The Chrome Sweeper
By @john1208
In the neon-lit tiers of the Al-Zafir Spire, Awakeners are worshipped, and Cleaners are the dirt beneath their boots. Zirak Qadir is proud, abrasive, and stuck sweeping up battlefield debris. But as he scrubs the hospice floor beside the dying President of the Vanguard Association, Zirak’s ridiculed class reveals its true nature. To his system, 'Dust' includes molecular metal. By 'cleaning' the lethal metallic plague from the President's blood, Zirak not only saves the man's life but absorbs the toxins, forging his own bones into unbreakable alloy. Suddenly, the trash-tier Cleaner has an infinite loop of biomechanical evolution. Zirak's meteoric rise catches the eye of Laleh, a fiery prodigy who goes from mocking his broom to covering his back in quiet, tender moments between battles. But as Zirak’s metallic upgrades scale out of control, the Axiom System itself begins issuing emergency patches and algorithmic hit-squads to erase his existence. Worse, his gentle mentor has been secretly engineering these plagues all along to harvest Zirak's newly forged core. Can this grumpy underdog sweep away the Spire's corruption before the universe deletes him entirely?
3
The Apathetic God's Accidental Miracles
By @john1208
Iker and his little sister Nerea were quietly mourning their parents when a strange, unpostmarked letter triggered a summoning circle, dragging them to the dying realm of Ohalza. The arrogant High Priests of the Holy Church demanded Iker serve as their prophesied weapon against the encroaching Calamity. Exhausted and prickly, Iker ignored their grand speeches and tossed them a basic healing potion just to stop their plague-ridden coughing - accidentally curing the realm's incurable pandemic in seconds. Now, armed with unfathomable, god-like power he never asked for, Iker just wants to find a quiet place for Nerea to grow up safely. But the world won't leave him be. When an apocalyptic dragon descends to raze the continent, Iker absentmindedly scolds it for being too loud and scratches its chin, turning the terrifying beast into a purring, cat-sized pet. As the Holy Church scrambles to control him and the dreaded Calamity approaches with surprisingly tragic, sympathetic motives of its own, Iker's irritated brush-offs are continually hailed as acts of supreme majesty. Can a hero who refuses to fight accidentally save a world that doesn't deserve him?
1