I woke up earlier than I wanted to. I was in Hyun-woo’s house, lying in a broken pose on the couch. I got up, but hit my head on a barrier, which I suppose I had left to protect myself just before falling asleep. 

Dae-Hyun was lying nearby, not moving at all. What rule did I set again? 

…Hang on a fucking second, I just remembered, I got [Warden]! How could I just pass over something like that!

This certainly wasn’t the celebration party I envisioned, but I was still pretty excited about it. I looked in my book and flipped to the page for [Warden].

________________________________

[Warden]

A Tier

The user can bind up to 10 people they have touched to follow a single rule they choose.

Rule: “Do not move a muscle.”

Prisoners (5/10):

Wang Dae-Hyun [Bulletproof]

Jeong Hyun-woo [Warden]

Jeong Soo-jin

Jeong Min-seo

Jeong Ha-eun

________________________________

Ah, I had even remembered to activate the skill on the Jeong family. I was surprised I remembered to do this much. Furthermore, I was relieved that the lungs didn’t count as a “muscle”. 

Another part of me was upset that the data of [Warden] wasn’t stored, but my hopes weren’t too high to begin with. If anything, it was to be expected that it wouldn’t work.

I got up and got my bearings. I actually felt pretty well-rested, since the couch Hyun-woo had was better than my own bed. In fact, this was the best I had slept in my entire life. Isn’t that sad?

I did a head count of the apartment. Dae-Hyun was lying in the same pose that I threw him into the house in. It looked like he was still sleeping. Meanwhile, the Jeong family was sitting at the dinner table in an awkward arrangement. Did they wait like that together the whole night until I came back? I felt kinda bad for making them (justifiably) worried.

Since I had the opportunity, I looked at Dae-Hyun’s skills to see how he negated the barriers. When I pulled up a certain page, an ineffable sense of despair washed over me.

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[Who’s There?]

C Tier

By knocking twice on any surface, the user can turn it into an openable door. It will remain as a door until it is opened, walked through at least once, and then shut. Doors made cannot exceed 3ft in depth.

________________________________

No… No way… ‘Who’s there?’ as in, ‘Knock knock, who’s there?’ Are you shitting me? 

He had to knock to activate the skill? Are you telling me that that whole fight was for nothing? Goddamnit, I should’ve known! Why didn’t I pay attention? Even if you were tired, that’s no excuse, Jae-yoon! 

Haaaaaaaaggh… That whole time, all I had to do was use barriers to stop his hands… I want to go hibernate…

Getting over myself, I checked his other skills. [Reaction Time] was just about as expected, but [Dodge] grabbed my attention. 

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[Dodge]

D Tier

When the user sees an incoming attack, they can dodge it at the speed of light.

________________________________

I had a theory about this skill, too. The reason my bullets missed earlier wasn’t because of [Bulletproof]. This bastard must have dodged my bullets with this skill because he didn’t want me to know that bullets don’t work on him. Well, I knew as much from the start, but it upset me that my idea to jam the gun was actually spurred on by an illusion.

Man, this guy was basically just messing with me the whole goddamned time. Right now, I could’ve dove right back onto Hyun-woo’s couch and spent the rest of my life there.

Oh right, Hyun-woo. He was still frozen in place with his family. If I didn’t want them to starve, I’d have to change the rule. Just in case, I double checked that Dae-Hyun was out cold before changing the rule. 

I changed the rule to “Respond with truthful answers to everything I say, without hiding anything.” I planned to interrogate Hyun-woo about his skill and how it works, as well as anything else he might know.

“Uh, hi there… How’s it going?”

“It’s going awful, I’m scared for my life and my family’s. I’m also really tired.”

Oh, right. The rule. Man, the universe had a way of making me feel bad about myself every step of the way.

“Oh, er… I’m sorry about that. I don’t intend to harm you or anything, so please relax. I was wondering if you could tell me about your skill? To start with, how did you manage to activate it on the three organization heads?”

“Towards the start of the skill spawning, I had the unfortunate fate of meeting with Gyeong-jin. But, he was less careful - and less powerful - back then than he is now. He tried to knock me out so he could have my skill taken with [Transfer]…”

“Wait, wait… Why did he have to knock you out?”

“Well, [Transfer] can’t be used unless both skill users consent to the exchange. But if you’re knocked out, the skill doesn’t see you as “able to agree”, so it assumes your answer is yes. So, Gyeong-jin knocks out anyone whose skills he wants so that he can have [Transfer] used on them.”

Wow. Not only did he steal other people’s skills, but he knocked them out to abuse a loophole in the system. The gods who made the skill were actually quite considerate, but he actively pushed aside their kindness.

“I, I see… Um, you can continue with what you were saying now.”

“He went to knock me out, and I couldn’t move an inch because of his skill [Petrify], which could completely immobilize me just like you did all night. But I got lucky, because he brushed my arm without noticing, and I was able to use my skill on him because of it.”

I already knew about [Petrify] from looking online. But, since Hyun-woo knew one of Gyeong-jin’s skills, I thought he might know some of his other skills.

“Excuse me, er… Do you know any of Gyeong-jin’s other skills?”

“[Petrify], [Puppeteer], [Friend List]. Those are the only three skills of his I know. [Puppeteer] lets him control other people directly while he’s touching them. [Friend List] lets him see the status of anyone who accepts to be his friend, unless they don’t want it to be shared. My status probably showed up as “Private” last night, since I didn’t share it, which is likely the reason why he thought I was endangered. Though I’m sure he only sent the guy he did purely because of the rule.”

That much was for certain. If there’s one thing I had learned about Gyeong-jin so far, it’s that he doesn’t know the meaning of the word “selfless”. But anyways, that last tidbit was quite interesting. [Petrify] and [Puppeteer] are common knowledge, but [Friend List] was never mentioned anywhere online. And frankly, it was quite useful information to have.

“So anyways, how did you use [Warden] on the other two?”

“The Gyeong-jin organization has a peacetime treaty with the World Harmony Initiative. I don’t know the details of the treaty, but after using [Warden] on Gyeong-jin, he set up a meeting for me to meet the World Harmony Initiative leader, which let me use the skill on him. As for the Golden Spring Company, I snuck into his company as a messenger, then touched him before he realized what was going on.”

A treaty…? It was the first I’d heard of it. Man, this guy was like an information factory. I was right to interrogate him.

“I’m curious… Did Gyeong-jin have to go that far? Your rule was just ‘Don’t let anything bad happen to me’, right? Were you actively endangered by the World Harmony Initiative?”

“No, it was nothing like that. I abused the skill’s technicalities. Anyone affected by the skill will follow the rule, unbeknownst to their own will. But, if they don’t know that something would break the rule, they won’t be able to follow it. For example: If I was endangered, Gyeong-jin would be forced to send troops to help me against his will. But, if he doesn’t know that I’m in danger, he wouldn’t do anything because he doesn’t realize the rule is being violated. This works the opposite way, too. If I make it explicitly clear to Gyeong-jin that something bad may happen to me if the World Harmony Initiative is left unchecked, he would be forced to help me take care of them. It would be a violation of the rule otherwise.”

Damn, this was a jackpot! This was probably the most useful thing he could have told me. Aside from the [Who’s There?] fiasco, today has been great!

But I had one last question.

“As lucky as you were, why didn’t you use your skill to take down the three major groups?”

His face turned somber, and traced with guilt.

“I… All I ever wanted was to protect my family. I was worried they would get hurt. If my family got hurt because I was too cocky, I’d never forgive myself.”

…

It’s not like I couldn’t understand his perspective. I truly felt for him. When skills showed up, almost everyone was dealt a bad hand. Who could blame him for staying cautious?

But at the same time, there was a hint of rage in the depth of my soul. Every single day that I suffered… Everything I had taken from me… My privilege to exist was taken and boxed away on nothing more than a whim.

And this man… He could’ve stopped it. He could’ve ended my and many others suffering, with the wave of his hands. I pitied the man, but part of me just couldn’t help but hate him.

“...Well, that’s all for now. I’m… gonna go take care of what I need to take care of. But just know, you’re not going to be able to stay here anymore. If you have things you need to pack, do it now. Don’t take anything that will be obvious if it’s gone, and don’t make a mess.”

I quickly changed the rule to “Don’t communicate with anyone outside of this building.” The building was covered in barriers already, so I had no need to worry about anyone leaving or entering, so I had taken care of them calling for help.

I had secured my first goal, [Warden]. It was the perfect skill for my situation, since I could silence anyone who learns about me. Even though I’d made a lot of noise recently, I just got myself a muffler. And thanks to it, I could now work with more freedom and do as I please.

So… what shall I do next?

Skills stolen (4)

 [Radar] [Illusion Paper]

[Barrier] [Warden]