“Bimo…” Kirana’s voice barely carried over the crackle of fallen glass. Her basket, now a crumpled mess of woven pandan, lay forgotten at her feet, the 'Guntur' flour a pale cloud around it. “Bimo… how did you do that?”
Bimo Adiputra’s face, already pale from the shock, flushed a violent red. His stomach coiled into a knot tighter than any pretzel dough. This was it. The attention. The questions. He hated it. He hated it even more when Kirana, the one person who made him feel less like a sentient pebble, looked at him like he’d just manifested a second head.
“I… I don’t know!” he stammered, his gaze darting around the ruined street, avoiding Kirana’s intense stare. “Maybe… maybe a gas leak? From the oven? A really… strong one?” He gestured weakly towards the intact, flour-dusted storefront. It was a pathetic lie, and he knew it. Kirana, clearly, knew it too. Agung Baskara and his hulking guards, still frozen amongst the glass shards, looked less convinced and more utterly terrified.
Kirana took a step closer, her brow furrowing, a hint of concern mixing with her curiosity. “Bimo, our ovens don’t even use gas. We use Inti-fire arrays.” She pointed to a shimmering, arcane symbol etched into the wall above his main baking hearth, which now glowed a soft, unconcerned blue. “And that was… a pulse. Not an explosion. I felt it in my teeth.”
His throat felt like sandpaper. He could almost feel the phantom eyes of every passerby, every vendor, every merchant on Jalan Merpati, all pointing at him, judging him. His ears began to ring. He just wanted to disappear, to melt into the floorboards and become one with the dusty flour, indistinguishable.
[Social Anxiety Burst! Multiplier: x4]
His head throbbed. He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing everyone would simply turn away. But the world, apparently, had other plans. A new sound, a strange, crackling hiss, invaded his mind, like a radio struggling to find a signal.
“—ello? Is this thing on? Ah, finally!” The voice was high-pitched, reedy, and sounded perpetually on the verge of a panic attack. It spoke directly in his head, bypassing his ears entirely. “Greetings, Bimo Adiputra! Apologies for the interference, but the synchronicity parameters required a direct neural link. I am Pusaka, your assigned Harmonizer, here to orient you to the… *ahem*… [Infinite Stack System]!”
Bimo blinked. He instinctively looked around, searching for the source. Was Kirana playing a trick on him? But her expression was still fixed on him, a silent demand for answers about the shattered windows.
“Don’t look around, you celestial clod!” Pusaka’s voice crackled, laced with an exasperated sigh. “Internal monologue! Just… *think* at me! This is already a breach of protocol 7-Gamma-9, Section 3, Subsection B, regarding ‘Non-Interference with Prime Recipient’s Immediate Social Environment.’ We really need to get you up to speed before the… well, before *it* happens.”
“Who are you?” Bimo thought, his mind racing. “Is this some kind of prank? What system? I just got a weird app on my phone, I deleted it!”
“An app? Oh, by the Great Loom of Existence, no!” Pusaka wailed, the sound vibrating inside Bimo’s skull. “It’s an *interface* of supreme authority! You, Bimo Adiputra, have been chosen as a Prime Recipient of the [Infinite Stack System]! It’s designed to counteract the incipient ‘Great Unraveling’!”
“The what now?” Bimo’s mind struggled to keep up. Grand designations? Apocalyptic threats? This sounded like the kind of scam call his grandmother used to get about her Inti-credit going into arrears. Was this a new, more elaborate version?
“The Great Unraveling!” Pusaka insisted, sounding increasingly flustered. “It’s total breakdown! Reality’s source code is fraying, the very threads of existence are… shedding! Think of it like a giant, universal sweater, and the yarn is pulling loose! And you, with your… *unusual* connection to the Stack, are paradoxically both the greatest hope and… well, also kinda speeding it up. But that’s a minor detail for now! The point is, you need to cultivate your… your *punch-power* to stabilize the Existential Matrix before everything goes poof!”
Bimo just stared blankly at the ruined street, at Kirana’s questioning face, at the still-trembling Agung. “Punch-power? You want me to… punch things? To stop the world from ending? Is this a joke?” His social anxiety was warring with sheer bewilderment. He just wanted to bake bread, not save the universe with his fists. And certainly not while talking to a voice in his head that sounded like it needed a strong cup of calming tea.
“It’s not a joke! The administrative burden alone is immense! Do you know how many temporal paradoxes I’ve had to paper over just this cycle? I had to rewrite three epochs because a past recipient used the Stack to win a baking competition! We can’t have a repeat of that, Bimo! This is serious! The Multiversal Oversight Committee will have my… my *essence* if I don’t get you oriented!”
“Look,” Bimo thought, trying to inject as much firmness as his shy personality allowed, “I don’t know who you are, or what this ‘Great Unraveling’ is, but I think you’ve got the wrong person. I’m a baker. I make bread. I tap on things to make them work, not… explode windows. And I’m pretty sure this is a scam.” He imagined a little 'hang up' button in his mind and mentally pressed it with conviction.
“No, wait! Don’t—” Pusaka’s voice sputtered, fading into static, then dead air. Bimo exhaled slowly, feeling a strange lightness in his skull. He’d hung up on the universe, apparently. He still had Kirana to deal with, and all the broken glass.
* * *
The evening light, a bruised purple, filtered through the shattered storefront display. The clean-up was a nightmare. Kirana had pitched in, sweeping glass and coaxing Bimo to speak before settling for quiet solidarity. Agung and his goons had vanished faster than a free sample at a food festival. Now, with the floor swept, Bimo faced another crisis: his wooden dough roller was jammed.
It was his grandfather’s, a heavy, polished ironwood cylinder. Lately, the axle had been sticking, refusing to spin freely. He’d tried oiling it, wiggling it, even talking to it politely. Nothing worked. His anxiety, heightened by the day’s events, made his hands tremble as he grasped it.
“Come on, you… you stubborn hunk of timber,” he muttered, frustration bubbling. He just wanted to finish prepping the last batch of ‘Krakatoa Spice’ dough for tomorrow. He gave the side of the wooden cylinder a light, exasperated tap with his knuckle. Just a small, almost imperceptible nudge.
[Punch of Mild Exasperation] added to the Stack. Current Multiplier: x5,489,123
The wooden pin didn’t just unjam. It shot forward with the force of a siege weapon, punching through the rear plaster partition, a clean circular hole appearing in its wake. It whizzed across the street, a dark blur against the twilight, and embedded itself with a dull *thunk* into the sturdy, Inti-reinforced concrete facade of the ‘Galanos Garment Emporium’ opposite. A small puff of dust rose from the newly formed divot in the building.
Bimo gaped, the echo of the impact still ringing in his ears. He hadn’t even *tried* to hit anything. He’d just… tapped. A light tap. How could a light tap do *that*?
***
Hundreds of kilometers away, high above the clouds on the floating citadel of the Sky-Piercer Sect, the Grand Divination Chamber’s central Inti-detector flared crimson. A piercing alarm shrieked, echoing through the vast, crystal-domed hall. Elder Dhira, a woman with eyes like polished obsidian and hair woven with silver threads, slammed her palm onto the console.
“A Level Six surge in the Teluk District!” she barked, her voice cutting through the alarms. “Localized, but with an energy signature unlike anything we’ve ever cataloged! It’s… it’s almost perfectly random, yet impossibly potent! Send in the prodigy! Jaka Wiraguna!”
Moments later, a young man, sharp-featured and radiating an aura of disciplined power, stood before Elder Dhira. Jaka Wiraguna, the brightest star of his generation, bowed with practiced grace. His midnight-blue robes flowed around him, embroidered with the stylized image of a soaring hawk.
“Elder Dhira, I am ready,” Jaka said, his voice calm, confident. “What is the nature of the disturbance?”
“An anomaly, Jaka,” she replied, her gaze intense. “A raw, unrefined power spike. We believe it originated from… a bakery on Jalan Merpati. Find its source. Neutralize it, or bring it back for study. This could be a new, uncontrolled Inti-phenomenon, or a rogue cultivator of immense, untrained potential. Either way, it cannot be allowed to destabilize the region.”
Jaka nodded, his hand instinctively going to the hilt of the ornate ceremonial blade at his hip. “Understood. I will bring order to this chaos.”
With a powerful surge of Inti, Jaka launched himself from the highest platform of the Sky-Piercer Sect, a shimmering blue comet streaking across the darkening sky. He descended swiftly, a silent, powerful guardian of order, landing with the lightest of impacts on the cracked pavement directly in front of Adiputra Bakes. His eyes, usually a calm hazel, now glowed with an internal, azure light, sweeping over the broken windows, the lingering scent of ozone, and the newly acquired hole in the building opposite.
His gaze settled on Bimo, who stood frozen in the bakery doorway, still staring at the missing rolling pin. Jaka’s voice, clear and resonant, cut through the quiet evening air, carrying an undeniable authority.
“By the order of the Sect, this anomaly will be contained.”