Chapter 2 : Chapter 2
Chapter 2: He Picked Up a Witch
Ryan practically fled the restaurant. Only after he had merged into the bustling crowd on the main street did the unnatural heat on his face finally subside a little.
“What even was that…” he muttered under his breath, his mind in utter disarray.
That bizarre scene kept replaying in his head.
The words above other people’s heads… had actually come true.
But he himself had gained nothing. There was no system notification, no increase in attribute points, nothing at all.
All that had happened was that the boy avoided the tragedy of eating a fly, and the owner lost money by giving away a free apple pie.
What exactly was this ability?
Could he only see when other people were about to have bad luck? Or perhaps… could he see the probabilities or consequences behind certain actions?
He shook his head and decided not to think too deeply about it for the moment.
Since he had this strange ability now, he might as well… test it a little more.
After leaving the restaurant, he wandered through the busy streets with an experimental mindset, his gaze involuntarily drifting over the heads of passersby.
The shops lining both sides of the main street were dazzling in variety. In the display window of a magic item shop, enchanted jewelry and mana-storing crystals gleamed in shifting colors. An alchemy materials shop exuded the mixed scent of strange herbs, with dried monster claws and fangs hanging by the entrance. Outside a bookstore was a poster advertising the newly published 《Guide to Basic Spell Chanting》.
There was even an adventurer’s equipment store with a comical slime painted on its signboard. A burly orc uncle stood outside with a slab-like greatsword on his back, shouting in a thunderous voice, “Fresh stock of steel-scale armor! Crafted by a dwarven master! Don’t miss it!”
Ryan swept his gaze across the orc’s head. Nothing.
Then he looked at a young girl hesitating in front of a magic item shop, trying to decide whether to buy a sparkling bracelet. Floating above her head was a line of text.
【Action: Purchase the “Starlight Bracelet” (Fake)】
【Consequence: Probability of losing effectiveness in three days and staining the wrist black: 95%】
The corner of Ryan’s mouth twitched.
What a crooked merchant.
He continued onward, observing this world that seemed as though it had been lightly annotated with data, with the curiosity of a child who had just received a new toy.
This ability seemed unreliable, appearing only sometimes. Not everyone had words above their heads, and the contents varied wildly. Most were trivial matters of daily life, or bad decisions so obvious that anyone could have seen them coming.
He tried focusing his attention, but there was no way to trigger it deliberately. It was entirely passive and random.
As he wandered, he turned into a quieter side street.
The buildings here were older, the road uneven, and there were far fewer pedestrians. Sunlight was cut into strips by the walls of the houses, and the air smelled of damp stone.
Then, just as he turned into an even quieter lane to escape the noise of the main street, a faint sound reached his ears.
It was not the din of the marketplace.
It sounded more like… stifled sobbing, like the whimpering of a small animal, mixed with the rough, impatient scolding of a man.
“You little brat, your hands aren’t clean!”
“N-No… I didn’t…”
Then came the dull sound of a blow, followed by a muffled groan of pain.
The sound was coming from deeper within a narrower alley ahead, one so dark that sunlight barely reached inside.
Ryan stopped in his tracks.
A sense of morality rooted somewhere deep in his soul urged him forward, but reason immediately seized that impulse by the throat.
He had only just arrived in this world. He knew no one here, understood nothing yet, and had only just begun adapting to a life under the name of Ryan.
And the step he was considering taking now ran completely counter to the way he ought to behave.
But still…
That thin, broken sobbing sounded like a little needle pricking him.
He clicked his tongue in irritation.
His gaze swept over the empty crates and piles of refuse near the alley entrance. In the end, he turned around and walked toward the darkness.
His boots stepped onto the old damp stones with clear, echoing sounds.
The sight inside the alley was even more unpleasant than the sounds had been.
Three sloppily dressed, shifty-looking men stood in a semicircle, blocking most of the light.
In the middle of them was a tiny figure curled up on the ground.
Flaxen hair clung messily to a filthy little face. She wore a patched grayish outfit so tattered that it looked more like a sack than clothing. She was hugging her head, and her frail shoulders trembled beneath the men’s rough shoves.
A scar-faced man was poking at the girl’s arm with a short wooden stick, not too hard, but more than hard enough, while cursing loudly.
“Still refusing to admit it? My money pouch was right here a moment ago! If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”
The girl only shook her head and buried her face lower, her sobbing fragmented and weak.
Ryan stopped a few steps from the mouth of the alley. His shadow stretched long into the darkness.
The three men noticed the shift in light and turned around.
When they saw Ryan’s expensive clothing and the air of refinement that was utterly out of place in such a filthy alley, the scar-faced man raised an eyebrow and spoke in an unfriendly tone.
“What are you staring at? What pampered young master are you? Mind your own business.”
Ryan said nothing.
The irritation in his chest only grew heavier.
He should have turned around and left. But when he saw the translucent subtitle slowly appear above the girl’s head, his eyelid twitched.
【Action: Be falsely accused of theft】
【Direct Consequence: Probability of suffering continued beatings and verbal abuse: 100%】
【Hidden Chain Consequence: Due to weak physical condition, probability of wound infection/internal bleeding after the beating, followed by inability to obtain effective treatment and death within three days: 94%】
【Slight Chance of a Turning Point: 6%】
Six percent…
What exactly did that “turning point” mean?
He lifted his eyes, his gray-blue gaze sweeping over the three thugs.
Influenced by fragments of the original owner’s memories, disgust and condescension naturally surfaced in his face and voice.
“You are making too much noise,” he said coldly. His voice was not loud, but it carried an icy command. “You are blocking the way. Get out.”
The scar-faced man froze for a moment, then let out a sneering laugh and shook the wooden stick in his hand.
“Brat, you looking for trouble?”
As he spoke, he reached out and shoved at Ryan’s chest. The instant that dirty hand was about to touch his clothes—
Ryan’s body moved before his conscious mind could decide.
It was instinct, the instinct ingrained within this body, triggered the moment it was offended, so fast that it almost left an afterimage behind.
He did not even think of a spell.
He simply followed the icy, surging mana that rose from somewhere deep within him, flowing along the pathways engraved into his muscle memory. His right hand lifted casually, his fingertips tracing an extremely short arc through the air.
There was no chant.
No complex gesture.
The next second, the scar-faced man who had lunged forward—and his two companions along with him—were sent flying as though they had been struck by an invisible, massive wall.
“Ugh!” “Ah!”
The three men grunted and staggered backward, crashing clumsily into the slippery brick wall behind them. The scar-faced man’s wooden stick flew out of his hand and clattered into the gutter.
The force of the impact made it feel as though their organs had been shifted out of place. All they could do was clutch at the wall, coughing, while staring at the young man at the alley entrance in horror.
The alley fell abruptly silent.
Only rough breathing and the drip of filthy water remained.
The curled-up girl had stopped crying as well. She slowly raised her head from her arms, revealing a pair of hazel eyes brimming with tears, now filled with shock, as she looked toward the backlit figure standing there.
Ryan himself had frozen.
His right hand was still raised, and his fingertips still tingled faintly with the aftereffect of flowing mana.
What… had just happened?
The smoothness of that mana control, the instant burst of force far beyond anything he understood as a former game player…
This was nowhere near the level that the original owner should have had in the memories.
Something stirred in the deep well of memory, bringing up even deeper fragments.
There was a familiarity with controlling mana as naturally as moving one’s own limbs, and buried in his bones was the pride and mastery that belonged to a true genius.
The original owner’s talent was probably far more terrifying than it had ever appeared on the surface. It had simply been buried beneath his rotten personality and self-indulgent wastefulness.
The three thugs struggled to their feet, and the look in their eyes when they faced Ryan had completely changed. It was now filled with fear and uncertainty.
To knock back three grown men so effortlessly, almost instantly, was not something an ordinary academy student could do.
“So you’re from the magic academy? Y-You just wait!”
The scar-faced man forced out the threat, though his bravado was clearly hollow. Clutching his chest, he did not dare linger. He and his companions supported one another as they stumbled out of the alley.
Only Ryan and the girl remained in the dim alley.
Ryan slowly lowered his hand. The faint numbness in his fingertips had not completely faded.
He looked down at his palm, then toward the tiny figure in the corner staring at him in a daze.
There were still tear stains on the girl’s dusty face, making her look pitiful, but in the dimness, her hazel eyes seemed strangely bright.
He walked over, crouched down, and tried to make his voice sound less stiff—though he was not sure how successful he was.
“Are you hurt?”
The girl shrank back slightly but did not speak. She only shook her head, her eyes still fixed firmly on his face. That gaze was a complicated mixture of fear, gratitude, and… intense curiosity.
Ryan frowned, remembered something, and took out two shining silver coins from his money pouch.
“Take these,” he said, holding them out. “Go buy something to eat, or get your injuries looked at.”
The girl looked at the two silver coins, but she did not take them. She bit her lower lip and spoke in a weak but clear voice.
“I… can’t take that.”
“Why not?”
“It’ll be stolen,” the girl said softly. Her hazel eyes dropped to her ragged clothes, which looked like torn burlap. “Or… something worse. Someone like me can’t hold on to money.”
Ryan’s outstretched hand paused in midair. The coolness of the silver seeped into his fingertips.
He fell silent.
She was right.
In a real world like this, for a homeless child with no one to rely on, showing money openly might as well be courting disaster.
What he had just done—rather than helping her—might have only created another form of danger.
He put the silver coins away and stood up.
The sounds of the city drifted faintly in from outside the alley, making the silence here seem even deeper. The girl remained curled in the corner, looking up at him like a small animal awaiting the judgment of fate.
Trouble.
Enormous trouble.
Why had he meddled in something like this just because he was full and had nothing better to do?
“…What is your name?” he heard himself ask.
The girl seemed to hesitate before answering in a voice so soft it was almost inaudible.
“Cosette.”
Ryan nodded. He was just about to say something when the name stirred something in his mind.
Cosette…
Cosette?
The game’s character roster flipped open automatically in his thoughts.
A witch…
One of the seven…
One of them oversaw an underground auction house, had a ruthlessly sharp eye, and possessed a cold, arrogant personality. She was known as the “Appraisal Witch,” or rather—the “Witch of Envy.”
That “Witch of Envy” Cosette, who did not appear until the middle of the game? The one who always wore magnificent gowns, possessed a tall and graceful figure, stood beneath the spotlight, and evaluated the worth of all things with calm, emotionless eyes—even forcing Saintess Alicia to deal with her cautiously?
Ryan’s gaze fell once more upon the tiny, filthy girl huddled in the corner, her face smeared with tears and fear like a little stray cat.
Flaxen hair. Hazel eyes. Her name was Cosette.
An overwhelming sense of absurdity drowned him in an instant.
In the future, she would become a tall and icy queen who ruled over value itself.
And right now, she was nothing more than a child cowering in a dark alley, unable even to accept a single silver coin.
The timeline was wrong.
The difference in appearance was greater still, as wide as heaven and earth.
But the name was the same, and his intuition was stirring uneasily.
He knew Cosette’s storyline all too well—ironically well.
The future queen who would stand atop a lofty platform built of gemstones and gold coins, whose mere glance could freeze the air of an auction hall. The “Appraisal Witch” whose name would become legend alongside the fall of a gilded auction hammer, whose schemes and methods could leave even seasoned merchants dripping in cold sweat.
She was destined to appear in the middle of the game, because the beginner area of the early story simply could not contain a presence of her weight—a being already tempered by intricate rules and immense interests.
To rise to the top in that devouring world and remain there for years, talent for appraising treasures alone could never have been enough. She had to possess matching absolute strength, enough to silence any petty schemes directed her way.
By the time she finally entered the players’ sight, she was already complete—someone who had seen the warmth and coldness of the world, tasted every manner of calculation, and wrapped her heart in a shell of ice, only to have a crack opened in it by the Saintess’s utterly incompatible sincerity.
He looked at Cosette, and Cosette looked back at him.
There was still moisture in her hazel eyes, but they no longer seemed as utterly dazed as before. Something else had appeared there now, something like cautious observation.
The sunlight edged a little farther into the alley, illuminating half of the girl’s face. Most of it was still dirty and gray, but he could see the fine baby hairs and the tear tracks that had not yet dried.
Ryan drew in a deep breath, then slowly let it out.
Fine.
Whether she was truly that future witch or not, right now she was trouble—a piece of trouble that had attached itself to him because he had stepped in for no good reason.
“Ryan,” he said, giving his name in a somewhat stiff tone. “My name is Ryan Velt.”
The girl nodded lightly to show that she had remembered it.
“…Come with me.”
He turned toward the mouth of the alley as he spoke, his steps not too large, as though leaving time for the person behind him to follow.
“We should get out of here first.”
He did not look back, but he could hear a rustling sound behind him, followed by the faint, light footsteps of someone trailing after him at a cautious distance.
The sunlight outside the alley was somewhat dazzling, and the clamor of the main street once again enveloped them both.
Ryan walked in front, his brows slightly furrowed, already considering how he was supposed to deal with this sudden “trouble.”
A few steps behind him, the girl named Cosette kept her head lowered, looking at the boy’s shadow stretched long before her in the sunlight.
Deep within her hazel eyes, something flashed and vanished, quickly hidden once more beneath timidity and dependence.