Universal System Hack! Becoming The Ultimate Cheat In A World Filled With Cheat Systems

"Home sweet home," Grigio muttered as he stood in front of a run-down two-story building located near the eastern end of Shangri-la Lane. The first floor formerly served as the shop space for his late father's failed liquor store. When his father died from a sudden heart attack, Grigio decided to sell all of the store's merchandise at a discounted price to cover for some of the funeral expenses. It wasn't doing very well anyway due to a number of factors. Grigio was also not that familiar with the business. So he eventually decided to close the shop. He did consider renting it out to someone else, but no one has inquired so far and the first floor remained bolted shut until now.

Grigio stayed on the second floor, which currently served as his bachelor pad of sorts now that he was the only one living in it. He previously asked his sister if she wanted to live together with him. But she declined and opted to stay at the dorms of the private high school he enrolled her to following their mother's death – who had also died due to severe hypertension. It was just a fifteen-minute drive away from the city center where Grigio stayed so he just let her be.

And so, a lone guy entered the messy man-cave he called home and quickly collapsed on top of his funny-smelling sofa with a soft thud. He felt dead tired after a day's work. Not even the tasty meal he had earlier could alleviate Grigio's lethargy.

Suddenly, a catchy call alert rang out. Grigio fumbled around until he managed to pick up his cellphone, which had fallen to the floor earlier without him noticing. He looked at the caller I.D. displayed on the screen and smirked.

"Sup, squirt? Miss me?" he teased.

"You wish, dweeb," a bell-like voice chirped a sharp retort. It was his cheeky teenage sister, Lenneth Speir. "I just called to remind you about next week. You didn't forget, did you Griggy? Have you filed for leave already?"

"Yeah. Don't worry. Won't miss it for the world," Grigio answered in a somewhat somber tone. It was the annual parent-teacher conference of Lenneth's school next week and Grigio was obligated to attend as her guardian since both of their parents have already passed away.

The current Grigio never really did have a chance to interact with his parents in this world all that much. His father was an awkward individual whose lips loosened only when he was drunk and his mother and sister lived apart from them due to the divorce. Regardless, the current him still harbored a deep sense of loss whenever he thought about them. He'd managed to inherit the memories and feelings of the previous Grigio after all. Strictly speaking, both souls have seemingly merged seamlessly – creating a whole new individual.

Even Grigio himself wasn't that clear about it. But frankly, he really didn't seem to mind it all that much. He was now living relatively well. He had family and friends who he cared about. To the current "him", these were all that mattered.

"Griggy? You still there?"

"Yeah. Just spaced out a bit, that's all. Work's been killing me lately. My lady boss is one nasty piece of work," Grigio replied in a joking tone.

"–I'm sorry Griggy," Lenneth suddenly blurted out.

"Whoa! Where'd that come from?" Grigio asked in surprise.

Lenneth sighed. "I'm just worried. I mean, I know you're really busy and all and here I am bothering you for something like this–"

"Hey. C'mon squirt. You got it all backward," Grigio interrupted. "I'm the one who should be worried. I'm your older brother remember? And seriously, it's no bother at all. I'm always here for you; you got that? We only have each other now. So let's make this work. Okay?" he gently coaxed.

After a short silence, Lenneth replied back with a soft "okay". She hastily bid Grigio good night afterward and dropped the call. Grigio was about to put the phone down when a message notification popped up. He checked his inbox and found a short "LUV U BRO" mail followed by a heart emoji. Grigio couldn't help but chuckle in amus.e.m.e.nt. He found his little sister's slightly tsundere-ish attitude to be quite endearing. It made him want to pamper her even more.

"This is bad. I might really turn into a real-life sis-con at this rate."

That silly thought was the last he had before slowly drifting to dreamland.

***

"Uh, Boss… You might want to check this out."

Within spacious room chock full of seemingly cutting edge equipment, a young boy of about fourteen called out to a man in gray work overalls fiddling with various tools on a work table. The boy pointed towards one of the holographic screens displayed on the console he was in front of.

"A sudden aether spike was just detected. I'm positive it's coming from Code:Kingmaker. I've cross-referenced it with every known pattern we have in our database. It doesn't match anything we've recorded so far. And it's fluctuating erratically."

The young boy stared in amazement at the streams of data displayed on the holographic screens. "We might've hit the jackpot Boss," he muttered.

The man in gray who looked to be in his thirties nodded wordlessly. His eyes narrowed; akin to a hawk detecting its prey. He then sent a message via a telepathic link to all their colleagues who were stationed nearby through a psionic communicator which was shaped like a pendant hanging on his neck.

"Possible activation of Code:Kingmaker detected. All personnel, listen up. Increase threat level to Omega-1. We've received intelligence reports that "poachers" have been mobilized and are now operating within the critical area. We are to proceed with Operation Snakehunt in conjunction with the extraction of the target. Stay on full alert. Command will relay more detailed instructions to each of you later."

After relaying his orders, the man in gray turned his attention back to the holographic screens. He silently clenched his fists, as if to harden his resolve.

***

"What the f***?!"

This was the first thing Grigio blurted out when he came to. The last thing he remembered was drifting to sleep on top of his sofa. Right now, however, he was nowhere near his sofa. Perhaps he wasn't even awake yet. His surroundings were so utterly bizarre that he was more inclined to think he was actually dreaming. However, his consciousness seemed to be fully awake. This certainly wasn't possible in a normal dream.

He felt a sensation akin to floating in a weightless environment. Countless motes of light floated upwards all around him. It was like he was within a vast ocean of flickering lights. Grigio wanted to pinch himself awake but soon realized that he was currently in a ghostly disembodied form. There was nothing to pinch!

He tried to calm himself down in order to properly asses his situation. All of a sudden, a light brighter than anything else within the strange space flashed and blinded him. The next thing he knew, there was a palm-sized cube floating in front of him. Its silvery surface was marred with luminous green patterns that were drawn like those found on a circuit board.

Grigio felt a lot of complicated emotions when he saw the mysterious cube. But, more than anything else, he felt pissed off. He'd just finally managed to get his act together in this current life. But all of a sudden, Lady Fate just decided to throw him a damn curve ball! And it was right when he least expected it too.

"The hell! Is this your idea of a joke?! Why now after all this time? Just who are you anyway? Fate? God? The f.u.c.k.i.n.g will of the universe?! Why did you send me to this world anyway? What the f.u.c.k do you expect me to do?!"

His screams were answered with absolute silence. He didn't manage to get any response no matter how much he ranted. Grigio let out a dejected sigh. He turned his attention to the strange cube floating in front of him. He had no idea what it was, but every fiber of his being was screaming that the thing was nothing but trouble. He had a strange foreboding feeling that whatever the cube would grant him would be more of a curse rather than a blessing. Grigio felt quite helpless because of it.

After brooding for a while, Grigio decided to just bite the proverbial bullet. It seemed he didn't have much choice in the matter anyway. "Fine. Bring it! Let's see what you're all about," he brazenly taunted. The strange cube activated in response.

Grigio's disembodied form was engulfed in strange glowing patterns which seemed to be some form of alien language. The cube reshaped itself into a silver needle-like form and shot straight for him. Grigio's consciousness was then flooded with information. The amount was so great that he'd failed to process even an iota of it before blacking out again.

Before he lost consciousness, he heard a mechanical female voice echoing out from the void.

[User synchronization rate has reached acceptable levels. Initializing protocols. Universal System Hacking Tool (Trial Version) – Installation start.]