The first sign something was wrong was the silence.
No "Respawn complete!" jingle.No blue system text burned into the back of my eyes.No countdown, no EXP summary, no annoying new patch notes.
Just… quiet.
I opened my eyes expecting the usual respawn flicker. The world normally loads in like bad streaming: blocky, then sharp, then too bright.
This time, it was just my ceiling.
Cracked white paint, water stain in the shape of a rabbit if you tilted your head. The cheap fan creaked on the third spin like always.
I lay there, waiting for the HUD.
…Nothing.
"Okay," I muttered. "That's… new."
I lifted my hand in front of my face.
Normally, when you focus, the Respawn Counter pops up in the corner of your vision. A little neon number that says:
Lives remaining: 12 Lives remaining: 7 Lives remaining: 1
I'd watched mine tick down so many times it felt like watching battery life.
I focused.
I squinted.
I even did the stupid thing new kids do and said, "Status."
Nothing appeared.
No number. No health bar. No transparent window telling me my agility stat was still garbage.
Just my hand. Shaky. Human.
A cold, thin thread of panic slid under my ribs.
"Come on," I whispered. "Don't joke like this."
I sat up too fast. The room tilted, then snapped back.
My last memory before this had teeth in it ,fire and falling.
Boss fight in District 7 – Hellmouth Station. Third phase. I'd done it before. You let the demon-thing grab you, stab its hand, blow yourself up, both of you die, then you respawn back at the platform with its health halved.
Messy. Efficient.
I'd done that exact suicide play like… four times?
Five?
This time, I remembered the teeth closing around my neck.
The crunch.
The burn.
The dark.
And now… no HUD.
I swung my legs off the bed and stared at the floorboards. They looked too solid, like the world had been a videogame for so long that actual reality felt suspicious.
"Status," I said again.
Silence.
I pinched my forearm until my eyes watered.
It hurt.
A real, stupid, uncomplicated hurt.
"Okay, Kai," I told myself. "Either the System's down… or…"
Or I don't have any lives left.
The thought wasn't loud. It didn't scream. It just sat there, heavy and smooth, like a stone in my stomach.
I stood up.
My room was the same two-metre-wide disaster it always was. Futon. Desk. Pile of clothes that might secretly be alive. Window with a view of the next ugly apartment block.
But the city beyond it…
That's where the differences show.
From my fourth-floor window, Tokyo-That-Isn't-Tokyo glowed like a game lobby. Giant screens on tower sides advertised Raid Events and time-limited dungeons. Streetlights flickered between safe-zone blue and danger-zone red depending on the System's mood.
Across the street, a kid in a hoodie cheerfully jumped off a rooftop.
My breath caught—
—but the blue flash grabbed him mid-fall. System light wrapped his body, rewound him like video. One second, he was a smear on the pavement. The next, he was back on the roof, laughing with his friends, dusting off his jacket.
"Yo, did you see that?" someone shouted below. "He shaved a second off his respawn timer!"
I watched them, my hand pressed against the glass.
Everybody out there had numbers floating in their vision.
Everybody out there could afford to be stupid.
I couldn't.
"Lives remaining: 0," I said out loud, testing the words.
My voice shook.
No blue text appeared to confirm it—but I felt it anyway, like some invisible counter had finally rolled over and died.
Something in my chest fluttered. Not a heartbeat. More like the absence of one.
My phone buzzed on the desk.
I flinched hard enough that my shoulder clipped the wall. "I'm fine," I snapped at nobody.
I grabbed the phone and checked the screen.
Rin:
party in 10. we pulling Hellmouth again. don't be late trashboy
Three sword emojis. One skull. One smug cat.
I stared at the message until the words blurred.
Rin Shirosaki didn't know how many times I'd died in that dungeon.
Nobody did. The System keeps that part private. All anyone else sees is your Rank and your public clear time. Not how many bodies you threw into the meat grinder to get it.
I typed, then erased:
can't. system bug. think i'm out of lives.
Yeah. No.
If I sent that, she'd send back seven laughing emojis and a "same bro" sticker, because running out of lives is the kind of horror movie thing that happens to NPCs, not to actual people.
Our generation was raised by patch notes. Death is an inconvenience, not an ending.
I typed instead:
be there in 10.
The three dots popped up instantly.
Rin:
good. need ur stupid face as bait
I snorted despite myself.
Same old Rin. Same city. Same raid.
Only difference was… if I went, and anything went wrong, there'd be no blue flash to save me.
My hand tightened around the phone.
I could stay home. Play it safe. Pretend I was sick. Spend the rest of my life in this room, working remote, never setting foot near a boss arena again.
Safe.
Boring.
Pathetic.
I looked out at the city again.
Down on the street, a trio of low-rank runners argued over whether to farm goblins or risk a mini-boss. Neon signs flickered. A drone floated past, projecting the System's latest Event Banner in the air:
[HELLMOUTH STATION – LIMITED RAID 🔥]Double EXP. Double Drops. Death Penalty: Reduced by 50%
I laughed. It came out wrong, too high and thin.
"Reduced death penalty," I murmured. "Yeah. For everyone else."
For me, the penalty was… everything.
My heart was pounding so hard now it I could feel it in my throat. My palms wouldn't stop sweating. My legs wanted to run in two directions at once.
But here's the thing:
I'd fought Hellmouth Station so many times that I could see the boss in my sleep. I knew every attack pattern. Every safe spot. Every glitch you could abuse to shave off a hit.
If there was one place in the city I could go today and probably not die… it was there.
Probably.
I shoved the phone in my pocket, grabbed my battered jacket from the back of the chair, and headed for the door.
As my hand touched the handle, I hesitated.
What if this was the last time I did this? Put on shoes. Walked down these stairs. Heard the neighbour's dog bark at me like I owed it money. Smelled the convenience store curry on the corner.
What if this was the last morning in a world where I got to choose anything?
My lungs felt too small.
"Okay," I whispered to the empty room. "New rule, Kai. No more dumb deaths. No more suicide strats. No more 'eh, I'll just respawn'."
I opened the door.
"Last life," I said, stepping into the hall. "Let's not waste it."
And somewhere, faint and cold, as if behind the walls of the world itself, I felt something… notice.