°• Welcome, Coco Mizuno

Coco sat on a park bench that creaked every time she shifted. It wasn't fancy just sun-bleached wood, rusting bolts, and a faint stain she really hoped was old ketchup but it gave her a moment to breathe.

The city buzzed quietly around her, birds chirping overhead, a bike clinking down the path in the distance. For a second, it could've passed as a normal morning.

If not for the fact that she had a literal glowing system syncing in the background of her life like a loading screen she never asked for.

She stared down at her phone, thumb scrolling in autopilot.

Search: "System Awakening What To Do"

Result: Mostly trash.

Forums filled with chaos, half-baked guides, and people flexing over how many bosses they'd soloed. Videos of combat junkies showing off their flashy combos and S-Rank title clearances. She even saw a thumbnail of Leonard Hanne slicing through an Evo in slow-motion again.

Coco sighed. "Yeah, no thanks. I'd like to not die in the first five minutes."

She swapped to another tab.

Old web novels.

Manhwa she used to read in class.

The kind where the main character got a cheat system and immediately went dungeon-hopping like it was a morning jog.

Most of them had one thing in common: fighting, quests, skill trees, and chaos.

She lowered the phone and stared off across the park path, frowning.

"I don't even know what kind of system I have yet. It could be… laundry-related for all I know."

She leaned back and thought about it seriously for the first time.

System Awakening.

It was triggered by stress, emotion, or some kind of physical or psychological threshold, right?

And hers happened after… that night.

After breaking down. After the pills. After the blackout.

Her body had reacted. She'd hit a limit.

Her gaze shifted to the far edge of the park, where buses rolled past lazily on the street. Then, her eyes lit up.

"…Hospitals."

It wasn't fighting. It wasn't dungeon raiding.

But if a System Awakening had to do with the body if it involved a literal sync between mind, soul, and system maybe someone in the medical field could explain it better. Or at least scan her. She had gone through something traumatic, after all.

"Yeah," she muttered, standing up. "Let's try not dying and start with a checkup first." She stuffed her phone into her pocket and headed for the nearest bus stop, eyes fixed ahead.

It wasn't glamorous. But it was smart. And for once in her life, she was going to play things smart.

---------------

"You've got cancer."

Coco's soul left her body.

"EXCUSE ME?!" she shrieked, practically jumping out of her seat.

The doctor blinked once. Then smirked.

"Kidding. Just wanted to see if you were paying attention."

Coco gawked, clutching her chest like she'd aged forty years in five seconds. "What kind of psychopath leads with that?!"

"You'd be surprised how many people zone out during these consults," he said casually, flipping his tablet around. "Anyway. You're fine."

Coco slowly sat back down, clutching her chest. "Oh my god, I was about to throw this entire chair at you—"

"Please don't," he said, returning to the chart. "We have a form for that and I hate paperwork."

"Have you consumed a lot of medication recently?"

Coco blinked. "...Define a lot."

He turned the tablet around and showed her a glowing chart full of alarming red spikes.

"You look like you swallowed a pharmaceutical factory," he said. "Your vitals are… stable, but your liver? Not happy."

Coco scratched her neck awkwardly. "Yeah, I might've, uh… overdid it. A little."

"Mmhmm," he hummed, clearly judging her life. "Well, I'm not here to scold anyone's private decisions. But lay off the meds, yeah? You might be System syncing, but that doesn't mean your organs get a free pass."

She sank lower in her chair. "Noted."

The doctor had been flipping through her chart again when he paused, frowning slightly. Without looking up, he asked, "What's your current sync percentage?"

Coco blinked, surprised by how calmly he asked that as if it was as normal as checking blood pressure. She glanced to the corner of her vision.

"…Eighty-four percent."

He finally looked up, studying her expression for a moment. "That's unusually slow. Especially for someone who's already manifesting a physical interface."

Coco shrugged awkwardly. "It's just… been stuck. It's ticking up, but it's been hours. I thought that was normal."

He shook his head slowly. "Not for a standard sync. Especially if your system was 'trigger' a high-intensity event."

He stood up, walked over to a cabinet, and pulled out a sleek black case. Inside was a polished metal bracelet inlaid with thin, glowing lines of circuitry. It pulsed faintly alive with stored energy.

"This," he said, returning to her side, "is a sync stabilizer. It'll help your system interface accelerate the final stage of the connection. Without forcing or damaging it."

Coco narrowed her eyes. "So it's safe?"

He gave a small nod. "It's designed for post-trigger candidates who are showing irregular sync patterns. Your readings suggest you've undergone some… trauma. Possibly something internal your system is adapting to."

Coco's heart gave a little twitch at the word trauma, but she said nothing.

He held out his hand. "May I?"

She hesitated, then slowly extended her wrist.

He locked the device around her arm. It hummed softly to life, the lights brightening in sync with her pulse. She felt a faint warmth crawl up her arm, not uncomfortable but unfamiliar.

The doctor pressed his hand to a panel on the device and exhaled slowly.

<[Skill: Accelerated Sync – Rank C]>

Activated

A soft hum filled the air.

Coco's breath caught as her body responded her vision tingled, and the familiar interface pulsed sharply in the corner of her sight.

She stared. "It jumped." The doctor gave a quiet hum, monitoring her vitals on the tablet. "It'll continue accelerating. Your system's stabilizing."

Coco kept her eyes fixed on the corner of her vision as the numbers ticked upward again, each one bringing a strange flutter in her chest.

95%...

96%...

Her breath slowed. She could feel it now beneath her skin, in her bones. A presence, faint but undeniable. Like something was watching her from within. Not hostile… but waiting.

<97%...>

98%...

The bracelet pulsed once more, light rippling down her arm in soft waves.

<99%...>

She sat perfectly still. Her fingers curled against her thigh. The moment stretched.

You are now systembound

The words floated in front of her clean, elegant, final.

The air in the room changed. A subtle shift, as though something invisible had snapped into alignment. Her vision sharpened slightly. The colors in the room felt clearer. Even the way the floor pressed against her shoes felt… more real.

Like the world had finally stopped buffering.

The screen pulsed again.

Scanning user affinity

Analyzing past behavioral patterning

[Trait acquired: Fragmented Will – Passive]

[Trait acquired: Adaptive Core – Locked]

[Trait acquired: Avid Gambler – Passive]

[Trait acquired: Silver Tounge – Passive]

The floating interface dimmed as the final text faded, leaving behind only a soft glow at the corner of her vision.

Coco sat there, heart still pounding, eyes wide as she stared at nothing.

The doctor finally broke the silence, his voice quieter now more serious. "Well... looks like it's finished."

She looked up at him slowly, still trying to register what she just saw. What she felt.

He gave her a small nod, almost understanding. "You'll want to figure out what kind of system you're dealing with before it starts reacting in ways you don't expect. I'd recommend heading out. Reflect. Observe. Make smart choices from this point forward."

Coco stood up on shaky legs. The bracelet detached with a soft click, and the hum of the machine faded.

"I'll note your sync logs and forward them to the System Registry," the doctor added as he turned back to his console. "But from this point on... it's your journey now."

She gave a slow nod, gripping the strap of her bag tightly. "Thanks… I think."

"No problem. Don't die."

"Very comforting."

And with that, Coco stepped out of the sterile room and into the slightly-too-bright hallway, the door closing softly behind her.

Outside, the sun had shifted. It wasn't too warm, but the air felt more solid—like something had settled inside her, something that hadn't been there before. Every sound, every shadow felt… different. Sharper. The city moved around her as usual, but now she felt like she was seeing behind the curtain.

She paused for a moment outside the clinic, glancing up at the glowing signage across the street.

[YUN'S ARMORY – Civilian & Certified Grade Equipment Available]

A weapon shop.

Coco stared at the sign, chewing her bottom lip.

Her system was awakened. She didn't know what it was, not yet but she had traits. Pieces of herself that were now literally written into her code. One of them was "Avid Gambler." Another was "Silver Tongue."

Maybe she wasn't a sword-swinging monster-slayer like Leonard Hanne.

But if this was the world she was living in now, she'd need something more than just clever words and emotional trauma.

"…Might as well gear up," she muttered under her breath.

She crossed the street and pushed open the door to Yun's Armory, the chime above the entrance ringing out like the first turn of a roulette wheel.