Man vs System

Many small twinkling lights surrounded Cassius, reminding him of the stars in the night sky.

As soon as Cassius reached out to touch one, (because he couldn't think of anything else to do) the lights got a lot bigger.

Now, large thin rectangles made of light surrounded Cassius, before he knew it, they started depicting different scenes.

'what are these?' Cassius looked around at the floating screens.

In one of the screens, he saw a mirror that showed a man who looked just like him from his past life. At first, he thought it was himself, but then he noticed the royal crest on his clothes.

'This is... Karavan?'

He looked at the other screens, before concluding that perhaps they showed Karavan's memories. After all, he saw an old version of the imperial palace, people wearing outdated clothes, and magical artifacts that were no longer used.

Of course, the memories could also be fake.

After all, If these were really his memories, then they were nothing like the history books.

Even Cassius could recognize that.

For one simple reason...

Karavan didn't seem to have a system.

Everyone who grew up in the empire knew Karavan was the first to be chosen by the systems. It didn't matter if you were a commoner, a baby, or a blind man.

It was just common knowledge.

Not to mention, there were so many children's books and fairytales based around the story of Karavan.

For example, The Adventures of Karavan and System! Is a famous book that was published hundreds of years ago. It's a classic. In the book, Karavan solved quests and defeated monsters with the help of his system.

But, that's not what Cassius saw on the screens.

Far from it actually. In fact, If anything...

Karavan seemed to hate the sytems.

Cassius walked through the dark void looking at the memories playing on the screens. From what he could tell, they weren't arranged in chronological order and were mostly random.

'So much for being the systems favorite hunter.' Cassius thought, watching Karavan expressing his strong hatred of the systems.

As he calmly walked through the void, as if he were in an art exhibition, one memory in particular stood out to him from the rest.

It was the scene of the empire being burned to the ground.

But surprisingly, what caught his attention wasn't the fact that the empire was burning, but the fact that this scene appeared over and over again on multiple screens.

Before he knew it Cassius had walked into a place where all the screens around him were depicting the same scene of the empire burning.

'Why does this scene keep reappearing?' Cassius wondered. This was the only scene he saw playing on more than one screen.

But upon taking a closer look, he realized that each screen had nuanced differences.

On the first screen, the woman crying over her dead son was wearing blue, but in the second, she was wearing green. On one screen the man was crying over his wife, but on another, he was crying over his daughter.

Every scene was slightly different, some didn't even have people crying, because everyone was dead. But there was one thing that all the scenes had in common, and that was that the empire was burning. Fast.

This part, aligned perfectly with the history books. Everyone knew the old empire was nearly burned to the ground.

The difference is that the history books say the dungeons caused the fire, but from what Cassius could tell, it was the systems.

Were these really his memories?

Most people consider the system saviors that came to save the empire from the dungeons.

But when Cassius was a young boy in his past life, he once had this thought that if the dungeons and the systems appeared at the same time, and the systems were capable of defeating the dungeons, then, couldn't they have been the ones who caused them in the first place?

Of course, the young Cassius knew better than to say that aloud. So he always kept this thought to himself, and for the rest of his life, the thought always sat quietly in the back of his head never to see the light of day.

But now, the thought was beginning to resurface. 'Were they the ones who caused the dungeons?'

Cassius saw how the systems used to make a brother turn on his brother, a mother turn on her son, and a husband turn on his wife.

They ruined families and forced people to do awful disgusting things by giving them quests and promising them rewards.

The systems these days that Cassius knew of would be considered a thousand times better.

In the countless horrific scenes surrounding him, there was one screen in particular that mesmerized Cassius. The scene of 2 people hugging in front of a burning building.

"I'm sorry, Jack. They're all dead. We're all we have now. " A man covered in ashes wearing ripped clothes hugged a young toddler while sitting on the floor in front of a building that was completely wrecked.

Jack started to sob loudly, hugging the man tightly, " What are we gonna to do now, bwother?"

Tears welled up in the man's eyes and he bit his lip as he stared into Jack's eyes. The man didn't say anything and just hugged his brother.

'He seems to care a lot about his brother. If only he were stronger, he could protect him.' Cassius thought, pitying their unfortunate circumstances.

Ding

[Mission: Kill Jack

Reward: 200XP

Penalty: None]

"What? I can get 200XP by killing Jack!?" the man exclaimed, pushing his brother out of the way, and standing up, walking towards his system.

The man stood in front of his system and stared at it for a few seconds. He then turned around slowly to look at his brother, and grinned.

'... Father?' Cassius instinctively thought of his father when he saw how the man looked at his brother. Just like his father, this man had a strong thirst for power in his eyes.

"Huh?" Jack looked up at his older brother, with a confused look across his tiny face.

"b-bwother?" Jack's eyes widened and he seemed to instinctively crawl a few steps back. But his eyes did not leave his brother, who was slowly taking his steps towards him.

Then, the older brother picked up a medium-sized boulder from the wreckage, and started laughing, "What's another dead family member when they're all dead anyway?"

"...Brother?"

Cassius knew what was about to happen, but he couldn't look away. He needed to see whether the man would actually kill his younger brother.

Until the last moment, he believed the man wouldn't kill his younger brother. Only when Jack's blood splattered across the pavement, and the man picked up Jack's body and started walking towards the fire did Cassius finally lose interest and turn away.

He wasn't interested in watching a young child get slaughtered by the only family he had left. It was so unfortunate, even in Cassius's eyes.

'To be killed by your older brother... I can relate to that, kid. ' Cassius sighed.

Cassius turned around only to see more screens around him where the systems gave similar or even worse quests.

[Mission: Eat the baby

Reward: special hidden skill]

Cassius watched as the woman ate a baby boy who was likely no older than a few months.

How did he know the baby was a boy? Well, the lady unwrapped his clothing like a sandwich before eating him. It was horrid.

[Congratulations! You have received the cruel mother skill! You will now get +2 XP for every baby you eat. ]

'Ah, the woman must be disappointed now. What a shitty skill. ' Cassius thought, feeling the woman got what she deserved.

Contrary to his expectations, the woman prostrated on the floor, and happily exclaimed "Yes! Thank you, oh system!"

Cassius shuddered with disgust, before looking at the other screens.

[Mission: Cheat on your lover

Reward: 200 XP]

'Wow, the systems even get involved in people's love life?'

[Mission: Kill Granny

Reward: 50 XP ]

'Leave granny alone, buddy.'

[Mission 1: make her fall in love with you

Reward: Mission 2]

[Mission 2: break her heart

Reward: 100XP]

"B-but I love her?" A man wailed.

[Mission 2: break her heart

Reward: 1,000XP]

Murder, havoc, mayhem.

Everywhere.

Seeing it now, Cassius came to the conclusion that the dungeons were likely the least of their problems back then.

The systems were the bigger threat.

He saw systemless hunters who seemed more than capable of dealing with the dungeons. Even without systems.

Some of them even seemed to be as powerful as S-rank hunters.

It was really hard to believe they could advance to such a level without systems. They must have had an abundance of knowledge back then.

Could the systems have destroy their knowledge so they would have no choice but to rely on them?

That was the assumption Cassius made.

Of course, there was still a chance this was all fabricated. He only made these assumptions under the premise that these events really happened.

A voice spoke out to Cassius from behind him, "Awful, isn't it?"