"All right, Ash, I'm going now. Bye!"
Laura waved, still grinning, still giggling as she skipped away like she had too much energy to hold in one body.
"A source object to save papers… pfft, I'm totally telling Boss about this!" she shouted, bursting out laughing as she turned the corner.
Ash stared at her fading figure, then slowly lowered his eyes to the dumbphone in his hand.
He pocketed it with a completely deadpan face.
With a small sigh, he headed toward the dumpsite to continue his training.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ash jogged lightly around the scrap piles.
Hoooo-
Exhale.
Hoooo-
Expel.
His hands moved with smooth muscle memory, tracing invisible lines in the air.
"Invisibility Cloak."
His whole body shimmered, edges blurring like a heat mirage, until the world seemed to forget he existed.
Then, as soon as the cloak started to fade-
"Wall of Illusion."
Thin ripples formed, wrapping around him in transparent layers. Sound remained, but the figure running was gone, like footsteps with no owner.
Ash didn't train just to fight monsters, train to protect his self.
He trained because he wanted to understand himself.
"How long can I cast? How fast can I chain skills? Do I have a cooldown?"
He had no teacher.
No guide.
Just instincts and stubbornness.
Whoosh.
He slipped at the alley as the illusion faded.
"Not bad," he muttered. "Still not enough."
He jogged home, wiping the sweat off his forehead.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I'm back," Ash said, pushing open the rusty metal door.
Shoes tossed aside, back stretched, he sat down.
"Yosh."
Dinner was the usual: black bread and boiled water.
Hard, tasteless… but warm enough to feel alive.
He bit in, and his mind drifted back to Earth.
Kyle.
That was him. Before death. Before waking up in this world.
Kyle, the orphan boy raised in a tiny orphanage.
No parents.
No family.
Only Grandpa Director, who fed him, scolded him, and taught him to dream bigger than the world allowed.
After leaving the orphanage, Kyle worked any job he could get.
Construction.
Janitorial work.
Dishwashing.
Packing goods.
Anything to survive.
But every night, no matter how exhausted he was, he sat in front of his old, half-broken laptop, teaching himself how to make games.
He wasn't good at it.
He wasn't popular.
But he kept going… because it made him happy.
He made dozens of small indie games.
Some weird.
Some funny.
Some were so buggy that they were basically just modern art.
Nobody played them.
But Kyle still created.
Because it was fun.
He remembered Grandpa's words:
"Life is short, kid. While you're in it, do what you want… and enjoy it."
Kyle didn't get to say goodbye. When he returned, Grandpa Director had already passed away.
At the grave, he whispered only one thing.
"I will."
Now, Ash/Kyle sat in a dim slum room, black bread in hand, tears gathering in his eyes.
"…damn," he muttered, wiping quickly. "If that little brat Laura saw me crying, she'd laugh at me for a whole week."
tick.
Something hit the floor.
Ash froze.
"…she didn't follow me, right?"
He turned slowly.
A slipper-sized rat stared back.
Both blinked.
Then.
"WOOSH—! Oi! You scared me!"
Ash exhaled in relief.
"You little piece of pest… I'm gonna kill you."
The rat tilted its head like it doubted his life choices.
Ash lunged.
The rat dodged.
Rat used Evade.
Ash swung blindly.
Ash used Blind.
Rat pressed Report: He cheated.
"Get back here!"
The rat zipped up the wall, bounced off a bucket, shot under the table, ran behind the water container, then scurried up the curtain like some graduate of Ninja Rodent Academy.
Ash toppled a stool.
Then a pan.
Then a scrap-metal shelf.
CLANG.
CLANG.
CLANG.
The rat launched itself dramatically from the curtain, landed on his black bread, and wiggled its butt like an insult.
"Oh no you don't!"
Ash dived for it.
The rat leapt again, perfect landing on the doorknob, showed another insulting wiggle, then slipped through a gap in the door.
Silence.
Ash looked around the destroyed war zone.
"…time to clean."
He sighed, accepting his defeat.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After cleaning up the battlefield, Ash sat on his bed and took out the dumbphone.
"So… how do I actually use you?"
He tapped the pad.
Typed something.
Nothing special happened.
He typed again.
"Hello, I'm Ash and this is my diary."
He squinted at the words.
"Nope. No way. Laura can't be right. This thing can't only be for saving papers."
He tapped the notepad again.
Letters.
Numbers.
Symbols.
Still just a blank screen.
"Notepad. Note… code? Commands?"
Something clicked.
"Wait… what if this thing..."
A spark flashed in his brain.
He typed:
/illusion manifest:hello world:true
He pressed Enter.
The dumbphone glowed faintly.
Ash leaned closer.
"…that's it?"
Not disappointed, though.
It reacted.
He tried again, this time channeling illusion energy into the device.
Holding it with both hands, he whispered.
"Illusion Project."
Whoosh.
A ripple of energy burst out.
Then.
Floating in front of him…
HELLO WORLD
Words.
Projected.
Shimmering like a soft hologram.
Ash's jaw fell.
"No way. No way!"
He jumped to his feet, nearly tripping on the blanket.
"I knew it! You're not just for saving papers!"
He celebrated like a toddler given candy.
The hologram flickered with each movement, but stayed.
Ash sat down again, heart racing.
He typed another command:
illusion create:orb; color:blue; duration:10;
A small blue orb appeared… wobbly, unstable, but there.
Next.
illusion create:sword; stability:low;
A crude illusory sword formed then shattered into mist when he touched it.
illusion light:spark
Tiny sparks danced on his fingertips.
Each attempt drained him little by little.Each success felt like discovering treasure.
The room flickered with illusions, shapes, lights, shadows, and small projections.
Ash grinned the whole time.
"That brat Laura thought this was for saving papers… HA!"
He lay back on the bed, dumbphone glowing beside him.
He didn't know how far he could go.
But he knew this dumbphone was his key.
...
"That's it for now… time to sleep."
He placed the dumbphone beside his pillow and closed his eyes.
A minute passed.
Quiet.
Then
BOOOOOOOM.
The entire slum shook.
Metal pots rattled.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
The steam cloud device roared to full power underground, pumping siphon-converted mist into the surface pipes.
Ash shot upright.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
A scream echoed through the night, a young man's scream.
Ash grabbed the dumbphone instinctively, heart racing.
"…that's… not good."