"I've been a complete failure all this time, huh?" I've finally realized the absolute truth about my life. Standing near the edge of the towering skyscraper, I uttered those words into the empty void.
The freezing wind of the upper atmosphere whipped violently against my thin jacket, but the chill on my skin was nothing compared to the profound numbness settling deep within my chest.
I slowly looked up at the vast night sky. Where a million stars are roaming inside it.
Up there, hidden behind the thick urban smog, countless stars blinked back at me.
They felt indifferent and cold, shining down on a world that wouldn't even notice if a nobody like me vanished tonight.
"But hey, if there's actually another version of me out there, living on one of those distant stars..." I paused, a lump forming in my throat as the sheer weight of my isolation caught up to me.
"I truly hope you're living a good life. Not a pathetic, idiotic one like this."
Shifting my weight, I dragged my gaze downward.
The bustling city streets stretched out far below my worn shoes, presenting a dizzying, vertical drop into a chaotic sea of neon billboards, flashing traffic signals, and cars moving like ants.
The sheer scale of the drop made my head spin, a dark pull echoing from the concrete depths.
"Haha, dammit, what absolute nonsense. What the hell am I even saying? Are you starting to get crazy, you fucking idiot?"
I laughed bitterly, the sound sharp and hollow as it bounced back from the glass paneling of the rooftop.
My own reflection stared back through the grime—disheveled, exhausted, and thoroughly defeated by the daily grind.
"But if only... it were true... If there was even a fraction of a chance..." I stop talking and look up again, seeing the stars. "I'd rather be the other me in that world than stay another day in this suffocating place."
All these ridiculous thoughts flooded my mind tonight just because of a single video game—a massive, immersive tactical RPG that I'd played countless times in the confines of my cluttered apartment.
In that digital universe, there was a specific companion character whose facial features, sharp jawline, and hair color were practically identical to mine.
The only differences were his posture—which was vastly more confident and imposing—and the prestigious noble family name he carried.
Yet, despite his top-tier appearance and royal heritage, the character who looked just like me was actually a deeply tragic figure.
He was a broken soul destined to turn into a ruthless antagonist in the exact middle of the main story campaign, causing catastrophic trouble for the players before ultimately meeting a gruesome, inescapable end.
The storyline feels deeply painful yet real, mirroring the chaos I have been experiencing in my own life here.
Maybe that was the exact reason I kept loading up that game over and over again, refusing to play any other characters.
I persistently used that character as one of my main, non-negotiable party members, and I'd become completely obsessed with optimizing his stats, maxing out his hidden potentials, and making him as strong as humanly possible.
Even though I know exactly that the character will become the Antagonist in the middle of the story, just for the sake of a plot story.
I poured hours of theorycrafting into his build, finding the right skills to make him as strong as possible.
Until that inevitable betrayal occurred, brought about by the cruel hand of something called Fate.
The unavoidable story events forced the system to rip him away from my active monitor and watch him transition into the tragic villain.
But as a consequence of my obsession, because I made him so strong during the early acts, his boss form became exponentially stronger and more terrifying as an antagonist, too.
That was the primary reason other players usually wouldn't even touch his questline, deliberately letting him remain as weak as possible.
In doing so, they could ensure an easy boss fight in the mid-game.
Eventually, through my sheer dedication, I managed to become the fastest, highest-ranked speedrunner in the global community while still fully optimizing that exact character.
I broke world records by utilizing his high-risk mechanics to the absolute maximum limit before letting him go and dismantling the final boss in record time.
And opening the true ending of the story, which no one has ever been able to accomplish before, even after the game has already run for 10 years.
But tonight, staring directly into the dark abyss of the city, I finally realized it was all just a pathetic, fleeting illusion.
When you turn off the console, unplug the monitor, and wake up to the harsh morning light, your weak, unoptimized self is still right there waiting for you.
Your broken reality doesn't magically change just because you won a digital trophy or topped a global leaderboard.
Winning the prize, getting the money, but not having even a single person to share the happiness?
'Then what the difference, it still the same. It was your own self that needed to change, not the world.'
Truth be told, the crushing despair pulling at my sanity tonight wasn't just about my pathetic daily existence.
It was because earlier today, the developers officially announced that the game was shutting down its global servers forever.
The only world where I felt like a winner, the only place where my calculations actually mattered, was being permanently erased from existence.
I was losing my party, my achievements, and most of all, I was losing Landra—the digital character I'd poured my entire soul into simply because he looked so much like me.
Standing out here on this edge felt like a final, miserable goodbye to the only true buddy I had left in this world.
I sighed. "Haah, dammit all. Let's just go home."
"I'll only feel even more miserable if I keep standing out here like a cliché drama king in a very bad movie."