[Steve has joined the world.]
Deep within a forest on the Star-Moon Continent, a flash of blue flickered into existence. It stood perfectly still, posture rigid and symmetrical.
The figure was... uncanny. It had a human's limbs and features, yet everything about it was unnaturally angular—like it was built from geometric blocks stacked together.
Even the face was flat, the square eyes expressionless, and the shadow shaped like an inverted "V" could've been a mouth—or maybe a beard.
No one looking at it would think it was alive.
But it had a name: Steve.
And it had awareness. It knew it was a character from the game Minecraft. It knew it had once been controlled by a being called the Player.
Steve liked the Player.
As always, while the Player's world was loading, he stood quietly, waiting for that familiar command to move.
No achievement notification popped up at spawn. No strange books filled his inventory.
All he saw were the usual hunger, health, and experience bars—plus his hotbar and a single blocky arm.
It looked just like the original.
But this time, the world had a texture pack and shaders installed.
Birdsong and insect chirps echoed from every direction. Sunlight filtered through leaves in soft beams, illuminating the bark where tiny ants crawled in intricate lines.
The world felt far more detailed than the pixel one he remembered—so vivid it could almost be called real, like the Player used to say.
Had the Player upgraded their setup? Maybe they just wanted to enjoy a calm, cozy life this time?
Steve's blocky mind stirred. He waited patiently for the Player's first command.
But this time, the wait dragged on.
Even accounting for the heavier load from new textures and shaders, it shouldn't take this long.
Finally, he decided to check—and froze.
The Player was gone.
No, it was worse than that. He couldn't sense the Player's device at all. The connection had vanished, like a kite string cut in midair. No pull. No control. Nothing.
Where's the Player?
Instinctively, Steve crouched down, sticking his blocky butt out as usual—
—and stopped cold.
He could move.
As a game character, he wasn't supposed to be able to move without commands. He should've been frozen, like a sedated cat after surgery.
But his body moved exactly as he wanted, as if those invisible constraints had never existed.
While he stood there in confusion, a mechanical voice echoed in his ears:
["Minecraft Mod System loaded successfully. Objective complete: 'Go Hard!' Unlocking your first mod — Just Enough Items!"]
Steve's heart—if he had one—steadied again.
Good. The Player must still be around somewhere. Maybe they were testing some AI system this time? He vaguely remembered the Player chatting about that once.
But if that were true... why wasn't the AI connected?
Or maybe he was the AI now?
He didn't understand. He was just a character in a game, one who didn't even know what "bedrock" was without the Player explaining it.
Still, he knew what the Player would do next.
Steve walked up to a tree and began punching it—thunk, thunk, thunk—until a block of wood popped off and floated.
Then he kept going, hitting the rest of the trunk until it was too high to reach, standing on the stump as usual.
The logs turned into floating drops, which flew neatly into his inventory.
He crafted a crafting table, then a wooden pickaxe.
He hesitated a moment, noticing how the pickaxe still looked pixelated and clashed against the hyperreal world around him. But he shrugged it off.
Finding some exposed stone, he quickly made the standard starter trio—sword, pickaxe, axe—then broke down his crafting table and went looking for food.
There were bugs everywhere, but they were too small—way too small to drop meat. So he ignored them, and they scattered away nervously.
Not long after, he heard sounds—roars, shouts. A villager's cry mixed with a beast's snarl.
The voice was high-pitched, reminding him of the maids he'd once seen in modded worlds.
Somewhere behind him, a loud crash echoed—like a tree collapsing.
He didn't bother turning around. Villagers meant civilization. Civilization meant progress.
He ran toward the sound.
...
Elina gripped a wooden stick with trembling hands, her stance far from proper but desperate enough to keep the beast at bay.
Her eyes shook with fear. Her clothes were torn and ragged, scraped open by branches. Fine cuts covered her exposed skin, and her leg bled through a patch of ruined fabric. Her face had gone deathly pale.
She didn't dare look at the wound—or move at all. The slightest twitch might trigger the creature to pounce.
It was a massive wolf, gray-white fur rippling in waves though there was no wind—like invisible ribbons swirling around its limbs.
A Wind Wolf.
A rank-one magical beast. Ordinary Adventurers could handle one easily with proper gear.
But Elina was just a farmer's daughter. She had never fought anything in her life.
Why was there a Wind Wolf this close to the village? Had a whole pack migrated here?
Her grip weakened. The wolf's intelligent eyes gleamed with amusement. It was waiting patiently for her exhaustion to win.
She swung her stick with a choked cry, but it barely reached halfway. The wolf didn't even flinch.
Just as despair began to sink in, a flash of blue darted between the trees. A human shape?
Her eyes widened.
"Help! Over here! Please, help me!"
The blue figure paused—then started bounding toward her, moving in strange jumps and jerks.
The Wind Wolf snarled but didn't retreat. It circled around Elina, keeping both her and the newcomer in view.
Elina bit her lip hard and bolted, ignoring the searing pain in her leg. Panic drowned everything else out—she just needed to reach that person.
The blue figure drew closer. She could finally make out who—no, what—it was.
Then her body locked up. Her legs slid out from under her, and she crashed to the ground with a heavy thud.
Air punched out of her lungs; when she gasped again, it came out as a shriek.
A monster.
That thing was a monster!
How could something like that exist?
Its head was a cube. Its limbs had no joints. Even as it ran, its body parts moved separately, connecting and disconnecting like toy blocks.
And that face—flat and blank, like someone had ripped off a human's features, ironed them flat, then stitched them back on wrong.
That can't even be called a face... it looks like a kid's crude drawing.
But when it stopped and tilted its head toward her, she felt it—its gaze.
Her throat seized again, and another scream tore out of her.
There was no doubt left.
That thing was no human.
It was something made. A monster born from someone's nightmare.