The Systems Challenge - Chapter 3: Equipment

After being torn from the only life she knew, 16-year-old Margo is forced into a new home with strangers who call themselves her parents. Haunted by memories of her past and consumed by feelings of isolation, she struggles to adapt to her unfamiliar surroundings. School offers little relief—until she meets Lucien, a mysterious boy who appears just when she needs a friend the most.Gabriel is everything Margo needs: kind, attentive, and always ready to whisk her away from her troubles. Each night, he invites her to secret places—an abandoned playground, a fog-choked garden, a crumbling train station at the edge of town—each more unsettling than the last. Yet with every chilling rendezvous, Margo feels more alive... more seen.But something isn’t right. Gabriel never comes to school during the day. Her adoptive parents never see him. And when they catch her talking to thin air, their concern deepens into fear. They say Gabriel isn't real—that he’s a figment of her imagination. Margo wants to believe them, but Gabriel feels real. More real than anything else in her life.As the nights grow colder and more twisted, Gabriel’s true nature begins to surface. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Time warps in his presence. And the places they visit seem to echo with whispers from another world. Margo is forced to ask herself: Who—or what—is Gabriel? Why does he only want her? And what will happen on the final night he asks her to come with him?As the line between reality and delusion begins to crumble, Margo must make an impossible choice: stay in a world where she feels loved, or return to one that barely feels real.But one thing is certain—some friendships never let go.

Like every (Isekai) protagonist, I got reincarnated after getting hit by a hyper-speed truck.

That was an empty and dark life anyway, so I was already looking forward to a decent, unknown afterlife.

But... the world had a unique thing in mind.

In this new world, I had parents, amazing ones at that.

My father was a talented mage, and my lovely mother was a sharp and cunning merchant.

Ignoring all of my weirdness, they loved me unconditionally.

This was the life that anyone would love.

Eating and cooking delicious food, practicing archery and magic, and playing with my parents.

Everything was wonderful until... those demons separated us and it left me in a ferocious forbidden forest, just to be eaten alive by beasts.

But dying wasn't even a question.

I will go back… to them.

Jasmine is the first daughter of the great Alpha Bale.Because of her status as a bastard child, she lives a life maltreated scrubbing floors and attending to the needs of her father, step mother, step siblings and the entire pack.But her life makes a drastic turn when she is switched in place for her father’s legitimate daughter to be married off to the Handsome and Cold hearted Alpha Xaden.Xaden is determined to punish Jasmine for the sins of her father who had massacred his entire family, even though she is nothing like her father.Hate slowly turns to desire, fierce passion and finally love.But what happens when Xaden discovers that Jasmine, was planted as a spy to bring his downfall and was not in fact the original princess he was promised to?~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“Let this be a lesson to everyone. Royal or not, Alpha or Omega,” He declares. “You will steer clear of what is mine. In my own territory. In my pack.”With that, he tosses the bloodied arm aside and takes Jasmine away from their shocked gaze.

“Before the towers fell, before everything was consumed by darkness...”Leo Astralis whispered to himself while traversing through the rubble of the ancient structure.His body bore the scars of survival, bite marks that throbbed against the coarse, blood-stiffened fabric of his clothing.“..I wonder what the world was like.”After humanity failed to complete the Tower almost 700 years ago in time, it exploded, spreading monsters all over the word.Even the system, which blessed humans with power, had abandoned them. Or did it?[Run]A singular message urged Leo to escape, yet it was short lived as was he was caught like an animal in a trap.And just like an animal he lashed out until the very end, taking one of the captors to the grave with him.But as darkness closed in, the system spoke again.[One time Regression activated][Congratulations. You've activated the Heart of the System]