If there was a hell specifically designed for former pro-gamers, Timmy Rubel was currently standing in the lobby.
Technically, he was standing in the quaint, sun-dappled square of Greenhollow Village. Birds were chirping. The smell of freshly baked bread wafted from the bakery. Orchestral violin music swelled in the background, promising adventure and glory.
But to Timmy, the music was just a looped audio file, and the bird was a low-poly texture that had been stuck in a tree for three days.
poke.
Timmy didn't blink. He couldn't. The script wouldn't let him.
poke.
A rusty iron sword jabbed into his ribs. It didn't hurt—thanks to the [System Immunity: Friendly Target] tag hovering over his head—but the sensation was annoying. Like a mosquito buzzing against a windowpane.
"Hey. Hey. Hey NPC. Move."
Standing in front of him was a Warrior named xX_GodSlayer_99Xx. The player was currently wearing nothing but his underwear and a starter helmet, crouching and standing repeatedly in a rhythm that humanity had collectively agreed was the universal sign of disrespect.
Timmy wanted to sigh. He wanted to grab the rusty sword, shove it down the player's throat, and explain the intricacies of hitbox collision mechanics. In his past life, as Renji Takahashi, he would have dissected this noob in a PvP arena in under four seconds. He would have framed the kill log on his wall.
But Renji was dead. He was Timmy now. And Timmy had a job to do.
A transparent blue window flashed in Timmy's vision.
[Script Triggered: Interaction]
Timmy's mouth opened against his will. His vocal cords vibrated with a cheerful, pre-recorded enthusiasm that made his soul wither.
"Greetings, brave traveler! You look like someone who seeks—"
"Skip," GodSlayer grunted.
Timmy's mouth snapped shut. The invisible hand of the System rewound him like a broken cassette tape.
"Greetings, brave—"
"Skip. Skip. Skip."
The player was mashing the interaction button. Timmy felt his consciousness glitching, his sentence restarting four times in a single second. Greetings-Greet-Gree-Greetings. It was enough to give a lesser AI a migraine.
Finally, the dialogue tree gave up and fast-forwarded to the end.
"Please!" Timmy cried out, tears of programmed desperation welling in his eyes. "My grandmother has lost her favorite bucket in the Whispering Woods! If you retrieve it, I shall reward you with this Potion of Minor Healing!"
GodSlayer stopped crouching. He stared at Timmy for a long moment, the dead, shark-like eyes of a gamer calculating efficiency.
"A bucket?" the player muttered. "Lame. Probably gives 5 XP. Trash quest."
Timmy mentally screamed. It gives 10 XP, you absolute casual. And it unlocks the Blacksmith chain. Take the bucket quest!
"Whatever," GodSlayer said. "I bet I can kill the Merchant instead."
The player turned around, ignored the quest marker pointing toward the safe path of the woods, and sprinted directly toward the Village Well.
Timmy watched, his permanent smile frozen in place.
The Village Well was a scenic prop. However, Timmy—who had spent the last three weeks analyzing every pixel of this prison—knew something the players didn't. The collision box for the well's stone rim was slightly offset. If you jumped at the wrong angle, you didn't land on the edge. You clipped right through it.
GodSlayer leaped.
GodSlayer clipped.
GodSlayer vanished into the dark abyss of the geometry hole.
A second later, a muffled splash echoed up from the digital void. Then, the distinct crunch of a health bar hitting zero.
[System Notification]
Player Death Detected.
Cause: Environment (Fall Damage).
Witness: NPC [Timmy Rubel].
Timmy waited for the player to respawn. Usually, the NPC memory would wipe here. He would reset to his starting position, forgetting the idiot who just jumped down a well.
But Timmy didn't reset.
Instead, a new, unfamiliar chime rang in his ears. It wasn't the majestic orchestral swell of the game. It was a sharp, digital ding—the sound of a cash register.
[Anomaly Detected]
Quest Failed: [Grandma's Bucket]
Reason: Player Death during negotiation.
Protocol: Hazard Pay Actuated.
Timmy felt a warmth surge through his scrawny chest. It felt like drinking a Red Bull after a ten-hour raid.
[You have received Survivor Compensation.]
+50 Experience Points
+1 Copper Coin
Item Acquired: [Rusty Iron Sword (Durability: 4/10)]
Timmy blinked. The script didn't force his eyes open this time. He blinked of his own free will.
He looked down at his hands. In his inventory, he could feel the weight of the sword the idiot had just dropped.
50 Experience Points.
The quest to find the bucket only gave the player 10 XP.
But watching the player die gave Timmy 50.
Timmy looked at the well. Then he looked at the stream of fresh players spawning into the village square—hundreds of them, running around like headless chickens, looking for quests, looking for glory, looking for help.
Slowly, the pre-programmed, innocent smile on Timmy's face shifted. It didn't look like a helpful village boy anymore. It looked like a shark smelling blood in the water.
"Greetings, brave travelers," Timmy whispered, his voice low and unscripted. "I hope you all skipped the tutorial."
Timmy stood perfectly still. To the outside observer, he was just an idle NPC waiting for a trigger event. His breathing was looped, his blinking was timed to a 4.5-second interval, and his hands were clasped politely behind his back.
But inside his inventory, his mental fingers were gripping the handle of the rusty sword like a lifeline.
Okay, Timmy thought, his internal voice racing at the speed of a fiber-optic connection. Let's break this down. Hypothesis: I get paid when players die while engaged in my content. Variable A: Does it have to be an accident? Variable B: Can I force it?
He checked his Status Window.
[Name: Timmy Rubel]
[Race: Human (NPC)]
[Level: 1]
[EXP: 50 / 100]
[HP: 10/10]
[Mana: 0/0]
Fifty percent to Level 2. In Aetheria Online, leveling up as a player usually took about an hour of grinding rats. Timmy had done it in thirty seconds of standing still.
If he could reach Level 2, he might unlock his Stat Allocation. If he could unlock Stats, he could put points into Intelligence. If he had high Intelligence, maybe he could figure out how to overwrite the script that forced him to wear this itchy burlap tunic.
He needed another subject.
Timmy scanned the village square. The spawn point was flashing blue every few seconds as new players materialized. Most of them were Warriors or Rogues—the edgy classes. They ran off immediately, ignoring the Lore.
Then, he saw him.
A Mage. The character name floating above his head was Gandalf_The_Grey_Area.
The player was walking slowly, inspecting the textures of the bakery wall. A roleplayer. Or worse, an Immersion Gamer. These types actually listened to dialogue. They were the perfect victims.
Timmy waited until the Mage wandered into his interaction radius (3 meters).
[Script Triggered: Interaction]
Timmy felt the invisible strings yank his jaw open. But this time, he focused. He visualized the code. He remembered the sensation of the glitch—that split-second where the player's Skip button had jammed the logic.
Don't say the line, Timmy commanded himself. Modify the parameters.
"Greetings, brave traveler!" Timmy chirped. The first part came out automatic.
Gandalf stopped and bowed. Actually bowed. "Greetings, young citizen. How fares the village on this fine morning?"
Timmy fought the urge to vomit. Oh god, he's typing in Old English.
"Terrible!" Timmy improvised. The System tried to force him to talk about the bucket in the woods. Timmy mentally grabbed the script and shoved it into a locker. "My grandmother... she didn't lose a bucket."
Gandalf paused. "She didn't?"
"No," Timmy said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. The System flashed a red warning [Deviation Warning], but Timmy ignored it. He pointed a trembling finger toward the Village Elder, who was sleeping on a bench near the fountain. "The Elder... he stole her medicine. He's crazy. Violent. If you wake him up, he might give it back."
This was a lie. A massive, game-breaking lie.
Elder Gorn was a Level 50 retired Paladin. His Sleep state was actually a Guard Mode. If anyone touched him while he was napping, his aggro radius snapped to Hostile instantly to prevent players from grieving him.
It was a mechanic designed to stop players from standing on top of quest givers.
Gandalf narrowed his eyes. "The Elder is a thief? This sounds like a Hidden Quest."
"A very rare Hidden Quest," Timmy agreed. "But you must be quick. Poke him with your staff. Hard."
Gandalf's eyes lit up. "Understood. Justice shall be served."
The Mage turned and marched toward the sleeping Elder. Timmy held his breath. This was the test. If the System intervened, Timmy might get deleted for misleading a player.
Gandalf approached the bench. He raised his starting staff—a crooked stick with +1 Magic Attack.
He jabbed the Level 50 Paladin in the ribs.
Thwack.
-1 HP.
The effect was instantaneous.
Elder Gorn's eyes snapped open. They weren't the milky eyes of an old man; they were glowing red with the fury of a programmed deity.
"INSOLENCE!" Gorn roared. The audio file was so loud it clipped the bass.
The Elder didn't even stand up. He simply backhanded the air. A massive, glowing spectral hammer materialized above Gandalf's head.
The Mage didn't even have time to type "Lol."
CRUNCH.
The hammer turned the Mage into a pancake. The health bar vanished instantly.
[System Notification]
Player Death Detected.
Cause: NPC Aggro (Guard Retaliation).
Instigator: NPC [Timmy Rubel].
Timmy braced himself. Come on. Give me the juice.
[Anomaly Confirmed]
Quest Failed: [Grandma's Medicine (Fake)]
Protocol: Hazard Pay Actuated.
Bonus: Betrayal Multiplier applied.
[You have received Survivor Compensation.]
+75 Experience Points
+2 Copper Coins
Loot: [Novice Robe (Cloth)]
Ding!
A golden light bathed Timmy's body. It was warm, euphoric, and smelled faintly of ozone.
[LEVEL UP!]
[Timmy Rubel is now Level 2.]
[You have gained 5 Stat Points.]
Timmy wanted to laugh. He wanted to throw his head back and cackle like the villain in a Saturday morning cartoon.
He had just murdered a man by pointing a finger, and the universe had given him a promotion.
He quickly opened his status menu. He dumped all 5 points into Intelligence.
Let's see how smart I need to be to break the tutorial boundaries, he thought.
Suddenly, the world shimmered. The text above Elder Gorn's head changed. Before, it just said [Village Elder - Lvl 50].
Now, with his increased INT, Timmy saw a new tag underneath it:
[Pathing Loop: 120 seconds. Weakness: Left Knee (Arthritis Debuff).]
Timmy smiled. It wasn't the fake smile of a programmed boy anymore. It was the grin of a hacker who had just found the admin password.
"Timmy?"
Timmy froze. He spun around.
Another player had spawned. This one was a female Rogue named Stabby_McStab. She was staring at the spot where the Mage had just been flattened into a pixelated paste. Then she looked at Timmy.
"Did you just... level up?" she asked, her voice chat sounding confused. "Why does the bucket-boy NPC have a level-up aura?"
Timmy's mind raced. NPCs weren't supposed to level up. If players realized he was evolving, they'd report him as a bug. He'd be patched out in the next maintenance cycle.
He needed to cover his tracks.
Timmy widened his eyes and put on his most vacant, lobotomized expression. He clapped his hands together like a toddler.
"Wow! The Elder is so strong! He killed the bad fly!" Timmy squealed. "Brave Traveler, would you like to buy a bucket?"
Stabby_McStab stared at him for a long, tense moment. Then she shook her head.
"Weird game," she muttered, and jogged away toward the blacksmith.
Timmy let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
He was safe. For now.
But he looked at the 2 Copper Coins in his inventory.
I need more, he decided. I need to buy skills. I need to buy gear. And there are three hundred players currently logging in.
Timmy adjusted his tunic. It was time to go to work.