Chapter 1: The One-Credit Deathtrap
The eviction notice was a stark, fluorescent pink against the chipped paint of the door. A final, undeniable testament to failure. The gaming rig, once a temple of esports glory, now felt like a coffin. The screen glowed with the universe of Eternal Odyssey, the VR-MMORPG that had consumed his twenties. Now, it just reminded Alistair that rent was due in a week, and his wallet held precisely 47 credits and a lint ball.
"Time to face the music," he muttered, his voice rough from disuse. He scrolled through the Odyssey's player marketplace. Maybe he could sell his old, legendary-tier gear. But it was all obsolete, patched into irrelevance years ago.
Frustrated, he filtered the listings by price: lowest to high. Pages of digital trash scrolled by. Pet rocks, ugly cosmetic hats, maps to secret dungeons everyone knew about. And then he saw it.
Listing: Uncharted Terrestrial Body - Kepler-186f Analog
Seller: Unknown_Entity
Price: 1 Credit.
He snorted. A planet. For one credit. It was the digital equivalent of selling a bridge. The description was even more laughable.
"Asset acquired through unusual means. Planetary conditions: LUSH. Flora/FAUNA: UNCLASSIFIED. Native Sentience: DETECTED (PRIMITIVE). Warning: Asset is sold AS IS. No refunds. Management not responsible for eldritch incursions, spontaneous soul-devourment, or reality warping. Have a nice day!"
Eldritch incursions? Reality warping? It was so over-the-top it looped back to being almost charming. A scam, obviously. But it was one credit. The last stupid gamble of a desperate man.
"What the hell," he sighed, clicking PURCHASE. The transaction cleared. His balance dropped to 46 credits. A new icon appeared in his inventory: a swirling, emerald-green marble labeled "Your Planet - Deed of Absolute Ownership."
A new prompt, glowing with an urgency the game usually reserved for server warnings, filled his screen.
SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR DETECTED: ALISTAIR VANCE (USER: CURSOR)
INITIATING PLANETARY ADMINISTRATION PROTOCOL...
WARNING: This is a ONE-WAY SYNCHRONIZATION. Log-out function will be disabled until a Stable Core Link is established. Proceed? Y/N
One-way? His heart hammered against his ribs. This was not normal Odyssey UI. This looked official. Ominous. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. This was a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad idea.
He clicked Yes.
The world did not fade to black. It shattered.
His cheap apartment dissolved into a kaleidoscope of light and sound. The feeling of his ergonomic chair vanished, replaced by a sensation of falling, of being stretched across an infinite distance. He tried to scream, but he had no lungs. He tried to close his eyes, but he had no body.
And then, impact.
He gasped, real air—thick, humid, and rich with the scent of alien pollen and damp earth—filling real lungs. He was on his knees, hands sinking into moss so blue it looked like it was glowing. Towering above him were trees with spiraling, violet bark and canopies that filtered the light of a binary star system. One sun was a familiar yellow, the other a smaller, gentle red.
This was not virtual reality. The resolution was too perfect. The weight of the air, the ache in his knees, the smell.
ADMINISTRATOR CONSCIOUSNESS SUCCESSFULLY TRANSMIGRATED.
BIOLOGICAL VESSEL: STABLE.
WELCOME TO YOUR PLANET, ADMINISTRATOR.
A translucent blue screen hovered in his vision. It was not a HUD. It was in his vision. He focused on a bizarre, six-petaled flower nearby.
SCAN COMPLETE: Sun-Singer Flora. Non-toxic. High nutritional value. Sap can be refined into a potent adhesive.
Information flooded his mind, not as text, but as pure understanding. He stumbled to his feet, his movements clumsy in this new, heavier gravity. This was real. The scam was real. He had bought a planet. A genuine, honest-to-god planet.
A wave of hysterical laughter bubbled up in his throat. He was a planetary governor! A god-king! He could build a palace! He—
A blood-curdling shriek ripped through the jungle, followed by a chorus of chittering, clicking sounds that set his teeth on edge. It was the sound of mandibles. Lots of them.
His gamer instincts kicked in, shoving the panic down. He dropped into a crouch and scrambled behind the thick, violet trunk of a spiral tree. Peering around its edge, he saw them.
A group of humanoid figures, clad in rough-spun hides and wielding spears tipped with sharpened bone, were backing away from the treeline. They were slender, with pointed ears and skin the color of the blue moss. The natives. The primitive sentience.
And they were being hunted.
The creatures that emerged from the shadows were nightmares. They moved on six, multi-jointed legs, their carapaces a chitinous black that absorbed the light. Their heads were all teeth and faceted red eyes, and they moved with a horrifying, coordinated speed.
SCAN COMPLETE: Scythe-Maw Fauna. Alpha-Predator. Highly aggressive. Hunts in packs. Weakness: Joints are susceptible to high-impact force. Core Value: High. Scythe-Maw Carapace is a Tier-3 Alchemical Reagent. Estimated Market Value: 750 Credits per gram.
His fear vanished, replaced by a single, blazing, overwhelming thought.
Seven hundred and fifty credits per gram.
One of the natives, a female with a white streak in her dark hair, lunged forward with her spear. It was a brave, futile gesture. A Scythe-Maw dodged with contemptuous ease and lunged, its scythe-like forelimb flashing out.
He did not think. He acted.
His hand shot out, and with a thought he had not known he possessed, he accessed the Admin Menu. A new set of options bloomed in his mind: Terrain Manipulation, Fauna/Flora Index, Planetary Deity Functions.
He focused on the ground directly in front of the charging monster. He selected Terrain Manipulation, Raise Land.
The earth erupted. A spike of solid rock, sharp as a dagger, shot upwards from the jungle floor. It caught the Scythe-Maw square in the chest, punching through its chitin with a sickening crunch. The creature shrieked, a high-pitched sound of pure agony, and thrashed for a moment before going still.
Silence fell, broken only by the hiss of the dying creature and the heavy breathing of the natives.
They were all staring at him. He stepped out from behind the tree, his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest. He looked at the rock spike he had just summoned from nothing. He looked at the dead monster worth a small fortune.
The natives slowly lowered their weapons. The female with the white streak met his gaze. Her eyes were wide, not just with fear, but with awe. Then, slowly, she sank to one knee. The others followed suit, bowing their heads towards him.
A new notification, glowing with golden light, appeared before him.
TITLE EARNED: Stone-Shaper
FAITH DETECTED: 12 New Followers.
ADMINISTRATOR AUTHORITY: 0.1%
PLANETARY MARKETPLACE: UNLOCKED.
He looked from the bowing natives to the corpse of the Scythe-Maw. His rent was 2,000 credits. This one monster was worth more than that. This planet was not a deathtrap.
It was a start-up.
A vicious grin spread across his face. "Alright," he whispered to himself, his voice steady for the first time in months. "Let us get to work."