Some days, the world feels as simple and straightforward as an IKEA manual. Boring. Predictable. Linear.
And then there are the days when reality decides to throw a curveball so absurd that even a sleep-deprived Japanese screenwriter, fueled by caffeine and deadline-induced panic, couldn't have scripted it.
For me, that day started as a perfectly average, soul-crushing Wednesday.
The name's Alex. Just Alex. Though if you've spent any time on gaming forums or Discord, you might know me better as "Lord_Singularity_69" or "The_Admin_of_Forbidden_Lore." Sixteen is the peak age for adopting pretentious titles. Psychology calls it "Eighth-Grader Syndrome." Refined men of culture, like myself, prefer the more sophisticated term: Chuunibyou.
It's a lens that turns a dull reality into something playable. It transforms a grocery run into an "S-Rank Stealth Supply Mission" and a chemistry quiz into a "Mental Duel with the Alchemists' Guild." Without it, this world is just a low-budget simulator with terrible graphics and a non-existent plot.
Anyway, back to that Wednesday. I was stuck in history class, suffering from a debuff known as [Extreme Boredom].
The teacher, Mr. Stone—a man with a mustache so thick it looked like a low-poly texture glitch—was droning on about ancient trade routes. His voice had a unique passive ability: it drained my HP by 1% every passing second.
Naturally, I'd deployed my final line of defense: the textbook shield. Behind it, I wasn't listening to history; I was diving into far more valuable knowledge. I was on my phone, scrolling through the latest chapter of a regression manhwa, meticulously analyzing the protagonist's stat distribution.
"Amateur," I thought, watching the MC dump points into a strength-based build. "Everyone knows Agility and Luck are broken in the current meta."
I was just about to hit the comments section to leave a devastating review about the author's lack of balance-testing when it happened.
The air in front of me didn't just flicker. It glitched.
It looked like GPU artifacts right before a total system crash. For a split second, the very fabric of the classroom tore apart. The back of the girl sitting in front of me, Mr. Stone's mustache, the dusty chalkboard—everything was swallowed by digital noise.
And then, a translucent blue window materialized right before my eyes.
This wasn't a hallucination. The image was crisp, high-definition, and pulsing with a soft neon glow. It looked exactly like a high-end UI from a VRMMORPG.
Obsidian letters began scrolling across the screen with a mechanical click that echoed only in my head:
[ ⚠ CRITICAL ERROR DETECTED ⚠ ]
[System Integrity: COMPROMISED]
[Initiating Emergency Protocol: SOUL_TRANSFER.exe]
[Searching for Compatible Host...]
[Host Found: Player "Alex"]
[Compatibility Level: 99.9%]
I blinked. Once. Twice. I even rubbed my eyes, thinking the sleepless night I'd spent grinding ranked matches in League had finally fried my synapses.
But the screen didn't vanish. It hung there, anchored to my field of vision, swaying gently like a menu waiting for input.
I risked a glance at my desk-mate, Sam. He was literally drooling onto his notebook, completely oblivious to the glowing sci-fi anomaly hovering inches from my nose.
"Hey, Sam," I whispered, my voice cracking just a bit. "You... see anything weird?"
"Only Mr. Stone's tie," Sam muttered without looking up. "A total fashion tragedy."
He didn't see it. It was just me.
My brain, conditioned by thousands of hours of anime, manga, and RPGs, kicked into high gear. A normal person would have panicked. They would've screamed, called a doctor, or fainted.
Me? I felt a grin spreading across my face. A wild, manic grin.
This was it.
It wasn't a stroke. It wasn't a prank. It was an Event. The moment every otaku dreams of while staring at the ceiling at 3 AM. The call to adventure. The Isekai Truck, minus the actual truck.
A new window popped up, brighter than the last, accompanied by the triumphant chime of a bell:
╔══════════════════════════════════╗
** WELCOME, PLAYER! **
╠══════════════════════════════════╣
** Target World: [Naruto Shippuden]**
** Difficulty Level: [NIGHTMARE] **
** Unique Trait: [SYSTEM USER] **
╚══════════════════════════════════╝
[Do you accept the transfer?]
[ Yes / No ]
My heart hammered against my ribs like a drum. Naruto? I knew that world better than my own neighborhood. I knew the timeline, the secrets, the jutsu, and every single plot hole Kishimoto ever left behind.
If this was a game, I wasn't just a player. I was a speedrunner with a strategy guide.
"Goodbye, boring world," I whispered, raising a finger.
Without a second of hesitation, I slammed my finger onto [Yes].
The classroom dissolved into blinding white light. The world was never going to be the same. And honestly? It was about damn time.