When The System Spoils You For No Reason-Chapter 57 - Fifty Seven

"Nakama aren’t the people you were born with. They’re the people you choose to die for."

— Luffy, One Piece

____

Testing, testing the microphone—oh, you’re here. Good. It’s been a while.

Let’s get into it.

So, tell us: how do you see your friend—your brother—of the last two years?

Let’s start with you, the hyperactive rich Asian kid. Kai Min.

...

I think I’ve done this before. Yeah—when I thought I was dying. Well, until my sister saved me.

Funny how they both wear trench coats. Like the same person in different bodies. Different genders, same energy.

Anyway. This is about Zeke, so let’s get into it.

---

To me, the past two years have been some of the best, most chaotic, and most interesting of my life.

I was the least talented in my family. My sister was the most gifted—it was practically written in stone that I’d be the one to drag the name down. She was never going to be guild master, and if that obligation ever fell to me, what started as a guild led by an S-Rank would end up helmed by a failed A-Rank. If I even reached that rank without meeting an unnatural end first.

The life of an Awakened: danger and promises of splendor, in equal measure.

I’d made peace with it. Decided I’d enjoy myself rather than wallow in self-pity over something as abstract as talent. And I’d been lucky—I had a solid group of friends. Jude and Aaron.

Aaron was our nominal older brother. A year ahead of us, already deeper into the Awakened life.

Jude and I met during one of my usual visits to the pitch. I pierced through the brooding gloom around him with what I like to think was charm—and not long after, Aaron found his way into the picture. His family was wealthy; we were neighbors, and as it turned out, his parents were already investors in my family’s guild.

Then we Awakened.

It felt like a second puberty. I woke up and there it was—a glowing screen hovering in my vision. I knew what it was; we’d all been taught about Awakening, about status screens. But when I broke the news to my parents, the mood in the room turned quiet and heavy. Heavier still when Jude’s innate ability rank came in.

But a man isn’t a man unless he can laugh off all the bad things that happen to him.

And I am a man. One who will take the mantle from his father and not fail him.

With my original growth plan, that should’ve taken five to seven years post-Awakening.

Thanks to Zeke, I got there in two.

---

Zeke. The enigma. The subject of today’s interview. My newfound brother.

When we first met, he struck me as an eccentric older guy—not that old, but carrying himself with a confidence that didn’t match the nervous energy buzzing around him.

Paradoxical, I know.

He had the look of someone who’d just finished a particularly stirring motivational video and decided, on the spot, to test whether he truly had anything to lose.

He didn’t.

He blew my mind first with his football skills. After what I’d generously call a scheduled hangout, he promptly ghosted us—then sent a surprising text out of nowhere.

We showed up at his house and the mystique only deepened. Very rich, very young. Like I said before—if we were women, this would be the kind of novel women devour. The CEO and his secretaries.

And there, we were introduced to anime. Not just anime—fiction operating on a level miles beyond anything we’d encountered before. It was something else entirely.

I even learned a better version of my own motto:

You can’t call yourself a real man unless you can laugh off all the bad things that have happened to you.

Jiraiya-sensei.

Peak.

I mentioned the mystery before, but he kept compounding it. Then the Minotaur hit.

He fought like someone with nothing to lose—which, in hindsight, we should’ve taken as the obvious sign it was. He was immortal. He had no real reason to throw himself in the way like that.

But he did.

He fronts like he doesn’t care—but he never even seems to notice how he quietly reshapes his patterns to account for us. From that moment on, he’s never let harm come to us. Never put us in a position where we felt that same helplessness again.

Especially in the Expanse. He distributed resources freely, fueling our growth and the growth of my father’s guild. He even left his absurdly powerful butler behind to watch over them while we were gone.

And even now, when we’ve clearly hit our limits—he hasn’t accepted that. You can see it plainly. He’s looking for a way through. His going to the Tower is exactly that. Because as much as he detests that place—and he does, make no mistake—he went anyway.

He hates anything that gets him out of the house. But he has no real choice anymore. We’re a permanent fixture in his life now.

Since learning about his immortality, it’s become a quiet, unspoken goal among us—grow strong enough to stay alongside him for as long as we can. To keep up with him for as long as life allows.

He won’t get bored of us.

Him getting bored of us.

Not us getting stronger. Don’t read into that.

Don’t wish negative things on us.

---

So—to me, he is the family I wasn’t born into, but was given by life.

Life’s a bitch. She doesn’t fight fair. And somewhere along the way, she made someone’s life genuinely unfair by putting us all in the same orbit.

Funny, right?

I know. I refined my sense of humor from Zeke.

The blood of the covenant is thicker.

So yes—I think of Zeke as family. It’d be even better if he married my sister, but—

...

There will be no shipping. The author has yet to decide whether love is a theme Zeke is capable of pursuing.

Friendship is fine. It’s part of shōnen, after all.

Anyway.

Aaron. You’re up.

____

Aaron Kessler. The White man with a mullet. The former oldest brother. Tell us about Zeke.

...

Sigh.

I knew this was coming. Kai already set the bar high with all that emotional honesty. Typical. He always goes first, guns blazing, leaving the rest of us to either match his energy or look cold by comparison.

Fine. The Aaron Kessler version—no fluff, just facts. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

When I first met Zeke, I thought he was full of shit.

There. Said it.

This random guy shows up at the restaurant, asks to play with us like he’s doing us a favor, then proceeds to absolutely humiliate everyone on the field. Not just outplay—humiliate. The kind where you’re left questioning whether you ever actually understood the sport.

Then he just... leaves. Like it was nothing. Like we were nothing.

I didn’t like him.

But Kai wouldn’t shut up about him. And Jude—Jude, the human embodiment of brooding silence—actually smiled talking about that match. So when the text came, I went.

And that’s when things got strange.

The house. The AI. The anime.

I was skeptical. I thought: rich kid, too much time, no real friends. Showing off.

Then the Minotaur happened.

You know what I remember most about that fight? Not the monster. Not even Zeke’s absurd regeneration—though yes, that was insane.

What I remember is the certainty in his voice when he told us to stay back.

Not arrogance. Not bravado.

Certainty.

Like he’d already run the numbers, seen every outcome, and simply decided—on his own—that we were worth protecting. After knowing us for, what, a few weeks?

That’s when I understood: Zeke doesn’t do anything halfway.

If you’re in, you’re in. He’ll drag you into chaos. He’ll mock you, test you, push every button you have. But when it counts—when the chips are down and the world is burning—he’s the first one standing between you and the flames.

And he’ll be grinning while he does it. That infuriating, reckless, stupid grin.

Over the past two years, I watched him turn a ragtag group of Awakened kids into something resembling a real team. Not through direct training. He just... existed around us. Set the pace. Raised the standard by being so absurdly competent that we had no choice but to catch up or get left behind.

And when I hit my limit—when I maxed out at B-Rank and understood, quietly, that I’d never break through the way Jude and Kai could—Zeke didn’t pity me.

He didn’t even acknowledge it as a problem.

He handed me skills, traits, and abilities that turned my ceiling into a different kind of strength. Made me realize that stats aren’t everything. That there’s always another angle, another way to contribute.

Teaching without teaching. Leading without commanding.

And I think that’s what makes him genuinely dangerous.

Not his immortality. Not his copying ability or his absurd stats.

It’s the fact that he makes you believe.

Believe that limits are suggestions. That impossible is just another Tuesday. That no matter how outmatched you are—if you’re smart enough, reckless enough, stubborn enough—you can find a way.

So yeah. Zeke’s family.

The annoying older brother who’ll roast you in front of everyone, then quietly make sure you have everything you need to succeed.

The brother I didn’t ask for, didn’t expect, and honestly didn’t deserve.

But I’m glad he’s here.

Because without him, we’d still be playing it safe. Still stuck in our lanes, accepting our so-called destinies like good little Awakened.

Instead, we’re about to walk into the Tower—the most dangerous, impossible thing in existence—and I’m not scared.

Because Zeke’s with us.

And somehow, that makes all the difference.

---

...

Well said, Aaron. Concise, honest, and surprisingly introspective.

Now—our resident Son of Destiny.

Jude Wren.

Half-brother to a four-thousand-year-old regressor. Holder of one of the most broken traits we’ve seen outside of immortality itself.

Tell us—what does Zeke mean to you?

---

...

...

You know, I hate these kinds of questions.

Too open-ended. Too vague. Like asking what air means to you.

Air is just there. You breathe it. You need it. You don’t think about it until it’s gone.

That’s Zeke.

He’s just there. Always has been—since that day at the restaurant when he walked over and asked to play like it was the most natural thing in the world. You could still feel the tension underneath it, though. Like saying no would confirm something he was already bracing for. Push him back into whatever shell he’d crawled out of to even ask.

Though I doubt he’d have stayed in it long.

He’s Zeke, after all.

And now I can’t imagine my life without him in it.

---

Let me back up.

Before Zeke, my life was simple. Not easy—simple. Straightforward.

I had my adoptive parents, who loved me—well before I knew I was adopted. I had Kai and his infectious energy and Aaron’s steady presence. I had football, which gave me somewhere to put everything I couldn’t say out loud.

Then I Awakened.

S-Rank innate ability. Flame Weaponry. The guild testers’ eyes nearly left their skulls when the rank came in. My parents cried—happy tears, proud tears. Kai and Aaron congratulated me, genuine despite their own results.

Later, after everything with Zeke—the sheer number of S-Rank abilities we’d encounter, the things we’d see—their reaction would start to feel almost quaint. Endearing, in hindsight.

But in that moment, I felt nothing.

No—that’s not right. I felt pressure.

Suddenly I wasn’t just Jude anymore. I was the S-Rank. The prodigy. The one with potential. The future pillar of whatever guild got to me first.

People started looking at me differently. Treating me like I was glass and gold at once—precious and fragile, important and untouchable.

I hated it.

Then Zeke showed up.

---

...

You want to know what I remember most about meeting him?

Not his skills on the pitch—though yes, those were ridiculous.

And yes, I could stop him.

Not his mysterious vibe, his stupid mansion, or even the anime that would later consume all of our lives.

What I remember is how he looked at me.

The same way he looked at everyone else.

Like I was just... Jude.

Not S-Rank Jude. Not Prodigy Jude. Just Jude. Some guy who was decent at football and made poor attempts at Madara quotes.

Do you know how rare that is? How freeing?

Knowing what I know now, he must have found it quietly funny—someone carrying a trait of that caliber, and not seeming particularly interested in using it. But he never made it a thing. Never treated the rank like it preceded me into the room.

Everyone else in my life, even the people who loved me, couldn’t help but see the rank first. The potential. The destiny everyone kept insisting I had.

Zeke didn’t give a shit about any of that.

He’d mock me for overthinking. Call me out when I was being too serious. He called me an NPC once—said it with a straight face, completely unbothered.

He treated my S-Rank ability like just another tool in the kit. Useful, sure. Not defining.

And that changed everything.

---

...

Then the Minotaur happened, and I learned new things about Zeke.

He could go from zero to terrifying without warning. Against that thing, he seemed weaker than us—and then, in seconds, he wasn’t. The shift was seamless and deeply unsettling.

And he’d throw himself into danger for us without hesitation.

That last one stayed with me.

Because I was supposed to be the strong one, right? The S-Rank. The one whose growth trait would eventually push him past everyone.

But when it mattered—when the Minotaur showed up and death was a physical presence in the room—Zeke was the one who stepped between us and oblivion.

Not because he had to. Not because anyone asked.

Because that’s just what he does.

---

...

After that, things escalated.

Zeldris. The full-speed collision with that enormous man. Karys—a literal dragon, one Zeke somehow befriended. The Expanse. The demon. The year of training—during which, to his credit, his lazy ass was apparently out somewhere charming women left and right. Touché.

He was never leading from the front, exactly. More like existing as a fixed point we could orbit. A constant that didn’t shift even when everything else did.

And he kept pushing us. Not obviously—he’s too lazy for obvious. But in his own way.

"Hit your limit? Here’s a skill that bypasses it."

"Feeling weak? Fight something that should kill you and find out what happens."

"Think you can’t do it? Watch me do something stupider and survive."

He raised the floor for all of us just by refusing to acknowledge that ceilings were real.

The thing is—I don’t think he even knew he was doing it. For him it was just momentum. Fun, grins, forward motion. The effect on us was incidental.

---

...

But here’s what nobody says out loud about Zeke:

He’s lonely.

He doesn’t act lonely. He jokes, he banters, he fills every silence with music or a well-timed reference. But I see it—in the moments when he thinks no one’s looking. That distance behind his eyes. Like he’s watching us from somewhere very far away. Like he’s already calculating how long before we’re gone and he’s still here. Unchanged. Immortal. Alone.

I think that’s why he does what he does.

Why he protects us so fiercely. Why he quietly ensures we’re strong enough to stand beside him, at least for a while.

Because he knows—even if he won’t say it—that we’re temporary. That everyone is temporary for someone who can’t die.

So he’s making the most of it. Storing moments that will carry him through the centuries after we’re gone.

And that breaks my heart a little.

It didn’t fully land until the Expanse—until Anton, in his characteristically blunt, mildly comedic way, dropped the truth on us like it was obvious. Like we should have already known.

---

...

Sorry. Got heavy.

Let me bring it back.

Zeke is my brother. Not by blood—I’ve got Anton for that now, apparently—but by choice.

He’s the guy who’ll let me live in his mansion for weeks, introduce me to stories that rewire how I think, and mock me relentlessly while making sure I have everything I need.

He’s the immortal idiot who thinks the "I don’t care" act is fooling anyone.

He’s the reason I’m standing here, about to walk into the Tower, with S-Rank stats across the board and a trait that makes me something genuinely frightening.

He’s family.

And family doesn’t let family face eternity alone.

So I’m going into the Tower. I’m going to get stronger. Strong enough that maybe—just maybe—I can figure out how to stay by his side for longer than a normal human life allows.

Because that’s what brothers do.

They don’t abandon each other just because one of them happens to be unkillable.

---

...

Also—he introduced me to Madara.

That alone puts him in my top three people of all time.

Do you want to dance as well?

---

...

There will be no dancing here, wherever here is.

Let’s get to the woman these boys won’t stop shipping.

Seo Yeon Min.

----

Seo Yeon Min, the first prodigy shown—the ice queen, the so-called female Zeke.

What does your supposed male counterpart mean to you after all you’ve seen of him?

...

Male counterpart?

Who decided that?

She lets out a soft chuckle—the kind that cracks through silence like ice splintering in a still room.

I sound like an anime character.

To be honest, I don’t have anything to say about him. We barely spent a year together.

I met him after he tipped me off about a Minotaur attacking him, my brother, and his friends.

When I got there, I found my brothers—Kai and his friends. They were my brothers first, before Zeke ever came into the picture.

Let me put that out there.

I still can’t believe he couldn’t handle a Minotaur. Tch.

I arrived to find my brothers near death. In my fury, his presence was inconsequential. I only had eyes for the damn Minotaur that dared to aim at my family.

After the adrenaline faded, I noticed him—which brought back the memory of me embarrassingly liking his picture on Slowgram.

I didn’t know you could unlike a picture.

He wasn’t even aware of the account.

Urgh.

It’s humiliating just remembering it.

After a little antagonistic behavior from me, he cursed me out.

Me? Yawn.

That male slut.

Hmph. He even called me a closet pervert.

He probably doesn’t even remember any of this. That airhead.

Anyway, I’ve got nothing to say about him. He protected my brothers. He introduced me to anime.

He did protect my brothers—though most of the time, he was the one putting them in trouble.

He befriended a dragon.

He stole from the top powers in the world.

But the thing that actually made me see him differently was finding out he’s immortal.

I think I’ve heard legends of a tribe like that in the Tower—never met them, though. I’m only on the third floor.

Why that changed my view is simple: being immortal meant there was hardly any reason for him to fight for my brothers. No reason for him to do anything.

Probably explains his lazy attitude.

What’s the point of being hardworking when you’re immortal? You’ll burn out eventually.

Better to accept your fate early.

Though it seems like he’s accepted his—yet he’s still fighting against it.

Anyone with a working brain knows it’s because of the boys.

So it’s a good thing for them and for him.

It’s symbiotic.

Is it healthy? Maybe.

Do I plan to stop it? Hell no.

Do I like Zeke Vaughn? Not the way people think.

I’ve never understood why everyone expects us to like each other when we’ve barely had time to even know each other.

Emotions are a drag.

I’d prefer Michael’s trait right now.

The only male I have feelings for is Zoro.

Feminism and all that.

Power to the females.

Death to Zeke and the handsome male population who think they deserve every ship in the world.

Though he’s immortal.

To me, Zeke will always be an immortal male slut who’s also a waste of space—who just so happens to know my brothers and has anime.

Oh—he cooks good food. He’s a notch above his butler, Maxim.

...

A whole bunch of nothing.

I knew we should’ve ended it with the trio.

Anyway, let’s get to the next participant.

From the last one, I know this one has nothing good to say about our lazy MC.

Anton Vega Aurelius.

The 4,030-year-old regressor.

...

You guys glaze Zeke a lot. I get it—he’s talented, a freak, a monster, immortal, an anomaly.

He pauses, jaw tightening.

Wait. I’m glazing him too.

Tch.

To me, he’s a bastard.

He’s a good deterrent for Yeon and Michael—especially if I’m going to be working with them.

Am I scared of them?

Nah.

I’m protective of my own interests.

Losing to them would hurt my ego more than put my life in danger.

Also, a question I get a lot: Can Michael kill Zeke, or immortals in general?

Do you think Michael would still be alive if he could?

At this point?

Maybe in the future. Maybe he can’t, and it was just an empty threat to mess with Zeke.

You’ll find out later.

The point of this interview: Zeke is an anomaly who serves as the best possible protector for my brother. That makes him an important part of my life now.

And his connection to her—whatever it is—will play a significant role in the future.

I’m out.

...

Michael.

He steps forward, and even the silence seems to pull back.

I get chills just thinking about the next interview.

No introduction needed.

The man without a last name.

...

Zeke is my goal.

That’s all.

His voice is flat, but the weight behind it bends the air.

It’s a feeling that bypassed my lack of emotions.

The moment I watched him fight the demon, he became my obsession.

Why he’s my obsession, I don’t know.

The same way humans don’t know why they feel emotions.

How to reach my goal.

What the goal even is.

What I’d do if I reached it.

Those are things I don’t know.

Zeke... is an anomaly.

He is my goal.