"Aggie, what're you talking about, man?" Heffer almost started laughing as his throat got dry, "Who cares about the book, dude? Y-You just..."

"Who cares what I did?" I picked the gun off the ground, "Point is - I am the only armed one in the room. I dictate what matters and what does not."

Gulping, the group of men looked at each other, the fear showing in their Eyes as they then desperately tried to talk me out of doing this.

"A-Aguilar, we can-!"

"Not interested." I shot the man in the knee, sending everyone back to a safe distance, "Right now, I only need information. Get me that, and we can go back to the way things were before."

"That's it!" Heffer alone stepped forward from the crowd, "You want the fucking full story, you demented fuck!?"

"Thank you for cooperating." I nodded as he ordered the rest of them to patch up their wounded friend, "Oh, and please, do not spare me of any details. Start from Alpha, and end at Omega, if you will."

"Ugh, fine, don't rush me!" He calmed his racing heart down before sitting down on the cinder block across from me, "Aggie, this whole thing was your idea."

"This whole thing?" I said as I shot another one of his friends in the foot, "Did I not tell you to not spare me of any details? What is 'this whole thing'?"

"Aaargh, Heffer!" The wounded thug fell to the ground, "Shit, Aguilar's gonna kill us all!"

"G-George! Argh, fine! Have it your way, okay Aguilar!?" Heffer quickly elaborated, "T-Taking over the System! We ran into this abandoned server room and made it our own, don't you remember!?"

Hm? So this warehouse is a... server room? And what's this about taking over the Server? Is such a thing even conceivably possible for such a childish group of young men? Well, I guess they are students of Simpleton, after all, so it shouldn't be so farfetched. That being said, it seems I was right to not kill them all off so quickly. I had at first figured I could get closer to the answer, but never in my wildest dreams could I assume I would come face to face with it right here and now!

"Go on." I slowly lowered my gun, yet still kept it pointed at them, "The System, tell me how exactly "we" made it our own."

"Y-You're scaring me, man. I-I dunno, I just can't..." He choked on his words.

"Answer the damned question!" I shouted, only stopping after one of the guys started puking out of fear, "I do not want to have to do this."

"T-Then don't, man!" Heffer begged on his arms and knees, "We've been friends since we were tykes! Don't you remember our promise we made? We'll make it in this world and provide for our families, what the hell ever happened to that?!"

What a shame, it seems Aguilar here won't ever make their childhood dreams come true. Don't get me wrong, it isn't a naive dream at all. In fact, I'd say it's rather noble of them, but sadly it seems our dreams overlap. They could've kept quiet and never once pulled out their "self-defensive weapons", they could've talked it over with me, and we could've even become allies, but no. Instead they chose to threaten me and my friends, thus showing me that there is a layer of scholars here who could one day harm Nelly. That in and of itself is unforgivable, hence why they must be purged.

"Show me how you took control of the Server." I fiddled with the trigger, "How is it that a ragtag group of bandits somehow managed to commandeer a natural phenomenon?"

"Tell him, Heffer!" The other begged, "We're all gonna die otherwise!"

"F-Fine! A-After we found the server room, you happened to spot a trapdoor that led to the main computer! You hacked your way inside the database and got access to all of the country's money!" Heffer then pointed to the side, "I-It's that trapdoor over there, don't you remember!?"

Server room, main computer, hacking into a database.... What are all these terms and phrases? Is this some kind of joke? Maybe I should shoot another one of their men. No, from his incessant crying and shaky voice, even I can tell that he's being honest right now. Come to think of it, Lune did tell me once that if someone is saying words you've never heard before, then they're most probably not lying. I guess his wisdom comes by even in the latest of hours, but that only serves as even more reason for me to protect his daughter.

"Come on, everyone." I flagged for them to enter through the trapdoor with the gun in my hands, the scent of sweat and gunpowder making everyone's heads spin, "No use in wobbling around and looking for excuses to stay behind. I am not going inside unless everyone else does first, otherwise one of you might run for help."

Yelping in fear, they had started getting up and carrying their wounded friends down the basement with them. I was of course the last one in line, just in case Heffer was planning on locking me inside or something like that. Though, now that I think about it, that might not be such a bad ide... Click.

"Did you just lock the exit?" Heffer turned around, only for the gun's steaming hot muzzle to sizzle at the touch of his forehead, "Gyaaaaah!"

"Do not question my actions." I warned, "Go on, explain everything. I do not know if this applies to "him", but "I" am quite eager to learn at any and all times."

***

The room we had just entered was extremely cramped, and smelled of copper and other similar metals. Since there was nearly ten to fifteen of us inside, their heavy breathing was only now shown to be as apparent as it was. They were scared of me, I could tell, but it really didn't matter all that much. I just wanted to find out if what Heffer was saying was the truth and nothing more. Inside the dark and decrepit room, I had finally noticed where exactly that copper metallic stench was. It was the smell of bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, nay, even more! Gigabytes, terabytes, even petabytes of money were just laundering around the room, each one adding more and more value to the room than the last.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Heffer then hastily led me to a giant black window that loomed in the middle of the room that didn't seem to be showing anything. I had at first expected it to be some sort of mirror, but it seems he proved me wrong. Heffer rushed to press some mysterious looking buttons all around the room, and in doing, the mysterious mirror suddenly lit the room up in a neon green color. It was blinding, though I for whatever reason refused to avert my gaze from it. Before long, a giant piece of text reading "Welcome to the System" showed up right under a flashy icon that I recognized as the symbol found on all the hexagon coins that Simpleton used as currency. This was it, without a doubt, this was the System!

"Amazing!" I almost dropped the gun in astonishment, "What is this magic!?"

"No, it's not magic." Heffer muttered, "I-It's technology. Technology that we ourselves learned how to master."

"Is that right?" I immediately smiled as I pointed the gun at his forehead, "How did we achieve that?"

"W-With the book in your hands, jackass!" He pointed to my other hand, "It has everything you need to know about the creators of the System, not to mention the inner workings! We figured out a nifty little feature that allowed us to take the money out of anyone's pockets and send it over to here. We made bank, man!"

"And why "Praise Jethro", then?" I added, "Why was the System made by him, exactly? What was his end goal?"

"No clue, man!" He shrugged, the curveball making him stumble a bit, "T-The phrase popped up all over the book, so we just used it as a password! The book mentioned that the government had plans of using the System to automate taxes! They wanted a way to cut the middle-man and immediately take each citizen's money from them within reason! Then something happened..."

"Something? What something?" I inched the gun closer, "This information is surely classified, I can see why you wanted this book to be hidden, so why did you leave it in the Library?"

"W-We had found it there, originally!" He gulped before slipping and falling to the ground, "Since we had no more use of it, we put it back, but soon realized we made a mistake! That's when we met that guy you killed just now!"

"Hm. I see." I then flashed him a smile as I shot his men one after another, hearing him scream and beg for me to stop after each consecutive kill, "Well, I have heard everything I needed to. Thank you for this."

"S-Stop, Aguilar!" He plead as I put the sizzling hot muzzle right down his throat, "Ghk! Youw can maek thingsh right!"

"Right, I guess I should reward you with a bit of closure after all you have done for me." I waved him goodbye, "I am not Aguilar. Aguilar is up there, shot through the forehead."

"H-Hah?" He winced, his Eyes visibly converting to Purple from the revelation, "W-Whaht?"

"I am Meil Deram. A scholar who just tried to live a quiet school life." I boasted, my finger continuously applying more pressure to the trigger as I prepped him for the afterlife, "There is this girl, right? My good friend's daughter. She is to be a scholar here in the coming years, and I was tasked with making this a safe place for her to enroll in. Do you understand what you did when you first used the System for your own benefits?"

"W-Whaht?" His voice went shrill as he started to gag on the gun I shoved down his throat.

"You made this place "unsafe". Imagine the scenario - A young girl dutifully pays for her stay at the dorms regularly. Because of your techno-thievery, she was short a couple kilobytes. She gets kicked to spend the night wandering the streets. Some man or men find her and have their way with her. You just ruined someone's life, and you do not even register it."

"Khk, khk!" He desperately tried to breathe through his nose, but I pinched it before he got enough oxygen, "Mnf!"

"My original goal was to stop this "phenomenon" from happening ever again. I guess this just happened to be the only way one could do it." I then finally applied enough force to pull the trigger, "So if you want someone to blame, do not blame me. Blame Rex Jethro, for making the System for a naive and benevolent reason. Blame Aguilar for getting the idea to hijack it. Blame yourself for following his ideas. Goodbye now, Heffer."

"Mn-!"

As the bullet pierced straight through his back with how far I had lodged the gun inside, the blood splatter hitting the giant screen that served to showcase the System's capabilities, I had left the gun inside as I went to inspect the screen more closely. After pressing a few more of the arrow shaped buttons I had logically deduced were used for navigation, I suddenly came across Kevin's name. Soon after, I had realized it was sorted by age, so I quickly found myself after scrolling up a bit more. It showcased the amount of money I was currently carrying on me, just a measly 374 bytes. Selecting my name and inputting 100 into the prompt that had come up, I could suddenly feel my pockets getting lighter as I saw some money appearing right behind me on the floor. So this was it - This was how they had conducted their heists.

"A foolproof plan on paper, though their sloppy execution led to them getting caught." I noted, "Well, case closed. I should return to the gang back at campus and tell them..."

No, I'm not telling anyone this. This needs to be kept a secret no matter what, lest someone else takes over for these guys and causes another uproar. I am now the sole master of the System, and I must make sure it does not get used for any bad purposes. Nelly, once I clean this mess up, I'll lock it up tightly, and only I will have the keys. No one will ever steal any bytes anymore, and you can safely come over.

"Eugh, now that I've finally snapped out of it..." I looked down at my spit laden hand, "Shoving the gun so deep into his throat really wasn't smart on my end. I need to find something to wipe this off with..."