The most obvious one was the gender ratio.
It wasn’t even subtle.
Groups of women occupied most of the tables, clustered together in lively circles. Some were animatedly discussing recent story-dives, gesturing as holographic projections replayed dramatic moments from their runs. Others leaned closer, whispering excitedly about blueprints, rare records, or gossip about who cleared what world and how badly it went for them. Laughter echoed frequently, light and casual, as if this place were less a battleground for power and more a social hub.
Meanwhile, men were… rare.
I spotted a few walking through the lounge, usually alone. Some sat by themselves at the edges of the room, eyes glued to personal projections, clearly uninterested in conversation. Others looked like they were passing through rather than staying, as if lingering here wasn’t their preferred use of time.
It was an odd contrast.
Not hostile. Not uncomfortable.
Just… lopsided.
I leaned back in my chair, folding my arms. Guess the library really does skew this way.
Most of the people here looked young, late teens to early thirties, if I had to guess. That made sense. Story-diving demanded adaptability, risk-taking, and a willingness to start over repeatedly. I doubted many older bookkeepers spent their time hanging around the public viewing lounge.
Someone like Katherine certainly didn’t.
She always had her own viewing room, her own pace, her own distance from the chaos. The more experienced bookkeepers probably followed the same pattern, working quietly, efficiently, without the need to socialize.
Honestly… I wasn’t sure I’d fit in here even if I tried.
I didn’t hate people. But I didn’t feel the urge to join any of these groups either. The way conversations flowed, about who was talented, who was arrogant, who was wasting potential, it all felt exhausting.
Solo dives appealed to me more.
Or maybe competition.
Actively fighting for contribution, carving out results instead of networking my way forward. That kind of pressure suited me better. Cleaner. Simpler.
As I drifted deeper into thought, the air in the lounge subtly changed.
Light flickered.
One by one, holographic projections bloomed into existence across the room. Transparent screens hovered above tables, beside walkways, even midair near the ceiling. The chatter gradually died down as people noticed the synchronized displays.
An announcement banner scrolled across every screen.
LIBRARY EVENT NOTICE
Curiosity pulled my attention immediately.
I reached out, tapping the nearest projection, and the details expanded.
The event was limited, Silver-ranked bookkeepers and below. That alone filtered out a massive portion of the population. No elites. No monsters who could brute-force their way through anything.
The premise was simple enough.
In one week, all participants would story-dive into a single shared story:
“Back in School.”
I raised an eyebrow.
That doesn’t sound threatening.
Inside the story, tasks would be assigned dynamically. Not preloaded objectives, but goals that emerged based on how each participant acted and how the narrative evolved. Different choices would lead to different tasks, and different rewards.
So no fixed path.
No guaranteed optimization route.
But what really made the room buzz was the restriction.
Record usage heavily limited.
Only records that didn’t rely on magic, supernatural effects, or superpowered weapons were allowed. No spectrum energy. No enchanted gear. No absurd abilities that let someone bulldoze through problems.
Just… fundamentals.
Skill-based records. Physical techniques. Mental enhancements. Personal records.
I felt something stir in my chest.
This wasn’t a power check.
It was a control check.
A test of adaptability without brute force.
The reward section made it even more tempting.
Each completed task granted compensation, credits, library items like note pages, and in some cases, actual records. Not end-of-story rewards either. Continuous progression.
Effort translated directly into gain.
I exhaled slowly, a grin tugging at the corner of my mouth.
No magic. No spectrum energy. No overwhelming advantages.
Just raw decision-making.
Instinct.
Experience.
Preparation.
For the first time in a while, I felt genuinely excited, not because of power, but because of the challenge itself.
“Looks like I have some preparing to do,” I muttered.
If I played this right, this event could give me far more than just rewards.
It could tell me exactly how dangerous I’d be when stripped of everything else.
Suzi was Silver 5, barely within the threshold to qualify for the event.
That fact alone amused her.
If the requirement had been even a single rank lower, she wouldn’t have bothered. Ranking up had never really interested her in the first place. Power was useful, sure, but chasing numbers for their own sake felt tiring. The library was vast, and she preferred drifting through it at her own pace rather than sprinting toward some arbitrary peak.
Most of the records in her book were… decent.
Not spectacular. Not embarrassing either.
A lot of them came from story-dives she’d done with her sister, who was far more driven and far more ambitious. Whenever the two of them dove together, Suzi usually played support, took safer roles, and let her sister do the heavy lifting. As a result, she’d accumulated a respectable collection of records without ever truly struggling for them.
Which made this event especially ironic.
Almost everything she owned was useless here.
No magic.
No supernatural abilities.
No fancy weapons or clever loopholes.
The library had stripped the event down to the bare essentials, and for once, Suzi couldn’t rely on borrowed momentum or hand-me-down strength.
She leaned back in her chair, staring at the floating event details with half-lidded eyes.
Figures.
Not that it bothered her much.
If anything, the restrictions made things simpler. No optimization stress. No agonizing over record synergies. No pressure to keep up with monsters who lived and breathed efficiency.
Just a story.
Just choices.
And honestly? That sounded kind of refreshing.
She glanced around the viewing lounge, watching people react in their own ways. Some looked excited, already whispering strategies to their friends. Others frowned, clearly annoyed that their carefully curated builds were being benched. A few even scoffed outright, as if the event wasn’t worth their time.
Suzi didn’t fall into any of those categories.
She felt… bored.
Not the restless kind. The dull, lingering boredom that crept in when everything started feeling the same. Same dives. Same dynamics. Same outcomes. Even story-worlds lost their charm when you went in knowing exactly how things would play out.
This event at least promised unpredictability.
And unpredictability beat staring at the lounge ceiling for another week.
She let out a quiet sigh and stretched, interlacing her fingers behind her head.
I guess I’ll join, she decided casually. Worst case, it’s a waste of time. Best case… it’s mildly interesting.
That alone was enough.
Not ambition. Not hunger for power. Not competition.
Just boredom, and the faint hope that the library might surprise her for once.
My preparation amounted to one thing: research.
I spent hours buried in records of previous events and archived notes about story-worlds that followed similar restrictions. Events that banned magic. Events that stripped away supernatural weapons. Events that forced bookkeepers to rely on nothing but physical ability, social maneuvering, and whatever personality the system decided to saddle them with.
One detail kept appearing again and again.
In these kinds of events, there was a very real chance that the system would overwrite parts of your body to better fit the role it assigned you.
Height. Age. Voice. Even muscle memory.
Knowing that didn’t make it any easier to swallow.
“Good luck,” Katherine said as she watched me step onto the platform.
“I’ll do my best,” I replied, offering a smile that was more confidence than I actually felt.
The platform lit up beneath my feet, and the world folded inward.
I expected the familiar emptiness, the endless void I’d seen every time before. Instead, I found myself surrounded by people.
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A massive crowd stretched out in every direction, silhouettes overlapping silhouettes, all suspended in a dim, colorless space. Some people were talking loudly, others were nervously silent. A few stood stiff and alert, already bracing themselves for whatever the system had planned.
So this many people signed up…
As I took it all in, the system didn’t bother waiting.
Information slammed into my mind.
Not gently.
Not gradually.
It poured in all at once, names, dates, settings, expectations, like someone had ripped open a dam inside my head.
I staggered slightly as the story details settled into place.
All participants would be inserted as first-year high school students, spread across multiple schools within the same city. Different social standings. Different environments. Different starting conditions.
Sixteen years old.
I grimaced internally.
So I really am getting turned into a brat.
The system wasn’t done.
Despite the lack of magic or supernatural weapons, the story-world itself was anything but normal. Certain characters would possess physical abilities that bordered on the absurd, strength that ignored proper leverage, endurance that scoffed at exhaustion, reflexes sharpened beyond realism.
No powers.
Just nonsense disguised as “talent.”
As the flood of information tapered off, the reactions around me finally caught up.
“This is bullshit-”
“How is that fair?”
“They said no powers!”
Complaints erupted across the crowd, frustration and disbelief mixing freely. But none of it mattered. The system had never been the kind to entertain protests.
Before anyone could raise their voice high enough to matter, the void fractured.
The crowd vanished.
The ground rushed up to meet me.
One moment I was nowhere. The next, I was standing in the middle of a school courtyard.
Bright sunlight hit my eyes, and I instinctively squinted. Rows of neatly lined students filled the open space, all dressed in matching uniforms. A breeze stirred banners strung across the buildings, each emblazoned with bold lettering welcoming the new school year.
I looked down at myself.
Shorter. Lighter. Younger.
My hands were smaller, my sleeves a little too long, my posture unfamiliar. My body moved easily, almost restlessly, like it was still adjusting to its new limits.
Around me, a few students wore the same expression I probably did, confused, stiff, just a bit too aware of their surroundings. Other bookkeepers, no doubt. The rest chatted excitedly, laughing, whispering, completely immersed in the roles the system had written for them.
A sharp feedback screech cut through the noise.
All eyes turned toward the stage.
A man stood behind the podium, broad enough that it looked like the wood had been built around him rather than the other way around. He was massive, thick neck, shoulders like slabs of concrete, arms straining against his suit jacket. His presence alone pressed down on the courtyard, silencing conversations one by one.
When he leaned into the microphone, it let out a brief whine before stabilizing.
“Welcome,” he boomed, his voice carrying effortlessly across the grounds, “to Goliath High!”
A wave of cheers erupted from the students.
The man grinned, hands planted firmly on the podium. “You’re standing on the grounds of one of the most competitive schools in the district. Here, effort matters. Discipline matters. And excuses?” He snorted. “Those don’t exist.”
He paused, letting the words sink in.
“Over the next three years, some of you will thrive. Some of you will break. And some of you will realize very quickly that this place is far bigger than you ever imagined.”
His sharp gaze swept across the crowd, and for just a moment, I felt like his eyes lingered on me.
“Whether you’re here to chase greatness,” he continued, “or you were dragged here by fate, circumstance, or bad luck, this is where your story begins.”
A chill ran down my spine.
Yeah, I thought grimly, I figured as much.
The opening ceremony rolled on, introductions to faculty, rules barked out with military precision, warnings disguised as encouragement. But beneath it all, I could feel it.
This wasn’t just a school story.
It was a pressure cooker.
And somewhere inside this supposedly mundane world, the system was already watching, waiting to see who would adapt, who would crumble, and who would stand out when stripped of everything they once relied on.
I straightened my borrowed shoulders and fixed my gaze on the stage.
Guess I’ll find out which one I am.
Sitting in a classroom again, after all this time, felt surreal.
The chair was too small, the desk too low, and the faint smell of cleaning solution mixed with chalk dust triggered memories I hadn’t thought about in years. It should’ve felt nostalgic. Instead, it felt wrong.
Too quiet.
I slowly scanned the room, my gaze drifting from row to row.
“Why is everyone so quiet?” I muttered under my breath.
The teacher hadn’t arrived yet, but no one was chatting. No idle gossip, no nervous laughter, no phones hidden under desks. The students sat stiffly in their seats, eyes forward or down, bodies tense as if they were waiting for something unpleasant to happen.
That kind of silence never existed in a normal classroom.
It didn’t last long.
A chair scraped loudly against the floor at the back of the room, the sound cutting through the stillness like a blade. A lazy, arrogant voice followed.
“Oi. You deaf or just stupid?”
I turned in my seat.
A student with bleached hair leaned back casually, one foot propped up on his desk. His uniform was deliberately sloppy, buttons undone, tie loosened, jacket hanging off one shoulder. The look suited him far too well. He reached forward and shoved the boy sitting in front of him.
The kid flinched.
“C’mon,” the bully continued, smirking. “You gonna cry again? You always look like you’re about to snap in half.”
He slapped the back of the kid’s head.
Not hard enough to knock him down. Just hard enough to humiliate him.
A few students looked away. Others stared straight ahead, pretending none of it was happening. No one intervened. No one even spoke.
Yeah, I thought, this definitely isn’t a normal school.
As I watched the scene unfold, a familiar sensation prickled behind my eyes.
A translucent panel unfolded in front of me, hovering just above my desk.
Main Tasks:
- Defeat a school boss:0 / 7
- Become the regional boss
Subtasks:
- Defeat classroom bosses
- Defeat school gangs
- Expand your influence
I stared at the panel for a moment, then felt a slow grin spread across my face.
So that’s how this story works.
The silence. The tension. The unchecked bullying. This wasn’t just a school, it was territory. Hierarchies stacked on hierarchies, power enforced through fear and violence rather than rules and authority.
And apparently, I’d been dropped right into the middle of it.
Behind me, the bleached-haired guy laughed loudly, clearly enjoying himself. “Man, you guys are pathetic.”
I pushed my chair back and stood up.
The sound alone drew attention. Heads turned. A ripple of unease passed through the room. The bully’s laughter stopped mid-breath.
He twisted around in his seat and looked at me, eyes narrowing. “You got some-”
I didn’t let him finish.
I stepped forward and drove my fist straight into his face.
The impact was solid. Clean. Satisfying.
His head snapped back, chair tipping violently as his body went limp. He hit the floor with a dull thud, eyes rolled back, completely unconscious before anyone could even process what had happened.
Silence crashed back into the room, thicker than before.
A few students gasped. Someone dropped a pen. No one moved.
I flexed my hand once, feeling the unfamiliar lightness of my sixteen-year-old body. Not weak. Just… efficient. The system hadn’t given me powers, but it had given me exactly what I needed.
I looked down at the unconscious bully, then glanced back at the stunned classroom.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” I said, grinning.
Somewhere beyond the walls of Goliath High, the system quietly updated my progress.
And just like that, the first class boss had fallen.
It was only the first day, yet the school was already spiraling into disorder.
Suzi leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, calmly observing the chaos unfolding around her. From what she could tell, there were at least twenty bookkeepers assigned to this school alone, every single one of them inserted as a first-year student. Twenty grown minds wrapped in sixteen-year-old bodies, all dropped into the same pressure cooker of an event.
The moment the main tasks were distributed, restraint vanished.
Students who had barely finished introducing themselves were already throwing punches. Desks screeched across the floor, chairs toppled over, and shouting echoed down the corridors as bookkeepers aggressively picked fights with the local thugs assigned to their classes. It was messy, uncoordinated, and painfully obvious who had panicked the moment the system dangled rewards in front of them.
What made it even more surreal was the gender ratio.
Out of the twenty bookkeepers Suzi had identified, fourteen were women.
Watching young adults, many of them women who likely held professional jobs or led teams back in the library, now trapped in teenage bodies and beating up delinquent high schoolers was… absurd. The contrast alone was enough to make the entire scene feel like a parody. If Suzi weren’t careful, she might have laughed.
She didn’t, though.
Her sister’s words echoed clearly in her mind.
In events like these, the best rewards aren’t credits. They’re blueprints, or records just as valuable.
That alone explained the desperation. Blueprints could define a bookkeeper’s future. A single good one could put someone leagues ahead of their peers.
“They’re really going all out,” Akari said quietly from the seat beside her.
Akari was her sister’s subordinate, sharp-eyed, efficient, and far too composed for someone currently masquerading as a high school freshman. Her gaze flicked toward the classroom door, where raised voices hinted at yet another fight breaking out nearby.
“Are you not going to make a move as well?” Akari asked, turning back to Suzi.
Suzi shook her head slowly. “Not now. Everyone’s too much in a hurry.”
They were burning bridges before they even understood the terrain.
Akari smiled faintly. “Patience is a good quality to have.” She paused, then added, “Would you like to know the information I gathered?”
Suzi shrugged, her posture relaxed. “Might as well.”
Akari leaned in slightly, lowering her voice. “First, the boss of this school is a third-year student named Brandon Harris.”
That name had already appeared briefly in Suzi’s system feed, flagged as a major figure.
“He has incredible strength and endurance for a normal human,” Akari continued. “Far beyond what’s reasonable, even for this kind of story.”
Suzi wasn’t particularly concerned. The system had made it clear from the start, this world didn’t use magic, but it wasn’t realistic either. The important characters would always border on superhuman.
“That’s expected,” Suzi replied calmly.
“Additionally,” Akari said, “most of the bookkeepers placed in this school specialize in physical feats or close combat. Very few tacticians. Almost no long-term planners.”
Suzi raised an eyebrow at that.
She herself had trained extensively in close combat under her sister’s guidance, but she had always functioned best as support. Buffs, positioning, battlefield control. Take those away, and she was forced into a role she didn’t particularly favor.
“I guess since I can’t use my support abilities here,” Suzi said, “the system categorized me as a close combat fighter.”
Akari nodded. “That seems to be the case.”
She hesitated for a moment before adding, “Another thing, the closest neighboring school is Leviathan High.”
Suzi hummed thoughtfully. “Then they’ll probably be the first school we go to war with.”
School wars. Territorial dominance. Boss hierarchies.
The event was barely pretending to be about academics anymore.
“Do we have anyone decent on our side?” Suzi asked. “Most bookkeepers are pretty useless without their records.”
Akari smiled, this time with a hint of confidence. “We actually do.”
“Oh?”
“Jayden Brise,” Akari replied. “He’s relatively new, but he has solid combat instincts even without records. He’s already taken over his classroom.”
That caught Suzi’s attention.
“How many first-year classrooms are there?” she asked.
“Ten.”
Suzi exhaled slowly.
“So… it’s only a matter of time before bookkeepers start fighting each other,” she said.
Not as classmates.
Not as allies.
But as rivals.
Akari nodded once, her expression serious.
As expected, staying awake during class was the hardest trial this story-dive had to offer.
A full week had already passed since the event began, and the chaos that marked the first few days had finally started to settle. The classrooms had returned to something resembling normalcy, at least on the surface. Desks were back in place, teachers droned on about syllabi and rules, and the halls no longer echoed with constant shouting and violence.
That didn’t mean the tension was gone.
I glanced toward the corner of the room, where the thug I’d knocked out on the first day sat stiffly in his seat. The moment our eyes almost met, he immediately looked away, staring very intently at his notebook as if it contained the secrets of the universe. Ever since that first punch, he hadn’t said a single word to me. Not a taunt. Not a threat. Nothing.
Peace, achieved through trauma.
My gaze drifted two seats across the classroom.
A brown-haired girl sat there with her chin resting on her palm, eyes half-lidded as she pretended to listen to the lecture. Emma. She was a bookkeeper too, one of the more impulsive ones, if I had to be honest.
I hadn’t even known she was part of the event until three days ago, when she’d suddenly challenged me for the position of class boss.
No warning. No buildup.
Just a punch aimed straight at my face after class.
She’d put up a decent fight. Better than most, actually. Fast reactions, solid footwork, and the kind of stubbornness that refused to go down easily. If this were a fair fight, two ordinary people with no advantages, it might have dragged on a lot longer.
But I had one major edge.
I could still use Demonic Instincts.
Unlike abilities that required mana, stamina boosts, or supernatural energy, Demonic Instincts was purely instinctual. A personal record that didn’t enhance my body so much as guide it, subtly shifting posture, timing, and reaction to the most efficient outcome.
No glow. No power surge.
Just my body moving before my mind caught up.
Thanks to that, the fight ended quickly.
Word spread even faster.
After that, the other bookkeepers in this school made a point of keeping their distance. Being the class boss was one thing. Being a class boss who could win fights without any visible abilities was another. People didn’t like unknowns.
The bell finally rang, snapping me out of my thoughts.
I stood, slung my bag over my shoulder, and left the classroom without a backward glance. The hallway was already filling with students, the usual post-class noise washing over me.
I’d barely taken a few steps when a voice called out behind me.
“Mr. Brise, may I have a word with you?”
I stopped.
Slowly, I turned around.
Standing a few meters away was a woman with long black hair, neatly tied behind her back. She wasn’t wearing a student uniform. Instead, she wore a fitted blazer and a calm, measured expression, one that didn’t belong in a high school hallway.
A teacher.
Or at least, that’s what she looked like.
Her eyes met mine, sharp and assessing, lingering just a fraction of a second longer than normal.
Whatever this was about, I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be simple.