My Bugged System Made Me Too OP!-Chapter 71: Strange smoky figure

Noah’s eyes widened the moment the voice sounded behind him, and he immediately turned around without hesitation.

His movement was quick and instinctive, driven by the sudden realization that someone had approached him without him sensing anything at all. That alone was enough to put him on edge. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

When his gaze finally landed on the figure behind him, his body stiffened slightly.

Standing there was a humanoid figure, but it did not resemble a normal person in any way.

Its entire body was made up of black smoke.

Thick, swirling smoke that constantly shifted and twisted as if it had a life of its own. The outline of a man could barely be made out, but there were no clear features. Just a dense mass of dark smoke compressed into a vaguely human shape.

Around its legs, the same smoky black aura gathered and spread slowly across the ground.

It crept outward like a living shadow, stretching along the surface beneath it in an unnatural way. It did not disperse like ordinary smoke. Instead, it clung to the ground, moving in slow, deliberate patterns.

Noah stared at it without blinking.

He had never seen anything like this before, not even in books.

It was as though the figure did not possess a real body at all, but was instead entirely formed from that strange, suffocating smoke.

The more he looked at it, the more unsettling it became, like it could fall apart and reform at any time.

A chill ran down his spine.

His body reacted before he could stop it, and a faint shiver passed through him.

’W-what the hell is that...?’ he thought in shock and fear, subconsciously taking a step back.

But what unsettled him even more was not just its appearance.

It was the fact that he had not sensed it.

Not even a little.

There had been no warning. No presence, or even a fluctuation of mana that he could have detected. The only reason he even knew it was there was because it spoke.

And even now, as he stood face to face with it, he still could not sense anything.

It was as if the figure existed and did not exist at the same time.

Like something that was there, yet completely absent from his perception.

That alone made it far more dangerous than anything he had encountered so far.

Noah forced himself to remain calm.

He could not afford to panic.

Even if the situation had suddenly turned worse than anything he had expected.

He steadied his breathing and fixed his gaze on the figure before him. Then he spoke, asking the first question that came to his mind.

"Who... are you?"

His voice came out controlled, but there was a faint tension hidden beneath it.

The smoky figure did not respond immediately.

Instead, the black smoke that made up its body twisted more violently, thickening slightly as though reacting to his words. The shape of its form wavered, the edges of its body dissolving and reforming continuously.

Then it spoke again.

Its voice was deep and warped, distorted in a way that made it impossible to tell where it was coming from.

"I should be the one asking who you are."

The words came slowly, each one carrying a strange weight.

The smoke around its legs spread a little further across the ground as it continued.

"I keep monitor of everything that goes on here in this city..."

There was a brief pause before it finished.

"So I wonder how you slipped under my nose, arch magus."

Noah froze for a moment.

His body remained still, but beneath the mask, his teeth clenched tightly.

His mind raced, trying to make sense of the situation, but nothing about this felt normal. Nothing about this felt safe.

He still did not know what exactly he was facing.

He still could not understand what kind of existence stood before him.

But one thing was clear.

From its appearance alone, and from the way it spoke, this was not something he could take lightly.

He was in danger!

Noah remained still for a brief moment, his gaze locked onto the strange smoky figure as his thoughts spiraled.

Then he forced himself to steady.

’Calm down... calm down...’

The words echoed repeatedly in his mind as he tried to suppress the surge of panic rising within him. His heartbeat had quickened, and his nerves felt like they were on edge, but he could not afford to lose control now. Not in a situation like this.

’I’m supposed to be an arch magus...’

His thoughts sharpened as he reminded himself of the role he was playing.

’I can’t give myself away...’

That was the most important thing.

No matter what happened next, he had to maintain the image he had created. If he showed weakness now, even for a moment, the consequences could be immediate and fatal.

His eyes shifted slightly as he looked around.

The street, which they were in however, was completely empty.

It was just him, and the strange smoky figure standing before him.

The realization made his jaw tighten.

He gnashed his teeth slightly beneath the mask as the situation became clearer in his mind.

’Did I just... dig my own grave...?’

The thought came uninvited, heavy and suffocating.

Because everything had gone wrong at the worst possible moment.

He had taken this route for a reason.

A simple one.

He had hoped to find a quiet path where he could remove the mask without being seen. After that, he planned to jog back home and complete his daily quest like usual.

That was all it was supposed to be.

But now, he was standing alone in a deserted street with something he could not even understand.

His thoughts moved quickly.

’Hey system... use all EXP to level up!’ he thought, gnashing his teeth.

He had jogged quite a distance before reaching the adventurer guild earlier.

Following the rough map he had found behind one of the books he borrowed from the library, he had spent nearly an hour moving through the city.

That effort had not been wasted.

By the time he reached the guild, he had accumulated two hundred and twenty EXP.

And now, he spent it all.

A series of notifications appeared in his mind almost instantly, but he ignored them.

He did not have the time to read through them.

He only cared about the result.

The increase in strength.

The shift in his body.

By spending all the EXP, he leveled up twice, and his power rose immediately, mana surging slightly within him.

He had just broken through from a low-high magus to a high-high magus.

Under normal circumstances, that would have been something worth celebrating.

Something that would have filled him with excitement, but right now he felt nothing.

Because the danger in front of him overshadowed everything else.

Noah’s eyes narrowed behind the mask as he focused on the smoky figure again.

Then he spoke.

"Do you realize who you’re standing before?" he said, his voice firm and cold.

He straightened slightly, reinforcing the presence he had been maintaining.

"An arch magus." he continued, clicking his tongue. "Leave now, while I’m still having mercy on you."