The words floated before him in eerie blue light.
[Quest Received: Find the Village of Errors.]
Arin frowned. "That's not a normal quest. I don't remember this being in the beta."
He rubbed his temples, trying to think. Back when he tested Elysium Online, most quests had a clear pattern: fetch items, slay monsters, level up. But this? A village of… errors? His gut tightened. It felt personal, somehow tied to the title glowing over his head: The Bugged One.
Still, a direction was better than wandering aimlessly. The quest marker shimmered faintly on the horizon, pointing into the glitching forest—the same place the wolves had emerged from.
"Figures," Arin muttered, gripping the jagged rock he still carried. "Of course it's in there."
As he stepped into the forest, the world began to warp even more. The trees repeated their motions endlessly—leaves falling, branches swaying, animals moving in identical loops. A rabbit hopped across his path, vanished, then reappeared five steps back, repeating the same hop again and again.
Arin shivered. "Like a broken record…" He glanced around nervously. Every step he took seemed recorded, looped, and replayed by the corrupted code of the world.
He tried testing his Bug Exploit, thinking maybe he could discover a new ability. A branch hovered above him—he focused, trying to pause it—but nothing happened. No windows popped, no timers counted down. Only the faint hum of glitches filled the air.
"Great," he muttered, clenching his fists. "So far, it only works in life-or-death moments… maybe the system wants me to learn the rest somewhere else. Guess I'll find out in this… village."
Hours seemed to pass, or maybe minutes—the loops of the forest made time feel meaningless. Yet finally, a faint light broke through the trees. Arin pushed forward, ducking under twisting branches and dodging looping wildlife.
The forest opened into a clearing. There it was.
A village—if it could be called that. Houses flickered between ruins and perfection, walls building and unbuilding themselves in endless cycles. People wandered the streets, faces blank, mouths repeating the same words over and over.
"Welcome, traveler…""The weather is fine today…""Welcome, traveler…"
Arin's blood ran cold. NPCs stuck in endless dialogue loops. Each repetition felt like a scream in the silence of the corrupted world.
But one figure was different. At the edge of the square, a girl sat on the steps of a broken fountain. Her silver hair caught the glitching light, eyes distant yet piercing. Unlike the others, she wasn't repeating any lines. She wasn't trapped in loops. She was just… watching.
Arin froze, heart pounding. Then she spoke, her voice calm but unnerving:
"You don't belong here."
Her words cut through the static of the corrupted village. And for the first time since waking in this broken world, Arin felt… recognized.
He swallowed hard, gripping his rock tighter. "Right… and I guess that means I'm supposed to find out why."
Arin took a cautious step forward, glancing around at the flickering villagers. Perhaps here, in this village of broken code, he would finally learn the true purpose of his Bug Exploit—and maybe, just maybe, how to survive in a world that seemed determined to erase him.