Admin console
1018 Words
Chapter 8: ADMIN CONSOLE
The train was dead silent.
GM-07 stood in the doorway. Mask cracked from the dungeon. Clipboard gone.
In his hand was a sword made of white light.
"Ren Park," he said. "Anomaly 99%. You are now classified: THREAT LEVEL OMEGA."
"Cool title," I said. "Do I get a badge?"
Behind me, J and Hana were pressed against the wall.
J whispered: "Don’t use [DELETE]. Not yet. GM-01 is 2 minutes out."
*[ANOMALY METER: 99%]*
*[ADMIN CONSOLE: ACTIVE]*
*[SKILLS AVAILABLE: ALL]*
The world looked different now.
I could see GM-07’s stats floating over his head:
*[GM-07 Lv.200 | HP: 500,000 | WEAKNESS: LOGIC LOOP]*
I could see the train’s code. I could see the drone outside.
I could see a button in my vision that said *[DELETE SYSTEM]* in red.
My hands weren’t shaking anymore.
"Final warning," GM-07 said again.
"No," I said. "My turn."
---
### *FIGHT*
I moved first.
[Cooldown Reset]
[Force Crit]
I fired.
Not an arrow. Code. A line of white text shot from my bow and hit GM-07 in the chest.
*[CRITICAL HIT! 50,000 DAMAGE!]*
*[DEBUFF APPLIED: SYSTEM LAG]*
GM-07 flickered. For 0.5 seconds he was in two places at once.
"What," he said. "That’s not—"
[Cooldown Reset] again.
I hit him with [Loot Override]. Target: his sword.
The sword glitched. Turned into a rubber chicken in his hand.
*[ANOMALY: 99% → 99.5%]*
"Stop," he said. "You don’t understand what you’re doing."
"I understand perfectly," I said. "You delete people who get too strong. You lie about the tutorial. You farmed Day Zero for data."
I fired again. This time at the train ceiling.
[Force Crit] + [DELETE] 10%.
The roof blew off. Wind screamed in. Drones flooded in.
*[ANOMALY: 99.5% → 99.9%]*
J grabbed me. "Ren! 100%! GM-01 is coming!"
"I know," I said. "That’s the point."
GM-07 charged. Sword came back as a sword. He swung.
I didn’t dodge. I opened [ADMIN CONSOLE].
*[PAUSE ENTITY: GM-07]*
*[CONFIRM? Y/N]*
I hit Y.
GM-07 froze mid-swing. 3 inches from my face.
His eyes behind the mask went wide.
"What... what did you do," he said. Voice glitching.
"I paused you," I said. "Like you pause players."
I walked around him. Tapped his mask.
Underneath was a man. 40s. Tired. Scared.
"Why," I asked him. "Why do this?"
"Orders," he said, voice shaking. "The System— it pays for my daughter’s treatment. If I don’t—"
"Yeah," I said. "I get it."
I unpaused him.
He swung again. I caught the blade with my hand.
No cut. Because I was Admin now.
*[ANOMALY: 99.9% → 100%]*
The sky turned black.
---
### *GM-01*
Above the train, the air tore open.
Not a portal. A rip.
And through it stepped GM-01.
No mask. No face. Just static where a head should be.
10 feet tall. No weapon. He didn’t need one.
*[GM-01 ENFORCER PRIME]*
*[LEVEL: ???]*
*[ABILITY: ERASURE]*
"Ren Park," the static said. It wasn’t a voice. It was in my head.
"Anomaly 100%. Protocol: TOTAL DELETION."
J stepped in front of me. "No! It was my plan! Delete me!"
"Secondary target: JI-WOO KIM. ALSO MARKED."
Hana drew her sword. "Touch him and I’ll—"
"Tank Lv.42," static said. "Irrelevant."
GM-01 raised a hand. The world started deleting.
First the train seats. Then the windows. Then Hana’s sword.
It was erasing reality.
"Ren," J yelled. "You have to use it! [DELETE SYSTEM]!"
"I can’t," I said. "If I delete the System, everyone loses their powers. Monsters stay. People die."
"Then what!" she screamed.
I looked at GM-07. Still frozen. Still scared.
I looked at GM-01. Erasing everything.
I looked at my HUD.
*[ADMIN CONSOLE]*
*[OPTION 1: DELETE SYSTEM]*
*[OPTION 2: REWRITE RULES]*
Rewrite.
I opened it.
Lines of code flooded my vision. Thousands.
*[RULE: ANOMALY CAP = 99%]*
*[RULE: GM AUTHORITY = ABSOLUTE]*
*[RULE: DELETION ON 100%]*
I grabbed them. All of them.
And I changed them.
*[RULE: ANOMALY CAP = 1000%]*
*[RULE: GM AUTHORITY = SUBJECT TO PLAYER CONSENT]*
*[RULE: DELETION = DISABLED]*
I hit save.
*[ADMIN ACTION: RULES REWRITTEN]*
*[WARNING: SYSTEM INSTABILITY: 47%]*
GM-01 stopped. Static head tilted.
"ERROR," it said. "RULE CONFLICT."
"Yeah," I said. "That’s the idea."
The erasure stopped. Hana’s sword came back.
GM-01 flickered. Screamed in static. Then collapsed into pixels.
Gone.
---
### *AFTERMATH*
Silence.
The train was half gone. We were on tracks 50 meters in the air.
GM-07 fell to his knees. "You... you changed the rules."
"I did," I said. Meter dropped. *99% → 40%*. The rewrite cost me.
J stared at me. "You didn’t hit 1000%. You just raised the cap."
"Didn’t need to," I said. "I just needed them to not be able to delete us for trying."
She started laughing. Then crying. "You i***t. You beautiful idiot."
Hana hugged me. Hard. "Don’t ever do that again."
"Noted," I said. "But we’re not done."
I opened [ADMIN CONSOLE] again.
*[BROADCAST TO ALL PLAYERS: Y/N]*
I hit Y.
Every screen in Seoul lit up. Every HUD.
*[SYSTEM MESSAGE FROM: REN PARK]*
*[THE SYSTEM LIED. THERE IS NO CAP. THERE IS NO DELETION.]*
*[FROM NOW ON, WE MAKE THE RULES.]*
*[MEET ME AT SYSTEM HQ. GANGNAM. 12 HOURS.]*
I closed it.
Below us, Seoul was waking up. Phones buzzing. Portals flickering.
Baek was probably pissed.
Jin was probably cheering from jail.
GM-07 was probably getting fired.
"So," J said, wiping her eyes. "What now, boss?"
I looked at the city. At the monsters. At the people filming.
"Now," I said, "we fix it."
*[ANOMALY METER: 40%]*
*[STATUS: NO LONGER WANTED]*
*[NEW QUEST: REBUILD THE SYSTEM]*
*[END OF CHAPTER 8]*
*WHAT JUST HAPPENED:*
1. *Power Up*: Ren hit 100% and lived. Got [ADMIN CONSOLE]
2. *Beat GM-01*: Deleted the deleter by rewriting rules
3. *World Change*: No more deletion. No more 99% cap. System is now player-controlled
4. *Public Reveal*: Ren told the whole city the truth
5. *New Arc*: "Rebuild the System" starts in 12 hours
*Chapter 9* = The fallout. Baek, Iron Fist, the other 5 Admins, and System HQ responds.
Ready for *Ch 9: "THE ADDRESS"*?
- Writer
