Reiji limped down the slope, lungs still full of static. His HUD blinked smugly:
> [Emergency Override – Cooldown: 23h 47m]
Status: Congratulations, you're now a war criminal.
"Cool," he muttered. "Basically a one-button delete enemy.exe. Shame it comes with a 24-hour cool-off. Feels like getting premium gacha currency but only enough to pull once a day."
The forest below wasn't right. Villagers clipped in and out of houses like someone forgot to finish rendering. A dog barked without moving its mouth. The sky? Split-screened—half golden sunset, half dripping black code.
That's when he heard it.
Clang. Roar. Steel on bone.
Reiji followed the noise straight into a clearing—and almost tripped over his jaw.
A lone warrior stood surrounded by corrupted boar-things, tusks glitching into jagged polygons, flesh flickering like an unfinished asset. His silver armor gleamed despite the chaos, his sword wreathed in scripted light.
Reiji knew him.
Not personally. But from the game box.
> Kael Draven.
Protagonist of Elysia: Fatebound. "The Chosen Hero." Poster boy of everything Reiji never trusted in JRPG marketing.
The guy swung his sword, voice booming like surround sound:
"By oath and flame, I will banish this corruption!"
Reiji blinked. "Oh hell. I just walked into the main campaign."
He ducked behind a tree, watching. Kael fought like the AI wasn't half-broken, chaining combos like a speedrunner flexing for YouTube. But the boars didn't fight fair—every time Kael landed a blow, one of them duplicated. Error messages scrolled midair like subtitles for a game crash.
> [ENEMY RESPAWN LOOP DETECTED]
[SOURCE: UNKNOWN CORRUPTION THREAD]
Reiji winced. "Yep. Definitely the Observer's fingerprints."
Kael was holding his own—but barely. His HP bar hovered above his head, flickering in and out. One glitch-boar clipped straight through his guard, sending him sprawling.
Without thinking, Reiji yelled: "HEY, MAIN CHARACTER! ROLL DODGE!"
Kael actually did it. Like the command bypassed his brain and went straight into his input buffer. He rolled just as a tusk stabbed the ground where his chest would've been.
Kael blinked at him, stunned. Then his eyes narrowed.
"…You. You're not supposed to be here."
"Oh, great," Reiji muttered. "Even the NPCs think I'm DLC."
The boars turned on Reiji now, their polygonal jaws snapping. He panicked, reaching for [Emergency Override]—
Only to get the cooldown warning.
> [Ability Unavailable. Please wait 23h 12m.]
"Perfect. Guess I'll just die like a tutorial mob."
But Kael's sword flared again. "Stay behind me, outsider!"
Reiji scoffed. "Yeah, sure. Because letting the anime protagonist save me always ends well." Still, he grabbed a nearby rock and yeeted it at one of the boars. It glitched midair, the rock duplicating into a thousand pebbles before pelting the creature into dust.
Kael froze, eyes wide. "…That… wasn't in the script."
Reiji smirked. "Yeah, well. Neither am I."
Together, they fought. Kael slicing through corrupted flesh with blinding arcs, Reiji hurling improvised glitches like a mad modder with infinite ammo. It was messy. It was brutal. It was fun.
When the last boar dissolved into red static, Kael lowered his blade, panting. His gaze locked onto Reiji, sharp and distrustful.
"You… are not of this world. You carry the mark of corruption."
Reiji sighed. "Look, man, I just spawned here by accident. I didn't even get a character creation screen."
Kael pointed his sword at him, light blazing. "If you are truly an outsider… then you are either salvation—" his tone hardened, "—or the end."
Before Reiji could clap back with something witty, the sky flickered. A massive error message spread across the clouds:
> [WARNING: OBSERVER CONNECTION DETECTED]
[PROTOCOL: INTERFERENCE]
Kael staggered. His HP bar warped into static. His voice distorted.
"No… he's—he's watching—"
And then he froze. Mid-breath. Mid-frame. Like a paused cutscene.
Reiji's stomach dropped. He wasn't alone.
Somewhere in the void above, a single eye opened.
Watching.
Always watching.
---
To be continued…