Common Sense Altering System

Ray laid back, but curiosity made him grab that thick phone again. After getting his fill of Karl’s antics, his fingers swiped the screen and switched over to the main news timeline that was getting more and more insane by the day.

His swipe stopped on a hashtag dominating the very top of trending: #HimeNature and #MeatEaterSin.

Ray furrowed his brow. The name Hime Nature had been popping up more and more lately, but the last few days it went completely off the rails. Her followers jumped crazy, rolling from a small animal rights activist group into a national-scale fanatic cult. Ray tapped a news coverage video that got uploaded just a few hours ago.

The video showed hundreds of Hime Nature followers wearing moss-green robes, crowding up and blocking the city’s main road. They surrounded a famous burger joint that just happened to open near a new church building. With zero fear, that group padlocked the front door of the shop, unfurled a banner that said "Animal Blood is a Curse!", and forced the customers inside to get out.

That reckless stunt just got left alone by the cops who looked too hesitant to even move. In the comments, a crazy amount of people were actually supporting it. Hime was now being worshipped like a new prophet. People saw her as a messenger from God sent to unleash nature’s wrath over humans torturing animals.

"Mother Earth is pissed! Hime is the voice for those slaughtered just to fill human stomachs!" one comment wrote with thousands of likes.

"If you still eat meat, you deserve the punishment!" another chimed in.

Of course, the counter-current was just as strong.

"Y’all insane! Your brains got washed by that crazy girl or what? People just trying to do business and y’all shut them down!"

"Where the hell are the cops? Why is a radical cult like this allowed to take over public facilities?"

Ray let out a long breath, rubbing his itchy face. "Straight-up crazy," he muttered.

But that crazy drama wasn’t done. When Ray swiped the screen further, another name popped up dominating the timeline: Angelo.

Angelo, the dude who suddenly went viral because he could shoot and control fire from his own hands. If Hime used the nature-lover narrative, Angelo positioned himself as some mystical religious figure. He got cult-worshipped as the owner of the Holy Fire, cleanser of the world’s sins. His videos showed him burning objects from a distance with just a finger touch, making millions of people drop to their knees and call him a savior.

Ray let out a dry laugh. It felt insane and ridiculous at the same time. He, who knew exactly the reality behind all these magic powers, felt like he was watching a cheap fantasy movie directed by a drunk guy.

All this supernatural shit didn’t come from God, prophets, or earth spirits. The source of Hime and Angelo’s power—exactly the same as Ray and Milady’s—came from that junk slot machine they found back then! It’s just that those two chose to use their system powers to build crazy influence and sell absurd propaganda to a panicking public.

Ray’s thumb stopped scrolling when a live broadcast clip from a national TV station popped up. The title was loud as hell: HOT DEBATE: Earth’s Messenger vs Owner of the Holy Fire.

Ray turned up the volume on the thick phone, listening to the conversation from its slightly tinny speaker.

Inside that five-star TV studio, Hime and Angelo sat facing each other at a round table. Hime wore a plain gray cloth dress with no makeup, her eyes radiating cold fanaticism. Meanwhile Angelo sat with his arms crossed, wearing a white shirt unbuttoned at the chest with a disgusting grin, occasionally sparking little flames dancing between his fingers just to scare his opponent.

"This world is already destroyed because of the greed of humans like you!" Hime opened, her voice sharp and piercing as she pointed at Angelo’s face. "Humans have to stop eating meat! Stop farming, stop slaughtering other living beings! Every time you chew meat, you’re chewing the blood and suffering of tortured souls! From today on, vegetarianism isn’t a choice anymore, it’s a moral obligation from the Creator!"

Angelo let out a loud chuckle, a laugh he deliberately made fake just to provoke.

"You’re crazy, Hime," Angelo answered casual, looking up with a dismissive stare. "You claim to be a messenger of God, but you don’t even get basic nature logic. Nature’s harmony was created with a food chain! Animals eating animals is normal in the forest. Tigers take down deer, eagles snatch snakes. Carnivores were created for a specific reason by the Creator! So why can’t humans—the highest beings given the Holy Fire—eat meat?"

"That’s animal instinct, Angelo! Humans have brains!" Hime snapped, standing up from her chair so hard she bumped the studio table. "Carnivores in nature don’t farm animals in tight cages then slaughter them in mass! That’s exploitation! Humans are rotting from the inside because they eat death!"

"Brains?" Angelo stood up too, the sparks on his fingers suddenly growing into a blazing red flame, making the studio air instantly hot. "Brains are for dominating nature, not bowing down to grass! This fire I hold is proof that humans were given the power to cook meat and lead the world! You’re just a delusional girl who worships trees!"

"You’re a proud carcass-eater!" Hime screamed hysterical.

"And you’re just a crazy grass-worshipper who needs protein!" Angelo shot back while slamming his hand into the air, shooting a small tongue of flame toward the studio ceiling.

BZZZZT!

The live broadcast screen suddenly cut out. Looks like the host hit the panic button and forcibly cut the broadcast because they were scared the billion-cost TV studio was about to get roasted by that crazy fire-prophet.

The phone screen went dark again, reflecting Ray’s face as he just shook his head on that sofa that was soft but still hard.

The world out there had completely shifted into a dangerous circus stage. Regular people were getting swept up in the mystical illusion, worshipping the ones holding systems as new gods, while Ray—who had the same system—had to hide in a corner of the city, waiting for the right moment to move.

Ray tossed his phone onto the coffee table, sighed quietly while turning his body to look at Milady’s tightly closed bedroom door.

"That junk slot machine really fried everybody’s brains," Ray whispered quietly to the dark night, before finally closing his eyes.

Morning light leaked through the cheap curtains and stabbed Ray right in the face. He groaned, rolled over on the hard-ass sofa, and almost knocked one of the giant cat plushies onto the floor again.

"You sleep like a corpse that lost a fight with a pillow," Milady said from the kitchen. She was already dressed, hair tied back, sipping from a plain mug like she’d been up for hours. "Drooling on my sofa too. Real charming."

Ray sat up slow, rubbing his eyes. "The hell... you always this extra in the morning?"

"Only when I have to look at you first thing." She set the mug down. "Get up. You look like leftover dim sum."

Ray stretched his back till it popped. "So this is it? Every day’s gonna be me waking up on this rock-hard sofa while you stand there roasting me? I’m already bored as hell."

Milady glanced at him, unimpressed. "No."

Ray blinked. "No?"

"I have a bunker under the house." She said it like she was talking about extra storage. "Sealed, soundproof, private line. You’re going down there."

Ray stared. "A bunker. You got a whole underground hideout and you let me crash on this sofa?"

"The sofa is temporary. The bunker is work." She walked to a section of the living room floor that looked completely normal, tapped a hidden panel with her foot, and a hatch slid open with a low mechanical hiss. Stairs dropped into dim concrete. "Get in. You’re livestreaming."

Ray stood there like his brain short-circuited. "Livestreaming? For what? Half the country’s still asking where I went."

"That’s the point." Milady’s voice stayed cold. "Your status still isn’t locked in. You’re missing, not charged. Government already said they never grabbed you. Nobody’s made you a suspect. That window is still open. You go on camera and take the narrative before the internet writes a worse one for you."

Ray pointed at the dark stairs. "So I just hop on stream and tell people I’m fine?"

"You control what they believe about you. Your face, your voice, your version. Chaos is already loud. Use it." She jerked her chin toward the hatch. "And don’t act like this is charity."

Ray frowned. "Charity?"

Milady actually let out a short laugh. No warmth in it.

"You think I’m gonna keep feeding you forever? Roof, food, a clean bunker—none of that is free. You pay rent. Starting now."

"Rent? I don’t even have—"

"You do." She cut him off. "Your old livestream money. You never pulled it. I already checked. It’s sitting there. Withdraw it, cover your stay, then keep earning. If the stream dies, you still owe me."

Ray dragged a hand down his face. "You checked my old account."

"I don’t house dead weight." She picked her mug back up like the conversation was already over. "Phone’s on the table. Get downstairs. Don’t be stupid, and don’t make me explain rent twice."

Ray looked at the open hatch, then at Milady, then back at the hatch. Yesterday he was winking at strangers in a Chinese restaurant. Today he was a missing man with a bill, a bunker, and a camera.

"Unbelievable," he muttered, grabbing the thick brick phone. "Missing on the timeline, broke in the basement."

"Welcome to surviving," Milady said without looking at him. "Now move. And wipe the drool off my sofa before you go down."

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