Chapter 6: Small World
Some minutes later, David collapsed onto a bench near the back of what technically qualified as a park, though the label felt generous.
This was the lower side, after all — a stretch of cracked pavement and dead grass, garbage drifting into the corners where the wind had pushed it, and a dark oily puddle pooling where a fountain sat long dead and dry.
He gripped the bench’s backrest like it was the only thing keeping him upright, chest heaving, sweat plastering his shirt to his back.
’I did it,’ he thought, a swell of genuine pride rising up through the exhaustion.
’Ten kilometers. Actual ten kilometers.’ He let his head fall back, grinning up at the darkening sky, feeling, for one shining moment, like maybe he wasn’t as pathetic as the last hour had suggested.
Then his phone buzzed, but before he could even reach in for his phone, the system already responded with his tracking stats.
[Tracking ongoing]
[Distance covered: 0.7 kilometers.]
David went very, very still.
"...What."
He blinked at the system window, certain — absolutely certain — there had to be some kind of error, some rounding mistake, some unit conversion the system had botched.
Ten minutes had passed. Ten whole minutes of what had felt like his lungs trying to escape through his ribs, and the grand total was zero point seven kilometers.
His hand shot into his pocket, fumbling for his cracked, Spider-Man-branded phone, thumb swiping frantically for his own tracking app — and there it was, mocking him in the exact same font.
0.7 km.
"That’s not — that can’t be right." He stared at the number like it might apologize to him. "That is not a real number. That’s a typo. That’s a system glitch. There’s no way I only—"
He slumped back against the bench, one hand dragging down over his face, and let out a long, wounded groan into his palm.
His stomach chose that exact moment to growl, loud and pointed, like it wanted to add insult to the injury already in progress.
"You serious right now? Of all the times to be famished."
He sat with that for a moment, feeling something curdle in his chest that was half embarrassment and half genuine concern, because a small, quiet part of him had actually believed — just for a second back there — that he’d done something. That the ten kilometers had meant something.
’Guess not,’ he thought bitterly. ’Guess I really am starting from negative numbers.’
"Okay...system." he said finally, mostly to keep himself from spiraling any further.
"Seeing my current situation, do you have any advice? Genuinely. Because whatever I just did clearly wasn’t a jog."
[Analysis: player’s physical condition is frail, underdeveloped, and severely lacking in baseline conditioning. Continued and consistent effort is required. There is currently no shortcut available.]
David’s eye twitched. "Wow. Thank you. Very encouraging. Really feeling the support."
[Would player prefer dishonesty over accurate assessment?]
He opened his mouth to fire something back and then just shut it again, because he didn’t actually have an answer to that one. Honestly, he wasn’t sure which he’d have picked.
He sat there instead, scowling at nothing in particular, arms crossed, trying to figure out what a person was even supposed to say to a system that had just, politely, called him useless.
"Hey — is that David?"
The voice cut through his sulking clean and sudden, and instantly, David’s instinct came in.
Davjd wasn’t much, but he’d trained himself well over the years — years of practice, honestly, an entire lifestyle built around one core principle: never, under any circumstances, let anyone see him looking like this- Sweat-soaked, gasping, smelling like a gym sock that had personally wronged someone.
And of course, of course, the one time a girl’s voice called out to him — a voice that could clearly place a name to his face — his cheap "for the ladies" perfume had already evaporated somewhere around kilometer zero point three.
He turned toward it, eyes flicking sideways across the dim park as he pondered on whether to make a run for it while he still could until finally, he saw—
Her friend’s gaze caught on him first, blond hair catching the last of the evening light, and David felt something in his chest do a small, humiliating stumble. She wore simple workout gear — a fitted top and leggings that did absolutely nothing to hide the fact that she was, in every possible sense, gorgeous. Golden hair pulled back loose, a face that looked like it belonged on a poster somewhere, the kind of presence that made a public park suddenly feel like a much smaller room.
’Holly Houston,’ his brain supplied immediately, unhelpfully, the name arriving with all the weight of someone he’d definitely noticed before but never once had the courage to talk to. One of the prettiest girls on campus — everyone knew her, or at least knew of her, in that distant, admiring way people know someone completely out of their league.
Behind her stood another girl, a brunette this time, arms crossed, gaze deliberately somewhere else entirely, like she’d rather be anywhere but standing in a garbage-strewn lower-side park at dusk.
Jenna, if David remembered right. Just as pretty in her own right, though clearly far less thrilled about this whole encounter than her friend was.
’Of all the times,’ David thought, staring down at himself — soaked shirt, hair plastered to his forehead, whatever was left of his cheap cologne having long since surrendered to sweat.
’Of all the times I could get caught looking like a drowned rat by the two prettiest girls in school, it had to be now.’ He was, without question, the exact opposite of "looking fly".
He was, in fact, the walking definition of unfly— should that ever need a dictionary entry, his photo could go right there next to it.
"David, right?"
Her voice pulled him out of his spiral, and he looked up to find she’d already crossed the distance between them, standing there with an easy, open kind of smile that made his stomach do something complicated.
"Yeah — yeah, that’s me," he said, rising off the bench a little too quickly, legs protesting the sudden movement.
’Okay. Cool. Be cool. You’ve talked to girls before. Probably. At some point.’
"Holly, right?"
"Yeah!" She looked genuinely pleased he’d remembered, which did absolutely nothing to help his nerves.
"I thought that was you. We’ve got, like, two classes together, I think?"
"Uh — yeah, I think so. Mathematics, maybe?"
She laughed, easy and light, glancing back toward her friend still hovering a few steps behind.
"Jenna and I were just finishing our jog — she’s kind of annoyed with me ’cause I keep stopping to say hi to people—" She rolled her eyes fondly toward Jenna, who offered nothing but a flat, unimpressed look in response.
"But yeah, small world."
"Small world," David echoed, nodding along like that was a normal, cool thing to say, and immediately regretting it.
"So what are you doing out here?" Holly asked, tilting her head slightly, eyes flicking briefly over his sweat-drenched shirt in a way that made him want to disappear into the bench cushions.
"Working out?"
"Something like that," he said, forcing a laugh that came out more strangled than casual.
"I mean-...Yeah. Just, uh — getting some of my work out in...you know?"
She opened her mouth to say something else, and that was exactly when the notification flickered into view, hovering just above her head, glowing faint red against the darkening park.
[Name: Holly Houston.
Role: Unawakened Human.
Temptation level: 14
Rank: Nil.]
David’s attention snapped sideways instantly, his half of the conversation momentarily forgotten as he stared at the tag floating there.
’No Rank...so that means my R-Fank is above here.’ he thought, something sharp and calculating slotting into place beneath the nervous fog of the last two minutes.
’If she’s actually F-rank below me— then Outbound Gaze would work on her.’
He glanced at her again, at the easy, friendly way she was still looking at him, completely unaware that a system window was quietly cataloging her existence in real time.
’Would that be messed up?’ he wondered, the thought arriving uninvited and staying anyway.
’Using it on her. Just to see if it actually works.’
***
Hey guys, I want to thank you for your support and due to that, I thought of a friendly challenge for both of us.
For every 200 powerstones I’ll release 10+ bonus Chapters...so, if you find it worth while, you can make your decision. Thank you.🫠
