The last thing I knew was the sterile, antiseptic smell of the hospital room and the low, rhythmic beep... beep... beep... of the heart monitor that had been my lullaby for months. The sound was growing slower, more erratic. Each beat was a struggle. My body, frail and wasted from the illness, had nothing left to give.
My hand, trembling with a Herculean effort I didn't know I possessed, stretched out from under the stiff sheets. My fingers brushed against the smooth, cool plastic of my VR headset. My escape. My only connection to a world where I wasn't a prisoner in a failing body. Where I was Kaito "Kai" Suda, the legendary Glitch_Runner of Aethelgard Online.
Just... one more game...
The monitor emitted a piercing, continuous tone. EEEEEEEEEE——
Then, nothing.
---
Consciousness returned not as a gentle awakening, but as a violent seizure of sensation.
My mind was a roaring torrent of light and noise. Not sound, but pure, raw data. Glitching fragments of code, error messages I couldn't read, and a nauseating sense of vertigo as if I were being downloaded and compiled at the same time.
<0x0000001> [SOUL.TRANSFER_INITIATED] <0x0000002> [WORLD_INSTANCE: AETHELGARD_PRIME - LOADING] <0x0000003> [ERROR: PROTOCOL_VIOLATION]
The chaos resolved as suddenly as it began.
I gasped, a sharp, involuntary breath that burned my lungs with air that was too clean, too sweet. I was lying on my back. Something prickly and green was tickling my neck. Grass.
My eyes snapped open to a vast, impossibly blue sky dotted with fluffy, white clouds. This wasn't the grey, smog-filled view from my hospital window.
I sat up, a movement so swift and effortless it left me dizzy. I looked down at my hands. They were no longer the pale, skeletal things I'd grown used to. These were the hands of my avatar. Young, strong, with unmarred skin. I clutched at the rough-spun tunic I was wearing, then pressed a hand against my chest.
My heart was beating. A strong, steady, healthy rhythm. No pain. No weakness. Just… life.
"This… this is the starter zone," I whispered, my voice unfamiliar to my own ears. It was stronger. "The Meadow of Beginnings. In Aethelgard."
A wave of euphoria washed over me. Had they done it? Had some experimental medical tech uploaded my consciousness? I was alive! I was—
A translucent blue screen materialized in front of my face with a soft ding.
[TUTORIAL INITIATED] Objective: Eliminate the [Goblin Grunt]. Reward: 10 EXP, Novice's Shortsword.
The euphoria vanished, replaced by a cold, creeping dread. It was a standard tutorial pop-up. But the air I breathed felt real. The grass beneath my fingers felt real. The screen didn't look like it was projected by my headset; it looked like it was etched onto reality itself.
A guttural snarl ripped me from my thoughts. I turned.
Emerging from behind a large, moss-covered rock was a Goblin Grunt. Level 1. It was exactly as hideous as I remembered: snot-green skin, beady red eyes, and a slobbering mouth full of crooked yellow teeth. It hefted a knotted wooden club and charged.
Instinct took over. I scrambled backward, my new legs clumsy and uncoordinated. This wasn't like using a controller or keyboard. I had to actually move.
"Inventory! Menu! Status!" I yelled, swiping at the air desperately. Nothing happened.
The goblin swung its club. I threw myself to the side. The weapon whistled past my ear and smashed into the ground where my head had just been. The THUD was visceral. Dirt and pebbles sprayed my face. I felt the wind of the blow.
This isn't VR. The realization was a bucket of ice water. The impact was real. The threat was real. That club would cave my skull in. There would be no respawn.
Panic, pure and undiluted, seized me. I was a strategist, a thinker, not a fighter. My body, though healthy, was just a Level 1 noob with no gear, no skills, and no idea how to fight.
The goblin recovered, snarling, and began another charge. I backed up until my shoulders hit the cold, unyielding surface of the large rock formation. I was trapped.
My mind raced, discarding one useless option after another. Run? It was faster. Fight? I had nothing. I was going to die. Again. This time, for good.
As the creature lowered its head for a final, murderous charge, my eyes fixated on the rock behind me. The specific, jagged shape of it. The way the moss grew in a particular pattern on the north-facing side.
A memory, crisp and clear, flashed in my mind.
My old room. The glow of the monitor. My character, Glitch_Runner, standing in this exact spot. A forum post I'd written: "Pathfinding Break on North-Side Rock Cluster - Easy Early Game EXP Farm."
It was a classic clipping exploit. The game's navigation AI couldn't handle that specific geometry. Monsters would get stuck every time.
It was a stupid, desperate, crazy idea.
It was the only one I had.
As the goblin lunged, I didn't try to dodge left or right. I shoved myself forward, directly along the face of the rock, and threw a pebble at the creature's head.
"Hey! Over here, you ugly piece of code!"
It worked. Enraged, the beast corrected its charge, aiming straight for me. At the very last second, I sidestepped.
The goblin couldn't adjust. It slammed full-force into the rock.
And its shoulder and arm phased right through the solid stone.
It was stuck. It writhed and snarled, its feet kicking up dirt, but it was trapped by the broken geometry, its AI hopelessly confused. It was just a ragdoll now, repeating its attack animation against the unyielding digital stone.
I stood there, chest heaving, staring at the helpless creature. The tutorial notification flickered uselessly in my vision.
[TUTORIAL: GOAL NOT MET. ELIMINATE TARGET.]
This wasn't a game. This was execution. My stomach churned. But the cold, logical part of my brain—the part that had mastered games by breaking them—whispered the truth. It was me or it.
I picked up a heavy, sharp stone. My hand shook.
I closed my eyes for a second, then brought the rock down.
There was a sickening crunch. When I opened my eyes, the goblin was gone, dissolving into shimmering polygons of light that faded into nothing. No fanfare. No victory music. Just silence.
[TUTORIAL COMPLETE.]
I dropped the bloody rock and fell to my knees, vomiting into the grass. I had just taken a life. A digital one, maybe, but it had felt far too real.
And then, the pain hit.
It was a searing spike driven directly into my temples. I cried out, clutching my head. My vision swam, blurring at the edges. When it cleared, the world had changed.
The beautiful, idyllic meadow was still there, but overlaid on top of it was a faint, shimmering grid of green lines—a wireframe model of reality. Flickering error messages popped up and vanished like digital ghosts. [RENDER_ERROR] over a distant tree. [COLLISION_MESH_INCONSISTENT] where the goblin had struck the rock.
I looked down at my own hands and saw not skin, but a complex pattern of glowing data.
I stumbled to my feet and looked at the rock formation—the site of the exploit. My new vision zeroed in on the spot. It pulsed with a soft, rhythmic red light, like a bleeding wound in the fabric of the world. Text scrolled across my vision, too fast to read, but I understood the gist of it.
[NAV_MESH_INTEGRITY_COMPROMISED] [QUAD_TREE_NODE_CORRUPTION]
The horror, the guilt, the confusion—it all melted away, replaced by a single, overwhelming emotion: wonder.
A slow, incredulous smile spread across my face. This wasn't a death sentence. This wasn't a cruel joke.
This was a playground.
The system was broken. The rules were written in buggy, exploitable code. And I was the only player who could read it.
I looked toward the rustic town in the distance, my eyes now seeing the digital truth beneath the fantasy facade. My heart wasn't pounding with fear anymore. It was thrumming with potential.
My second playthrough had begun. And this time, I wasn't just going to play the game.
I was going to break it.