A teenage boy sat facing his computer; his eyes were heavy, dark circles underneath them, yet he still relentlessly swept his fingers across the entire keyboard.
He was inside a cyber cafe across the street, and among all the seats, only his was occupied.
After all, he was the only one inside the cyber cafe, and the manager had trusted him with the store's key.
The cafe was out of business during this period.
Since he couldn't have done any of this at the company he worked for, he brought the work here.
They even stole his game without hiding it from him. Before purposely bugging Max's game code, they copied the original.
A game Max called Kingdom Building: Only Gods was copied by his own company, presenting it as if someone else had invented it.
Why? Because they weren't going to pay Max the millions of dollars the game was earning or what it had cost to make.
However, a rival company offered Max a deal after hearing his story; they would pay him, but—
Only if he could give them the game code without any bugs, and before Max's former company launched the game.
As he took a sip of the coffee beside him, he grimaced. "Ah, so bitter," he said. After another sip, he added, "At least it's keeping Maxie awake."
He sighed.
Normally, players would grind by completing missions to gain upgrade points.
It was a kingdom-building game, so upgrade points were the rarest and most efficient resources.
The upgrade points could be used to level one's kingdom; however, during the beta release, a series of players complained about a particular player by the name of "Bloodbane."
Of course, Bloodbane was good, but that wasn't the issue; the reported player was accused of having limitless upgrade points.
With that many points, he could call himself the god who created the world.
Initially, Max believed it to be a hack, but Bloodbane made it clear he was many things—and hacker wasn't one of them.
In a short span of time, several players began reporting themselves as having limitless upgrade points.
"The game's still in beta, so you guys better fix this before release."
"Man, there's nothing interesting about this game anymore. Yeah, the story mode is good, but what's with the upgrade points?"
"Just imagine this shit. How was I ranked against a maxed-out player? I just started, for God's sake, and how the hell is that guy even maxed out? I thought the beta was released last week."
A series of complaints flooded in. The glitches were becoming too much.
So until Max fixed the error, he couldn't sell the game.
If he couldn't sell the game, he would go back to being poor.
The poor, lonely-ass gamer—that was his favorite pronoun.
While his fingers mechanically moved across the keyboard, another bug report notification came in.
The moment Max saw it, he frowned.
BUG ALERT: Player X2R has reported an excessive amount of upgrade points.
"Geez, same report. It's becoming frustrating. If I hadn't trusted Patrick with the game maintenance code, none of this would be happening."
He sighed.
"Then again, complaining about too many upgrade points. They'd rather purchase them than get limitless ones, huh—bloody humans."
For more than twenty minutes, Max continued fixing the bugs. He had to delete certain code, then recreate it before adding it back as a layout to the previous codes.
Time was already 10 p.m., and the streets were becoming quiet.
Max's eyes, which were once on the verge of closing, suddenly widened. "Fuck, I did it," he exclaimed.
DESTABILIZING GLITCH DETECTED: 0.5%....
The moment Max saw that, he leaned back in his chair, his fingers dropping as if they weighed nothing more than toothpicks.
While resting, a cat crawled out from underneath his chair and hopped onto Max.
Meow~
Max smiled. "Hey, buddy, guess what?" he said weakly, with no idea what the cat was meowing about.
That's how conversations work anyway, so Max kept talking. "We're gonna be rich very soon, and I'll get to buy you that expensive cat meal—British Banquet."
As Max said that, the cat seemed happy—or so he thought—because it kept meowing.
Finally understanding what the cat was saying, Max sighed as he pulled out his wallet; only a small amount of cash sat inside.
"I forgot. I left early this morning without feeding you. Sorry, Garfield." Max caressed the white cat's fur, and it meowed in response.
But before standing up, Max glanced at the computer. If he waited for the destabilizing process to finish, it would take more than seven hours.
After all, it was still stuck at 0.9%.
Since it would only take a few minutes to get food from the store adjacent to the cafe, Max decided to take the risk.
Before leaving, he made sure to lock the cafe and take the key with him, Garfield in his arms as well.
"You look so happy today, Maxie." The little store was owned by an old lady who was fond of Max, and her daughter, who never seemed to notice him.
Sometimes, she would sell things to him for free.
"Haha, guess I am, Madam JJ," Max replied jovially, and as if Garfield were greeting her, he meowed too.
"Ah, it's that mischievous cat of yours—Garfield, is it?"
"Haha, I'll have one Royal Canin for Garfield and two chicken fries for me."
Meow~
"Uh? Hey, I work for the money, goddamnit," Max barked back at Garfield.
The old lady and her daughter stared at the two and stayed quiet. While handing over his order, she touched Max's forehead and gently pulled his eyelids down.
"You haven't been getting much sleep, boy."
"Ah, it's nothing, Madam JJ. Thanks for your services."
With that, Max paid and waved goodbye as he crossed back toward his cafe.
"I'm gonna be rich soon. The feeling is so overwhelming," he said with a warm smile while looking at Garfield.
He heard some rustling sounds as he crossed the road. Narrowing his eyes, he looked over—and in that instant, a massive truck sped toward him.
One moment Max was standing; the next, he felt himself floating midair, red liquid escaping his lips as the truck rammed into him.
When his back finally hit the ground, the impact was brutal.
A moment of pain—and then everything blacked out.