Erevan Arclight spat out a mouthful of dirt, grimacing at the grit between his teeth. He sat slumped in the middle of a smoldering crater, the very same pit carved out by his suicidal sheep army. Smoke curled up from the scorched ground, carrying the acrid tang of burnt grass and ozone. His chest rose and fell in ragged bursts, lungs fighting to catch up with the chaos his body had just endured. His ears still rang, as if a bell had been struck inside his skull and refused to quiet down.
The world wasn't silent, though. It pulsed.
Before his eyes, faint holographic letters still floated, glowing like cold fire.
[Main Questline Unlocked: Survive the Glitch]
Objective: Investigate the corruption spreading through the world. Avoid termination.
Failure Condition: System Reboot – User Will Be Deleted.
Deleted.
The word gnawed at him. Not "death." Not "game over." Not even the comfort of a respawn timer. Just… erased. Like a file dragged to the recycle bin and permanently emptied.
His throat tightened. So this is what my life's worth now? A patch note away from vanishing.
"Great," Erevan muttered, forcing his sore body upright. "A bugged system with a built-in kill switch. My life choices really peaked today."
He brushed at his jacket out of habit, though the ash stains flickered and vanished before his hand even left the fabric—like the texture couldn't decide whether to exist. The sight twisted his stomach. His HP bar had been refilled from the level-up, but his nerves? Completely fried.
One step at a time, he reminded himself. Tutorial field, then… what?
He squinted at the horizon, shielding his eyes from the pale, flickering light of a sun that seemed to lag every few seconds. The forest where the Laughing Beast had spawned now looked half-devoured by nothingness. Jagged holes yawned between trees, as though someone had pressed the delete key on reality. Beyond those holes, something shimmered.
Rooftops. Clustered, uneven, crooked rooftops. A settlement that hadn't been there a moment ago.
A village.
Erevan's stomach growled loudly enough to make him wince. Maybe this weird world remembered to code in food. Or beer. Or both.
He sighed, his lips quirking. "Fine. Let's meet the locals. What's the worst that could happen?"
The path was far worse than the fight. Every step was like walking across a bugged game's loading screen. Grass polygons blinked in and out beneath his boots, patches of earth stuttered between textures, and shadows twitched like they'd been painted by a drunk artist.
A rabbit hopped past on his left, ears twitching—then duplicated itself four times. Each copy darted in a different direction before vanishing in bursts of static code. The glitchy afterimage of their bodies left him dizzy.
The air buzzed faintly, too. Not with insects, but with static, like he was trudging through a broken television screen. It prickled against his skin, crawling under his collar. His heart hammered louder with every step, the surreal dread pressing in.
By the time he reached the first wooden fence, Erevan was almost nostalgic for exploding sheep. Almost.
The village gate greeted him like a cruel joke. One half of the archway was neatly carved stone, weathered and real. The other half was nothing but dull placeholder gray, overlaid with faint developer text.
[INSERT TEXTURE]
Erevan blinked, rubbed his eyes, then groaned. "Wow. Truly, a triple-A experience. Ten out of ten world-building."
Still, he stepped forward.
The moment he crossed the boundary, something shifted. Villagers bustled about—or tried to. A blacksmith hammered at an anvil, but every third swing passed cleanly through the metal, striking the air. A baker kneaded dough that flickered between bread, bricks, and rocks. Children chased each other down the cobblestone street only to freeze mid-run, caught in three-second animation loops that reset whenever Erevan blinked.
The sight raised goosebumps along his arms. It was uncanny, watching people move like marionettes whose strings had been cut and reattached wrong.
[System Notice: Safe Zone Entered – Pixelveil Village]
Safe zone.
Erevan narrowed his eyes. "Right. Because clearly nothing here screams danger."
A villager finally noticed him. She rushed over, skirts flaring around her ankles, brown hair pulled back in a messy knot. Her eyes were wide—not just with relief, but with desperation.
"Oh, traveler!" she cried, her voice trembling. "Thank thank thank goodness you're here!"
The word "thank" skipped like a broken record before smoothing out.
Erevan blinked at her. "Uh. Hi. Nice… glitching you. I mean, meeting you."
She didn't seem to notice his slip. Her hands clutched his sleeve, grip too tight for comfort. "The village is cursed! Strange beasts prowl the woods, the marketplace is broken, and our crops keep turning into chairs!"
Erevan squinted. "Into what now?"
As if on cue, a farmer screamed in the distance. His wheat field shimmered—and in its place sprouted neat rows of wooden chairs. Hundreds of them.
Erevan dragged a hand down his face. Of course. Why wouldn't the world decide to replace food with Ikea specials?
The woman's voice cracked with pleading. "Please, hero, you must help us!"
"I'm not a hero," Erevan muttered under his breath, trying to wriggle free of her grip. "I'm an anomaly."
The System pinged before he could shake her off.
[Side Quest Unlocked: Fix the Marketplace Glitch]
Reward: EXP +200, ??? Item
Failure Condition: Villager Economy Collapse
Erevan tilted his head back, staring at the floating text until his eye twitched. "Oh, of course. The system's bribing me already."
The villager's eyes brightened with hope. "Will you accept?"
"Lady," Erevan said, "I don't even know how to say no without this thing turning me into a sheep bomb."
The system chimed again.
[Quest Accepted]
He sighed. "Figures."
The woman clapped her hands together, glitching as the animation looped. "Oh, thank you, brave hero!"
Erevan opened his mouth to correct her, but thought better of it. If she wanted to throw the hero label around, fine. Maybe it came with discounts.
The marketplace lay at the center of the village, a crooked square ringed with wooden stalls. Or at least, things that wanted to be stalls. Some flickered between full baskets of apples and complete emptiness. Others glitched violently, shifting from fabric to stone to snakes. Digital snakes, their bodies jagged and pixelated, frozen mid-slither until they blinked out of existence.
Erevan gave the square a wary once-over. "Yup. Totally safe zone."
The ground twitched. A low hum reverberated through the air, building into a pulse like a heartbeat. Cracks spidered across the cobblestones, pixels warping into jagged fissures.
The System flashed.
[System Notice: Glitch Event Detected]
Something clawed its way up from the crack. A skeleton in rusted armor dragged itself free, sword clutched in bony hands. Its skull rattled as it turned toward Erevan, jaw opening in a silent scream.
Erevan braced himself.
The skeleton lurched forward—then froze.
Its bones jolted. Its stance shifted. And then, impossibly, it began to tap-dance.
Erevan's jaw dropped. "You've got to be kidding me."
The skeleton shuffled left, then right, hips swaying with ridiculous precision.
The System chimed again.
[Enemy: Dancing Skeleton Lv. 2]
EXP: Variable
Special Trait: Immune to Embarrassment
The skeleton moonwalked toward him, sword still raised in deadly seriousness.
Erevan pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fine. Sheep it is."
He summoned one. The familiar bleat echoed, a glowing countdown already ticking above its woolly head.
3…
2…
1…
The sheep bolted forward.
The skeleton twirled into a pirouette, arms outstretched. The explosion cut its routine short, shattering it into a rain of clattering bones.
[Enemy Defeated]
EXP +60
Copper Coin +3
Loot Acquired: Left Tibia (Glitched)
Erevan crouched, picking up a bone. The item description blinked erratically.
Left Tibia (Glitched): May be a weapon. May be a flute. Roll dice to decide.
He gave it an experimental swing. The bone squeaked like a kazoo.
"Beautiful," he said flatly. "Exactly the kind of epic loot every aspiring hero dreams of."
With a sigh, he shoved it into his inventory—which, thankfully, decided to cooperate this time. But the cracks around the stalls pulsed again.
More rattling echoed.
Two skeletons clawed out, both immediately breaking into perfect synchronized dance.
Erevan threw his hands up. "Oh, for crying out loud."
Ten minutes later, the square was a battlefield of scorch marks and scattered bones. Villagers peeked out from doorways, cheering on repeat loops. Erevan stood hunched in the middle, smoke curling off his clothes, his ears ringing from yet another self-inflicted sheep blast.
The System finally chimed.
[System Notice: Side Quest Complete – Fix the Marketplace Glitch]
Reward: EXP +200
Reward: Item – Glitched Codex (Page Fragment)
Something floated into his hand. A torn fragment of parchment, its edges shimmering like broken glass. Letters rearranged themselves in frantic patterns, scrambling into words.
[ThE SySteM Is NoT YoUr EnEmY. oR MaYbE iT Is.]
Erevan's grin faded. "What the hell…"
The text shifted again, then locked into incomprehensible gibberish.
[Error: Unable to Translate Further]
A chill slid down his spine as he tucked the fragment away.
The chamber fell quiet once more, the storm of voices ebbing as suddenly as it had risen. All that remained was the faint hiss of incense and the unsteady thud of Li Mei's heartbeat in her ears.
Her knees felt weak, but she dared not bend. She had been scolded enough in one lifetime, yet still she could not understand how one wrong step, one spilled cup, had snowballed into this—every noble's gaze weighed upon her like boulders, every breath she drew tasted of judgment.
Prince Jianyu still sat poised upon the dais, golden sleeves fanned like wings across the armrests. He had not moved since that first, piercing glance. His silence was more dangerous than any words he might have spoken.
"Dismiss her," someone murmured from the back.
"Too lenient," another countered. "She ruined his robe before the full court."
"An omen, perhaps," a third whispered. "Heirs and robes—both must remain unstained."
Each stray comment pressed against her skin like the pricks of a thousand needles. Li Mei's eyes burned, but the System's cold blue screen flickered once more before her vision.
[Quest Update: Survive the Audience of Shadows.]
[Failure Condition: Offend the Crown Prince.]
[Reward: Life.]
She wanted to scream. Life—was that not supposed to be a given?
Yet when Jianyu finally shifted, the room's air seemed to freeze. His voice was quiet, but the echo of it rang sharp as steel.
"Step forward."
Her legs obeyed before her mind caught up, carrying her into the hollow space at the center of the chamber. Every eye followed. She thought she might choke on the incense smoke curling between the rafters.
The prince studied her, as though he had all the time in the world to dissect every flaw she possessed. Then, slowly, he spoke again.
"What is your name?"
Li Mei's lips trembled. For the first time since waking in this nightmare, she realized—this was the moment her survival truly began.