Author’s Note
The story may feel a little slow at the beginning, but I hope you’ll gradually become immersed in it.
As the story progresses, the world will become deeper, and the true mysteries hidden within it will slowly be revealed.
The main character, Nameless, will continue to fight for his life while taking you through moments of laughter, fun, pain, and emotion.
Welcome to everyone who enjoys this kind of story.
—xXx—
Chapter 1: Who Am I?
The Boy Who Forgot How to Feel
Who am I?
I don’t know.
Perhaps I never did.
I stood alone on a quiet street, staring through the window of a small house.
Inside, a family sat around a dining table.
A man was telling a story, and a little girl burst into laughter.
The woman beside her smiled and gently wiped something from the girl’s cheek.
Ordinary things.
A warm meal.
A familiar voice.
Someone waiting for you to come home.
Things most people never thought twice about.
I watched them for a long time.
Then, without realizing it, I took a step closer to the window.
For a moment, I imagined myself sitting there.
Perhaps I would be the one telling a terrible joke.
Perhaps I would be the one laughing too loudly.
Perhaps someone would turn to me and say, “Stop fooling around and eat before your food gets cold.”
I wondered what that would feel like.
To belong somewhere.
To have someone who would notice if I disappeared.
My fingers curled slightly.
Then I lowered my head and walked away.
It was pointless to imagine things that no longer existed.
I had a family once, too.
But that was a long time ago.
And now…
I had nothing.
12:00 AM — The Loneliness That Never Left
I sat alone on a bench in the park.
The night was cold, and the wind passed through my thin clothes.
Somewhere nearby, a streetlight flickered, casting a pale yellow glow over the empty pathway.
I didn’t feel cold.
Or perhaps I did.
I simply couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
People often say that loneliness is the worst feeling in the world.
I disagree.
Loneliness hurts when you still have someone to miss.
When you remember the sound of your mother’s voice, your father’s smile, or the little footsteps of someone who used to follow you everywhere.
But what happens when you become so accustomed to being alone that even the memories begin to fade?
What happens when you can no longer remember the last time you were genuinely happy?
I had lived with loneliness for six years.
Six years since my family disappeared from my life.
Six years since I had learned that the world would not stop turning simply because mine had fallen apart.
I never cried after losing them.
People might think that made me heartless.
They would be wrong.
I had wanted to cry.
I had wanted to scream until my throat bled.
I had wanted to break something, blame someone, and ask why the world had chosen me.
But whenever I tried, nothing came out.
And eventually, I stopped trying.
What was the point?
Would tears bring my parents back?
Would screaming bring my little sister home?
No.
The dead would remain dead, and the living would continue to suffer.
That was the reality of this world.
A world where kindness was a luxury, trust was a weakness, and survival often meant stepping over someone else.
But it hadn’t always been like this.
Two hundred years ago, people lived differently.
There were still wars, crimes, greed, and suffering.
The world had never been perfect.
But ordinary people could still dream of ordinary lives.
They could study, find jobs, fall in love, raise children, and grow old.
Then the Awaken appeared.
And everything changed.
Humanity was divided into two worlds.
One belonged to the powerful.
The other belonged to people like me.
People who were weak enough to be used, poor enough to be forgotten, and insignificant enough that nobody cared whether they lived or died.
I lowered my eyes toward my hands.
These hands had done terrible things.
I had stolen to survive.
I had fought to survive.
And eventually, I had killed to survive.
I could no longer remember every face.
Sometimes I wondered whether the people I had killed had families waiting for them.
A mother.
A father.
A younger sister.
Perhaps someone had once watched them through a window and wished they could return home.
I closed my eyes.
No.
I couldn’t afford to think about that.
Not anymore.
Because if I started remembering everyone I had lost, hurt, or killed, I might finally feel something.
And I wasn’t sure I could bear it.
The Final Battlefield
“Where am I?”
My eyes opened.
The park was gone.
The quiet street was gone.
In their place stood a battlefield stretching beyond the horizon.
The ground was shattered.
Smoke drifted through the air, and the ruins of buildings stood like broken tombstones beneath a blood-red sky.
My body was covered in wounds.
My clothes were torn, and every breath felt as though someone were driving a blade through my chest.
I tried to move.
Pain shot through my body.
I stopped.
“Ah…”
A weak sound escaped my throat.
So this was it.
I had finally reached the end.
How long had I been fighting?
Days?
Weeks?
I couldn’t remember.
All I knew was that I was tired.
So terribly tired.
I was tired of running.
Tired of fighting.
Tired of watching people die.
And most of all, I was tired of being alive in a world where survival had become my only purpose.
“How much longer…?”
My voice sounded strange, almost unfamiliar.
“How many more people do I have to kill?”
No one answered.
Of course, no one answered.
Everyone who had come to kill me was already dead.
Ninety thousand Awaken.
I had killed them all.
Alone.
A number so absurd that even I could barely comprehend it.
I had never wanted to become a monster.
I had never dreamed of standing on a battlefield surrounded by the bodies of my enemies.
I had only wanted to live.
That was all.
I wanted to wake up in the morning without worrying about where I would sleep that night.
I wanted to eat without wondering whether someone would steal my food.
I wanted to close my eyes without fearing that I might never open them again.
Was that really too much to ask?
I stared at the ruined sky.
“Where did I go wrong?”
My voice trembled.
For the first time in what felt like forever, I desperately wanted someone to answer that question.
Was it when my parents died?
When I left my hometown?
When I learned that kindness could get me killed?
Or was it the moment I decided that I would survive, no matter what it cost?
Perhaps my mistake had been wanting to live in a world that had no place for someone like me.
A bitter smile appeared on my face.
“How stupid…”
I had spent my entire life running away from death.
And now, standing at the end of everything, I realized something.
I wasn’t afraid of dying anymore.
I was afraid that after everything I had done, I would still have nothing to show for my life.
No home.
No family.
No one who would remember me.
Just a name that wasn’t even a name.
Nameless.
I let my head fall back.
“If there’s really a god somewhere…”
I swallowed painfully.
“Let me rest.”
For once, I wasn’t asking for power.
I wasn’t asking for revenge.
I wasn’t asking for another chance.
I just wanted peace.
“Please…”
My voice faded into the wind.
“I’m tired.”
The End of a Monster
A voice suddenly echoed through the battlefield.
“Nameless.”
I couldn’t tell where it came from.
“Your time is over.”
I remained silent.
“You can finally rest now.
Your suffering will end here.”
The voice paused.
“You don’t have to kill anyone anymore.”
I wanted to laugh.
What an absurd thing to say to someone who had already killed ninety thousand people.
But I didn’t have the strength.
“Your war is over, Nameless.”
I looked at the sky.
For a brief moment, I thought I saw something moving beyond the clouds.
Perhaps it was only my imagination.
“You killed every Awaken who came to take your life.
You accomplished something no one else could.”
The voice grew quieter.
“Your journey was difficult from beginning to end.”
I closed my eyes.
“But I can’t save you.”
Silence followed.
I waited for something.
A miracle, perhaps.
A second chance.
A reason to keep fighting.
But nothing came.
And strangely enough, I wasn’t disappointed.
I had already lived far longer than I ever expected.
I had fought enough battles to last a thousand lifetimes.
I had suffered enough to understand that not every story ended happily.
So, for the first time, I allowed myself to stop fighting.
A faint smile touched my lips.
“Okay.”
I took one final, trembling breath.
“Then…
do your job.”
The wind swept across the battlefield.
My fingers loosened.
My breathing slowed.
And as the world gradually disappeared into darkness, I thought I heard someone calling my name.
Not a title.
Not a weapon.
Not a monster.
Just…
Nameless.
Then everything went silent.
And that was how my first life ended.
Or, at least, that was how I thought it ended.
My Story
They say that when people are about to die, their entire lives flash before their eyes.
I used to think that was nonsense.
But as I lay on that battlefield, waiting for my final breath, I remembered everything.
My parents.
My little sister.
The cold nights.
The hunger.
The people who hurt me.
The people I hurt in return.
Every mistake.
Every loss.
Every moment when I had wanted to give up but forced myself to stand again.
It all returned to me.
And somewhere among those memories, I found something I hadn’t expected.
Regret.
Not because I had failed to become powerful.
Not because I hadn’t killed enough enemies.
But because I couldn’t remember the last time I had lived for myself.
My entire life had been about surviving.
I had survived my childhood.
I had survived the streets.
I had survived the monsters.
And eventually, I had survived so much that I had forgotten why I wanted to survive in the first place.
If I could go back, would I make different choices?
I didn’t know.
Perhaps I would make the same mistakes.
Perhaps I would become an even worse person.
Or perhaps, somewhere along the way, I would find a reason to smile again.
I couldn’t change the past.
But I could tell you my story.
The story of a boy who lost everything before he was old enough to understand what loss meant.
The story of someone who became a monster because the world gave him no other way to survive.
And the story of how a nameless boy managed to create an identity of his own.
My name is Nameless.
And this…
is where my story began.
Chapter 1.1 — Before the World Changed
Two Hundred Years Earlier
Approximately two hundred years ago, humanity encountered something that would forever change the course of history.
The System.
Nobody knew where it came from.
Nobody knew who had created it.
And nobody understood why it had chosen humanity.
One day, an unfamiliar message appeared before every human being on Earth.
There was no warning.
No explanation.
Only a task.
[WELCOME TO THE AWAKEN WORLD.]
[YOUR FIRST TASK: SURVIVE FOR ONE HOUR.]
At first, people thought it was a prank.
Some laughed.
Some ignored it.
Others panicked, searching for hidden cameras or some explanation for the strange interface floating before their eyes.
Then the hour began.
And the world descended into chaos.
Twenty percent of humanity died before the first task ended.
Millions upon millions of lives disappeared in sixty minutes.
Families were separated.
Cities collapsed into panic.
People who had never held a weapon were forced to fight for their lives.
Some survived through courage.
Others through luck.
And some survived by doing things they would spend the rest of their lives trying to forget.
Those who completed the task became known as the Awaken.
Humanity had crossed a threshold from which there was no return.
The System brought power, abilities, and opportunities beyond anything people had imagined.
But it also brought danger.
Monsters began appearing.
The strong rose above the weak.
The old rules of society slowly crumbled beneath a new reality.
Power became everything.
And those who possessed none were left struggling at the bottom.
Two hundred years passed.
The world adapted.
Humanity rebuilt its cities, established new laws, and learned to coexist with the System.
But beneath the appearance of civilization, one truth remained unchanged.
The strong could decide how the weak lived.
And sometimes…
whether they lived at all.
2010 — The Birth of a Nameless Boy
I was born in 2010.
My family wasn’t rich, but we weren’t desperately poor, either.
We lived an ordinary middle-class life.
My father worked whenever he could find work.
My mother took odd jobs to help support us.
Neither of them was an Awaken, but they never made me feel as though we were inferior to those who possessed power.
We had a small home.
Meals weren’t always luxurious, but we ate together whenever possible.
And I had a little sister.
She was younger than me, energetic, and sometimes unbearably annoying.
She followed me around, asked endless questions, and occasionally blamed me for things she had done herself.
I complained about her.
Of course, I did.
What older brother wouldn’t?
But whenever she fell asleep beside me, I would quietly pull the blanket over her.
Back then, I thought life would continue like that forever.
I believed my parents would grow old.
I believed my sister would grow up.
I believed that no matter how difficult life became, I would always have somewhere to return to.
I was a child.
I didn’t understand how fragile happiness could be.
And perhaps that was a blessing.
Because if I had known what awaited me, I might have spent every happy moment being afraid of losing it.
2020 — The Day Everything Ended
I was ten years old when my life fell apart.
Two convicts had escaped from prison.
Somehow, they found their way into our house and hid there.
I didn’t know about them.
Neither did my sister.
That evening, we returned home at around six o’clock.
I remember the ordinary things.
The street outside.
The familiar door.
My sister walking beside me.
I remember thinking about what we might eat that night.
Nothing felt unusual.
Nothing warned me that my life was about to change forever.
The following morning, at seven o’clock, the police arrived.
I was still too young to understand what was happening.
There were unfamiliar faces everywhere.
People spoke in low voices, and someone told us to stay back.
Then I learned that my parents were dead.
For a while, I couldn’t understand the words.
Dead?
What did that mean?
My father had been alive the previous evening.
My mother had been alive the previous evening.
How could they simply be gone?
I looked toward my little sister.
She was standing beside me, holding my hand.
She didn’t understand, either.
She was too young to know why strangers had entered our home or why everyone looked so serious.
She only knew that something was wrong.
I wanted to explain it to her.
I wanted to tell her that everything would be okay.
That our parents would come back.
That we would eat dinner together again.
But I couldn’t lie to her.
Not when I couldn’t even convince myself.
I don’t remember crying.
I remember the silence.
I remember the strange feeling that the world had continued moving while I had somehow been left behind.
People came and went.
Questions were asked.
Decisions were made.
And before I could understand what was happening, my little sister was sent to an orphanage.
I was ten.
She was even younger.
We had already lost our parents.
Now we were being separated, too.
I wanted to object.
I wanted to tell them that she was my family, that I was her older brother, and that we shouldn’t have to face the world alone.
But what could I offer her?
I had no money.
No home.
No reliable way to support either of us.
I was just a child who had lost everything.
So I watched her go.
I don’t remember the exact words we exchanged.
I don’t remember whether she understood why we were being separated.
But I remember the feeling of her hand slipping away from mine.
And I remember standing there long after she was gone.
That day, I lost more than my parents.
I lost the only home I had ever known.
And I lost the person I had promised myself I would always protect.
I was too young to understand how to grieve.
Too powerless to change what had happened.
And too afraid to imagine what would come next.
So I did the only thing I could.
I left that city.
I walked away from everything I knew, carrying nothing but the clothes on my back and memories I would spend years trying to forget.
I didn’t know where I was going.
I only knew that if I stayed, I would have to face the empty spaces my family had left behind.
And at ten years old…
I wasn’t ready for that.
Six Years of Survival
I was too young to get a proper job.
Most people wouldn’t hire a child who had nowhere to live.
So I did whatever I could.
During the day, I wandered through the streets looking for work.
Sometimes I carried things for shopkeepers.
Sometimes I cleaned places nobody wanted to clean.
Sometimes I was paid a little money.
Other times, I received nothing.
At night, I found whatever shelter I could.
Sometimes it was beneath an abandoned building.
Sometimes it was beside a wall that offered a little protection from the wind.
And sometimes, there was nowhere at all.
I learned to sleep with one eye open.
I learned to hide food.
I learned that a hungry person could become dangerous, and a desperate person could become worse.
I also learned something else.
People didn’t always hurt you because they hated you.
Sometimes they hurt you because they could.
They beat me.
They forced me to steal.
They used me to do things they didn’t want to do themselves.
And when something went wrong, they blamed me.
I rarely fought back.
Not because I was brave.
Not because I was forgiving.
I simply understood that fighting people stronger than me would only make my situation worse.
So I endured it.
Day after day.
Month after month.
Year after year.
There were times when I worked until my body could barely stand.
There were nights when hunger kept me awake, and mornings when I had to force myself to get up despite barely having slept.
I stopped thinking about the future.
The future was a luxury for people who could afford to believe they would have one.
I focused on the next meal.
The next night.
The next day.
And slowly, something inside me changed.
At first, I felt afraid when someone raised a hand against me.
Then I became angry.
Later, I began to hate them.
But eventually, even those feelings faded.
Pain became ordinary.
Insults became background noise.
Fear became a familiar companion.
I had wanted someone to help me.
I had wanted someone to ask whether I was okay.
But no one came.
And after a while, I stopped waiting.
Perhaps that was when my childhood truly ended.
Not when my parents died.
Not when I left my sister.
But when I finally accepted that no one was coming to save me.
I would have to do it myself.
2026 — Sixteen Years Old
In this world, people awaken when they reach the age of sixteen.
Some receive extraordinary abilities.
Some gain powers that can change the course of battles.
Others obtain skills that allow them to build fortunes, command armies, or challenge people who once stood far above them.
Awakening is a turning point.
For the fortunate, it is the beginning of a new life.
For the unfortunate, it is another reminder of how far behind they are.
I had never expected much from it.
What kind of ability could someone like me possibly receive?
Still, a small part of me hoped.
Not for wealth.
Not for fame.
I wanted something that would allow me to stop living like an animal.
Something that would let me defend myself.
Something that would give me control over my own life.
Perhaps, if I awakened, I could finally become normal.
I could find a place to live.
I could earn money without begging strangers for work.
Maybe, someday, I could even search for my little sister.
I didn’t know whether she remembered me.
I didn’t know whether she was safe.
But I had never completely forgotten her.
Even after six years, there were moments when I remembered her holding my hand.
Those memories were faint now.
Yet whenever I thought about giving up, something inside me refused to let them disappear.
I didn’t know whether that feeling was love, guilt, or merely a promise I had made to myself.
Perhaps it was all three.
On the day I turned sixteen, I sat beside a quiet street.
The world seemed strangely peaceful.
People walked past me without paying much attention.
Somewhere in the distance, a vehicle passed, and the sound slowly faded.
I stared at my hands.
Sixteen years old.
I had spent six of them trying to survive without my family.
I wondered whether my parents would recognize me now.
Would my mother be sad to see how thin I had become?
Would my father be disappointed that I had never managed to build a proper life?
I lowered my head.
“Forget it.”
The words escaped before I could stop them.
There was no point asking questions that had no answers.
Today was supposed to be different.
Today, I would awaken.
And perhaps, for the first time in years, I would have a chance to change something.
I closed my eyes.
I took a deep breath.
Then I concentrated.
For a few moments, nothing happened.
I waited.
One minute passed.
Then another.
Five minutes.
Ten.
I began to wonder whether something was wrong.
Had I failed?
Was I incapable of awakening?
Had the world decided that even this small opportunity was too much for someone like me?
A bitter smile appeared on my face.
“Of course.”
I lowered my head.
“Why would I be lucky for once?”
Then—
Something changed.
I felt as though my consciousness had been pulled out of my body.
The sensation was so sudden that I couldn’t even react.
When I opened my eyes, the street was gone.
I was standing in an endless white space.
There was no ground beneath me, yet I wasn’t falling.
There were no walls.
No sky.
No horizon.
Nothing.
I turned around, trying to understand where I was.
“Where am I?”
My voice echoed into the emptiness.
No answer came.
Then, without warning, something appeared above my head.
A translucent interface.
I froze.
I had heard stories about the System all my life.
Everyone had.
But seeing it with my own eyes was different.
This wasn’t a story.
It wasn’t a rumor.
It was real.
A faint light spread across the white space.
Letters began forming before me.
I stared at them, barely daring to breathe.
For the first time in six years, I felt something I could barely recognize.
Hope.
Small.
Fragile.
Almost painful.
But it was there.
The words continued to appear.
[WELCOME TO THE AWAKEN WORLD.]
[AWAKENING PROCESS INITIATED.]
I stared at the interface.
My heart began beating faster.
Was this finally my chance?
Was I about to receive the power I had dreamed of?
Would I finally be able to protect myself?
Would I ever find my sister again?
I didn’t know.
But for the first time in a long while, I wanted to know what tomorrow would bring.
Then another line of text appeared.
And whatever waited beyond it…
would change my life forever.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE.]
[PLEASE WAIT FOR YOUR PERSONAL STATUS PANEL…]