Chapter 2: Runtime Error – Player Not Found
You are the Final Patch Note.
Your existence destabilizes reality.
Main Quest: [PATCH OR PERISH]
Status: BEGIN
---
I barely had time to read the floating system window before the ground beneath me began to shake.
**Thud.**
**Thud.**
**THUD.**
Something massive was stomping through the ruins, displacing air like a bugged boss spawning outside the map. My body—newly rendered and barely stable—reacted like it remembered fear even if I didn't.
Then I saw it.
A towering beast, 12 meters high. Half-code, half-flesh. Its skin flickered like corrupted textures, patches of scales and concrete blending with glitched fire particles that weren't even fully animated.
> [ERROR_BEAST v1.04.a]
> Classification: SYSTEM GARBAGE
> Status: Auto-Aggro on Final Patch Note
> Threat Level: Fatal
> Mission: Execute Recompilation Protocol
Its eyes locked on to me.
And it screamed.
The kind of scream that wasn't made with lungs or sound—it was a crashing wave of system errors and static. Code burst into the air like blood. The buildings shook. And my knees buckled.
> [WARNING]
> Your current level: ∞
> Your combat stats: 0
> Your body: Under construction
> Defense: 0
> Weapon: None
> Skills: None
> Suggestions: RUN.
Yeah. No kidding.
I turned and sprinted—well, stumbled like a bugged NPC down a crumbling alley. The city was full of fragmented assets—half-loaded bridges, floating staircases, walls that weren't fully solid.
The beast roared again. The glitch static behind me surged, eating textures, deleting space.
I wasn't running from a monster.
I was running from **the crash log of a god**.
---
"Think, think, THINK!" I shouted, dodging through a flickering subway tunnel.
As I ducked under a collapsing beam, my HUD blinked again.
> [DEV ACCESS GRANTED – ONE TIME USE]
> Choose Debug Command:
> ▷ Reveal Log()
> ▷ Spawn_Item( )
> ▷ Access_Dev_Room( )
> ▷ Kill_Process( )
My breath caught.
Four options. No second chance. One use only.
If I messed this up, I was dead. Again.
My mind raced. Kill_Process might delete the beast—or me. Spawn_Item could give me a weapon. Access_Dev_Room? Too risky if it teleports me somewhere worse.
So I picked:
**▷ Reveal Log()**
The world froze.
Code poured down like rain. Error stacks, developer comments, cut quests, deprecated skills, hidden maps—everything the world was built on started bleeding into view.
And buried deep in the logs—
> // Patch Note 0.0.0.0.1
> // Emergency Backup Skill Assigned to Final Patch Note
> SkillName: [Manual Rewrite]
> Type: Forbidden
> Uses: 1
> Description: Rewrites one rule of reality.
My eyes widened.
Rewrite... reality?
The logs closed. The world resumed.
Behind me, the Error Beast smashed through the tunnel entrance, its massive claws glitching through reality itself.
But now… I had a skill.
A broken, probably illegal, god-killing skill.
> [Skill Activated: Manual Rewrite]
> Target: [Error_Beast v1.04.a]
> Rule to Rewrite: *"Hostility = False"*
The beast stopped.
Its glitching slowed. Its eyes dimmed. The chaos in the air faded like fog retracting under code.
It looked… calm.
Then, without warning, it turned.
And walked away.
> [System Warning]
> You have tampered with core hostility protocols.
> The World Admin has been alerted.
> [Entity: OBSERVER_01 is en route.]
I collapsed to my knees, breathing hard.
I survived. Barely. But now I had confirmation.
This wasn't just a broken game world.
Someone was watching.
Someone who didn't want me here.
And they were coming.
---
If I'm a patch note in a collapsing dev world…
Then I'm not just fighting monsters.
I'm fighting the system that made them.