A fierce shout echoed through the entire room: "KYLE!!! Get to my office! RIGHT NOW!!!" The poor bastard being called was Kyle Daniels, a 24-year-old young man with messy brown hair, dark circles under his eyes, and a suit stained with coffee that he hadn't even bothered to clean. Life simply wasn't being kind to him.
Hearing the shout, Kyle stood up slowly. From the brutal tone of the call, he knew this time it was something serious. The poor guy stopped typing the report he'd been working on tirelessly for hours...or maybe days. He didn't know why they were calling him, since he made an effort every day to keep everything in order. With a bit of fear, Kyle entered Brenda's office, the source of that terrifying voice.
This office wasn't anything special either, just a glass cube in the corner of the floor—but it did have beautiful views of the entire city. Brenda, the department head at the time, was waiting for him, sitting at the desk with her blonde hair tied up in a bun, an impeccable office suit, and red nails that every corporate boss had to have. From the start, Kyle noticed something off, because sitting next to her was Derek, his coworker, smiling like a complete idiot, which made him wonder: What was the department's "golden boy" doing there? Not for nothing was he famous in the office—he was tall, athletic, handsome; the embodiment of wealth and power.
That Derek everyone praised was the same guy who yesterday had asked for "help" understanding the data that Kyle himself had compiled so perfectly that even a fool like him could get it.
"Kyle, close the door, please," Brenda ordered Kyle, who was completely confused.
He obviously obeyed, he couldn't do much else.
Brenda was looking at some papers at that moment. "Can you explain the reason behind this thing?" she asked furiously.
"Explain what?" Kyle replied. He was honestly confused.
Brenda, with rage, shoved a sheet toward him across the desk. It was the presentation for the Stellar client. "Don't play dumb boy, I'm talking about this."
It was the same presentation Kyle had handed over to the "golden boy" for him to present at the morning meeting. It was a bunch of perfectly designed slides—no machine could have done it better. That file contained all the graphs and analyses that Kyle had compiled exhaustively. Not for nothing was it his best work to date; it showed all the necessary data for a perfect ten-minute pitch.
Kyle took the sheet and looked at it closely, only to realize that those graphs were completely changed.
The bars he'd put so much effort into were altered, and the conclusions were completely twisted to promise impossible investments with no risk of loss. It was mediocre work compared to what he'd delivered. It was full of errors; he had no doubt any analyst with half a brain could spot them easily. They'd basically stripped out everything good and replaced it with nonsense and stupid graphs.
Seeing this, Kyle couldn't help but show his anger at such an abomination. "Listen, you know this isn't the version I turned in," he said, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible, because he remembered that what he'd done was nothing like what he was seeing. He even remembered the hours he'd invested—all those damn sleepless nights and exhaustive calls just to double-check everything was perfect.
"Exactly because of that!" Brenda replied.
"I... I don't understand," Kyle stammered.
Brenda slammed the desk so hard she nearly shattered the glass. "Derek informed me that you passed him these unverified data. They're full of inconsistencies everywhere."
"But that's not true, I made sure to review—
"Silence," Brenda interrupted. "Luckily, he had the foresight to review them thoroughly and prevent us from making fools of ourselves in front of Stellar. Just imagine what would have happened if we'd presented this. We'd have an avalanche of lawsuits for misleading information! We could have lost a multi-million-dollar contract because of your incompetence, Kyle!"
He couldn't take it anymore; he felt the blood boiling in his veins. He looked at Derek, trying to find some support, but that rat just shrugged as if he knew nothing about it.
Kyle clenched his fists. "Miss Brenda, with all due respect, the original data is on my computer's server. You can check the histories and verify that everything is in order. I can prove that what Derek says is false. I delivered the clean version at eleven last night. If Derek modified it after..."
"Oh yeah? You're going to blame your teammate too!?" Brenda showed a smile worthy of a bitch like her.
"The problem isn't just the data," Brenda said, pausing. "It's your lack of teamwork and resistance to direct supervision... Derek was just trying to help by integrating you into the process. He's a natural leader like they don't make anymore, and you, on the other hand, always choose to work alone, and don't think I haven't noticed your attitude toward the others—you treat them like idiots."
"But... I..." Kyle shut up. No matter how much he wanted to explain, he knew it was useless. That pair of smug assholes had set a perfect trap for him, probably planned for months. Derek, that ambitious bootlicker who arrived with recommendations from above, and Brenda, who had been looking for a reason to get rid of him for weeks to put her newly graduated niece in the position. He could say it was a surprise, but he'd seen it coming. He couldn't forget all the meetings they excluded him from, the verification emails they ignored, all those extra tasks they dumped on him because no one else wanted to do them. But what he never imagined was that they'd go this far just to fire him.
"What you did shows a serious lack of professionalism and puts our company's image at risk," that bitch continued as if she had the right to speak. "Clients like Stellar invest considerable sums every year. Do you think it's ethical to hand them this garbage material without review—something that's obviously dangerous for their financial decisions?"
Hearing this, Kyle held back a laugh and thought about how they had the nerve to spew so much crap without choking on it.
"If it was so dangerous... why did Derek use my work without thoroughly reviewing it before the presentation? Isn't that also a lack of professionalism, Miss Brenda? Or are 'natural leaders' exempt from all responsibility?"
Brenda's face froze; she hadn't planned for Kyle, the one who never misbehaved, to give a response of that caliber to a superior. Derek stopped smiling—in fact, he shit himself like the scared little puppy he was.
"Are you questioning my management and your superior's... Kyle?" Derek shouted, jumping to his feet with his chair rolling backward and his legs trembling. "Your insolence knows no bounds, you trash! You're completely replaceable... You're just another parasite. There's no room for mediocres who don't know how to play as a team!"
Amid all the commotion, the office door suddenly opened. The one who entered was none other than the Head of Human Resources, Victor, who stood out for his shiny bald head. He scanned the room, trying to understand the situation. "Brenda, everything okay?" he asked.
"Perfectly," Brenda said, regaining her composure with impressive speed—every time the boss entered, she went from being a total tyrant to a good little girl; she didn't want her husband to fire her for abuse of power. "We're just... ahem, finishing up handling a case of anti-company conduct." Then, the woman looked at Kyle. "Your contract is terminated. Hand over your access card and belongings to Security. Your severance will arrive via transfer in the next few hours. Thank you."
She handed him a pre-printed document, as if it had been ready to give him for a while. "Sign here Kyle, please."
Kyle took the document, looked at it, smiled, and said nothing more. Then he looked at Derek calmly; the guy had an idiot's smile plastered across his face, wider than ever. He removed his access card and left it on the desk. Then, he straightened his suit, turned around, and walked out of the office. As he did, he couldn't help but feel the stares of his colleagues as he gathered his things—a mix of pity and sympathy for him.
As he walked home, he couldn't stop thinking... *Why... why doesn't effort count?* Memories from his university years came to mind, when scholarships were won through hard work, with those nights spent studying while his classmates partied. Getting into Innovatec had been a dream. But then he realized that since he started, he was just another pawn. One that was always sacrificed to protect the board. He didn't have the gift of gab, nor did he come from a rich family that could place him in upper management. He only had his effort, and apparently, that simply wasn't worth anything in a corrupt world. It wasn't the system's fault, not even just Brenda or Derek's. It was his... his for the simple fact of having been born expendable. For being normal, predictable, and replaceable.
" That's how it is, Kyle, the world is a piece of shit" he said to himself as he pushed open the door to his building. The elevator wasn't working, as always, so he climbed the stairs. He reached his apartment, opened the door, turned on the lights that flickered for a moment before stabilizing. When they did, you could see the apartment he lived in. It was a small one, a 30-square-meter cube with an integrated kitchen and a bathroom—the basics for one person. Kyle collapsed into the chair in front of his personal computer, put his hands to his head, and thought about looking for another job again; those bills weren't going to pay themselves. But the mere idea of finding another job where he'd be mistreated again didn't appeal to him much.
He sat there staring at the ceiling for a while when suddenly he started laughing uncontrollably. "Hahaha, update the resume for the umpteenth time? Send hundreds of job applications just to get automatic rejections? Is that the infinite cycle of my fucking existence? Hahaha! What a goddamn miserable life!"
Kyle grabbed a pair of scissors from his desk and held them to his throat. "This doesn't make sense anymore. it's the best option." But just as despair began to take hold of him, a digital sound resonated deep in his consciousness. He checked his phone thinking it came from there, but nothing—no notifications, not on his computer either. It was a sound coming from inside his body, something only he could hear.
[Ding!]
[The Host has met all requirements for activation of the Infinite Ascent System.]
[Ready to become the most powerful king of the world?]
"What?" Kyle blinked, turning his head as if searching for the source projecting that screen. But as strange as it seemed, floating in the air in front of his eyes like a hologram from nowhere, a translucent blue panel simply appeared and displayed white text he hadn't even stopped to read yet.
[*Infinite Ascent System activated. Binding to user complete.*]
[Name: Kyle Daniels]
[Age: 24 years]
[Status: Unemployed]
[Level: 1 (King in Ascent)]
[Base Stats:
Strength 5 | Intelligence 12 | Agility 7 | Charisma 4 | Luck 3]
Kyle read all that, then, he dropped the scissors which hit the floor hard, and at that moment, couldn't help but laugh even more... "Hahaha, I definitely just went crazy now."