his eyelids sagged. Then, like always, he closed the book, reached up, and turned off the light.
The silence felt deeper than usual tonight.
The next day was cloudy. Heavy clouds, the kind that promised storms but never quite delivered. He walked to school as usual, a hoodie pulled low over his bruised face. Nobody looked twice.
His school was normal. Too normal. The kind of place where everything seemed fine on the surface, but the halls whispered with boredom and dull cruelty.
Classes blurred past. Teachers droned on. Students laughed in their circles. Kyren kept to himself. He doodled in the margins of his notebook—monsters, towers, strange glyphs. Sometimes he imagined one of them would leap off the page and carry him away.
It wasn't until the final bell rang that something different happened.
He was packing his bag when it felt like reality hiccupped.
Not the world shaking. Not an earthquake. But something deeper. A flicker behind the surface of existence. A moment of stillness that lasted too long.
Everyone in the classroom stopped.
And then, floating in the middle of the room like a misplaced sticker, it appeared.
A creature, no bigger than a soccer ball, hovered in the air. It had soft, snow-like fur, glowing golden eyes, and tiny wings that flapped silently. It looked like it belonged in a children's book.
Some students gasped. Others laughed nervously.
"Whoa… what is that?" someone whispered.
Kyren's heart pounded. Not out of fear—but recognition. In his books, this was always how it began. The Guide. The Summoner. The System Fairy. A herald of change.
The creature blinked slowly. Then it smiled.
And it spoke, in a voice that was both music and silence.
"Initiating the Selection Event. Preparing all viable candidates for transfer. Synchronizing emotional trauma... syncing complete."
"What?" a girl at the front said, stepping back. "Is this a prank?"
"The Tower of Evil has been born again. The climb shall commence. You will all be tested."
Its voice echoed, but there were no speakers. No visible source.
"Event begins in: 3..."
Kyren felt it in his bones—like the countdown was part of him.
"2..."
Students looked at each other, confused. A boy near the back raised his hand. "Hey, what the hell is this? Who set this up?"
"1..."
A flash of light erupted from the creature's body.
When Kyren opened his eyes, the world had changed.
He stood on cold, black stone that stretched endlessly in every direction, surrounded by hundreds—no, thousands—of others. School uniforms. Suits. Hoodies. Pajamas. People from all over, disoriented and blinking, scattered across a flat, circular platform beneath a red sky that bled like an open wound.
He turned, slowly.
At the platform's center floated the creature.
Still cute. Still soft. Still smiling.
Only now, its eyes glowed with a deeper light, as if stars had been trapped inside. No one spoke. The silence was too heavy. Like a blanket made of lead.
And then someone broke it.
"The hell is this?!" a man in a business suit shouted, stepping forward. "What kind of stupid VR game prank is this?! I have a flight to catch!"
The creature tilted its head.
Kyren barely breathed.
"Stage One: Acknowledgement of Evil."
The voice was the same—but now it was louder, clearer, vibrating directly inside their heads. Some people flinched. A child began to cry. A teacher-looking woman tried to comfort her, failing.
"This is the Tower of Evil. You have been selected. Your presence is required. Escape is not permitted."
Kyren shivered. It sounded… official. Like a law being declared.
"Hey!" the man in the suit kept yelling. "I'm talking to you! What is this, some kind of government experiment?! I demand—"
"Warning: no questions permitted during system initialization."
"I said, what the—!"
The man reached forward, maybe to grab it.
He never finished the motion.
There was no light. No sound.
One moment he was there. The next, he was gone.
Not vaporized. Not burned. Just… erased. As if he'd never existed.
Where he'd stood, a black scorch mark remained on the stone.
A few people screamed.
Kyren stumbled back, heart pounding in his chest. It killed him. No second chances. No flashy explosion. Just a quiet, immediate death.
The creature's smile didn't change.
"Rule One: The Tower does not answer to you."
"Rule Two: All stages must be completed. Refusal results in elimination."
"Rule Three: Survival is not guaranteed."
Another person—this one a teenager—dropped to their knees, crying. A girl clung to her friend, shaking violently. A man in a janitor's uniform began muttering to himself. Some just stared ahead, stunned, frozen.
"Stage One requires acknowledgment."
The voice dropped lower, like the pressure of the sky itself was speaking now.
"Humans are evil. You may deny it. You may hide it. But within each of you, something cruel waits. The Tower recognizes it. And now, so must you."
The black stone beneath their feet began to glow with red, spiraling lines, forming symbols—circles within circles, fractal patterns that twisted and turned like a machine trying to wake.
"Each of you will receive a System. It reflects your self."
"Not your lies. Not your mask."
"Only truth."
Kyren couldn't breathe. He'd imagined this. Dreamed it. But now, standing here, he felt his own insignificance.
A flicker of light appeared in front of him.
A rectangle. Transparent. Flickering like static.
[SYSTEM ACTIVATION COMPLETE]
NAME: KYREN HAO
TITLE: THE ONE WHO WATCHES
LEVEL: 1
ALIGNMENT: TWISTED IDEALIST
CLASS: LOCKED
FATE PATH: UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Underneath it, in smaller text:
"Those who dream of being the main character often forget the price of the story."
Kyren stared.
Twisted idealist?
He hadn't chosen that. Was this really how it saw him?
He looked around. Everyone had their own screen. Some gasped. Some cursed. One girl fainted. A tall boy grinned when he saw his. But most looked… scared.
"This is your soul," the creature said, floating higher above them now. "Stripped bare."
"Stage One: Survive the Judgment Zone. Duration: 12 hours."
"You may form alliances. Or not."
"Only 60% of participants are expected to survive this stage."
The ground shook beneath their feet.
Red cracks appeared at the platform's edge, revealing darkness beneath. Something moved in that dark. Something that clicked and slithered and whispered.
Kyren took a step back, breath shallow.
The cute creature smiled wider.
"Begin."
Panic broke like thunder.
People ran. Screamed. Some pushed each other to the ground. Others stood paralyzed. The red cracks widened, releasing heat, stench, and the faint sound of laughter—not human. Not sane.
A man shoved Kyren aside as he sprinted toward the center.
They're all going to lose their minds, Kyren thought, struggling to stay on his feet as the ground trembled again. No one knows what they're doing.
Except… maybe he did.
Not how to survive, not really. But this scenario? He'd read it before. Not the exact details, but the bones. The tests. The panic. The systems.
Think like a reader, he told himself. Like someone who's seen the tropes. If this is real, then stories matter now.
A group of teenagers nearby had formed a circle, backs to each other, trying to assess the danger.
That was smart.
Others had started fighting already—over what, Kyren couldn't tell.
Then the first monster appeared.
It was small. Almost insect-like. But it moved wrong—like a puppet whose strings had been half cut. Its eyes burned red, and its limbs clicked together like knives.
It pounced on a man trying to run solo. Blood sprayed.
Kyren turned away. Gagged.
This isn't a game. This isn't fiction.
His legs trembled.
A girl near him had frozen completely. Couldn't move. Couldn't speak.
The monster turned toward her.
Kyren didn't think. He just moved.
He snatched up a broken piece of stone and hurled it. It didn't do much, but it distracted the creature just long enough for another person—an older woman with a metal rod—to rush in and smash it from the side.
The monster screeched. More were coming.
The woman looked at him.
"You got a team?" she asked, breathing hard.
Kyren shook his head.
"Stick close. You've got instincts. That's rare."
He nodded, chest heaving.
Maybe he wasn't a protagonist.
Maybe he'd never be the hero.
But right now, he was alive.
And that was a start.