1st Person View | Solution's (15%) PoV
The billboard groans under my weight as I settle onto its steel frame, my boots dangling over the edge. From up here the world looks normal. Streetlights glow in the dark as cars sit in straight little rows. The only problem is that nothing moves.
A translucent barrier stretches over the entire city in a dome of faint blue glass. It's thin enough that I can see through it, but solid enough that when I pressed my palm against it earlier, I couldn't get through.
When I'd reached the city limits, system notifications popped up:
[High-Populous Area Detected.]
[Integration in Progress.]
[Entry is restricted until the audit is complete.]
That was when the barrier sprung to life, sealing everything shut; inside it, the entire city paused.
I lean back against the billboard, exhaling through my nose. So much for finding answers.
I'd come running here after dropping Scout off with Christian, determined to see how the rest of the world was handling this apocalypse-speedrun. Turns out the answer is: It isn't. Or rather, it can't, what with it being paused and all.
A part of me wants to explore further, see if the next neighborhood is frozen too, but the thought evaporates as quickly as it forms.
I don't want to stray too far from the school, from Scout. And honestly, even if I kept walking, who's to say the next city, town, or suburb wouldn't be locked down too? There's no guarantee anything outside this valley is accessible yet.
Waiting seems like the only reasonable choice. Wait for the city to finish loading, then I can get inside and see what the hell is going on.
And if I bring Scout with me once she's rested…Well — an extra pair of hands never hurts.
My eyes drift to the skyline. My hand drifts to my jacket collar, stained with dried blood from earlier.
I tighten my jaw.
I thought being inside a game-like world would be more exciting. I'd daydreamed about it enough: leveling, stats, quests, all the standard isekai package deals. But the smell of blood, the bodies embedded in walls…
It was viscerally real, and if I hadn't been there…
No. No point dwelling. I'm already doing too much of that.
People die; that's reality. That's life. That's this world now.
Yes, I am aware that it sounds cold, but I'm not apathetic; I consider it emotional self-preservation. If I sink too deep into those kinds of thoughts, I won't climb back out.
I drag a hand through my hair. The wind is cold up here, brushing at my skin, loosening the tension in my body. My muscles are heavy.
I rest my elbows on my knees and flex my fingers. They respond instantly, smoother than they ever did in my old body. Even the small motion sends a ripple of power through my arms. It feels unnatural in a way I can't describe.
In biology class, we'd learned that movement happens before awareness. The electrochemical signal in your brain fires, your muscles contract, and only afterward does your brain register the decision to move.
Now it feels reversed. I think, and my body moves. No lag nor hesitation. It's not exactly comforting, but it makes me feel… aware. Sharply, painfully aware of every potential motion.
And underneath all of that — I'm tired.
The Immersion, adjusting to this body, the fights, the countless changes…
It's more draining than I expected.
Is this body unbelievably strong? Absolutely, but I'm still a human mind trying to keep pace with it.
I lean back against the billboard frame and close my eyes. "Just for a second," I mutter. "Just resting my eyes."
The billboard's metal is cool against my back, and the night hums softly in my ears.
I tell myself I'll get up soon. I'll go back to the school soon. I'll figure out the next move soon.
But my heartbeat slows. The exhaustion hits deeper.
And the world drifts…
just a little…
to the side.
My breathing evens.
My limbs sink with heaviness.
My thoughts unravel into soft static.
And in that exact moment — just as sleep takes me — something pulls.
A hooked feeling behind my consciousness, a string tied directly to the soul of someone else.
No — not someone else. Something else.
Something I once made, something I crafted with my own hands years ago, is pulling me toward itself.
A memory-made-body.
And as the dark sweeps in, swallowing Solution whole, I know instinctively that when I wake up…
I won't be in this body anymore.
…
Something tugs at me.
Then a chime rings in my head.
[Initializing Vessel Transfer…]
The words appear in the dark like white fire.
My drifting stops.
Another line carves itself across the void:
[Loading Designation: "Kaiser"]
[Sovereign-Class Vessel.]
This is not a dream.
[Calibrating Neural Authority…]
[Warning: Vessel contains dormant Mythical-Tier Attributes.]
[Recommended: Emotional Stabilization.]
[Activating Dampening Protocols.]
[Soul Synchronization in Progress: 7%… 19%… 48%…]
And as it climbs, something presses at my awareness, a shape in the dark I can't see but can feel.
I feel a warm heat in my chest, and my heartbeat returns.
A single heavy thud.
The system pulses again: [Synchronization: 91%… 100%]
Light slices through the void—and I open my eyes.
Oak wood walls greet me. Warm, dim lanterns hum quietly from iron sconces. A desk sits near the far wall, cluttered with parchment, ink, quill, and the flame of a single candle trembling.
For a moment, I don't move. The air feels heavy.
Wrong in a way that doesn't alarm me, but I can tell something's off, like the entire room is adjusting to something massive sitting inside it.
I sit up as the mattress dips, but I don't feel heavy. My frame feels lean.
When I raise a hand, something cold brushes my forehead: fingers, gloved in black leather.
I swing my legs off the bed to stand, which causes the room to tilt. I'm higher than I should be.
The lantern on the wall, the height of the desk, the ceiling — everything is lower than my instincts tell me they should be.
The lantern flames bend inward, drawn subtly toward me. Even the air feels displaced in this new environment.
Y'know, I feel way too calm. I think I just got kidnapped through supernatural means, but I'm not scared?
I should be panicking, breathing too fast. My heart should be racing, adrenaline flooding my limbs. A dreadful feeling, something, anything.
But the feeling hits a wall. My panic rises… and is flattened just as fast. Disassembled before it can ever bubble to the surface. I can't even tremble.
I can't access my own emotions?
Not fully, it seems. They exist behind something, but I don't know what.
A sudden sense of urgency wraps around my chest, dragging my attention toward the far wall.
The mirror!
Long strides carry me across the room. My arms swing differently too, the weight distributed through limbs that feel like they belong to someone else.
By the time I reach the mirror, my breathing is shallow. It's not from panicking…it's just that everything feels wrong. I want to panic. I reach deep within myself to find it, but it slips through the same emotional haze dulling everything else.
I plant my hands against the dresser beneath the glass. The wood dips under my grip.
I lift my head, and see him.
See me.
In all that I see, the gas mask is the most jarring feature.
Seamless metal plates cover my lower face. Rectangular filters sit at each cheek, faint mechanical breaths pushing through them.
But I find it odd that they're not restrictive, nor suffocating. They're just present.
Looking past that, a towering man stands in the reflection. Black hair, windswept and unruly, brushes past tinted round lenses. His shoulders cut sharp angles beneath a charcoal trench coat that falls perfectly down his frame. An elegant black suit molds to lean muscle, and a blue tie slices down the center.
Who am I?
I try to inhale sharply, but the air only slides into my chest in a steady flow. My own body denies me the spike of panic I'm reaching for.
What is my name?
I open my mouth to speak.
Nothing. No breath, nor sound.
Desperate, I think the words instead: What is happening to me?
The response slips into my mind:
[I'm awake.]
The response is not my voice. In fact, it's not a voice at all.
Before I can think about it, a system window appears in my vision:
[Vessel Transfer Complete. Welcome, Kaiser.]
I lift my head, and my reflection does the same. Then, a soft echo from somewhere outside the room: Footsteps in the hall.
[Notice - Hierarchy 3: Approaching.]
The footsteps in the hall echo a little louder, but I'm too busy staring at the man in the mirror.
Or more accurately, the mistake staring back at me.
This–
This is Kaiser. My character.
…from my edgy middle-school era.
Dear god.
A slow, crawling horror creeps across my mind, the quiet type you get when you remember a status you posted when you were thirteen.
And now you're forced to read it again. In public, on a billboard, from the perspective of a six-foot-five superhuman wearing a respirator.
Oh dear.
A thousand humiliating memories trickle in: every notebook scribble and character sketch, every edgy OC backstory, every time I used the phrase "apex predator mindset" unironically.
I stare at the mirror, mortified in total silence because the dampener won't even let me cringe properly. This is my fault. I made him.
Back when I was in my "cold villain mastermind" phase, that time in life when every boy discovers designer sunglasses, philosophy quotes, and thinks emotions are a weakness. Except my phase wasn't mild.
Mine was…catastrophic.
I used to spend hours on forums about "dark psychology," thinking I understood human nature because I read one manipulative tactics thread written by a guy named "ObsidianSerpent92."
I thought being "emotionless" meant "powerful." I thought neutrality meant divinity. I thought having black eyes and a trench coat made you mysterious.
(Okay, fine, it does. A little. The mirror is kind of proving that.)
So I created Kaiser. The ultimate neutral force. A man above petty emotions. Always objective. Unshakably calm. Destroyer of evil. Solver of problems. Emotions: optional. Morals: custom-tailored.
Honestly, it's a miracle nobody slapped me back then. I could've used it.
And now here I am, trapped in the body of that exact creation, while the emotional dampeners prevent me from having the very meltdown this situation deserves.
I want to curl up on the floor and apologize to the universe for every edgy sketch I ever made. Instead, I stand perfectly still, posture immaculate, breathing impossibly calm.
Great. I'm stuck inside my own OC with the emotional range of a rock. Does it get any better than this?
I drag a gloved hand down the mask, feeling the smooth metal. Why did middle-school me design this?
What was I trying to compensate for? (And no, it's not the reason you're thinking.)
I know what I wanted back then: Power, confidence, and control.
I wanted to be unreadable because I was painfully, obviously readable.
I wanted to be a "master manipulator" because I thought it would make everyone respect me.
I wanted to be emotionless because my emotions controlled me.
I created Kaiser to be everything I wasn't.
And now I'm him.
The system window interrupts my spiraling: [Hierarchy 3: En Route to Your Chamber.]
I don't even get to finish my existential crisis.
The lanterns flicker again, bowing toward the door. I straighten instinctively.
The emotional dampener steals the anxiety I should feel, leaving behind only a smooth readiness. Somewhere deep inside the calm, a part of me whispers: I'm going to have to explain this to someone eventually, aren't I? It's an embarrassing thought, but my body doesn't even react.
The footsteps stop outside my door, and somebody softly knocks. I know who it is the moment the sound reaches me — a light tok-tok. For someone capable of obliterating mountains with his bare hands, he's pretty gentle.
Hierarchy 3, Hakuryū Kensai: The Martial Arts God.
A guy only I and a handful of friends have ever fought. He was Lucy's custom creation, part of her homebrew world for our small friend group. Only me, Lucy, and the others ever saw him in action, and now he's knocking at my door.
Oh, fantastic. Of all people to meet while trapped in my middle-school edgelord OC's body… it had to be him.
Another gentle knock.
You cannot freak out. He will sense it. Kaiser doesn't freak out. Kaiser doesn't "do" emotions. Kaiser doesn't "do" anything.
Every instinct in me wants to throw myself out the window, but something in this body smothers the reaction—
Ah. Right. The gas mask. Kaiser's flaw. His limiter.
See, even middle school me knew that overpowered characters had to have some kind of weakness, otherwise they'd just be boring. No one finds an invulnerable, perfect character to be entertaining.
So, when I made Kaiser, I decided his weakness would be unstable emotions: if he didn't take emotional regulators, he would spiral out of control.
I can barely feel anything, and that's why: Kaiser's gas mask holds synthesized vials (literally "bottled emotions") that help him regulate, but they dull him in the process.
A voice filters through the door: "Lord Kaiser? May I enter?"
Okay. I need to think fast.
Hierarchy 3 is here, the white-haired demon of hand-to-hand combat. One of Lucy's favorite creations — she spent weeks perfecting his mechanics, and there was a period of time where she wouldn't shut up about him.
And I remember fighting him. He's strong, terrifyingly so.
And he's here for me — but why?
…because I'm probably the final boss.
Think. Lucy's final boss fight, the campaign we were supposed to run and end together today. I never got to the end, and me nor my friends never saw the final encounter.
But I did build Kaiser years ago. A few months ago, Lucy and I were talking about some of our original characters we'd made. Reluctantly, I messaged her my character sketches of Kaiser that I still had stuffed in my drawer for whatever reason.
I fully expected us to share a laugh at how cringe it was, but surprisingly, she just giggled and called my design "cute": I still don't know how to feel about that. God, I want to punch my younger self.
So, if the Hierarchies answer to Kaiser…then Kaiser was the final boss.
And now I'm him. If I play this right, I can make this work in my favor.
I grip the door handle and open it. Lantern light spills into the hall.
Hakuryū Kensai stands there, framed by the soft glow. His white hair cascades around him like silk, catching the light in strands of silver. His red, feline eyes lift to meet my dark-tinted lenses.
His kimono, white trimmed with deep crimson, pools around him in elegant waves, and his golden earrings sway as he tilts his head.
When he sees me, he smiles, showing the tips of those sharp white teeth.
Then he bows. It's… respectful. Deep. Beautiful, even.
"Forgive my disturbance, my lord," he says warmly. "I felt your presence reawaken… and wished to greet you."
He rises, hands folding behind his back. "I trust your rest was a peaceful one?"
I woke up in my middle-school OC wearing an industrial gasmask that controls my emotions and I'm in charge of ten hyper-lethal superhumans. But of course, he doesn't need to know about that.
I take a breath and force myself to remember how Kaiser "speaks." He doesn't use his voice, and he doesn't move his mouth. In fact, there's no sound at all.
Instead, a visual system-string projects from me into the listener's perception, like a text box only they can see. They don't hear words, they feel them, as if the meaning bypasses their ears and goes straight into their mind.
I made Kaiser that way because I thought it would make him have more "aura." God, if I could cringe, I would. It's meant to be unnerving if someone's not mentally solid. But for Hakuryū, it's probably expected.
All I have to do… is will the words.
[…It was.]
Hakuryū's smile brightens like I just paid him the highest compliment. "Wonderful! The fortress stirs with your presence. Even the garden winds feel livelier."
He tilts his head slightly, studying me. "I must admit… your silence these past days left us all in suspense."
Past days? How long has Kaiser been dormant? What have I missed? Ugh, why did I think waking up in my OC would be a simple one-step process?
The questions pile up, but I push them down and continue the charade: […Status of the Hierarchies.]
He nods with the enthusiasm of someone pleased to have been asked. "Oh, as diligent as ever." He steps closer, stopping just short of touching distance. "All remain at their posts. Order is stable. Productivity is thriving."
His smile softens. "It is good to see you conscious again, Lord Kaiser. The world feels… correct when you stand."
Oh. Okay. So THAT'S the level of reverence we're dealing with.
His red eyes flicker, frowning. "You feel… subtly different tonight."
Oh no. Please don't notice. Please don't—
But then he smiles. "Evolution becomes you, Lord Kaiser. Growth is the essence of all living art."
He steps aside with a graceful motion, sweeping his sleeve outward.
"The night gardens are peaceful. Walk with me? There is much to brief you on."
I have no idea how to be your boss, but sure, let's go on a garden stroll.
[Lead the way.]
Hakuryū bows once more, pleased.
"As you command." He turns gracefully, his lengthy sleeves flowing like banners.
I follow, guided by the deadliest martial artist ever conceived…
…while trying desperately to recall the lore I made in seventh grade.