The notification burned behind his eyelids.
[Class Granted: Administrator]
Leo didn't move. He stayed in a tight, protective ball, the rough texture of the office carpet digging into his cheek. The absence of the goblin was a physical presence. It was heavier than the server hum, louder than the distant, muffled screams that were starting to filter back in from the street. His own breathing was a ragged, wet sound in the enclosed space under the desk. A tremor started in his hands, a low-frequency vibration he couldn't control. He tasted blood, a sharp, coppery tang that coated his tongue.
Administrator? The word felt alien. It was a title for people who made decisions, for people with corner offices and reserved parking spots. It wasn't for him. He was the guy who reset passwords and cleaned malware off Carol's laptop after she clicked on a phishing email for the third time in a month.
He squeezed his eyes shut, a useless gesture. The blue box remained, unwavering. He stayed there for a minute, maybe five, letting the frantic pounding in his chest slow to a heavy, painful thud. The immediate terror was starting to recede, leaving behind the cold, slick residue of pure, unadulterated confusion. His mind, having nowhere else to go, fell back on its oldest, most ingrained instinct: troubleshooting.
Okay. Okay, Leo. Think. A thought, fragile and thin. Problem: Reality is... bugged. Symptom: Goblin. Action taken: Unknown. Result: Goblin gone. New variable: User class assigned.
He needed data.
With a groan, his aching joints protesting, he slowly uncurled himself. He peered out from under the desk. The office was exactly as he'd left it, a monument to corporate beige. His lukewarm coffee sat on its floppy disk coaster. A half-eaten protein bar lay on a napkin. And on the floor, gleaming under the fluorescent lights, was the rusty pipe.
Proof.
He took a shaky breath, the air still carrying an electrical charge and something else, something like burnt sugar. He focused on the blue notification box. He didn't know what to do, so he just... willed it away. Mentally clicked the "X" that wasn't there.
The box vanished. For a glorious half-second, the crushing weight on his chest lifted. He could breathe again. Then a new, much larger window snapped open in the center of his vision. It was semi-transparent, a pane of ethereal blue laid over the world.
USER STATUS ------------------------------ Name: Leo Maxwell Level: 1 Class: Administrator Tier: 1 (Helpdesk Admin) ------------------------------ PERMISSIONS - Read-Only (Basic) - Write (Restricted) ------------------------------ SKILLS [Inspect Element]
There it was. He stared at the line, reading it over and over. Tier: 1 (Helpdesk Admin). A bitter, familiar laugh escaped his lips, a dry, humorless bark of a sound. Of course. Of course, he'd get a god-tier class only to find out he was starting at the bottom. The cosmic joke felt perfectly tailored to his life. He was the universe's new IT guy, and he was starting on the helpdesk.
His eyes drifted to the next section. Permissions. Read-Only. Write (Restricted). Nothing else explained it. The "delete" action on the goblin must have been a fluke, a one-time bug during his own installation. A "restricted" write permission wouldn't allow that.
He had one skill. [Inspect Element]. The tool he'd instinctively used. He needed to know what it did. What its limits were.
Slowly, pushing himself up on trembling arms, he crawled out from under the desk. His legs felt like jelly. He kept his eyes on the rusty pipe, his only anchor to what had just happened. He focused on it, the way he had with the goblin, and mentally triggered the skill.
A smaller window popped up next to the pipe, crisscrossed with lines of that same alien code. But just like before, a few lines were clear.
class="item_mundane_tool" ID="pipe_iron_rusted_01" ... [Durability: 12/20] [Damage_Type: Bludgeoning] [Grip_Modifier: Poor]
No HP. No stats to edit. Just a dry, factual description of a piece of junk. He tried to mentally click on the [Durability] line, tried to change the 12 to a 20. A line of red text flashed in the window.
[Access Denied. Write Permission Insufficient.]
He let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. Limitation. Good. He understood limitations. He could work with limitations. This was his world now. Rules. Protocols. Access levels.
What about something living? Something... him? He held up a hand, turning it over. He could see the faint lines on his palm, the slight tremor that still hadn't faded. He activated [Inspect Element] on himself.
[Access Denied. User-level Edit Not Permitted.]
Another wall. Another rule. He couldn't edit himself, and he couldn't edit items. His only confirmed "write" action was on a single, low-level monster, and it was an action he didn't know how to replicate. For all intents and purposes, he was stuck in Read-Only mode.
A fresh wave of screams from the street below shattered his analytical bubble. The real world, the one that was actively breaking, was still out there.
He crept back to the window, his heart beginning its frantic rhythm again. He stayed low, peering over the sill. The scene was worse. Much worse. Cars were stopped at odd angles, some with doors hanging open. People were running, a scattered, panicked herd. And among them, more of those things. Goblins. At least three of them, swarming a woman who had tripped and fallen near the crosswalk.
And then he saw her.
Carol. From Accounting.
She was scrabbling backward on the pavement, her sensible shoes lost, one hand held out as if to ward off the impossible. Her face was a mask of sheer terror. A goblin, identical to the one he'd faced, was stalking toward her, brandishing a broken bottle.
A lurch in his stomach. Carol. The woman who brought in donuts on Fridays. The one who had a picture of her fat, ginger cat as her desktop background. He didn't particularly like her—she was annoying, helpless with technology—but she was real. She was a person.
He was safe up here. For now, anyway. He could stay under his desk. Wait it out. It wasn't his problem. He just fixed printers.
But he could see it. Floating over the goblin's head. The nameplate. The level. And he knew, with a certainty that felt cold and heavy in his gut, that if he used [Inspect Element] on it, he would see that line of code again.
[HP: 50/50]
He couldn't delete it. He knew that now. His permissions were too low. But Read-Only wasn't useless. Information was never useless.
He activated the skill, his focus narrowing, the sounds of his own frantic breathing filling his ears. The goblin's code filled his vision. There it was. HP: 50/50. He couldn't change it. He couldn't touch it.
Think, Leo. You're helpdesk. What do you do when you can't solve the problem? You find a workaround. You find the weakness.
He scanned the rest of the code, his eyes flying through the alien script, desperately searching for anything he could understand. And then he saw it. A single line, nestled between gibberish.
[Status_Effect: Susceptible_to_Bludgeoning (Critical)]
The rusty pipe.
It was still lying on the floor ten feet away.
Carol screamed again, a high, thin sound that was cut short as the goblin lunged.
Leo didn't think. He ran. He snatched the pipe from the floor, the cold, rough metal a shocking sensation against his sweaty palm. He sprinted for the door, his character status window flickering in the corner of his eye. His own terrified face was reflected in the dark glass of the office door as he slammed it open and plunged into the hallway. He had no plan. No power. Just a piece of junk, and a single line of data.