The thing about video games is that when a monster attacks, there's usually dramatic music. You get a red flash on the screen. Maybe a "Warning!" sign.
Real life, unfortunately, didn't have sound mixing.
The only warning I got was the smell—like wet dog and spoiled milk—before a green blur launched itself out of the darkness.
"Incoming!" someone screamed.
The goblins poured out of the tunnel like a wave of vomit. They weren't the cute, cartoonish things from World of Warcraft. These things were the size of ten-year-old children, but with skin that looked like leather left in the sun too long and teeth that were definitely too big for their mouths.
"Hold the line!" the security guard shouted. His name was Miller, I think. He was glowing with that faint red [Warrior] aura. "Protect the squishies!"
Squishies. That was me.
I scrambled backward, tripping over a loose paving stone. My heart was hammering so hard I thought it might crack a rib.
Miller stepped forward and swung his rusty iron sword. It connected with a wet thwack against the first goblin's skull. Black blood sprayed across the floor.
"Oh god," Dave, the [Merchant], gagged, hiding behind a pillar. "I'm going to throw up. Can I trade? I want to trade my class! I don't want to be here!"
"Shut up, Dave!" I yelled, scrambling to my feet.
I looked around frantically for a weapon. A rock. A stick. Anything.
Nothing. Just damp stone and moss.
The System, I thought. I have a class. I have... Admin access?
I waved my hand in front of my face, feeling like an idiot. "Menu! Status! Open Console!"
A glitchy, flickering window popped into existence. It didn't look like the sleek blue interfaces the others had. It looked like a command prompt from the 1990s. Black background, neon green text, and a blinking cursor.
[USER: JAX] [CLASS: REALITY DEBUGGER (ADMIN TIER 0)] [HP: 10/10] [MP: ERROR] [STR: 1] [AGI: 1] [INT: 1]
[ACTIVE SKILLS:] 1. [SOURCE VIEW (lv.1)] 2. [EDIT ATTRIBUTE (LOCKED)] 3. [DELETE (LOCKED)]
"One Strength?" I stared at the screen. "I have the physical capabilities of a toddler?"
SCREEE!
I didn't have time to complain to the devs. A goblin had broken through Miller's defensive line. It locked eyes with me. It held a jagged shank made of sharpened bone.
It didn't care that I was an Admin. It just saw fresh meat.
"Crap, crap, crap!"
The goblin lunged.
I instinctively threw my hands up. "Pause! Pause Game!"
Obviously, the goblin did not pause. It leaped, the bone dagger aiming for my throat.
Time seemed to slow down. Not because I had a skill, but because my brain was pumping enough adrenaline to kill a horse. As the goblin flew through the air, I saw something change.
My eyes... shifted.
The world suddenly lost its texture. The damp stone walls turned into gray wireframes. The goblin wasn't a monster anymore; it was a collection of polygons and hitboxes. A red wireframe mesh surrounded its body.
[TARGET DETECTED: GOBLIN_LVL1_MOB_042]
Text scrolled rapidly across my vision, overlaying the monster.
> Entity.State = ATTACK_JUMP > Velocity = 4.5 m/s > Weapon.Damage = 5-8
I saw a cursor. A literal mouse cursor, floating in my vision, controlled by my eyes.
I stared at the goblin's head. The cursor snapped to it.
Do something! I screamed in my mind.
I mentally "clicked" on the goblin. A drop-down menu appeared in mid-air, right next to the monster's ear.
[INSPECT] [COPY] [PASTE] [PROPERTIES] [DELETE]
I focused on [DELETE] with everything I had.
[SYSTEM ALERT: ERROR 403. PERMISSION DENIED. ADMIN LEVEL TOO LOW.]
"Are you kidding me?" I shrieked. The goblin was inches away. I could smell its breath.
I couldn't delete it. I couldn't fight it. My Strength was 1. If this thing hit me, I was dead.
I looked at the menu again. The goblin was descending. I had a split second.
[PROPERTIES]
I clicked it.
A messy list of code appeared.
> Name: Goblin > HP: 30/30 > Texture: Skin_Green_01 > Collision: ON > Gravity: ON > AI: Aggressive
Collision.
I knew that word. I tested games. Collision was what stopped you from falling through the floor. It was the physical barrier of an object.
The bone dagger grazed my shirt.
I mentally highlighted Collision: ON and slammed my mind against the [TOGGLE] button.
> CHANGING VARIABLE... > COLLISION: OFF
The goblin slammed into me.
Or, it should have.
Instead, the moment its skin touched my chest, it passed right through me like I was a ghost. A sensation of ice-cold slime washed through my ribs, but there was no impact. No pain.
The goblin's eyes widened in confusion. It fell through my body.
It hit the floor. But because I had turned its collision off, the floor didn't stop it either.
FLOOP.
With a sound like a wet noodle hitting a wall, the goblin simply... vanished. It clipped straight through the stone pavers and fell into the void beneath the map.
I stood there, blinking. I looked down at the floor. The stone was solid. I stomped on it. Solid.
But the goblin was gone.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: ENEMY REMOVED FROM PLAY AREA.] [XP EARNED: 0] [REASON: ENVIRONMENAL KILL / GLITCH EXPLOIT.]
"Zero XP?" I wheezed, checking my body for holes. "I just sent that thing to the backrooms and I get zero XP?"
"Jax!"
Miller, the security guard, ran over, covered in black gore. He had two other goblins dead at his feet. "I saw that! It jumped right at you! Where did it go?"
I looked at Miller. I looked at the spot on the floor where the goblin had noclipped into oblivion.
"I..." I swallowed hard. "I think I dodged."
Miller looked at me skeptically. "You dodged? It looked like it went inside you."
"I have a very high... evasion stat," I lied. "Must be my class. [Rogue] or something."
I couldn't tell them. Not yet. If people found out I could turn off the laws of physics, things would get complicated. And in a survival game, complicated gets you killed.
"Watch out!"
A fireball—a literal ball of fire—whizzed past my ear and incinerated a goblin behind me.
I turned to see Sarah from accounting. She was holding her wooden staff, her eyes glowing blue. She looked terrified, but the fire in her hands was real.
"I leveled up!" she shouted, her voice cracking. "I hit Level 2!"
"Form a circle!" Miller commanded, taking charge. "Mages in the middle! Fighters on the outside! Anyone with a shield, get up front!"
I didn't have a shield. I didn't have magic. I had a command prompt and a headache.
I retreated to the center of the circle with Dave the Merchant and a few others who had non-combat classes.
"This is a nightmare," Dave whimpered, clutching his briefcase like a teddy bear. "I tried to offer them money. They don't want money, Jax. They want kidneys."
"Stay down, Dave," I muttered, my eyes scanning the room.
The [Source View] was still active. The world looked like a wireframe grid to me. I could see the hitboxes of the other players. I could see the durability of Miller's sword dropping with every hit.
And then, I saw something else.
In the corner of the room, where the shadows were deepest, the wireframe mesh was... distorted. The code wasn't flowing smoothly there. It was jagged. Corrupted.
A message hovered over the empty darkness.
[WARNING: TEXTURE FILE CORRUPTED.] [ENTITY DETECTED: LEVEL 5 ALPHA WOLF (HIDDEN)]
"Miller!" I shouted, pointing at the empty corner. "Don't let them flank right! There's something big over there!"
"There's nothing there!" Miller yelled back, parrying a goblin strike. "It's empty!"
"Just trust me!"
As if on cue, the darkness rippled. The "empty" air tore open, and a massive, wolf-like beast with fur made of shadows lunged out of the glitch.
It wasn't a normal spawn. It was a bug in the system. And it was looking right at me.
[BOSS FIGHT INITIATED]
"Oh," I whispered, bringing up my console again. "I hate this game."