My breath trembled as the words burned into the air.
[You are the error.]
The world stilled.The surrounding area was swallowed by a dark fog, its origin unknown—dense, heavy, almost alive.
[Administrator is watching you.]
I stared at the message for a long moment, my mind a blur of disbelief.
"Beatrice," I said, forcing the words out through the rising hum of the system, "go to that rooftop. Try to make it outside the city. I'll meet you near the forest entrance."
She turned to me sharply, eyes wide, trembling.
"What? I can't just leave you here! Are you out of your mind? What are you trying to do—sacrifice yourself?"
Her voice cracked halfway through. She didn't understand. How could she?
"This isn't about sacrifice," I said, keeping my tone as steady as I could.
"It's about survival. Both of us need to survive and this is the only way I know how to make that happen."
She shook her head, taking a step back, panic spilling out of her every word.
"No. You don't get to decide that for us! We go together or we don't go at all!"
I clenched my jaw. The words on the screen glowed again. The time between the messages was being lessened and lessened, almost as if an invisible clock was counting down.
[Administrator is watching you.]
[You are the error.]
If she stayed here… she'd die with whatever the system decided to do to me. This Beatrice wasn't as strong as she could be . I knew how to survive and she didn't. I couldn't let her be near me. She'd be a hindrance to me if something dangerous were to occur.
"Beatrice," I whispered, stepping closer.
"You can't see it, can you? The message." I asked her to check again.
She frowned, confused.
"What message? What are you talking about?"
Of course. Her system didn't show it. She couldn't feel the weight pressing on me, the thing creeping closer through the code of this false world.
I hesitated, then sighed.
"I'm sorry."
Her eyes widened. "Wait—what are you—"
Mana flared beneath my feet, a burst of force expanding out like a shockwave. She screamed my name as the world blurred.
"WAIT! Where are you goi—"
Her voice vanished into the blast.
And then she was gone, swallowed by the distance, while I stood alone beneath the dark sky — the error that the world itself wanted to erase.
Breathing heavily, I opened my system.
[You are the error.]
[Error correction is in progress.]
I stared at the message, my thoughts a tangled mess.Error correction?
What did that even mean? Why had I never encountered it before?
Then—
"Do y*u wa3nt th3 ans12er?"
A voice.Cold, distorted, tearing through the silence like shattered glass.
The sound was wrong. Each syllable felt like it was scraping against my soul.
I turned sharply, scanning the rooftop. Nothing.
"Who are you?" I called out, confusion and fear tightening my throat. Could it be the correction? No response.
"Hey! Who the hell are you?!"
Silence.
I waited, heart pounding. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe—
No. I knew what I'd heard.That voice wasn't of this world.
[Error Correction Mechanism Deployed.][Error Will Be Corrected.]
A deep, animalistic roar tore through the still air—raw and hungry.
Rawr!
The sound echoed across the rooftops, vibrating through the fog and into my bones. I spun around, searching, but saw nothing.
Too quiet.
Much too quiet.
Then—the ground beneath my feet trembled.
"What the fu—"
Crack.
The rooftop split open, and I plummeted through the collapsing ceiling.
"Aughh—!"
I hit the floor hard. Pain erupted through every limb. Warm blood trickled down my arm. My vision blurred, the edges dimming.
From the corner of my fading sight, something moved.
A face.Human.
But it wasn't human.
It crawled into the light—walking on four legs, its muscles twisted and sinewed like molten iron. Its head was a man's face stretched over a beast's skull.
A Minotaur.
"Ah, fuck…"
And then I understood.
The 'Error Correction Mechanism' had arrived.
It wasn't here to fix the error.
It was here to erase it.