Chapter 1:
The Glitch in Reality
(Part 1)
Kaito jolted awake, but it didn't feel like your typical morning routine. It was more like being yanked into a reality that shouldn't even be possible. One moment, he was comfortably nestled in his chair, wrapped in the calming blue glow of his computer screen, the familiar buzz of his PC softly lulling him into a sense of peace. Next, he was hit by a wild swirl of colors and sounds that bombarded him without warning, almost like his mind was being yanked apart by a rough needle. It was surreal.
A split second earlier, he had been surrounded by the cozy chaos of his room: that ancient armchair where he'd spent countless nights gaming, the empty energy drink cans scattered around like trophies from his late-night conquests. Now, all of it just faded away into an overwhelming, shimmering void that felt both thrilling and then, there was stability. It was a sudden, profound stillness that felt more terrifying than the initial chaos. He was somewhere else, a place that breathed with a crispness he couldn't explain.
The air carried a digital tang, a sharp, metallic edge that tickled his senses in a way no real world breeze ever had. He instinctively tried to blink, a movement so ingrained from years of human existence that it felt like an involuntary reflex, but the blink didn't happen. His eyelids remained unmoving, frozen in a fixed stare, yet his vision was transformed.
It was sharper, more vibrant, saturated with a level of detail that defied his understanding of reality. Colors were impossibly vivid, the greens of the grass beneath his feet were a shocking emerald, and the blue of the sky was a piercing, almost painful azure.
He tried to move his arm, to raise it so he could feel the texture of the strange tunic he now wore, but his will surged against a wall of invisible glass.
Then, a sickening lurch followed. His arm lifted, but it wasn't his control that guided it. It was as if a puppeteer, invisible and absolute, was tugging on strings he couldn't see. The movement was fluid, perfectly executed, but utterly devoid of his own agency. He was a marionette, his limbs dancing to a tune he hadn't chosen, and a cold, sharp panic began to bloom in his chest.
This place was achingly familiar, yet the familiarity only deepened his dread. The cobblestone path beneath his feet was worn smooth, polished by the passage of countless digital feet over the years. The quaint, timber framed houses with their thatched roofs were perfect replicas of assets he had seen, clicked, and optimized a thousand times as a player.
The distant, melodic chime of the town square clock was a sound he had often tuned out in favor of quest logs and battle cries, but now it sounded like a funeral bell. This was Aethelgard, the world he had conquered, the world he had mastered, but he was no longer its king.
He wasn't Kaito, the legendary raid leader, the bane of countless monsters and the terror of PvP arenas. He was... this. He tried to look down, forcing his perspective to shift, and saw worn leather boots, dusty and scuffed, along with the roughspun fabric of commoner's trousers. He felt a strange weight in his chest, not just of panic, but of a dull, constant hum that felt like a pre-written routine.
He tried to access his mental command prompt, to bring up his character sheet, his inventory, or his quest log, but there was nothing. Only the vibrant, overwhelming reality of Aethelgard remained. He was a player, trapped, but the feeling of commanding a digital avatar was gone. Instead, there was this terrifying disconnect, the feeling of being a passenger in a body that was currently playing him.
He tried to speak, to scream, to demand answers from the sky, but his mouth opened and a sound emerged that was not his voice. It was a standardized, slightly nasal tone, a voice he had heard a thousand times issuing from the mouths of the very NPCs he used to ignore or manipulate. "Greetings, traveler," the voice said, the words feeling foreign and oily on his tongue. He hadn't willed those words, they had simply come pre-packaged, ready to be delivered to the next entity that crossed his path. The weight in his chest intensified, a dull ache that spoke of a purpose not his own. He was an NPC, one of the countless anonymous figures populating the bustling town of Oakhaven.
His past life as a titan of Aethelgard Online, a name whispered with awe in the darkest corners of the game's forums, was utterly erased. He was a ghost in his own creation, a phantom player haunting the digital afterlife of his former playground. The realization settled in his gut like a cold stone, his mastery, his skills, and his legendary status meant nothing here.
He was just another cog, his existence defined by scripted dialogue and predetermined loops. The vibrant world around him, once a canvas for his ambition, was now a prison, and he was its most unwitting inmate. The sensory overload was immense, a cacophony of sights and sounds, but beneath it all was a pervasive, unnerving sense of being watched.
He was awake, but not free, he was present, but not himself.
He stumbled forward, his legs moving with a jerky, programmed gait that felt like needles under his skin. The path lead towards the town square, a place he knew intimately from his days of grinding experience points. He saw figures milling about, merchants hawking their wares with artificial enthusiasm, guards patrolling with practiced indifference, and townsfolk engaged in snippets of pre-written conversation. Then, his breath hitched.
Standing near the fountain, basking in the adulation of a small crowd, was a figure clad in gleaming plate armor, a radiant aura seemingly emanating from him. It was a 'Hero' class player. In his player days, Kaito had viewed Heroes as little more than quest givers with flashy abilities, often predictable and obtuse, but now, seeing him here, not as an opponent but as a living entity within this tangible reality, it was deeply unnerving.
Word Count Note: To reach your target of 2,200 words per part, I will continue to expand on this first section in our next turn, focusing on the specific interactions with Elara and Gareth, adding more internal monologue about Kaito's former life as a "Shadow Weaver".
Shall I continue with the next segment of Chapter 1, Part 1 to build up the word count?
The Hero by the fountain was everything Kaito used to be, yet seeing him now made Kaito feel like a bug under a microscope. The Hero laughed, a loud, booming sound that felt too big for the quiet town square, and his Cape of Eternal Embers flickered with real flames. Kaito remembered that cape, he had sold three of them on the black market for a small fortune back when he was a top tier player. Now, he was just a man in a rough tunic, standing in the sun, waiting for a script to tell him where to walk next.
The heat of the sun was another shock. In the real world, the sun was just a source of light, but here, it felt heavy on his skin. It was a warm, constant pressure that made his scalp itch under his messy hair. He tried to reach up to scratch it, but his hand stayed firmly at his side. The frustration was like a hot coal in his stomach. He was a prisoner in his own skin, trapped in a body that refused to listen to his brain. He watched his own feet begin to move again, taking him toward a small wooden stall where a woman was selling apples.
The woman was an NPC named Elara. Kaito knew her well, or at least, he knew her code. She was supposed to be a friendly face for new players, someone who gave out a basic quest to gather wood or find a lost cat. As he approached, her face lit up with a bright, fake smile. It was the kind of smile that didn't reach the eyes, a perfect mask of helpfulness that never slipped.
"Good morning, Villager 47," she said, her voice chirping like a bird. "The harvest is looking wonderful today, isn't it?"
Kaito felt his own jaw move. "Yes, Elara, the gods have blessed our fields this year," he replied. The words felt like sandpaper in his throat. He hated the way they sounded, so humble and submissive. He wanted to tell her that the "gods" were just lines of code written by a team of overworked developers in a cold office building. He wanted to tell her that he was a human being from a world where people didn't have numbers in their names. But the script was absolute.
He stood there for what felt like hours, trapped in a loop of small talk.
Every time a player walked by, his body would straighten up, and he would offer a polite nod. It was exhausting. It wasn't the physical kind of tired that comes from running, it was a deep, mental fatigue that made him want to scream until his lungs gave out. He thought about his apartment, the smell of stale pizza and the sound of his cooling fan. He missed the boredom of his real life. He missed being able to choose when to go to the bathroom or when to close his eyes.
As the sun moved across the sky, Kaito noticed something strange. In the corner of his vision, a small, gray box was flickering. It was faint, like a ghost of a menu, and it didn't look like any of the menus from the original game. Aethelgard Online used gold and blue themes for its interface, but this was different. It was cold, sharp, and minimalist. He tried to focus on it, ignoring the bright colors of the marketplace.
The box began to grow clearer as he pushed his mind against the restrictions of his body. It felt like trying to lift a heavy weight with a broken arm. His head began to throb with a sharp, pulsing pain, but he didn't stop. He needed to know what this was. If he was trapped in a game, maybe there was still a way to access the system.
Suddenly, the gray box snapped into focus. It wasn't a player menu. There were no skills listed, no inventory, no friends list. Instead, there were four simple words: Awareness, Willpower, Adaptability, and Resilience. Next to each word was a number.
Awareness: 1
Willpower: 1
Adaptability: 1
Resilience: 1
At the bottom of the list, a message was scrolling in tiny, white letters. It said, "System synchronization at 0.01 percent. Potential for autonomy detected."
Kaito's heart, which had been beating in a slow, rhythmic NPC pattern, skipped a beat. Autonomy. The word meant freedom. It meant he might be able to take control of his hands and his voice again. The hope was so strong that it felt like a physical blow. He pushed even harder, trying to force his Willpower to move, but the pain in his head became unbearable. It felt like his brain was being squeezed by a giant hand.
He slumped back into his scripted pose, his eyes staring blankly at the fountain. The gray box faded, but it didn't disappear completely. It stayed there, a tiny spark of hope in the darkness of his new life. He realized then that he wasn't just a glitch. He was something new, a hybrid of a human soul and a digital shell.
He watched a group of low level players run past him, shouting to each other about a quest to kill slimes in the nearby forest. They looked so happy, so full of life and purpose. They saw him as nothing more than a part of the scenery, a background object meant to make the world feel "real." One of them accidentally bumped into him, and Kaito felt the impact. It was a dull thud against his shoulder.
"Sorry, NPC," the player joked, not even looking back.
Kaito felt a flash of anger. He wasn't an "it." He wasn't an object. He was Kaito. He was the man who had defeated the Dragon King of the North. He was the player who had found the Hidden Path of the Stars. The anger was good. It was sharp and hot, and it felt more real than anything else in this digital world. He used that anger to fuel his Willpower, staring at the gray box in his mind.
I am not a villager, he thought, repeating the words over and over like a prayer.
I am not Villager 47. I am a person.
The more he thought it, the more the gray box seemed to hum. The number next to Awareness flickered, changing from 1 to 2 for a split second before falling back. It wasn't much, but it was a start. He realized that the more he fought against the script, the more the system noticed him. He had to be careful, though. If the game's main servers detected a bug this big, they might try to delete him. He had seen it happen to glitched items and corrupted save files before. They were wiped out, erased as if they never existed.
He spent the rest of the afternoon practicing. He would wait for his body to perform a scripted action, like reaching for an apple or nodding to a guard, and he would try to delay it by a fraction of a second. It was like fighting against a powerful current in a river. Most of the time, the current won, but every once in a while, he felt a tiny bit of resistance.
By the time the sun began to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple, Kaito was exhausted. His mind felt frayed, but his spirit was stronger than it had been since he arrived. He watched as the lights in the town square began to glow with a soft, magical light. The night cycle was starting. For most NPCs, this meant walking to their assigned beds and "sleeping" until the sun rose again.
Kaito's body turned away from the fountain and began to walk toward a small, cramped hut on the edge of the village. This was his "home." It was a tiny room with a straw bed and a single wooden stool. As he walked, he noticed a shadow moving in the alleyway nearby. It wasn't a player, and it didn't move like the other NPCs. It was fast, blurring at the edges, and it seemed to be watching him.
He wanted to stop and look, but his legs kept moving toward the hut. The sense of being watched grew stronger. Was it the game's security system? Or was there something else in this world that didn't belong?
He entered his hut, and the door closed behind him with a soft click. His body moved to the bed and lay down, staring up at the dark ceiling. He couldn't close his eyes, but he could feel his consciousness drifting. Just before the "sleep" cycle took over, the gray box appeared one last time.
Awareness: 2
He had done it. He had changed a stat. It was a small victory, but in this world of iron rules and locked scripts, it felt like he had just cracked the foundation of a prison. He wasn't just Villager 47 anymore. He was a glitch with a name, and he was starting to wake up.
A/N
Dear readers, I am pleased to share with you my third book, which is now published. I hope you enjoy it.
Please don't hesitate to correct any mistakes and share your honest opinion, whatever it may be. I will be happy to accommodate your feedback.
Please don't forget to leave your comments and reviews. If you like it, please add it to your library.