On February 14th, the world of Altera Earth convulsed.
At exactly 12:00 noon Greenwich Meridian Time, in every city, street and village, 110,637 human beings who played Masquerade of Dreams: Shattered vanished.
Their clothes fell into piles. Their phones blinked lifelessly. Their chairs remained occupied by the warmth of bodies that were no longer there. Parents screamed. Lovers clawed through sheets. Friends stared at the empty space where someone had just been. And then, almost as if mocking the event, the system etched its declaration into their minds.
[You are no longer inhabitants of Altera Earth.]
[You are Outers.]
[You have been permanently transmigrated.]
At first, there was denial, humanity's oldest shield. They thought it was a hallucination or a elaborate prank of governments but when they opened their eyes, they were no longer home. They were inside foreign bodies. The world they woke to was Altera Earth.
Some opened their eyes to simple wooden cottages, some to palaces gilded with riches and ohers to farms, streets, barracks, taverns, temples and such.
Not one of them woke as themselves.
They had been assigned new bodies, mirroring their original ages within the same margin or two years of difference. A twenty-five-year-old office worker might awaken in the body of a twenty-three-year-old farmhand. A sixty-year-old grandmother might awaken in the body of a fifty-nine-year-old noblewoman. Children who played the game had no escape. They awoke in the tiny shells of peasants, heirs, or orphans.
And when the truth sank in that there was no "logout," no "wake up", half of them broke. Roughly fifty thousand humans chose the option the system whispered to them. Suicide.
They believed that by dying here, they would return to their home world. Instead, their new bodies slumped. Their new hearts stilled. Their new lungs exhaled once and never again.
Their deaths were permanent.
And back on Earth, thousands of corpses were discovered in their homes, streets, classrooms and offices. The wave of bodies was so large and sudden, that law enforcement broke under the strain. The media christened it the Valentine's Mass Suicide.
People wept for lovers, families, and children. This was the creepiest day on Earth. Exactly 60,000 Outers remained on Altera Earth.
Some did by choice and others by paralysis or fear, and others by the bitter will to see what came next. They were scattered across the world of Altera Earth.
Some awoke as Commoners, capable of weak but functional use of Flux. For them, survival meant acceptance. Others awoke in the Houses with centuries of prestige. For them, survival meant politics, manipulation and wearing the mask of a history they did not own. Others awoke simply as Humans without Flux, the powerless minority. For them, survival was cruelest because in this new world, power was everything.
Their minds fractured along different paths.
Some embraced their new lives with startling adaptability. They saw it as reincarnation or a second chance. These Outers leaned into the roles they inherited. Others resisted. They clung to memories of their parents, children and unfinished lives. They wandered the world like ghosts inside flesh, refusing to smile or belong.
A few became opportunists. The system had marked them Outers. With it came advantages, subtle or overt. They had accelerated growth, stronger Flux pools, odd affinities with the Kyris Zone and system enchantments. These opportunists played the game for profit.
And then there were the broken. They were the ones who tried to live but couldn't. Their laughter rang hollow. Their eyes were sharp glass. Some turned to cults, others to self-destruction, some to madness.
The Outers began to divide and eventually became grouped into four sections cross the world.
The Assimilators merged with Altera Earth, letting the world mold them. They buried Altera Earth and accepted that new names, new families, and new wars were now their truth. Phasnovterich and Hinesia are prime examples of this
The Resistors clung to their past identities. They wrote journals, built shrines and formed enclaves where only Altera Earth's culture was practiced. They were mocked as delusional but they persisted.
The Dreamers believed transmigration was not the end but the beginning. They hunted clues to the system, lore and the Deities. If there was one forced passage, maybe there was a way back, or forward.
The Exploiters turned their new powers into currency. They became war mercenaries, Flux smugglers, assassins or criminals who carried Earth's cunning into bloody politics and illegal businesses.
The Outers were not dropped into a void of ignorance. They had information and knowledge, paradoxically, became their greatest curse.
Masquerade of Dreams: Shattered was not just another gacha otome game. It had a niche obsession with a devoted fanbase. It had glossy sprites, labyrinthine romance routes, hidden lore locked behind RNG pulls and such. The Outers recognized the places, names and rules. The very texture of this new world was identical to the game they had once pulled five-star pulls in.
They weren't blind. They knew the broad strokes of the story. They knew where the University Arc began. They knew who the heroine was. They knew the names of the male leads, their stat sheets, their romance flags and their hidden paths. They knew where things should go and yet, this knowledge was a blunt sword.
For example, the University Arc.
According to the game, Reversa University was where the first quests began. About four hundred Outers were scattered across it. Those lucky enough to awaken in student bodies like bloodline heirs, merchant children and Fluxers of respectable bloodlines had the first, most direct access to the "canon."
But outside the university? The game offered silence.
In the otome routes, the player never saw what was happening in rural towns, minor Houses, or border wars during those early arcs. All the focus was on Verdamona's slow awakening, her training and her tangled romances.
For the majority of Outers, the knowledge of MoDS was practically useless. It was like knowing the plot of a drama while being locked outside the theater. They could mouth the lines, but they had no access to the stage.
Some Outers thought they could break the script.
They remembered locations of powerful weapons from side quests. They knew which Houses had secret heirs. They knew where "hidden affection events" triggered.
But here were problems like ccess, influence and wealth.
A hidden relic in the mountains was no use if you were a twelve-year-old commoner with no money for a horse, let alone food for the journey.
A romance flag with a prince was worthless if your new body was a Hybrid slave child who could be whipped for speaking out of turn.
A Fast Travel Room, which in-game was a casual click-and-load, here cost the equivalent of a plane ticket. For a Commoner, it was an impossible sum.
Knowledge didn't bend the rules. This world was alive. It resisted shortcuts and for many, this realization shattered the illusion that they had any advantage at all.
The lucky four hundred were at Reversa University. They lived the canon, breathed the canon, and became part of the unfolding "main story."
They knew how important this stage was. Because after the University Arc, the narrative widened. The outside world began to matter like wars, Flux, plots and the such. And worse, after the University Arc, the plot armor ended.
Everyone who had read the wikis knew it. Verdamona and her companions, who were so untouchable in the early arcs, shielded by narrative necessity, would be thrust into real war. Mortality became real. Choices mattered. The developers had warned it in obscure interviews.
"The story shifts from romance-driven to survival-driven."
The Outers remembered and so, many of them schemed.
Some women coveted the male leads.
"Why should Verdamona have them all?"
These were living, breathing gods of charm, charisma, and power. Princes, knights, heirs, why her? Some female Outers decided they would rip the affection events straight out of her hands and redirect them.
Others hated Verdamona.
To them, she was the chosen one and protagonist who hogged all the narrative light. If they killed her and tore her out of the story, wouldn't they inherit the role? Wouldn't they become the heroine?
Others were pragmatic.
They didn't care for love. They wanted survival and that meant preparing for what came after the University Arc. They studied, hoarded and built alliances. They counted down the years, waiting for the safety net to vanish so they could seize their openings.
The University Arc lasted exactly three years of relative safety, where the cast grew, trained, and interacted through romance flags. They were three years before the "real game" began. However, there was a loophole.
For Outers in noble Houses, this countdown was intoxicating.
They were already positioned in the upper tiers of society. They had money, influence, tutors and resources. All they had to do was wait for the curtain to rise mostly for a few reasons.
One, Noble Outers could gather retainers, expand Flux mastery and prepare for war. By the end of the University Arc, they would emerge far stronger than their Commoner counterparts.
Two, while the University Arc was running, the story revolved around Verdamona. Many events couldn't be disrupted without risk of paradox or backlash. Afterward, though, the board widened. Anyone could move.
Three, removal of Plot Armor. Once the Arc ended, death became real. Rivals could be assassinated. The heroine could be sabotaged. The male leads could be swayed. Everything that was "untouchable" would suddenly become touchable.
After the University Arc, chaos would begin.