Playing games, fighting bosses, grinding until the wee hours of the morning, feeling hungry—what unexpected things might happen if you go out for a late-night snack?
Car accident? Robbery? Or perhaps a romantic encounter?
None of these.
Rosen opened his apartment door, stepped out, and instantly found himself transported to another world.
The instant he crossed the threshold, he felt a wave of dizziness; the surrounding light rippled eerily like water. He lost his balance, stumbled, and was about to fall.
Rosen quickly reached out, instinctively grabbing the doorknob behind him, stabilizing himself before he collapsed.
"What the hell? Was it an earthquake? Wait, something's wrong, the doorknob feels weird!"
The doorknob in his rented apartment was made of polished stainless steel, smooth and cool to the touch, but the one he was holding was wooden,
rough to the touch, and carved with strange patterns.
Looking back, he realized that the door he was leaning against wasn't the dark blue security door of his apartment, but a natural wood door with many antique-style carvings.
The surrounding light had changed. The motion-activated lights in the apartment building's hallway, usually energy-saving bulbs, emitted a stable, bright white light, but now they were a dim, yellowish yellow, flickering and dim.
Following the light, Rosen saw an antique-style desk in the center of the room behind him. On the desk sat a silver candlestick with twelve candles, six of which were lit. Beside the candlestick lay a thick, yellowed book.
The wooden building, the wooden door, the antique-style furniture—it all felt strangely eerie, yet strangely familiar.
"My God, what's going on? I just wanted to go to KFC for some fried chicken!" Rosen stared, dumbfounded.
Just as he was bewildered, something even stranger happened.
Rosen was horrified to discover that his hands were shrinking at a visible rate—no, not just his hands, but his feet and body were shrinking too!
'What the hell is this?! It's inexplicable!' Rosen's eyes nearly popped out of his head.
He did enjoy playing games, but he hadn't neglected his studies. As a top student in the physics department of a prestigious Chinese university, majoring in materials physics, he always considered himself a descendant of Newton, never believing in supernatural tales or supernatural phenomena, and scoffing at any so-called supernatural occurrences. But now, all of this was happening right before his eyes, and Rosen felt his worldview rapidly crumbling.
Then, he noticed his clothes had changed.
Because it was early winter, he had been wearing a dark gray down jacket when he went out, but now it was a strangely styled indigo cotton robe, with a fur vest on his shoulders—a high-quality bearskin vest, thick and dense, but with a retro style, and strangely familiar.
'Familiar, really familiar, I feel like I've seen this vest somewhere before.'
But that wasn't all; something even stranger happened.
Rosen also discovered that a new memory had inexplicably appeared in his mind.
In his memory, he wasn't a top student from a prestigious university in China. His name remained the same, but he had gained a surname; his full name was Rosen Laplace. He was only 14 years old, the only son of Sir Laplace, and lived in the province of Elant in the Duchy of Dren. The Sir's family owned thousands of acres of fertile land, with over 60 tenant farmers. He had lived a life of luxury since childhood, pampered by his parents, getting whatever he wanted—a typical rich young master.
The memory was incredibly vivid, as if Rosen had personally experienced it.
'Elant Province in the Duchy of Dren—isn't that a place name from the game I just played? How could I be in a game world? Is someone playing a trick on me? Or am I dreaming?'
He pinched his cheeks and arms hard, wincing in pain until his arms were almost bruised, but the surrounding environment remained unchanged.
"Not a dream? Could it be that I just stepped through a natural spacetime wormhole when I left the house? While wormholes haven't been observed, they're theoretically possible. As for the physical changes and memories, those could be side effects of the wormhole. If it is a wormhole, then it could be bidirectional."
Thinking this, Rosen opened the door again and backed away, trying to retreat back to his apartment.
Nothing had changed. Behind the door was still a dimly lit room, and outside was still a dimly lit hallway. A pair of horn-shaped oil lamps hung at the corner of the hallway, their tiny flames flickering like eyes watching him. The wooden stairs, the horn lamps, and the deer head decoration on the wall all reminded him that he was still 'dreaming'.
"No, something must be wrong!"
The game he was playing was called *The Hunter*, the latest generation of online games, incredibly popular. In just three months since its launch, it already had over 80 million stable online players.
Just now, Rosen successfully defeated a vampire boss after 49 consecutive attempts. This boss ranked among the top 10 of all known monsters in terms of strength. After defeating the boss, his global player ranking jumped by 100,000 places, earning him a place in the Player Hall of Fame and making him a star player. Countless platforms have offered him opportunities, and earning millions a year is no longer a dream.
The feeling was like drinking a glass of ice water on a sweltering summer day—incredibly refreshing!
However, while the game is exhilarating, Rosen would absolutely never want to actually live in the world of *The Hunt*.
The world of *The Hunt* can be described in eight words: 'monsters, war, plague, famine'; in four words: 'hell on earth'.
For an ordinary person, even a nobleman, living a peaceful and quiet life to old age is an immense luxury.
"I want to go back! I don't want to stay in this godforsaken place! God, please don't play this trick on me! I'm still a baby, I can't take this kind of torture!"