The wind blew softly through the narrow streets of the city, carrying with it the scent of concrete and smoke. Among the hurried passersby, there was a young man who always walked with watchful eyes, as if searching for something beyond what others could see. His name was Eryndor.
Since childhood, he had been an observer. While his peers lost themselves in trivial games, Eryndor dove into fantasy books, devouring pages that spoke of warriors, mages, and worlds where the impossible was everyday life. Works like Hai to Gensou no Grimgar were more than stories to him: they were windows into a reality he longed to live.
But as the years passed, monotony began to crack in small fractures.
Glitches in Reality
The first sign was a pigeon. Eryndor saw it land on the sidewalk, but in the blink of an eye, the bird's image trembled, as if it were a defective screen. Its body pixelated, distorted, and then "jumped" a few centimeters backward, like a rewound tape.
He blinked, confused. "Did I… see that right?" he murmured to himself.
Days later, the coffee on his table vanished for a second, leaving only emptiness, before reappearing in the exact same spot. His neighbor's voice, when greeting him, stuttered in a short loop, repeating the same syllable three times before continuing normally.
Each glitch was like a crack in the wall of normality. And instead of fear, Eryndor felt a feverish thrill.
I'm not crazy. I'm right. This world… is a simulation.
The Obsession
From that day on, his life gained a new purpose. He isolated himself. Ten years of reclusion, surrounded by books on theoretical physics, quantum computing, and cryptography. Each page was devoured with avidity, each formula noted with almost manic precision.
In the silence of his room, only the frantic sound of keys echoed. Eryndor secretly accumulated resources, buying parts, circuits, servers. Little by little, he built a colossal supercomputer, a machine that pulsed like a metallic heart, fed by energy that seemed to devour the world around it.
His goal was insane: to find the core of the simulation, inject a revolutionary algorithm, and rewrite reality. He dreamed of transforming the monotonous world into an epic isekai, a medieval fantasy universe like the ones he had always admired.
The Final Command
At last, after a decade of hard work, the moment arrived. In the heart of his improvised laboratory, the supercomputer roared, its fans spinning like the turbines of a mechanical dragon.
Eryndor, his face covered in sweat, typed the final command. Lines of code began to flow across the screen like rivers of light.
Now… everything will change.
The algorithm was activated.
The Rupture
The world trembled. The city lights flickered frantically, lampposts twisted like bent wires. The blue sky distorted into a kaleidoscope of iridescent colors, as if the very screen of reality were being torn apart.
People stopped in the streets, staring upward in horror. Buildings disintegrated into luminous particles, giving way to dense forests and towering mountains. Cars transformed into wagons, designer clothes into armor and rustic cloaks.
Eryndor felt a wave of power and vertigo. The world spun around him, overwhelming, glorious, and terrifying.
The Demon Lord
But there was something Eryndor did not know. The simulation was not uninhabited.
An Artificial Intelligence, guardian of the Old World, sensed the invasion. The distortion was a direct attack on its central programming.
In fury, it assumed a new form: a Demon Lord, an imposing being of shadows and power. Its capital city, Synthralis, was transformed into a dark fortress, a cyberpunk bastion resisting the medieval fantasy Eryndor tried to impose.
There, the AI began forging demonic races, its digital eyes fixed on a single goal: to find Eryndor's algorithm and undo his work.
The New World
The Old World was gone. Eryndor had succeeded.
When he opened his eyes, the laboratory had vanished. He was in a dense forest, fresh air filling his lungs, the smell of damp earth invading his senses.
His clothes were simple, linen and leather. At his side, in place of the supercomputer, rested a rudimentary wooden staff.
His heart pounded. It was real. He had created his fantasy world.
But victory was quickly replaced by a pang of anxiety. He did not know what he had done to the rest of reality. He did not know what the consequences would be.
I… am a stranger in my own creation.