The question hung in the air, heavy and sharp as a guillotine's blade. "What... what are you?"
Every eye in the chamber was locked onto Kael. They weren't just looking at him; they were trying to dissect him, to peel back the layers of his mundane orphan exterior and find the cosmic anomaly hidden beneath. The silence was a physical weight, pressing down, charged with the ozone of a violated reality.
Kael's mind was a maelstrom. One moment he was a failure, the next he was seeing the source code of the universe. The blue-green text still flickered at the edges of his vision, a ghost of the power he had just touched. He had no answer for Magnus, because he barely had an answer for himself.
He opened his mouth, a denial or a stammer of confusion ready on his lips. But he never got to speak.
A guttural, pain-filled roar ripped through the silence.
The Crimson-Clawed Ravager was pushing itself up. Its head was gashed, crimson ichor weeping from the cracks in its chitin, but its six eyes, now burning with pure, unadulterated hatred, were all fixed on a single target.
It wasn't looking at the girl it had failed to kill. It wasn't looking at the A-Rank noble who feebly brandished a sword of light. It was looking at Kael.
Somehow, on a primal, instinctual level, the beast knew. It knew who had interfered. It knew who had humiliated it. The monster's simple, violent logic had identified Kael as the true threat.
"It's enraged!" a guard yelled, raising a battered shield. "Its aura... it feels even stronger than before!"
Valerius, seeing the monster ignore him completely, felt a fresh wave of humiliation that quickly curdled into rage. "Insolent beast! I am your opponent!" He took a step forward, his [Sunfire Blade] flaring brightly, but his posture was stiff with a fear he was trying desperately to conceal.
The Ravager paid him no mind. It let out another shriek, a promise of evisceration, and began to charge, its heavy footfalls shaking the floor. Its target was Kael. Only Kael.
Panic, which had been momentarily frozen by awe, returned with a vengeance. The crowd scrambled back, a wave of bodies moving away from Kael as if he were the epicenter of an earthquake.
But Kael didn't move. He stood his ground, his heart hammering against his ribs not just with fear, but with a strange, exhilarating clarity. The code was back, flooding his vision, clearer this time, more stable. He saw the monster's intent, the trajectory of its charge, the raw damage values of its claws.
He saw its status: [Frenzy], [Rage], [Pain].
He realized he wasn't just a reader anymore. He was a writer. An editor. The world was his console, and this rampaging monster was just a faulty script.
What happens... a calm, curious part of his mind wondered, ...if I change something more fundamental?
He ignored the status effects. He ignored the health points and the damage values. His will, now sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, dove deeper into the monster's file, past the surface attributes to the core definitions. He found the line that served as the very foundation of its being.
CLASS: Monster, C-Rank
A slow, dangerous smile touched Kael's lips. It was a foreign expression on his face, one of absolute, unassailable confidence. The onlookers saw it and felt a chill deeper than the monster's killing intent could ever produce.
With a focused thought, he selected the entire line of code.
And rewrote it.
CLASS: Domesticated Pet, F-Rank
He didn't stop there. He scrolled down, finding the monster's base behavioral matrix.
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Evil
LOYALTY: None
PRIMARY DIRECTIVE: Kill, Maim, Destroy
Kael's mental fingers flew across a keyboard that didn't exist.
ALIGNMENT: True Neutral
LOYALTY: [Kael Virein]
PRIMARY DIRECTIVE: Seek Affection, Be a Good Boy
He hit the metaphorical 'Enter' key.
On the physical plane, the effect was so sudden and so utterly absurd that it broke the minds of everyone watching.
The Crimson-Clawed Ravager was thundering forward, a two-ton engine of pure slaughter, its claws raised to tear Kael limb from limb. One moment, it was the apocalypse in motion.
The next, it stopped dead.
Its massive form skidded to a halt just inches from Kael, sending dust and marble chips flying. The murderous red glow in its six eyes vanished, replaced by a look of profound and utter confusion. It looked at its own giant, scythe-like claws as if seeing them for the first time. It looked at Kael, not with hatred, but with a dawning, questioning subservience.
Then, the C-Rank monster, the terror of the dungeon depths, let out a sound that would be etched into the memory of everyone present for the rest of their lives.
It was a soft, plaintive whimper.
The Ravager lowered its head, tucked its lethal claws meekly to its sides, and tentatively nudged its giant, armored snout against Kael's leg. It then proceeded to rub against him like a housecat seeking a scratch behind the ears, its chitinous tail giving a hopeful little wag.
The Chamber of Awakening was plunged into a silence so absolute it felt like the end of the world.
Jaws were not just dropped; they were unhinged. Eyes were not just wide; they were bulging in sheer, unadulterated disbelief.
Valerius Thorne's [Sunfire Blade] fizzled out of existence, not from a conscious command, but from sheer neurological shutdown. His mind, which had just begun to process the idea of Kael using some forbidden deflection artifact, simply crashed. It was like watching a dragon try to solve a complex mathematical equation and getting it wrong. The sight of the terrifying beast nuzzling the Skill-less orphan was a paradox that his entire worldview could not contain.
"It... it... whimpered..." the girl with the ribbons, Elina, whispered. Tears of terror were replaced by tears of confusion.
Assessor Magnus was trembling from head to toe. His face was the color of old parchment. He was a scholar of the System, a man who had dedicated his life to its rules, its ranks, its divine logic. What he had just witnessed was not a part of that logic. It was heresy against the laws of reality itself. A C-Rank monster did not just become a pet. It was impossible. It was blasphemy.
Finally, Kael moved. He tentatively reached out and patted the Ravager's snout. The beast purred, a sound like grinding rocks that was somehow endearing.
"There, there," Kael said, his voice shockingly calm. "It's alright. You were just confused."
He looked up, his gaze sweeping over the sea of shell-shocked faces, and finally landed on Magnus. He offered a small, placating shrug. "I don't know," he answered the man's earlier question. "It seems he just... likes me?"
That simple, ridiculously understated explanation was the final blow. It was so inadequate, so absurd, that it shattered the tension and replaced it with a buzzing wave of pure bewilderment.
"Impossible!" Valerius finally roared, his face purple with rage and humiliation. "You cheated! That's dark magic! A forbidden taming scroll! I demand you be arrested and interrogated!"
Before anyone could react to the accusation, the main doors to the chamber swung open with authority. Two guards in immaculate baronial plate armor strode in, their expressions grim. They paid no heed to the pet monster or the stunned crowd. Their eyes were fixed only on Kael.
"Kael Virein," the lead guard announced, his voice a baritone that tolerated no argument. "By order of Baron Thorne himself, you are to accompany us to the citadel." He paused, his gaze flicking to the Ravager now sitting placidly at Kael's feet. "And bring... your pet."
The summons was not an invitation. It was a command.
Kael looked from the guards to the furious face of Valerius, the baron's son, then to the terrified but awestruck eyes of Magnus. He was no longer Kael the Skill-less, the zero, the forgotten orphan. In the span of five minutes, he had become Kael the Anomaly. A problem to be solved, a power to be understood, and a threat to be controlled.
His life of obscurity was officially over. As he gave the Ravager's head one last pat and prepared to follow the guards, he felt a strange sense of calm settle over him.
He might be walking into the lion's den. But he was the one who could rewrite the definition of "lion."