Click. Click. Click.
The mechanical keyboard was the only sound in the 3:17 AM.
It was a hollow rhythm, the only metronome marking Dante's life.
His world had compressed to the 27-inch monitor. On the screen, his Level 99 Paladin, Dame Kaelen, cleaved through another wave of Shadow-wraiths.
The grind was mindless. His wrist ached, a dull throb that radiated up to his shoulder, but he ignored it.
One more run. Just one more.
He was a dedicated gamer.
Dante wasn't a pro-gamer. He had no sponsors nor stream, and never been in competition.
He was, at twenty-five years of his life, a part-time convenience store worker who poured every spare hour and scrap of disposable income into the digital void (Read: gaming).
His true work of art wasn't Kaelen, his "main" in Aethelgard Online.
It was The List. 453 unique creations.
He knew them all.
Kaelen, the obnoxiously-just Paladin he'd spent four years perfecting.
Bloodrazer, the Level 99 Berserker alt with zero points in Intelligence, built only to hit the DPS cap.
Morgana, the gothic "Chaotic Evil" Necromancer from his edgy teen phase.
Kasumi, his custom "rival" from Blade of Souls IV, with every frame-perfect counter memorized.
The list went on.
It included every 1-Star gacha pull from Galaxy Idol Clash, every "bank alt" mule, every failed experimental build, every character from every game he had ever touched. 453 souls he had crafted, named, and, in some cases, loved.
His eyes burned. The blue light of the monitor felt like sandpaper on his retinas.
The health bars of the Shadow-wraiths blurred, the particle effects of Kaelen's [Holy Smite] smearing into a violet-white haze.
Just one more...
The thought trailed off. His hand went numb, gripping the mouse.
The sound of the keyboard stopped.
His head felt impossibly heavy.
Suddenly, the room tilted. The glow of the monitor wasn't a screen anymore; it was an expanding, sterile sun that consumed everything in a harsh white light.
Then, black.
***
Dante wakes up.
And the first thing he notices is…
'Huh? The smell is weird…'
It was definitely not the stale coffee and dust of his apartment. This was sharp, primal, and organic. Pine. Wet earth. A faint, mossy decay.
And then, Dante feels the pain. A dull-throbbing spike in his neck.
'Slept at the desk again, huh. Dammit.'
Dante groaned, forcing his eyes open.
'Ughhhh…'
The light was wrong. It wasn't the blue-white LED of his room.
It was a piercing yellow, a warm and oppressive weight that made him squint. He tried to lift his arm, but it was heavy, tangled in... something.
Not his blanket.
Twigs. Roots.
He sat up, a jolt of adrenaline clearing the fog. This was not his room.
He was in a forest.
Towering trees, with bark so detailed he could see the tiny insects crawling on it, formed a dense canopy. Sunlight, the real sun, filtered through the leaves in golden shafts. He was on the ground, damp soil clinging to his thin pajama pants and t-shirt.
A dream. It had to be.
He pinched the back of his hand. Hard.
And the pain was immediate.
No. Nonononononono.
He scrambled to his feet. His body felt weak. The air was cool, raising goosebumps on his arms.
"Okay. Analyze, Dante." His voice was a dry croak. "I passed out. Exhaustion. Maybe a high-fidelity hallucination."
"Yeah. That's it! Hallucination!"
Suddenly…
CRACK.
A twig snapped.
Dante froze. The sound was loud in the absolute silence of the forest.
Another sound. A wet, guttural snarl, just behind a thicket of ferns to his left.
His blood went cold.
He backed away, his foot catching on a root. Then, he saw them.
Two of them. Short, maybe four feet tall. Their skin was a sickly mottled green, stretched taut over wiry limbs. They wore scraps of rusted metal and filth-caked leather. Pointed ears. Long, yellowed teeth bared in a snarl.
His brain, conditioned by two decades of pattern recognition, supplied the label instantly.
"Oh no… That can't be goblins, right?"
They looked exactly like the Level 2 trash mobs from the Elwynn starter zone. A ridiculous flicker of relief hit him.
He knew how to handle these. His fingers instinctively twitched, reaching for the '1' key, for Kaelen's [Holy Smite].
One of them hissed, its black eyes fixed on him. And it lunged.
GHRAAAAAAGRKK
It didn't "aggro." It didn't pause with a red exclamation point over its head. It moved.
Fast. Impossibly fast.
Dante tried to dodge, to backpedal, but his body was just a twenty-five-year-old part-timer's. He was clumsy. And so he tripped.
He fell hard, the air knocked from his lungs. The Goblin was on him. Dante saw a blur of green skin and a stench of ammonia and rotten meat.
He saw its rusty sword—less a sword, more a sharpened piece of scrap—come down.
His instinct kick in, he threw up his arm.
SPLASHHH
"AAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
There was no damage number. It's just…
"It's painful, dammit!"
An unbelievable, white-hot fire that lanced from his forearm to his shoulder. He screamed. The sound was thin and pathetic, immediately swallowed by the forest.
He looked down. Blood. His blood. Dark red, welling up from a ragged gash. It was real.
I'm going to die. I'm going to die here, in my pajamas, killed by a Level 2 trash mob!!!
The second Goblin cackled, a wet hacking sound, and raised its own weapon: a crude club studded with rocks. It advanced.
"No!" Dante shouted, scrambling backward, kicking at the dirt. The pain in his arm was making him dizzy. "Log out! LOG OUT!"
The word was a prayer. A command. A desperate plea.
The Goblins paused, tilting their heads at the unfamiliar sound. They didn't understand. And they didn't care. The one with the club grinned.
"MENU! OPTIONS! EXIT! HELP!" He was just a terrified man shouting at the trees. The club rose.
This was it.
Desperation clawed at him. He didn't just want a menu. He wanted his menu. He wanted his strength.
He willed it. With all the focus he'd ever used to grind, he poured his entire being into that single impossible desire.
And something answered.
A pane of translucent blue light, stark and clean against the chaotic green of the forest. It hung in his vision.
His terror stalled, hijacked by a sudden jarring familiarity.
He knew this. This was a User Interface. A Status!
The Goblins were ten feet away. Advancing.
The text on the pane was written in a clean sans-serif font.
[Creator: Dante]
[Creator Level: 1]
[Creator Mana: 10/10]
[Total Creations: 453]
[Summon Slots: 1/1]
[Quests: 1 Active]
► [Survive]
His eyes scanned, his gamer's brain processing the data faster than his panicked mind could.
Level 1.
10 Mana.
One slot.
Below the stats, there was a single, glowing, available skill. The rest of his "list" was a massive, searchable database, but every name: Kaelen, Bloodrazer, Morgana, was grayed out and inert.
Only one option was available.
[Skill: Summon Creation (Cost: Varies)]
The first Goblin lunged again, its rusty sword aimed at his chest.
Dante didn't think. He didn't have time to question the physics of it all.
He pressed it.