Ethan was sitting in his apartment, having just started his first day off work from the Emergency Department at the hospital in what felt like forever. The quiet was relaxing. No phone buzzing, no boss breathing down his neck, no patients asking if they could go to the bathroom or if they were allowed to have water yet. Just him, his couch, and the faint hum of the old television in the corner.
He stretched out, remote in hand, scrolling through Crunchyroll, wondering what new series to watch or show to rewatch. One Piece, Hunter x Hunter, Lord of Mysteries perhaps. Eventually, he landed on watching The Rising of the Shield Hero.
He had read most of the light novel and started the anime series but never finished it, so he decided to start rewatching it from the beginning. As he selected the first episode, seeing Naofumi get summoned to Melromarc, he chuckled to himself. "If only life was as exciting as these worlds…"
The screen flickered. Once. Twice. Then the colors bled into each other, swirling like paint on water. Ethan sat up straight, blinking hard.
"Uh… did I break it already?" Ethan quickly paused the show while going to fix the TV.
But instead of static, the TV displayed something strange—the familiar anime visuals seemed to flicker, going from what looked like the show to the same frozen scene as it would look in live action or even… reality.
Then the weirdest thing happened: the screen rippled, like water disturbed by a stone.
Ethan froze. His rational brain screamed, This is impossible. His hand, however, didn't listen. Almost on instinct, he reached out. His fingers brushed against the glass—except there was no glass. His hand slid through as if the television had turned into liquid light.
He yanked back instantly, heart pounding. A faint glow lingered on his fingertips.
"…Okay. Either I'm dreaming, or I'm about to get murdered by some cursed TV."
The rippling surface pulsed again, as if inviting him. And Ethan, who'd always joked about wanting an escape from his boring life, realized this might be the very moment where fiction and reality collided.
Ethan decided then and there, "Screw it, what's the worst that could happen?" as he reached out into the screen. Being somewhat cautious, he kept his hand there for ten seconds before bringing it back out.
"No way..." he thought to himself, reminded of the various fan fiction he had read with a similar beginning. He briefly considered whether or not he was starting to go crazy as a serious possibility.
"Well, if I am going crazy, I might as well embrace the delusion. It has to be more fun than what life has been like so far." Ethan then unpaused the TV and began to test his hypothesis.
Ethan waited until the screen was showing Motoyasu, a character Ethan always considered to be a braindead douchebag, and paused it again. He then reached his arm back into the screen with the intention to grab the spear, and to his surprise, with his hand in the TV, he felt the cold metal as it was grasped in his hand. He proceeded to pull it out.
Being a chill and reasonable person, Ethan initially decided to take Motoyasu's spear, as he did not want to screw over Naofumi if he was unable to return the item later or if he was unable to restart the show and duplicate the event.
When Ethan had fully pulled out the spear, he expectantly looked to the corner of his vision as he noticed an icon and began to focus on it, as a display appeared before his eyes.
┌───────────────────────────────┐ │ Spear Hero │ │ Level: 1 │ │ HP: ██████ 50/50 │ │ MP: ███ 20/20 │ │ Stamina: █████ 30/30 │ ├───────────────────────────────┤ │ Stats: │ │ ATT (Attack): ██████ 30 │ │ DEX (Dexterity): ████ 15 │ │ MAG (Magic): ███ 11 │ │ P. DEF (Physical Defense): ██ 8 │ │ M. DEF (Magic Defense): █ 5 │ └───────────────────────────────┘
"Save this file?" a mechanical voice in his head asked, as he could mentally picture a catalogue with Rising of the Shield Hero slot listed with a Rising of the Shield Hero Save File 1 underneath, with the option Rename? listed next to it. He quickly left it as is, since it was his only listed save file right now.
"Life is about to get a whole lot more interesting," Ethan thought to himself as he hoisted the spear on his shoulder.
"Would you like to place spear in the inventory? a mechanical voice sounded.
"Yes Ethan said mentally." as his spear disappeared and a grid like inventory system appeared in his mind.
"Dismiss Ethan thought." as the inventory went away. Ethan toggled it on and off several times and experimented with taking the spear in and back out of the inventory. He even placed a couch pillow inside with success just to see if he would take items from his reality in the inventory as well.
"If I can take things out of the screen, does that mean I can also go through the screen? Am I limited to only anime, or can I duplicate this with other shows like Star Wars? What if… what if I can also do this with console games, or am I even limited to my TV screen? Maybe I can even do this on my computer?"
Ethan excitedly left the show on pause as he proceeded to boot up his computer and look at his game library on Steam. The list was long, as he couldn't resist buying games on sale even if he didn't end up playing most of them. As he scrolled down the list, he skimmed past the ones starting with A.
"Age of Mythology… no, Among Us, no." As he hit the Bs, he noticed a title for a game he had placed a lot of time into: Baldur's Gate 3. "This is it!" he thought to himself as he proceeded to boot up the game. Ethan then went to the mods and added in the unlimited gold mod and started a new game.
He made a character as fast as he could, picking The Dark Urge at random and loading in with the pre-selected white dragonborn sorcerer selection. He then cast the in-game spell to fill his inventory with gold, after which he created a slot in his inventory with 100 gold, and excitedly reached his hand in as he grabbed the gold icon numbering 100. He was thrilled when he was able to pull it through, with gold clattering onto his bedroom floor.
"Holy shit…" he exclaimed.
As all this was going on, Ethan's phone began to ring, the name Sarah lighting up the screen—Ethan's girlfriend. Ethan was excited to pick up the phone, as he knew he would be able to make life better both for him and his girlfriend.
As he answered the phone, excitedly thinking he could finally propose to his girlfriend with his newfound windfall, a cold voice started: "Ethan, we need to talk." Every man knew these words never ended well, especially when said in that cold, detached tone. Ethan's stomach dropped with dread.
"Ethan, I think we should take a break. I need some time apart to find myself. We have been in a relationship now for two and a half years, and I need to find out who I am as an individual."
Ethan thought back and realized that over the past couple of weeks, while he had been busy with overtime, his girlfriend had pulled back. Texts had come less often and were shorter, often one-word replies sent after long intervals. He had simply thought she was stressed or that she was respecting his busy schedule this past month. Now, though, he had an idea of what was happening.
The idea of a break always comes for a couple of reasons: one, a breakup is imminent; two, someone wants an excuse to cheat without feeling guilty before they end the break [mental gymnastics]; or three, they are leaving you for someone else entirely. Ethan always thought that if someone asked for a break, it was better to break up entirely and cut your losses.
Instead of trying to change Sarah's mind, Ethan just said, "Ok, we can take a break [a permanent break]. Take as long as you need."
Sarah, expecting an argument, was surprised. "Taking this chance to end the conversation quickly," she said, "Oh, Ethan, I knew you would understand. We just need some time apart. I think this will be good for us. I'll talk to you later, okay? Bye."
Right before ending the call, he heard a muffled man's voice: "About time you did that," right before the click and an empty dial tone.
"Well, that confirms some suspicions… this might suck, but at least my schedule is now free and clear. At least I didn't end up proposing to Sarah or getting her pregnant." As he had these sobering thoughts, a wave of resentment and motivation rose up in Ethan. "While in the past I might have hit the gym after something like this, now I have other opportunities."
With the new possibilities sprawled before Ethan, he realized that he could take full advantage of his newfound ability. He thought back to all the fanfics he read, all the possibilities, the items he could now get, powerful abilities, and the characters he could finally meet. How he could change the plots of his favorite stories. He could save Jiraiya! He could clap Tsunade's cheeks! He could go to Hogwarts!
"The possibilities are endless," he thought to himself as an unstoppable wave of excitement drowned out the negative feelings from earlier.
Ethan quickly wrote out an outline of how he could get maximum enjoyment from this new ability. "One reason people get bored in these scenarios is that they make themselves overpowered too quickly and lose motivation. I want to pace myself and grow stronger steadily to get the most enjoyment I can."
"First world should be this one…"