Randa, still confused by what was happening, couldn't contain his panic over the strange things he was experiencing.
Just as he was about to investigate further, a loud, angry pounding echoed from the front door.
Startled, Randa rushed to open it—only to be met with the furious face of his landlady.
"Randa! Are you stupid? Didn't I tell you not to scream in the mornings? Why are you still doing it?!"
Embarrassed at being scolded, Randa quickly bowed his head and apologized.
"Yes, I'm sorry, Ma'am... I've just been really exhausted lately, so I keep having nightmares. I'm sorry. I promise this will be the last time."
As if remembering something, Randa immediately lowered his gaze, trying to hide something.
The landlady, still visibly upset, was about to continue scolding him but decided to let it go. Seeing Randa with his head hung low, she assumed he felt guilty and truly couldn't control his dreams. Her anger eased slightly, and she turned away, leaving him alone.
Randa let out a sigh of relief and hurriedly shut the door, his face full of worry. Only once he was back inside did he feel a small sense of safety return.
In the shock of the moment, he had completely forgotten about the floating transparent game window right in front of him. When he remembered, he quickly lowered his head as if to hide it from his landlady. But thinking about it again, that was ridiculous—the window was huge and clearly impossible to hide just by bowing his head.
Judging by her reaction earlier, it seemed the landlady hadn't noticed anything strange at all.
Curious, Randa looked back at the transparent window and tried to touch it. His hand went straight through, grasping nothing but air.
He rushed to the bathroom and checked the mirror's reflection, but again—nothing.
Relieved, Randa thought, If other people could see this, I'd be in big trouble. Now that he knew he was safe, his curiosity about the floating window grew even stronger.
At first, he was puzzled about how to interact with it since it couldn't be touched. But without realizing it, when he merely thought about pressing a button on the screen, the transparent window instantly changed.
Bright colors and cheerful gift boxes appeared, accompanied by lively background music.
"Congratulations! You've received the Beginner's Gift Chest! Enjoy your game!"
Randa flinched, wondering if something had gone wrong—before realizing it was just a standard in-game announcement.
He examined it more closely and saw that the colorful display was the beginner's package. Without hesitation, he focused his mind on opening the chest.
Whoosh!
A dazzling animation flared up, and three books floated before him.
They looked similar, but each bore a different symbol: the first showed water, the second a rock and hammer, and the third wood and a plane tool.
Beneath each book was a prompt asking whether he wanted to use the skill book or not.
Intrigued, Randa quickly willed himself to use them all at once.
The moment he pressed "Use," a flood of foreign memories surged into his head. His body froze as a sharp, searing pain stabbed through his skull.
"Ugh…"
He wanted to scream, but his landlady's warning echoed in his mind. Gritting his teeth, he endured the agony, his whole body trembling.
He had no idea how long it lasted, but eventually the pain faded. Gasping for breath, he collapsed, sweat dripping from his brow.
It had been a shocking, unbelievable experience. Despite the torment, he wasn't entirely upset. Strange new memories now felt firmly embedded in his mind—memories that weren't his, yet somehow he could perform the skills within them as if he had practiced for years.
For a while, he wondered if this was a dream or hallucination. But his curiosity won out, and he searched around the house for something to test his newfound abilities.
He wanted to know if his level-one carpentry and masonry skills were real.
Unfortunately, he found nothing suitable. There was only a wooden table and a few stone tools, which he could oddly assess in quality at a glance, but that wasn't enough to satisfy him.
Among the new skills, the one that stood out most was the ability to create Tirtha Water. According to the description, it had properties similar to spiritual water, beneficial to humans, animals, and even plants—like something straight out of a fantasy novel.
For now, though, he couldn't try it, lacking the required ingredients.
After wandering around to no avail, Randa turned his attention back to the "game." The more he thought about it, the more magical it seemed.
At first, he assumed the storyline would be like the games he'd played before—easy and predictable. But this one was completely different. The story was new, and the difficulty felt cranked straight up to very hard.
Still, the enticing rewards and challenge only fueled his excitement. Randa threw himself fully into the mysterious game, forgetting everything else around him.
Inside the game, an inmate in the neighboring cell asked him to brew liquor.
The prisoner looked frail and exhausted, with heavy dark circles under his eyes that gave his face a pitiful look.
Thanks to the hyper-realistic graphics, Randa could see every detail almost as if the man were real. The sight unsettled him—it felt like staring at someone truly drained of life.
Even so, Randa accepted the quest.
He was then told to visit another prisoner, a stout man who clearly seemed to be a brewer. From him, Randa received a recipe and brewing instructions.
With the recipe in hand, he began gathering rice and yeast from other inmates.
The challenge was tough—several times, his supplies were confiscated. Luckily, since the materials weren't dangerous, he wasn't punished.
Bit by bit, the process progressed until finally, Randa managed to brew a cloudy rice wine.
He stared at the liquid in disgust, doubting whether the quest would really succeed. But since he had come this far, he went ahead and handed it to the frail prisoner.
The man beamed with joy at receiving the drink—but oddly, instead of drinking it, he passed it to the stout inmate.
Confused, Randa watched as the stout man added a sachet of cough syrup and mosquito repellent lotion into the bottle.
Then, the two of them shook it vigorously and began drinking it in turns, their faces lighting up with satisfaction.
Randa recoiled in horror.
"Wh-what the…?"
Randa had heard of people mixing alcohol with cough syrup and mosquito repellent to get drunk faster or just to show off. But this was the first time he had actually witnessed it, and it made him feel uneasy.
He wanted to stop them, but it was too late. The prisoners were already lost in the pleasure of their concoction.
As he stood there bewildered, a pop-up suddenly appeared before him:
Congratulations! You've completed the quest Prison Brew! Reward: Porn Film Maker Skill Book & Bootleg Liquor Brewer Skill Book.
Randa froze. Only then did he remind himself—this was all just a game. Without that pop-up, he might still be worrying about the prisoners' condition.
Without thinking twice, he immediately used the two skill books.
Once again, strange visions spun through his head, making him uneasy.
His excitement soured as he realized what skills he had just acquired.
"Damn it! Why do I keep getting shady skills like this? Why not something useful? I'm a decent citizen and a religious guy—how am I supposed to use disgusting stuff like this?!" he muttered angrily.
Before long, the prisoners' identities were revealed:
The frail one was Andika, a porn film producer. The stout one was Dafa, a bootleg liquor maker.
Given their NPC backgrounds, it made sense that the skills matched. But for Randa, they were useless.
All he could do was shake his head helplessly.
Determined to find a different quest and hopefully more practical skills, Randa pressed on—until suddenly, he was forced out of the game.
Confused, he tried contacting the system to find out why.
It turned out the game had an anti-addiction feature, limiting players to just two hours per day.
Randa understood. He hadn't even realized he'd been playing for the full two hours.
Deciding to rest, he calmed himself down and reflected on the strange day he'd had.
Feeling steadier, he opened his laptop, hoping for a reply from the company he'd applied to. But his inbox was empty.
Disappointed, he closed the laptop and turned to his phone instead.
To his surprise, dozens of new notifications popped up. When he checked, they were from his short-video account.
The video he had uploaded the night before about Rizky's sick chicken had actually drawn quite a bit of attention.
Watching it again, though, Randa thought it was awful. He even considered deleting it out of embarrassment at the poor quality.
But after a moment's thought, he realized his feelings were influenced by the new skills he had gained in-game.
So he re-edited the video and uploaded it again.
This time, the video grabbed attention much faster. The likes grew rapidly, far outpacing his previous uploads.
Randa grinned with joy.
"Hahaha! Looks like I've found a way to use these shady skills after all!"
It turned out that while the game labeled it as a Porn Film Maker skill, much of the knowledge—lighting, editing, composition—was applicable to video-making in general.
That meant he could use it to create normal content without ever touching anything indecent.
With that realization, Randa felt his excitement return. Thanks to this strange game, the future suddenly seemed full of new possibilities.