The blue light of the monitor was the only thing keeping Sato Jin tethered to the physical world. It was 3:14 AM. His small Tokyo apartment smelled of stale convenience store ramen and the ozone of a cooling fan struggling for its life. Jin did not mind the smell. He did not mind the silence of the city outside his window. His world was narrowed down to a single health bar at the center of his screen.
He adjusted his grip on the mouse. His wrists throbbed with a dull, familiar ache that reminded him why he was no longer on a stage in front of thousands of screaming fans. The doctors called it chronic inflammation. The sponsors called it a liability. Jin called it the reason he was currently solo-farming a Level 99 World Boss in a game that everyone else had abandoned years ago.
The boss, a towering construct of obsidian and malice, swung a jagged blade. Jin moved his character by a single pixel. It was a perfect dodge. He had performed this dance for six hours straight. His eyes were bloodshot. His fingers moved with a mechanical precision that bypassed his brain entirely. He was not thinking. He was simply existing within the code.
A sudden pop echoed through the room. It sounded like a dry twig snapping underfoot. Jin didn't look away from the screen. He assumed it was his chair or perhaps a floorboard settling. Then came the smell of burning plastic. It was sharp and acrid. It cut through the scent of ramen like a knife.
His PC tower began to hum at a pitch he had never heard before. The vibration travelled through the floor and into his bare feet. The screen flickered. The obsidian boss froze mid-swing. A dialogue box appeared in the center of the frozen image. It was not part of the game. The font was archaic, etched in gold and shadow.
[MAXIMUM LEVEL REACHED]
Jin frowned. He tried to move the cursor, but the mouse was dead. The humming intensified into a roar. Sparks showered from the back of the tower, illuminating the peeling wallpaper of his cramped room. He reached down to pull the power plug. His hand was inches from the cable when the tower exploded in a flash of white heat.
The current didn't just burn. It seized his heart in a fist of lightning. Jin felt his soul jerked forward as if caught on a fisherman's hook. The room vanished. The pain lasted for a heartbeat before it was replaced by a terrifying, hollow weightlessness. Then came the darkness. It was a thick, absolute void that felt like being submerged in ink.
He woke to the sound of a lark. The air was not stale. It tasted of clover and damp earth. Jin opened his eyes and immediately squinted against a sun that felt far too bright to be real. He was lying in tall grass. The blades tickled his neck. He sat up slowly, waiting for the familiar throb in his wrists. It wasn't there.
A translucent pane of shimmering light floated in the air before him. It moved as he moved, staying exactly two feet from his face. It was not a screen of glass or liquid. It looked like a sheet of solidified morning mist.
[STATUS: SATO JIN]
Class: Mister
Strength: Hot Potato
Intelligence: Yes
Endurance: A Lot
Mana: Favorite Color
Skill 1: Normal Guy Strike (Damage: ???)
Skill 2: Empty Gaze (Effect: ERROR 404)
Skill 3: Strategic Nap (Duration: Unlimited)
World Rank: #1
Jin stared at the words. He closed his eyes, counted to five, and opened them again. The mist remained. He reached out to touch the pane. His hand passed through it as if it were smoke. The letters rippled but did not disappear.
« Mister? » he whispered. His voice sounded the same, yet clearer.
He looked down at his clothes. He was still wearing his grey sweatpants and a t-shirt with a faded logo. He looked at the field surrounding him. Rolling green hills stretched toward a forest of massive, silver-barked trees. In the distance, the stone spires of a walled city broke the horizon. There were no power lines. There was no smog.
A small brown rabbit hopped out of the grass a few yards away. It stopped and looked at him. Its ears twitched. Suddenly, a second status window appeared above the animal.
[NAME: HORNED RABBIT]
[LEVEL: 2]
[THREAT: MINIMAL]
Jin looked back at his own status. He looked at the "World Rank: #1" line. He looked at the rabbit. The rabbit looked at his sweatpants.
« This is a problem » Jin muttered.
He stood up and brushed the seeds from his legs. He didn't feel like a hero. He didn't feel like a world-ranked champion. He felt like a man who had stayed up too late and was now suffering the most vivid hallucination of his life. He decided to walk toward the city. If this was a dream, he might as well find a place to sit down. If it wasn't, he needed to find out if they sold coffee in this version of reality.
As he walked, the grass seemed to part for him. The wind died down as he passed. He didn't notice the way the birds fell silent when he drew near. He only noticed that his legs didn't get tired. He walked for an hour without breaking a sweat.
He reached a dirt path that led toward the city gates. A group of men in leather armor were standing by a wooden cart. They carried spears tipped with iron. As Jin approached, one of the guards stepped forward, raising a hand.
« Halt, traveler » the guard said. « State your name and intent. »
The guard held a small crystal shard toward Jin. The crystal began to glow with a faint purple light. Jin stopped. He felt a strange tugging sensation in his chest. A duplicate of his mist-like status screen projected itself into the air between them for the guards to see.
The guard leaned in. He squinted at the floating words. His companion joined him. They both stared at the screen in silence for a long time.
« Strength... Hot Potato? » the first guard read aloud. He looked at Jin. He looked back at the screen. « Intelligence... Yes? Is this a joke, boy? »
« I'm as confused as you are » Jin said.
The second guard pointed to the bottom of the display. His finger was trembling slightly, though his face showed only confusion. « Look at the rank. It says Number One. »
The first guard burst out laughing. He slapped his knee, the metal of his gauntlet clanking against his armor. « Number One! With a class like Mister? The crystal must be cracked. Move along, Mister Hot Potato. Go find a circus. They might need a new clown. »
Jin nodded politely. He didn't care about the mockery. He only cared that they were letting him through. He walked past the laughing guards and through the massive oak gates of the city.
The streets were paved with cobblestone. The air was filled with the smell of roasting meat and horse manure. It was exactly what he expected from a medieval town, yet the colors were too sharp. Everything felt too heavy, too real.
He found a small tavern with a sign depicting a sleeping dog. He stepped inside. The room was dim and cool. A few patrons sat at wooden tables, their own status screens flickering faintly beside them like candles. Jin sat at the bar.
« Water » he said to the barkeep.
The man set a clay mug down. « Two coppers. »
Jin reached into his pockets. He found nothing but a crumpled receipt from a Japanese 7-Eleven. He sighed. He looked at his status screen again.
[SKILL 3: STRATEGIC NAP — AVAILABLE]
He didn't have money. He didn't have a weapon. He didn't even have shoes, just his indoor slippers. He rested his head on the wooden bar.
« I'll just wait for the server to restart » he whispered to himself.
He closed his eyes. He didn't see the way the shadows in the corner of the room suddenly lengthened. He didn't see the patrons go stiff as a cold pressure filled the tavern. He didn't see the shimmering silhouette of a woman with silver hair appearing in the rafters above him, looking down at his sleeping form with a look of pure horror.
Jin just wanted to sleep. The world, however, was already starting to break around him.