Mateo turned 27 on July 12th, 2025.
No cake. No presents. Just his alarm going off at 5:30 AM.
Another gray day in an equally gray office.
Messy black hair, lifeless eyes, deep dark circles, and a height that got lost in any crowd—he was basically a background character in his own life.
And just like he lived... he died.
No glory, no scandal, not even a whisper.
But the universe, ever sarcastic, had other plans.
For the first time in years, Mateo felt peace.
No bosses. No debts. No urgent emails. Just... silence.
Until a blinding light dragged him through a dark tunnel.
Then, a voice filled his head with the intensity of a cosmic slap:
"THE GREAT DAO SYSTEM WELCOMES YOU TO XIANZHARA. YOU WILL BE SENT TO A RANDOM LOCATION. GOOD LUCK."
No time to scream, complain, or even swear.
Mateo faceplanted straight into the scorching sands of Azahran.
Boiling dunes, a merciless sky, and stars that seemed to laugh at him.
"Where the hell am I?!" he groaned, spitting out half the desert.
A floating window blinked into existence.
Glowing golden runes pulsed with energy—and from it emerged... something.
A smoke-like being with violet mist for a body, twin suns for eyes, and the smile of a psychotic dentist.
"Hi, Mateo! I'm Reil, the personification of the most powerful System in the universe! Hehehe. Isn't this world just adorable?"
Mateo stared at him like he'd just swallowed a live cockroach.
"Damn... you're so ugly I almost peed myself."
Reil gasped like a diva in distress.
"So rude! And here I was, choosing you out of billions of pathetic souls! But fine, if you'd rather go back to your sad little life—oh, wait. You're dead!"
"Anyway, at least here you can be eaten by a demon with halitosis or turned into a cactus by a drunk fairy. Fun times!"
Mateo, face full of "Monday energy," replied:
"How about you shut up and tell me where the hell I am?"
"Azahran, sweetheart."
The cosmic amusement park where everything wants to kill you.
But don't worry:
You're the protagonist!
…Or something close enough.