From the perspective of Alessio Leone
The streets of Eldenwall were already beginning to empty when Alessio returned to the city. The alleys that had been crowded with eager players were now silent, only a few scattered groups still haggling over scraps of cheap loot at NPC stalls. The night air carried the metallic scent of forges cooling and the faint sweetness of leftover bread from bakeries.
Alessio's body felt heavy. The shield still rested against his arm, but his hand trembled from strain. The axe hung at his waist, blade battered from endless strikes. Every step echoed like lead, his muscles protesting the insane marathon he had forced upon himself.
"Fifteen hours and forty…" he muttered as he opened the interface.
A translucent panel floated before his eyes—dry, merciless, without ornament. In the upper-right corner, a clock pulsed red:
15:40
Only twenty minutes remained.
He knew exactly what would happen next. The moment the clock struck sixteen, every player would be pulled from the Black Tower in a mass ejection. It didn't matter where you were: in the heart of a dungeon, before a boss, or mid-negotiation. The system didn't ask. It simply shut down.
Even ten years later, Alessio still remembered the outrage when that rule was first announced. Forums exploded in revolt, e-sports columnists wrote fiery articles, and famous streamers cried live, accusing the creators of killing gaming freedom. But the official response had always been the same:
"It's for the players' well-being. The game must fit inside life, not the other way around. Besides, downtime is used for maintenance and system expansion."
And nothing changed.
It never would.
Alessio drew a deep breath. He wouldn't waste energy arguing. What mattered was what he had done with the hours he'd been given.
Calling his little adventure exhausting would be an insult to the word itself. Each quest had been a cliff edge between life and death. Ambushes in goblin caves, chases against level-15 beasts, riddles that demanded such concentration his vision blurred. More than once, Alessio swore he wouldn't make it out alive. But he had. Always by the thinnest margin.
And in the end, it had been worth every drop of sweat, every aching muscle, every stolen minute.
He opened his Player Profile again, and the cold numbers appeared before him:
Name: Aslan
Class: Tank
Title: —
Affiliation: —
Strength: 8
Vitality: 11
Agility: 8
Intelligence: 4
A faint smile curved his lips. Five extra stat points earned on the very first day. Each wrestled from iron, pain, and blood.
With this, I won't just be a Tank.
His body begged for rest. His head throbbed—the invisible hangover of drained mana, since without potions he'd had to wait long minutes between quests to recover mental energy. Even then, he had used that downtime, studying routes, jotting notes, reorganizing priorities.
Now, though, there was nothing left to do.
With only twenty minutes remaining, it wasn't worth diving into the next stage of his plan. Starting a dungeon would be cut short, a half-finished ambush would mean wasted effort. The Tower was merciless with the impatient.
Better to end the day.
Alessio lifted his gaze to Eldenwall's night sky. The digital stars sparkled with cold perfection, the city's torches flickered with such convincing physics that any novice would swear they could feel the heat. For a moment, he allowed himself simply to look.
Then, without hesitation, he opened the system interface.
The translucent screen appeared before him, unforgiving. At the bottom, two options:
[Continue]
[Exit Game]
His fingers trembled—not with doubt, but with exhaustion. And yet, steady, they pressed the second option.
The choice was recorded.
The world dissolved around him into fragments of light.
White shattered into points, and with a short breath, the weight of reality slid back into his bones. Alessio opened his eyes slowly. The console's padding still pressed against his forehead and temples; the arc of the device hissed softly as he unlocked and lifted it, leaving faint marks on his skin—a seal the Tower seemed intent on branding on all who entered it.
The room was dim. Through the crooked slats of the curtain, warm blades of sunlight cut the air in diagonals, striking the suspended dust that betrayed a night without open windows. The same old scene—peeling posters on the wall, stacks of law books piled hastily on the desk, the wooden chair that creaked at nothing—and yet, everything felt different after sixteen hours of survival.
Sitting on the narrow bed, Alessio reached for the dresser. Two taps on the phone's black screen woke it. Glass flashed the time and a froth of notifications rising like bubbles.
05:50
Unread messages from groups, alerts from channels, e-sports headlines. Left unchecked, the feed would become a whirlpool: debates on builds, blurry screenshots of the starting city, wild theories about "breaking" the meta on day one. In his past life, he would have thrown himself in headfirst—five, ten, thirty minutes gone, vanished without trace. Maybe a nap afterward, body slack, and there: two hours gone.
Not this time.
He locked the screen with the same gesture, without scrolling a single card. The sharp click sounded like a verdict: Dismissed.
He stood. His body welcomed reality with that peculiar mix of fatigue and readiness: firm calves, dense shoulders, a pleasant heaviness in forearms that had held shield and axe far longer than anyone should outside of a dream. His head ached faintly—the invisible aftertaste of spent mana—but the pain was manageable, familiar, a reminder his mind filed away in the right drawer.
The walk to the bathroom was short, three steps on cold tile. The faucet groaned, metal yielding to decisive water. He stepped beneath it and twisted the valve fully. Cold. The shock carved a straight line down his spine, clearing his head. He breathed deeply through his nose, held until his chest begged for release, and let go slowly. Twice. Three times. His body steadied, pulse aligned, head settled. Cold showers weren't bravado; they were protocol.
When he stepped out, his skin still burned in patches, but his eyes held the focus he demanded of himself. A towel dried what mattered. The rest, morning air would handle.
In the tiny kitchen—three cupboards, a counter, a sink that knew silence—yesterday's breakfast waited: a glass jar with baked omelet cut into cubes; another container of unsweetened yogurt mixed with oats and seeds; two boiled eggs in a small bag; a half-filled thermos of brewed coffee. Nothing photogenic. Everything exact.
He ate without theatrics, but without wasted pauses. Clean forkfuls, steady chewing, a sip of coffee between transitions. His palate registered the basics—salt, good fats, the almost-grainy texture of soaked oats; his mind registered numbers. Protein, fat, fiber. Bricks and mortar. The kind of fuel no potion could provide.
He cleaned what he used. Cloths back in place. Lid screwed on. Fridge closed with the familiar snap that belonged to routine.
In his room, the training clothes waited in the corner like a punctual companion. He pulled on the light shirt, running shorts with close pockets, technical socks. Sat to lace his shoes, knots tied double the way he always did, so he wouldn't think of them again. Watch on wrist, its vibration confirming the alarm he had already outrun. Keys in one pocket. Phone in the other—not for scrolling feeds, but for timing cycles.
He pulled the curtain wider, letting more light in. For a second, the room felt smaller. It wasn't an illusion: he had grown inside the Tower, and returned with that extra measure. He opened the door. The university dorm hallway greeted him with the breath of morning: cold cement, a trace of cleaning product, the silence of people still chained to their pillows.
He stopped at the threshold, breathed once as if recording it in the minutes, and descended the stairs two at a time. The gate groaned, the street gave him real air—still damp, still empty of voices. Above, the sky wore that pale blue that comes before the day swells.
The last six months had begun the same way: a step outside before the world woke, a run before talk, iron before desk, book before screen. Most would call it obsession. In the Tower, they'd call it min-maxing. To him, it was simply method.
He had reasons. Not slogans of discipline. Not motivational quotes on a fridge. Concrete reasons, mechanics of a system most didn't yet suspect existed—things that would take months to surface on forums, theories that would only take shape when someone dared to piece together the clues. Alessio didn't need the world to understand now.
Tightened his left lace. Two taps on the watch to start the timer. Posture set. The first step broke the stillness of the street like a verdict.
And he ran.