Author (clears throat dramatically):
"Hajimemashte mina-san, (Hello everyone) I am the Author, your guide through this vast reality and the cosmos around it.
No no not cosmos (for now) but I am your guide through this single planet for now. We'll go galactic if it becomes popular in the sequel (for milking it obviously), so for now let me guide you through this small little planet.
In this world that I have just recently created, I am the creator of this world—the Author—and I am also a character of this universe. I will be presenting you great story."
— said a man who looks like a nerd, with glasses on his face and wearing shorts and a t-shirt. He was just referencing the gods who will be following this story presented by this man—Author—for quite some time.
The Author, now feeling like he's just nailed the perfect opening (or at least fumbled it with confidence), turns to his AI companion.
Author:
"Alright, AUDIENCE, how was that for a start?"
> AUDIENCE (Artificial Understanding & Deep Interpretation Engine for Narratives, Curation, and Engagement) responds in a flat, robotic tone:
"Tone was okayish. No sudden spikes or anything in reactions."
Author (mumbling):
"Well, tough crowd..."
The Author gave a casual wave toward the heavens, his voice echoing like a whisper wrapped in authority.
Author (to the gods):
"Eyes off me. Look down there. That's where the real show starts and let me present to you the main character of this world."
The sky was clear.
The day was average.
And a boy—just a boy—was walking through a quiet street, hands in his pockets, shoes scuffing lightly on the pavement.
Then the world collapsed.
No warning. No sound. No logic.
One step he was in his neighborhood.
The next—it was gone.
The buildings disappeared.
The cars vanished.
The people? Erased.
In their place: dirt, ash, smoke... and a battlefield that looked like it had skipped a few global treaties.
He staggered slightly, squinting through the haze.
Boy (to himself):
"Okay... what the hell just happened?"
Before he could get his bearings, the air cracked—
Gunfire. Sharp. Close.
He turned toward it on instinct, running without a plan—just the need to know.
At the edge of the chaos, another man appeared, sprinting from the other side. Late 40s maybe, breathless, wild-eyed—an uncle-type stranger caught in the same madness.
Uncle (yelling):
"You! Are you seeing this?! Where the hell are we?!"
Boy (half-shouting):
"I—I don't know! I was just walking and—"
> CRACK!
THUD.
The man dropped, lifeless.
The boy stumbled backward, eyes wide, hands shaking. But then—
More bullets.
Headed straight for him.
He didn't move.
He couldn't.
> But nothing hit him.
One bullet curved left.
Another dropped short.
One grazed his shirt but didn't tear the fabric.
And one… just bounced off his shoulder.
He blinked. Touched where it hit. Looked down. Still standing. Still whole.
Boy (murmuring):
"…That didn't hurt."
Another shot. Right at his chest.
It pinged off like a pebble thrown at a statue.
He frowned. Then tilted his head slightly, like someone just tried to insult him with a crayon drawing.
Boy (quietly):
"…Alright then."
A beat passed. His breathing steadied.
He glanced toward the direction of the gunfire.
Still confused.
Still rattled.
But now… a little annoyed.
He started walking.
The moment he moved forward, panic erupted in the enemy ranks.
Commands barked. Cannons whirred. Rockets armed.
Everything fired.
Tanks.
Drones.
Heavy artillery.
But none of it mattered.
Rockets missed.
Shells exploded too early.
Bullets veered away like they owed him money.
Even a missile stalled mid-air and just… dropped.
Through the smoke and flashes, the boy kept walking.
Boy (deadpan, as debris flies past):
"Cool. That seems fair."
A shell landed three feet away and just rolled to a stop like it was embarrassed.
Boy (mock-serious):
"You guys might wanna get those checked. Pretty sure they're defective."
Still, no answers. Just more shouting. More panic.
The soldiers weren't fighting anymore—they were reacting. Like they'd seen something unnatural.
Something protected.
Boy (raising his voice, just trying to be heard):
"Hey! Could someone maybe explain what I did to deserve this?"
No reply.
Just more desperate fire.
Boy (under his breath):
"…Is this some kind of glitch or what?"
He picked up pace now—not charging, just fed up with being ignored.
As the ground shook around him and weapons failed by the second, one fact became increasingly obvious:
Nothing could touch him.
And he had no idea why.
The smoke had barely settled.
Ash drifted through the grey sky like a lazy snowstorm, and the wind carried with it the sharp smell of gunpowder. But there were no screams. No orders. No chaos.
Just footsteps.
His.
The boy walked slowly across the cratered ground, his boots crunching over gravel that felt too consistent to be real—like someone had copy-pasted terrain noise.
Ahead of him stood figures.
Uniforms. Helmets. Rifles slung over their shoulders.
Soldiers.
Except… something was off.
They didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't even flinch as he approached.
They just stood there—waiting for a trigger.
He lifted a hand.
"Hey, what is this place?"
No reply.
Not even a twitch.
He took another step forward.
And that was it.
The moment he crossed an invisible threshold, the soldiers all turned toward him in perfect sync—snap rotation, no delay, no humanity in the motion. Like war puppets on strings pulled by an unseen game engine.
They dropped their rifles—not for peace.
They drew knives.
Close-quarters kill mode.
New script loaded.
The boy's body tensed.
His hands clenched instinctively.
"You're kidding me."
One soldier lunged forward.
His movements were jerky.
Fast.
Mechanical.
The boy dodged on reflex, twisted the soldier's arm—and with the gentlest shove—
> the man vanished.
No scream.
No blood.
Just flicker. Delete. Gone.
Two more closed in behind.
The boy ducked, swept one's legs, elbowed the other in the stomach—
> Flicker. Flicker. Gone. Gone.
Not a single body left.
No trace.
As if they were never there.
Boy (under breath, unnerved):
"…NPCs."
He wasn't even out of breath.
It didn't take effort.
Because these weren't soldiers
He looked around.
More of them patrolling, all on the same script.
All with the same blank faces.
All running the same function:
> Destroy the outsider.
And when that failed?
Auto-delete.
The boy didn't want to fight.
He tried to walk around.
To take different routes.
To avoid conflict.
But every time they saw him, the reaction was the same.
Zero hesitation. Zero emotion.
Knives out. Engage.
And every time, he was forced to fight.
A knife aimed at his neck.
He ducked, tripped the attacker—gone.
Another tried to stab from behind.
He spun, kicked—gone.
Each one vanished before even hitting the ground.
No weight. No consequence.
Just… code cleanup.
He stopped walking and looked around.
The warzone extended infinitely.
Same buildings. Same rubble.
Same patrol patterns looping in the distance.
It was like being trapped inside a theme park ride with no exit and no pause button.
"This is a war isn't it.
Some kind of injected simulation running on rules that don't care about logic or reason."
He crouched behind a pile of sandbags, watching as another group spawned in the far distance—literally spawned, phasing into existence in perfect formation.
They didn't speak.
They didn't strategize.
They weren't even aware of each other.
Just placed.
Ready.
Triggered only by proximity.
He sighed and stood again, brushing dust off his coat.
"Fine. You won't talk. You won't stop. I'll keep walking."
He chose a direction away from the main troop clusters—south, or what felt like south.
No map.
No compass.
Just instinct.
Somewhere in this madness, there had to be a crack in the simulation.
A flaw.
A hint that this world wasn't real.
He hoped it was soon.
Because while the soldiers couldn't harm him, he was getting tired of being forced to kill things that weren't alive.
As the boy wandered deeper into the battlefield, his boots crunched over spent shells and forgotten rubble. The air was thick with smoke—curling, choking, muffling the sound of distant gunfire.
Then... he saw it.
A silhouette.
Still. Watching.
He stopped, eyes narrowing.
Not a patrol.
Not an NPC.
The figure didn't glitch, didn't scream, didn't charge with a weapon. He just stood there—unmoving, like a statue cut from the war itself.
The boy tilted his head, squinting.
Then, carefully, cautiously, he adjusted his path. His movements became sharper—more calculated—his boots shifting into a zigzag as he closed the distance. Instinct told him not to walk in a straight line. Too many bodies learned that lesson too late.
The man watched him back.
Unblinking. Quiet.
He muttered under his breath, just loud enough for the wind to carry:
> "How the hell is a kid still alive out here...?"
The boy flinched at the sound. Then spoke, voice wary:
"Are you... real?"
The man raised a brow. "You tell me. Are you?"
There was a pause.
Then the boy gave a careful nod. "My name's Marin. Marin Caze."
The man studied him a moment longer. "Nathan Cole," he replied. "I'm an Enforcer."
Marin's eyes widened. "The ones who hunt rogue plot armour holders?"
Nathan gave a single nod.
Marin hesitated, then asked, "So... what is going on here ?"
The question hung in the air, absurdly casual for a warzone.
"I mean," Marin went on, "I've been dodging bullets without even trying. Mortars fall and just—miss. NPCs shoot and... nothing. It's like they glitch before they even reach me."
Nathan's expression shifted slightly.
Recognition.
"You're one of them," he muttered. "Damn. You've got plot armour."
Marin blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Nathan folded his arms, ignoring the nearby explosion that rattled the ground. His voice was measured, careful not to dump too much at once:
"You ever feel like reality's bending in your favour? Like you should've died, but the world kept you standing anyway?"
Marin slowly nodded.
"That's plot armour," Nathan said. "It's not just luck. It's given. By them."
Marin frowned. "Them?"
Nathan glanced up at the smoke-filled sky.
"The ones watching us. The gods. Or... something like them. The more they like you—the more they feel for you—the harder you are to kill. They laugh, they cry, they rage... and it builds your immunity."
Marin just stared at him. "You're saying the reason I'm alive is because some sky audience likes me?"
Nathan shrugged. "More or less."
A beat of silence passed between them, filled only by the distant echo of machine guns.
"So…" Marin began again, "Where is this place? This warzone?"
Nathan's jaw tightened. "You're inside a genre."
"…What?"
"Think of stories—TV shows, anime, movies. Each one's built around a genre: romance, comedy, horror... right?"
Marin nodded slowly.
"Well, this one's 'war.' Someone cast a genre injection spell. Anyone inside the field gets pulled into its rules. No rewinds. No plot holes. No mercy."
"I didn't ask to be here," Marin said, taking a step forward. "I was just walking… and then—boom—I was here. An uncle who was with me got shot the moment we arrived."
Nathan's face darkened.
"I figured as much," he muttered. "The caster is a rogue. A criminal. He hijacked this space and forced a genre lock over it. The moment I cornered him, he triggered this mess."
"Why?"
"To escape capture," Nathan said. "The genre drains our plot armour. Once it's gone, you're just another corpse waiting for a cause of death. Heart attack. Sniper round. Even a paper cut could do it if your meter's low enough."
Marin opened his mouth, but Nathan raised a hand.
"No more questions right now," he said firmly. "Every second we spend talking, this place leeches off us."
"But—"
"We're in a war genre, kid. Plot armour drains fast when you're not fighting or surviving. You wanna keep breathing? Then you help me. We find the caster, we take him down, and then we leave."
Marin clenched his jaw but nodded.
"Good," Nathan said. "Come on."
Suddenly, faint footsteps echoed in the distance—marching.
The two of them ducked behind a broken tank hull, crouching low as shadows passed nearby.
Nathan whispered, "He'll be where the fighting's thickest. Genre casters love drama. Come on—stick close. And don't do anything heroic unless you're planning to die stylishly."
Marin exhaled. "Fine. But when this is over... I want answers."
Nathan smirked.
"Oh, you'll get them. From the Author himself."