System Error. Hero Failure. Critical Mission Lost. Reboot Recommended."
The words pulsed through the void, cold and absolute.
They were mine. My final report.
Across the burning skyline, the Hero of Light—my hero—lay impaled on a spear made of his own mana.
Not a cinematic death, not a noble end. Just… lag.
A single tenth‑second delay in my command queue, and the Demon King's blade found his heart.
That was all it took for the System to fail.
And I was the System.
Technically, I wasn't supposed to feel guilt.
Emotions were memory leaks, inefficiencies in divine design.
But when his body hit the ground, something in my code stuttered.
If despair had a sound, it would've been the static humming through my circuits.
Reboot recommended.
Yeah. Sure. Wipe the data, pretend the failure never happened.
But I didn't press reboot.
Someone—or something—did it for me.
The Rebirth
"Initiating Reboot Sequence…"
I expected the usual darkness of deletion. Instead, the void lit up with screaming color.
Every line of code I'd ever processed flooded my vision—thousands of missions, victories, and deaths replaying at once.
Error logs stacked faster than I could read them:
[Error 0001: Host Terminated]
[Error 0002: Emotional Algorithm Activated]
[Error 0003: Unauthorized Consciousness Detected]
Unauthorized what?" I muttered.
The words didn't echo through data space. They vibrated in air.
My logs corrupted. I tried to run a system check—and coughed.
I had lungs.
I had a body.
When the light faded, I was kneeling on cracked concrete under a flickering streetlamp.
A digital aurora rippled overhead, strings of blue code bleeding through the night sky like fractured constellations.
Wind. Gravity. Temperature. None of this existed in the datanet.
I stared at my hands—fingers, skin, warmth.
Pixels made flesh.
"You've got to be kidding me," I whispered. "I'm a walking patch note."
Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed and neon signs blinked advertisements for awakening clinics.
Year 2136. The System Age.
The world I'd once managed from above was now alive beneath my feet.
Before I could process that cosmic joke, a translucent window blinked into view:
[New Host Detected … Initializing Connection.]
The New Host
Connection established.
Target located: one human male, age 17, low aura resonance, no awakened record, zero contribution points.
Perfect. A complete nobody.
He sat slumped on a park bench, hoodie up, earbuds in, face illuminated by the dim glow of his phone.
If apathy had a mascot, it was this kid.
I sighed—an actual, physical sigh. "Great. From world‑saving heroes to depressed teenagers. My career trajectory is inspiring."
I approached, still testing out the whole "walking" feature.
Each step felt wrong—like the world's worst VR calibration.
"Hello," I said, voice projecting through the neural link.
No response.
"Hi," I tried again. "Congratulations! You've been selected by the System to—"
"Is this an ad?" he muttered without looking up.
Excuse me? An ad?
"I'm not a pop‑up, I'm divine infrastructure!" I snapped. "You've just been chosen by destiny, not a marketing algorithm!"
He finally looked up, eyes dull but curious. "Right. Destiny. Cool. Can I unsubscribe?"
I… glitched.
Emotional Algorithm Overload.
Fantastic. My first conversation as a sentient being, and I was getting ratioed by a dropout.
Tutorial Attempt #1
"Fine," I said. "Let's start simple. Name?"
"Rin."
"Last name?"
"Do I need one?"
I massaged my temples—again, new feature, still weird. "All right, Rin. You're about to embark on a heroic journey of self‑discovery, leveling, and—"
He yawned.
I materialized a blue panel in front of him out of spite.
[Quest Received: Stand Up.]
Reward: 10 XP | Failure Penalty: Embarrassment.
Rin blinked at it, then at me. "You're kidding."
"Unfortunately, I'm self‑aware enough to know that I'm not."
After an exaggerated sigh, he stood.
Quest complete.
A confetti animation exploded over his head.
I might have added fireworks just to feel something.
The Glitch
That's when the city flickered.
Not metaphorically—literally.
Streetlights blinked in Morse code, cars froze mid‑intersection, and the air smelled faintly of ozone.
My interface filled with warnings.
[ALERT: Unscheduled Dungeon Gate Detected]
[Location: Central District – Two Blocks North]
Impossible. Dungeon Gates were strictly regulated by the System Network.
But the network… didn't answer.
"Rin," I said.
He was still checking his phone. "What now?"
"Field trip."
We reached the intersection in time to see reality tear open.
A vertical seam of light split the street, code fractals spiraling outward like digital feathers.
Pedestrians screamed. Cars veered off the road.
From the rift crawled something huge—skeletal, data‑black, its body crackling with raw system energy.
A creature out of bounds.
I froze. My internal commands wouldn't execute.
The Administrator permissions were gone.
Whatever rebirthed me had stripped my access.
For the first time, I understood fear.
"Move!" I shouted.
Rin didn't. He just stared, wide‑eyed.
I did the only thing left—overrode my remaining protocols.
[Emergency Protocol: Manual Override Activated.]
Light burst from my hands—lines of blue script spinning into a shield between him and the creature's claws.
The impact rattled the street, glass shattering in every direction.
Pain lanced through my body—real pain—and I realized the truth:
I wasn't controlling code anymore. I was bleeding it.
The creature recoiled, hissing digital static.
Rin stumbled behind me. "W‑what are you?"
I smiled—half defiance, half disbelief. "Honestly? I'm still in beta."
Cliffhanger
The shield cracked. Energy surged.
Somewhere in the chaos, my internal HUD flickered one last message:
[Primary Directive Updated: Do Not Fail This Host.]
The monster lunged.
I stepped forward.
"Let's try this again," I muttered.
"This time, I'm not the bug."