Everyone's scared

His eyes shone with a new determination as some of the fear dissipated. His fingers felt heavy as he tried to reply back, but he pushed himself, forcing his fingers to type.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"You...you're going to talk to them?" Adelia asked through her tears.

"That's the only thing I can do for now," Willow answered solemnly. "If we're going to stop this person, we need to know their motive first. After all, no one will threaten someone without any reason."

"What if they simply want to ruin us?" Adelia cried. "What if that psycho's just sick in the head?"

"No," Willow held his chin, thinking carefully. "If that was their motive, there was no reason to tell us. They could've simply told everyone and get it over with. After all, if their motive was to ruin us, catching us off guard was the best option."

"Blackmail. They want something from us," Willow continued, eyes on the phone. "And the only way we can know what it is and possibly negotiate is by communicating with them. Ignoring it won't solve it, Adelia. Closing off our eyes isn't a solution."

'Who am I isn't important. You must be wondering, how do I know your secret? After all, no one was supposed to know, right?'

"That's right!" Adelia suddenly sat up. "How does this sicko even know it? System! System, come here right now!"

She screamed 'system, system,' not caring if anyone heard them.

"Whoa, whoa, hostess! I'm coming! What happened? Why're you screaming like a banshee?" it added sheepishly, "Not that your usual voice sounds any different, but that's not the point right now. What happened?"

Adelia had no time to argue with him. She asked urgently, "System! No one was supposed to know about our transmigration, right?"

"Of course not. How would someone even know about it in the first place? Changing souls is something normal people think of as impossible, you know."

Adelia didn't know whether to feel relieved or worried by that. On one hand, she was glad that it wasn't supposed to happen, but on the other... if this person managed to defy and know the secrets of this whole transmigration system, then, wasn't their opponent too powerful?

"A person— a person knows it!" she said hurriedly. "He knows we aren't the original owners of the body!"

"What?" the system sounded genuinely surprised. "Someone knows about it? But... that's impossible."

"Maybe you made a mistake? No one is supposed to know it except you two." Even the system sounded scared as he muttered, hoping for it to not be true. "Yes, it must be a mistake."

"No!" Willow grabbed his phone and showed him the messages. "There, look at them! Can you still say it's a mistake?"

"Oh no..." the system sounded horrified as he continued, "If it's not a mistake... I'm afraid we're in trouble."

"But wait! Why would anyone even believe him?" Adelia cried. "I mean, I'd definitely not believe it if a dude randomly comes up to me and tells me we're living in a novel and my friend exchanged souls."

"That's not the problem, hostess...the person who has self-awareness can awaken others! He—he can make the other characters realize the reality of their world. Usually, this could only be done by the transmigrators, but self-awakened ones like these are rare cases, occurring once in every 100 worlds."

"What do we do?!" Willow panicked. "Just tell us, what do we do?"

The system stopped speaking, just looking at the phone in fear. Willow got annoyed by his lack of answer and asked, "What, system? Can you please tell us how to solve this?"

"I—" the system was in a hurry as he said, "I need to go. God, what if I lose points because of this stupid bug? Go to the main system, report it—"

"Just tell! How—" the system's terrified state scared Adelia even more. "How do we fix it?" It didn't hear her and vanished, leaving them with a million questions.