Global Apocalypse: My System Is Always AFK

Four kneeling guardians, it turned out, were not the whole security detail.

They found that out about twenty minutes later, once Dr. Osei’s team had cautiously crept back past the safety line to start documenting the newly risen constructs — cameras out, notebooks flipping, the particular giddy energy of academics who’d just watched history kneel down in front of them — and Ethan had wandered toward the largest fissure to get a better look at what exactly this "buried city" actually consisted of.

That was when the ground gave way beneath him for the second time in three days, dropping him twelve feet into a chamber none of the surface scans had picked up, landing him in what looked, unmistakably, like an old marketplace.

Stalls. Rows of them, carved from the same dark stone as everything else down here, arranged in a wide circular plaza under a domed ceiling that stretched for what felt like an entire city block. Dust hung thick in the air, undisturbed for what had to be centuries, and at the center of the plaza stood six more guardians — smaller than the ones above, more angular, arranged in a defensive ring around what looked like the remains of an old fountain.

Unlike their four kin upstairs, these six had clearly not received the memo about recognizing swords.

"INTRUDER," the nearest one announced, unfolding itself upright with a grinding shriek of ancient joints. "ACCESS DENIED. MARKET DISTRICT SEALED PER USER PROTOCOL."

Ethan, still dusting himself off from the fall, looked up at six activating stone constructs and let out a groan that had less to do with fear and more to do with pure, weary inconvenience.

"You’ve got to be kidding me," he said. "I just did this upstairs."

[NOTICE: These constructs appear to operate on a separate, older subsystem than the ones above. The system suspects the sword recognition protocol may not have propagated this deep into the buried city’s network yet — assuming it was ever meant to reach every guardian at all.]

"So I have to convince six more of these things individually," Ethan said, already reaching for the sword.

[That does appear to be the situation, yes. Though the system would like to note — the subject may not want to draw the Void Sword down here.]

Ethan paused, hand hovering over the hilt. "Why not?"

[The plaza ceiling is structurally aged. Readings suggest it has not been reinforced in centuries. The sword’s typical output, even restrained, carries enough ambient force to risk collapsing the chamber — and, by extension, the excavation site directly above it, currently occupied by several archaeologists who did not sign up to be buried a second time.]

Ethan glanced up at the domed ceiling, thought about Dr. Osei’s team standing directly above him with cameras and clipboards, and reluctantly let his hand fall away from the hilt.

"Okay," he said. "So no sword. Great. Fantastic. What am I supposed to fight six ancient guardians with, then, my bare hands?"

[The system would remind the subject that his bare hands have, historically, been more than sufficient against comparable threats. It would also note that there appears to be a stall directly to the subject’s left containing what look like preserved cooking implements — remarkably well-conserved, given the age of the site.]

Ethan turned and, sure enough, found a market stall — a kitchen goods vendor, apparently, frozen in time — stacked with dust-covered pots, ladles, and, sitting right at the front like fate itself had arranged the display, a heavy iron skillet roughly the size of a manhole cover.

He stared at it for a long moment.

"You want me to fight ancient stone guardians," he said slowly, "with a pan I found in a museum exhibit."

[The system would like to point out that this would not be the first time.]

Ethan sighed, picked up the skillet, tested its weight — surprisingly good balance, whoever made this clearly knew their craft — and turned back to face the six advancing constructs with the same flat, unbothered expression he’d worn against enforcement droids in his own kitchen weeks earlier.

"Fine," he said. "Let’s go, then."

The fight, if it could even be called that, lasted less than ninety seconds.

The first guardian swung a heavy stone fist toward him in a wide, telegraphed arc that Ethan sidestepped without much effort, catching its wrist with the flat of the skillet on the follow-through. There was no dramatic shattering, no violent unraveling — the pan simply wasn’t Void-infused down here, just an ordinary, if impressively sturdy, piece of ancient cookware — but the sheer, casual force behind Ethan’s swing was more than enough regardless. The guardian’s arm folded inward with a sound like a car crash, and it staggered back, sensors flickering in what read, unmistakably, as confusion.

"AGGRESSION LEVEL EXCEEDS THREAT PROFILE," it announced, backing up a step.

"You attacked first," Ethan pointed out, already turning to block a second guardian’s swing with the pan held up like a shield.

The second one fared worse. Ethan caught its strike, redirected the momentum with a twist of his hips, and sent it sprawling backward into the dry fountain with a crash that echoed through the whole plaza, chunks of ancient stone skittering across the dust.

By the time the fourth and fifth guardians closed in together, clearly having recalibrated to treat him as an actual threat, Ethan had settled into a rhythm — block, redirect, the occasional flat-handed shove backed by strength that had nothing to do with the pan and everything to do with the small matter of his combat power still technically being an unresolved error message. He wasn’t even really trying. He was fighting the way a man swats flies while reading — mildly bothered, entirely capable, completely unimpressed by the effort required.

The sixth guardian, watching its companions get systematically dismantled by a nineteen-year-old with kitchenware, made the wise decision to simply not engage, backing toward the plaza’s edge instead.

"ACKNOWLEDGING SUPERIOR FORCE," it said, voice flat with something that might have been the ancient equivalent of resignation. "REQUESTING VERIFICATION OF SUCCESSOR STATUS."

Ethan, breathing only slightly harder than when he’d started, lowered the skillet and gestured vaguely toward his own shoulder, where the Void Sword remained sheathed and unused.

"Ask the ones upstairs," he said. "They already cleared it. I’ve got the sword. I’ve got the — apparently — actual bloodline claim, or whatever this is. You’re all being weird about a guy who’s been gone for who knows how long."

The remaining guardians, the four still functional after the brief scuffle, straightened slowly, processing this with the same deliberate stillness their kin above had shown before kneeling.

"CROSS-REFERENCING WITH SURFACE UNITS," the sixth one said, and after a long pause, added, considerably more subdued, "CONFIRMED. APOLOGIES, INHERITOR. THE MARKET DISTRICT STANDS DOWN."

One by one, all six guardians folded down into low, kneeling positions, the same reverent gesture Ethan had already seen once today, dust rising softly around them in the dim, ancient light of a marketplace that hadn’t seen a customer in centuries.

Ethan stood in the middle of it, ancient iron skillet still in hand, and let out a long breath.

"You know," he said, mostly to the system, "I’ve fought titans, gods, an entire fleet, and somehow the thing I’m gonna remember most from this whole ordeal is beating up antique furniture with a pan I found at a dead man’s yard sale."

[The system would like to note, for the record, that this skillet is technically several centuries old and likely qualifies as a priceless historical artifact. Dr. Osei’s team, currently descending the newly opened access point above, appears to have arrived just in time to witness the subject use said artifact to casually dismantle six ancient guardian constructs.]

Ethan glanced up. Sure enough, a rope ladder was being lowered through the hole in the ceiling, and Dr. Osei’s pale, wide-eyed face was already peering down at the scene — six kneeling guardians, a cracked fountain, and Ethan standing in the middle of it holding what was, by any academic standard, an irreplaceable relic like it was leftover picnicware.

"Mr. Verma," she called down, voice strained in a way that suggested she’d need a very long moment to process what she was looking at, "is that — did you just use a Third Cycle ceremonial cookware piece as a weapon?"

Ethan looked down at the skillet, then back up at her, entirely unbothered.

"It’s got great balance," he said. "You should study that instead of the guardians. Way more useful."

Somewhere behind the kneeling constructs, deeper in the dust and shadow of the ancient marketplace, something else stirred faintly — not a guardian, not hostile, just a faint pulse of gold light from a sealed doorway none of the surface scans had mapped, humming softly in a rhythm that felt, unmistakably, like recognition.

[NOTICE: The system has just detected an additional structure beyond this plaza — sealed, undisturbed, and, according to what little data the system can currently pull from it, marked with the same personal signature found on the Void Sword.]

[It appears to be a residence.]

[Someone’s actual home.]