Haaaaaah! Huu! Haaaaaah! Huu! Haaaaaah! Huu!
The ragged gasps tore from Jasper's throat like sandpaper against raw flesh, each breath a desperate struggle that sent sharp spikes of pain through his bruised ribs.
"Where am I?" His voice cracked and echoed strangely in the suffocating darkness, bouncing off unseen walls with an eerie doubling effect that made his skin crawl.
The void pressed against him like a living thing, thick and impenetrable. Not even the faintest glimmer of light penetrated the absolute blackness that swallowed everything beyond his trembling fingertips. The air tasted stale and metallic, with an underlying mustiness that spoke of centuries undisturbed. Jasper's legs wobbled beneath him as he struggled to his feet, his muscles screaming from the violent fall through the earthquake's maw.
Each tentative step forward was a leap of faith. His boots scraped against rough stone, the sound unnaturally loud in the oppressive silence. He slid his feet carefully along the ground, testing each surface before committing his weight, terrified that another yawning chasm might open beneath him. The cold seeped through his worn clothing, raising goosebumps along his arms and sending involuntary shivers down his spine.
"How much more can my life be ruined?" The words spilled out in a bitter torrent, his voice breaking with accumulated pain. "My face is disfigured—twisted into something that makes children cry and adults shake in fear. Since childhood, I've endured fists and cruel words, shadows that never left me. I gave my inheritance with my own hands to escape being assassinated .Then, I was cast out, kicked far from home like refuse." His fists clenched until his knuckles went white. "I got bullied again in the mercenary guild because of my weak body, because I'm nothing more than a scarecrow pretending to be a warrior. I fell into this cursed rift after experiencing an earthquake, and now I'm completely living in the dark like some underground worm." His voice dropped to a whisper thick with desperation. "I just hope that this place is really so dark, not that I've turned blind."
The moment his final word faded into silence, the world exploded into brilliance.
Light burst forth from every direction with the fury of a miniature sun, so intense that Jasper's eyes slammed shut involuntarily. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he pressed his palms against his eyelids, seeing nothing but burning white even through closed lids. The sudden transition from complete darkness to overwhelming radiance sent waves of nausea rolling through his stomach.
Gradually, as his vision adjusted and the spots dancing behind his eyelids faded, he dared to crack his eyes open. What he saw defied all logic and reason.
"What are those fireballs in the walls?" Jasper's voice was barely above a whisper, filled with awe and confusion.
Dozens of perfect spheres were embedded in the smooth stone walls, each one glowing with a steady light that had no earthly explanation. There was no fluctuation in their radiance—no flicker like firelight. The walls themselves were unlike anything he'd ever seen—too smooth for natural stone, too perfect for human craftsmanship.
Jasper extended his trembling hand toward the nearest orb, approaching it with the caution of someone expecting to be burned alive. The air around it was quite normal, nothing like heat waves that emerge from the fire lamp.
His fingertips made contact with the sphere's surface, and he gasped. It felt like touching polished glass, perfectly smooth and slightly warm to the touch, but there was something more—a subtle vibration, as if energy coursed through it like blood through veins.
"No, this is not fire! But how can light come from this ball-shaped glass with no fire in it?" He pulled his hand back, staring at his fingertips as if expecting them to be transformed by the contact.
Fascination overrode fear as he began to move deeper into the corridor. His footsteps echoed with a hollow ring that spoke of vast spaces hidden in the darkness beyond the light's reach. The air grew cooler as he walked, carrying with it scents he couldn't identify.
"Is this an ancient civilization's dungeon?" The question hung in the air unanswered, but the architectural marvels around him seemed to whisper of knowledge lost to time.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
His footsteps provided the only rhythm in the eternal silence, a lonely metronome marking his passage through this mind blowing place.
At the corridor's end, the light began to fade, but something new caught his attention—a soft, ethereal glow that seemed to emanate from within rather than without. There, rising from the floor stood a pedestal unlike anything in his experience.
The structure defied easy description. It appeared to be crafted from some dark metal that drank in the surrounding light yet somehow glowed with its own inner radiance. Intricate lines of luminescent light blue and light green traced elaborate patterns across its surface, pulsing with a rhythm that matched his own heartbeat. As he drew closer, these lines grew brighter, as if responding to his very presence.
"Is this iron?" But even as he asked, he knew it wasn't. This metal sang with power, hummed with energy that made the air around it taste of copper and electricity.
The pedestal rose to waist height, its top perfectly flat and bearing a single object that made Jasper's breath catch in his throat.
"Hmm? What is this? An armbrace?"
The piece of armor was crafted from the same impossible metal as the pedestal, but where the base was dark and mysterious, this gleamed like captured starlight. Intricate engravings covered every inch of its surface—symbols and patterns that seemed to shift and dance when he wasn't looking directly at them. It was beautiful in a way that made his chest tight with longing, elegant and powerful in equal measure.
With trembling hands, he lifted the armbrace from its resting place. It was surprisingly light, despite its substantial appearance, and warm to the touch as if it had been resting near a fire. The metal felt alive beneath his fingers, thrumming with barely contained energy.
After several moments of careful examination, turning it over and over in his hands, searching for any sign of danger or trap, he made his decision. The armbrace slid over his forearm easily, far too large for his thin wrist and bony arm.
But then, in the space between one heartbeat and the next, everything changed.
The metal flowed like liquid silver, contracting and reshaping itself with impossible precision until it fit his arm as if it had been forged specifically for him. The sensation was indescribable—not painful, but intensely intimate, as if the armbrace was learning the very shape of his bones.
"Wow, what is this? How could this armbrace adjust to my arm?"
Before the wonder could fully settle in his mind, he felt it—a sharp, piercing sensation like a needle sliding between his ribs. But this came from within the armbrace itself, something thin and impossibly fine penetrating the skin of his forearm. Panic exploded through his system as he clawed at the metal with his free hand, trying desperately to tear it away from his flesh.
"Do I need to cut my aaaaarr—!"
The floor beneath his feet simply ceased to exist.
One moment he was standing on solid stone, the next he was plummeting through empty air, the shock stealing his words and replacing them with a scream that echoed off unseen walls. He slammed into a smooth surface that angled downward, his body immediately beginning to slide with terrifying speed through what felt like a massive tube or chute.
The slide was a nightmare of twists and turns, his body bouncing off the smooth walls as he careened through the darkness. Sometimes the chute dropped at stomach-lurching angles that made him feel like he was falling straight into the earth's molten core. Other times it leveled out, letting him slide horizontally at speeds that turned the air into a rushing wind that tore at his clothes.
The walls of the tube were as dark as the moonless night except there were no stars, sliding with high speed. He could hear his own screams mixing with the whistle of air rushing past his ears, creating a symphony of terror that seemed to go on forever.
After what felt like an eternity of sliding through the bowels of the earth, a light appeared ahead—natural light, the warm golden glow of actual sunlight filtering through what looked like an opening in the tube.
The exit rushed toward him with alarming speed, and suddenly he was airborne again, launched from the mouth of the chute like a stone from a slingshot. For a brief, impossible moment, he flew through open air, the world spinning around him in a blur of blue sky and green forest canopy.
Then he hit the water.
The river's embrace was shockingly cold, driving the air from his lungs in an explosive burst of bubbles that raced toward the surface far above. The current was stronger than he'd expected, immediately trying to drag him downstream toward unknown depths. His waterlogged clothes became lead weights, pulling him deeper into the murky green depths where strange shadows moved with predatory grace.
Panic lent strength to his exhausted limbs as he fought his way upward, his lungs burning for air. When he finally broke the surface, the gasp that tore from his throat was the sweetest sound he'd ever heard.
"Monsters," he gasped between desperate strokes toward shore. "Water monsters are worse than land ones—this is their domain, not mine."
Every splash behind him sent new waves of terror down his spine, but by some miracle, nothing emerged from the depths to drag him back down. When his boots finally found purchase on the muddy riverbank, he hauled himself from the water with strength born of pure desperation.
The solid earth beneath his trembling body felt like salvation itself. He lay there for long moments, his chest heaving, water streaming from his soaked clothes to form puddles in the rich forest loam. The smell of damp earth and growing things filled his nostrils, so different from the sterile air of the underground passages.
He knelt and kissed the ground underfoot, grateful for its steadfast support. Then, he stripped off his clothes, hung them on a tree branch, and basked with it in the warm stream of sunlight.
"What now? How can I get back to the guild? I don't know this area."
The forest around him was alive with the sounds of birds and rustling leaves, so different from the dead silence below. Shafts of golden sunlight slanted through the canopy above, creating a cathedral of green and gold that should have been beautiful if not for his desperate circumstances.
Lost in his spiraling thoughts of despair and confusion, a voice emerged from his very arm, clear and cheerful:
Welcome to the world of pixels—the world of the RPG Mode System, dear user!
The voice was that of a young woman, gentle and calm. Yet that didn't stop Jasper from leaping up so fast he nearly cramped, his eyes wide with terror as he stared at the armbrace now fused to his flesh.
"What is this?" His voice cracked with fear, and he could feel his heart hammering against his ribs like a caged bird.
"What is going on here?" The words came out as barely more than a whisper.
For clarification, I won't be answering your questions, dear user. However, I'll offer occasional tips. Now, first—put on these lenses.
A gap opened in the armbrace, revealing two circular objects Jasper couldn't identify. Though the accompanying hologram demonstrated proper placement, he still fumbled with the unfamiliar devices, struggling to position them over his eyes despite his instinctive compliance.
Say 'Power On,' and a screen will appear before you with a keyboard to control your character. Say 'Power Off,' and it vanishes. If you say 'Map,' your location will display, guiding you out of the forest should you get lost. Have fun, dear user. May you achieve all you desire.
The voice faded away like an echo in a deep cave, leaving Jasper alone with his confusion and a thousand unanswered questions that buzzed in his mind like angry wasps.
Before he could react further, the air in front of him shimmered and solidified into something that defied all logic—a translucent screen hovering in mid-air, showing a tiny figure made of colored squares moving through a miniature world that looked like a child's drawing come to life.
He reached out with a shaking hand to touch this impossible apparition, but his fingers passed through it as if it were made of smoke and dreams. The sensation was deeply unsettling.
"Am I dreaming?"
Sigh!
Time was a luxury he couldn't afford. Night would fall eventually, and these woods were no place for someone as weak as him to be caught in the darkness. Swallowing his bewilderment, he pushed himself to his feet and spoke the magic word:
"Map."
The world transformed before his eyes. A detailed chart of the surrounding forest materialized in the air, complete with topographical features, water sources, and most importantly, a pulsing red dot that marked his exact position. To one side, glowing words appeared: "Zoom in" and "Zoom out."
"What does 'zoom' mean? Shall I try?" Curiosity flickered in his eyes, momentarily overriding his fear.
"Zoom in!"
The map rushed toward him, or perhaps he rushed toward it—the sensation was dizzying. Suddenly he could see individual trees, rocks, and the river. The detail was incredible, far beyond anything any human cartographer could have achieved.
"So that's what it does, huh?"
"Zoom out!"
The view pulled back to its original scale, showing him the broader layout of the forest and surrounding lands.
"Zoom out!"
Now he could see for miles in every direction. The forest was revealed to be just one part of a vast landscape, with cities, roads, and other features clearly marked. A path out of his current predicament became obvious—if he could avoid the dangers that surely lurked between here and safety.
"Now it's clear where I should go to leave this forest. The problem now is the monsters. If only I could detect them with this map."
He spent precious minutes experimenting with the mystical interface, hoping to discover some way to spot threats before they spotted him. But life, as always, refused to make things easy for him. The map showed terrain and landmarks, but no moving creatures.
Still, knowing the way out was more than he'd had moments before. He set off through the forest, moving as silently as his waterlogged boots would allow. Every step squelched softly against the forest floor, and he winced at each sound, certain it would draw unwanted attention.
The forest around him was a living thing, full of rustling leaves, distant animal calls, and the constant whisper of wind through the canopy. Shafts of golden sunlight painted everything in warm amber tones, but shadows lurked between the trees where anything might be hiding.
Jasper's weakness was legendary even among the lowest ranks of mercenaries. A slime—the weakest monster known to exist—could defeat him in single combat. But what he lacked in strength, he made up for in speed and an almost supernatural ability to avoid trouble. It was the only reason he'd survived longer than other mercenaries of his pathetic caliber.
He was labeled the Ultimate F-Class Mercenary—a title that followed him like a curse wherever he went.
Kehk! Kehk! Kehk! Kehk!
The sound froze his blood instantly—the distinctive, malicious laughter of goblins. The creatures were known for their cruelty, their love of tormenting weaker beings before finishing them off. Jasper dropped to his hands and knees, crawling behind a thick cluster of bushes that reeked of damp earth and rotting leaves.
Through the gaps in the foliage, he could see them—a pack of six goblins moving through the forest with the casual confidence of apex predators. Their skin was the color of moldy cheese, stretched over wiry frames. Crude weapons hung from their belts, and their yellow eyes darted constantly, searching for prey or trouble.
They passed within twenty feet of his hiding spot, close enough that he could smell their rank odor—a mixture of unwashed bodies, rotten meat, and something else that made his stomach turn. He held his breath until his lungs burned, not daring to make the slightest sound.
When they finally moved out of sight, he released his breath in a long, shuddering sigh.
Kehk?!
The sound came from directly behind him, so close he could feel breath on the back of his neck.
"Yeah, I'll kehk them all if possible. If only I was strong enough to kill them. Sadly, even with this great sneak attack opportunity, I can't kill them…" The words tumbled out before he could stop them, his mind still focused on the departing group. "Huh? Wait a second."
Reality crashed down on him as he turned to find a single goblin crouched just arm's length away, its yellow eyes wide with surprise and malicious glee. The creature's mouth was already opening to call out to its companions.
Desperation drove Jasper's actions. His hand closed around a fistful of damp earth and rotting leaves, and he hurled it directly into the goblin's face with all the strength fear could provide. The creature stumbled backward, clawing at its eyes and making disgusted spitting sounds.
Jasper ran.
He crashed through the underbrush like a wild animal, branches tearing at his clothes and leaving scratches on his exposed skin. Behind him, the goblin's enraged shriek cut through the forest air, followed immediately by answering calls from its companions. The hunt was on.
But Jasper had one advantage—pure, desperate speed born of a lifetime of running from threats he couldn't fight. His legs pumped like pistons, carrying him over fallen logs and around massive tree trunks with the efficiency of long practice. The goblins' cries grew fainter behind him, unable to match his panicked sprint through terrain he was already learning to navigate.
Haaaaaah! Huu! Haaaaaah! Huu! Haaaaaah! Huu!
His lungs felt like they were filled with liquid fire, each breath a struggle that sent shooting pains through his chest. But he didn't stop running until the forest gave way to open ground and the blessed sight of civilization.
He collapsed to his knees on the hard-packed earth of a road, his vision swimming with exhaustion. Only then did he realize he'd stumbled into the path of an armed group—a well-equipped mercenary party that looked like they could buy and sell him ten times over.
"Kyaaaaa! A goblin!"
The sharp female voice cut through his exhaustion like a blade. He spun around in terror, certain that one of the creatures had somehow caught up to him despite his desperate flight.
"Stop yelling! You nearly got me paralyzed with your voice." The group's leader stepped forward—a man whose expensive armor and confident bearing marked him as someone accustomed to command. "He is not a goblin; he is worse than them in appearance and in strength. Open your ears clearly—this one here is the Ultimate F-Class Mercenary."
The man's smirk was cruel and practiced, the expression of someone who enjoyed grinding others beneath his heel.
"How can someone be this ugly and scary," the well-dressed woman added, her voice dripping with the kind of disgust usually reserved for something found on the bottom of one's shoe.
'So she was referring to me when she said a goblin. That's a relief—at least I'm safe now,' Jasper thought, though the words stung like physical blows. He was used to such reactions, but they never stopped hurting.
He struggled to his feet on unsteady legs, brushing dirt and leaves from his soaked and torn clothing. Without a word, he began the long walk back to the mercenary guild, dreading what awaited him there.
The guild hall was its usual symphony of overlapping voices—laughter, complaints, boasts, and arguments all blending into a wall of sound that hit him like a physical force when he pushed through the heavy wooden doors. But as always, his entrance brought a momentary hush, a brief silence that spoke volumes about his reputation.
They all knew who he was. The Ultimate F-Class Mercenary, the man so weak that even herb-gathering missions were almost beyond his capabilities. His hooded cloak couldn't hide the truth of what lay beneath, and the mercenaries' expressions ranged from pity to disgust to cruel amusement.
The receptionist's desk loomed before him like a judge's bench. The man behind it was a mountain of muscle and scars, with several teeth missing and a perpetual sneer that suggested he enjoyed his authority over the guild's weakest members.
Jasper returned the mission's parchment, explaining that he couldn't retrieve the herbs due to an accident.
"Even gathering some weeds is a hard mission for you," the receptionist said, shaking his head, his voice carrying clearly through the hall and drawing chuckles from nearby mercenaries. "Not like I expected anything from you. If it weren't for missions that everyone avoided, I would have revoked your license long ago."
Jasper bit back his response, knowing that any protest would only make things worse.
Sigh!
"No missions for you for the next week."
The punishment hit him like a slap in the cheek. A week without income meant a week without food, without even the meager shelter of the stable he called home. But arguing would only extend the sentence, and he couldn't afford that luxury.
"No complaining, huh? Tsk, what a joy killer."
The receptionist's disappointment at being denied the entertainment of watching Jasper grovel was palpable. But Jasper had learned long ago that sometimes the only victory available was denying his tormentors the satisfaction they sought.
He left the guild in silence, making his way through streets that seemed to grow darker with each step. The stable that served as his home was a far cry from the inn rooms other mercenaries enjoyed, but it was dry and provided some protection from the night's cold. The straw was clean enough, and the horses' presence provided a small measure of warmth.
Lying back on his makeshift bed, surrounded by the gentle sounds of the animals settling in for the night, he stared up at the rough wooden beams and spoke two words that would change everything:
"Power on."
The screen materialized instantly, hovering in the air above him with the single word "START" glowing in the center.
"Start," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
The display went black for a moment, then exploded into color and movement. A tiny figure appeared on the screen, made of individual colored squares like a mosaic come to life. Below it, text appeared:
CHOOSE YOUR NAME________
"Jasper?" he said hesitantly, unsure if this strange magic would accept his own name.
The moment he spoke, the character on screen transformed, taking on details that made it unmistakably his own. The scene around the figure expanded, revealing a pixelated city that seemed to breathe with its own digital life.
Text scrolled across the bottom of the screen, providing context for this impossible world:
Zoliland's royal capital, Serenith—a place known for being the home of beautiful people, at least from the outside. However, its citizens' true behavior is not included in the definition of beauty. They are materialistic, loving handsome faces and wealth. Let's not forget that they are racist and don't like strangers.
Jasper! I wish you good luck! There is a lot to discover in the game—things that will help you in your journey.
Last thing before starting the game—let's check your stats.
The armbrace around his arm suddenly tightened, not painfully but with definite purpose. A beam of light emerged from its surface, scanning his entire body with a warmth that penetrated to his very bones. The sensation was oddly intimate, as if the device was reading not just his physical form but his very essence.
When the light faded, new text appeared:
Stats:
Strength: 1 (every 5 points in strength will add 1 point to vitality)
Vitality: 2 (every 5 points in vitality will add 0.5 point to strength)
Agility: 9
Stamina: 2 (every 5 points in vitality or Strength will add 0.5 point to strength)
Dexterity: Depends on your average level of skills.
Dear user…
Your stats are only good for fleeing, dear user. Let me be honest: never fight a monster head-on in real life. But as a favor, I'll boost your in-game stats to average adolescent levels—just so your character won't be utterly hopeless.
Sigh!
"Even this armbrace is looking down on me now," Jasper muttered, though he felt a twisted sort of gratitude that at least the magical device was being honest about his pathetic state.
The stats updated themselves before his eyes:
Stats:
Strength: 5.5 (every 5 points in strength will add 1 point to vitality)
Vitality: 6 (every 5 points in vitality will add 0.5 point to strength)
Agility: 9
Stamina: 5 (every 5 points in vitality or Strength will add 0.5 point to strength)
Dexterity: Depends on your average level of skills.
"Wow, no wonder I'm being bullied wherever I go. Fortunately, I'm good at running."
Your character is now slightly above average - I kept your Agility at 9 while boosting your other stats. Don't thank me too much, dear user.
"Tsk tsk,would it kill you to be a bit humble?" Jasper spat.
The text faded, leaving only his character standing alone in the pixelated town. Control keys appeared on the armbrace's surface, and he began to experiment with them, watching his character move through this strange new world with movements that felt oddly natural despite their digital nature.
He opened the stats window again, then navigated to the skills section, which was disappointingly empty. His character's inventory, however, contained treasures beyond his real-world means: 5 gold coins and a low-quality sword.
"Wow, even this character here has more gold than me. Sigh! If only I could get back to my hometown."
The irony wasn't lost on him—in this fantasy world, his digital self was already wealthier than he'd ever been in reality.
He began exploring the virtual city, approaching every non-player character he encountered. Some ignored him completely, while others offered brief conversations that revealed fragments of this world's lore and culture. The level of detail was astounding—each character seemed to have their own personality, their own concerns and goals.
As he wandered through the digital streets, he noticed a familiar sight: a building with "Mercenary Guild" emblazoned on its signboard. Without hesitation, he guided his character inside.
The receptionist couldn't have been more different from his real-world counterpart. This one smiled warmly and spoke with genuine courtesy:
"How may I help you, dear sir?"
Ptui!
"If only receptionists were this welcoming," Jasper muttered, spitting to clear the bitter taste of memory from his mouth.
Four options appeared beside the conversation:
[Register as a mercenary]
[Request a mission]
[Talk]
[Leave]
He selected "Register as a mercenary" without hesitation.
Registration mission: Collect 3 HoneyBlooms or kill a level 1 monster.
The familiar weight of herb-gathering missions made his stomach turn, even in this digital realm. He'd spent a year and a half of his life collecting plants for people who treated him like dirt. Here, in this magical game world where anything seemed possible, why should he settle for the same mundane tasks?
"Time to try something different," he said aloud, guiding his character out of the city.
He'd never been able to face monsters in real life—his pathetic stats made even a slime a deadly opponent. But here, with magically enhanced abilities and nothing real at stake, perhaps he could finally experience what it felt like to be a true warrior.
The environment beyond the city was rendered in the same charming pixel art style, with rolling hills, scattered trees, and winding paths that seemed to invite exploration. He wandered for several minutes, searching for some sign of the monsters that must surely populate this world.
Then, as his character pushed through a cluster of bushes, the screen began to flash. The peaceful countryside scene dissolved, replaced by something entirely different—a battle screen that made his heart race with anticipation.
There, facing his tiny pixelated character, stood his first true opponent: a level 1 slime.
Jasper – Lv. 1
HP: 600/600 | SP: 500/500
[Attack]
[Guard]
[Items]
[Flee]
VS
Slime – Lv. 1
HP: 130/130