Chapter 1: The Hood Ornament and the Hologram
The last thing Hara Lee registered wasn't pain, but absurdity. A cheerful, synthetic chime – the notification sound of her favorite novel app, "Cycle of the Crucible"– pinged brightly from her fallen phone on the rain-slicked Seoul pavement. Then, the world became a cacophony of screeching brakes, shattering glass, and the brutal, final impact of several tons of city bus meeting fragile human bone. Darkness swallowed her, cold and absolute.
Consciousness returned not with a gasp, but with a suffocating sense of wrongness.
She wasn't cold pavement. She was laying on something soft like bedding? Panic flared, raw and instinctive. Hara tried to flail, but her limbs felt leaden, disconnected. Her eyes flew open.
Instead of twisted metal and rain, she saw soft, ambient light filtering through a translucent, pearlescent canopy above her. The air hummed faintly, not with traffic, but with a deep, resonant thrum she felt in her bones. The surface beneath her wasn't hard ground; it molded perfectly to her form, yielding yet supportive, radiating gentle heat. Hara's mind scrambled, she looked around and saw sleek curved surfaces in muted silver and white glowed with soft internal light. Holographic displays flickered silently on one wall, showing complex, scrolling symbols she couldn't decipher.
Where…?
Then, the memories hit. Not hers. Not Hara Lee's memories of cramped apartments, part-time jobs, and escaping into fantasy novels. These were… sharper, colder. Lavish halls. The cloying scent of exotic flowers. The name surfaced like a bubble from deep water: Nara Silvaine. Daughter of House Silvaine. A student at Veridia Academy. And… a profound sense of impending doom.
Veridia Academy. Hara's breath hitched. "Cycle of the Crucible." Her favorite novel. The one where the protagonist, Kaelen, died repeatedly trying to defeat the Demon King, reborn each time with his memories intact. And Nara Silvaine… she was cannon fodder. A minor noble girl mentioned only in passing, killed in an assassination attempt today, before she could even attend her Awakening
Ceremony. A footnote.
I'm… I'm Nara? The realization slammed into her with the force of the bus. And today is…
A flicker in her vision. Not a hallucination born of panic, but something cold, digital, intrusive. A semi-transparent rectangle materialized in the lower right corner of her sight. It pulsed with a weak, erratic light.
**[System Initializing…]**
**[User: Nara Silvaine - Status: Pre-Awakened]**
**[Vital Signs: Stable]**
**[Awakening Ceremony: 01:47:22]**
**[Primary Objective: SURVIVE]**
The countdown timer ticked down relentlessly. 1 hours, 47 minutes, 21 seconds. 20 seconds.
Survive.
Pure, unadulterated terror seized her, colder than the Seoul rain. She scrambled out of bed, her movements clumsy in an unfamiliar body. Her bare feet touched a floor that felt like warm, polished stone. She stumbled towards a reflective surface on the wall – not a mirror, but a seamless, silvery panel.
The face that stared back stopped her dead.
Hara Lee had been ordinary. Pleasant features, lost in a crowd. This… this was a masterpiece carved by impossible hands. Skin like spun moonlight, flawless and luminous. Eyes wide and startlingly violet, fringed by thick, dark lashes that seemed to cast shadows on high cheekbones. Hair, a cascade of liquid obsidian, fell past impossibly slender shoulders, contrasting starkly with the pale perfection of her skin. Full lips, naturally tinted a soft rose, parted slightly in shock. The face held a haunting, ethereal beauty that was almost unnerving, It wasn't just pretty; it was shocking.
This is the body they want to kill, Hara now Nara thought, a fresh wave of nausea rising. she felt like she has a target painted on her forehead.
The memories of the novel Nara surfaced again, fragmented but vital. The assassination attempt happened in her chambers. Poison. Disguised in her morning tea. Delivered by… who?
The memory was frustratingly fuzzy, obscured by the original Nara's naivety and fear. A servant? Someone she trusted?
A soft, melodic chime sounded from the door. Hara froze, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. The timer read: 01:45:03.
"It's starting."
The door slid open silently, revealing not a human servant, but a sleek, humanoid drone. It glided in on silent repulsors, its chassis a smooth, polished chrome. Where a face might be was only a single, softly glowing blue sensor. In its multi-jointed hand, it held a crystal flute filled with a swirling, iridescent liquid that shimmered with captured light – the tea
"Miss Silvaine," the drone intoned in a smooth, genderless voice. "Your morning tea, Optimal absorption occurs within the next ten minutes for peak freshness." It extended the flute towards her.
The beauty of the drink was a trap. Hara knew it with terrifying certainty. This was it. The method. In the novel, Nara drank it without question, collapsed minutes later, and never made it to the ceremony.
"Don't take it. Don't take it!"
But how? How would she be able to refuse the drink without seeming suspicious, Panic clawed at her throat. Think! "Hara, think! Use what you know!"
She forced her trembling hands to still. Summoning every ounce of haughty disdain she could muster from the fractured noble memories and knowledge of book nara, she drew herself up to her full, height. She met the drone's sensor with her startling violet eyes.
"I… I feel unwell," she declared, her voice trembling slightly despite her efforts. She pressed a delicate hand to her flawless forehead. "Exceedingly nauseous. The thought of consuming anything…" She let her voice trail off, injecting a convincing waver. "The Ceremony… I cannot risk being ill during the Awakening. Take it away. I shall fast until the ceremony commences."
The drone's sensor pulsed, analyzing. "Scanning," it stated. A thin beam of blue light swept over her from head to toe. Hara-Nara held her breath, praying the pod's readings still showed 'stable baseline' and wouldn't contradict her lie.
"Vital signs show mild elevation consistent with pre-ceremonial anxiety," the drone reported after a tense moment. "No physiological indicators of nausea or digestive distress detected."
Hara's blood ran cold. *Damn this advanced world!*
"Nevertheless," she insisted, injecting steel into her voice, channeling a noblewoman's privilege she'd never possessed. "I feel ill the anticipation of awakening i won't be able to keep anything down i fear … it will churn my stomach. Remove it. That is an order." She put every ounce of Silvaine authority and fake bravado she could muster into the last word.
The drone paused. Its sensor flickered. "Compliance acknowledged, Miss Silvaine. wastage logged." It smoothly retracted the flute. "It is recommended you utilize the tranquility protocols within your chamber before proceeding to the Ceremonial Spire. Awakening commences promptly at zenith." It glided backward and the door slid shut.
Hara collapsed against the wall, trembling violently, sweat beading on her impossibly perfect brow. Safe? She'd avoided the novel's death. But the timer still pulsed: 01:42:15. And the
**[Primary Objective: SURVIVE]** hadn't changed.
A new, chilling thought struck her. The assassination plot wasn't just a single poison attempt. It was a plan. They expected her to die today. If Plan A failed… Plan B would activate.
She couldn't stay here. She had to get to the Awakening Ceremony. Only the System and her powers fully unlocked could give her a fighting chance. But getting there meant traversing the vast, unfamiliar, technologically advanced labyrinth of Veridia Academy. A place where assassins could be anyone, anything – human, drone, or something else entirely.
She pushed away from the wall. Her reflection stared back: breathtakingly beautiful, terrifyingly vulnerable. She couldn't afford to process the end of her old life yet but she knew Hara Lee was gone. Only Nara Silvaine remained, trapped in a gilded cage with a death sentence hanging over her head and a countdown ticking in her vision.
She had 1 hours and 42 minutes to cross a unfamiliar academy and unlock powers she didn't understand. And the assassins knew she was still alive.
Taking a shaky breath that did nothing to calm the frantic rhythm of her heart, Nara turned towards the chamber's main exit. The game had changed. She'd dodged the first knife. Now, she had to run the gauntlet.
**[Awakening Ceremony: 01:41:58]**
**[Primary Objective: SURVIVE]**
**[Secondary Objective: REACH THE CEREMONIAL SPIRE]**
The door hissed open onto a corridor bathed in cool, artificial light. The path to survival, or her second death, lay ahead. Nara stepped out.