The trail was quiet as Ji-hoon guided Dusty down the ridge. The morning sun filtered through tall trees, casting long shadows over the dirt path. He checked his system one more time—still no logout, no messages, no sign of any players. Only stats and menus that might as well be mocking him.
At least the delivery had gone smoothly. He had some silver now. A reputation point. A taste of progress. Maybe if he kept doing jobs for the Trader's Camp, he could piece together the truth—and survive long enough to figure out how to escape.
Dusty huffed beneath him, tail swishing.
"Almost there, girl," Ji-hoon murmured. "No surprises, please."
But the wind shifted.
And the world around him changed.
It started subtly.
The birds stopped chirping.
Not in a sudden silence—but like a sound fading behind a closed door. Ji-hoon didn't notice at first. It wasn't until the stillness grew thick, like a blanket wrapped too tight around his head, that he realized how wrong the air had become.
Dusty slowed on her own, ears twitching nervously.
Then came the flicker.
The sunlight dimmed—not from clouds, but like someone had lowered the brightness on reality. The blue sky above turned a pale, sickly gray. For a moment, Ji-hoon thought his headset was failing.
He blinked.
The sky twitched.
A jagged black line zipped across it, like a tear in a screen. It lasted half a second, then vanished. The sky returned to normal.
Ji-hoon stopped Dusty.
"…The hell was that?"
A system alert flashed in the corner of his vision.
[Environmental Instability Detected – Terrain Unstable]
[Warning: Zone Anomaly Forming]
[Distance from Safe Zone: 2.1 km]
He'd never seen that message before. It wasn't in the tutorial. Not in the guides. Gunslinger Graveyard wasn't supposed to have dynamic anomalies—or at least, not like this.
Ji-hoon turned in the saddle, scanning the woods. The trees looked warped, like their branches had bent away from something invisible. Leaves floated strangely, drifting slower than they should've, almost as if time had dulled.
Dusty shifted under him again. Ji-hoon could feel her muscles tensing.
"I don't like this either," he whispered.
He started riding again, faster now, hoping to reach open ground.
But then he heard it.
Not a monster.
Not infected.
Not footsteps or growls or groans.
It was… a whisper.
Not in his ears.
In his system UI.
Just faint enough to question whether it was real.
"You don't belong here…"
Ji-hoon stopped cold.
"What…?"
He tried to bring up his status screen. It lagged.
Then glitched.
His name—Klein Arkwood—flickered between lines of static. His stats spiked randomly, jumping from zero to nine and back.
[ERROR: Data Conflict Detected]
[Source: External Interference]
[Recommendation: Seek Safe Zone Immediately]
Dusty reared slightly, eyes wide, nostrils flaring. Ji-hoon felt the tension spike in his chest.
"Let's go," he whispered, pressing his heels into her side.
They rode hard, cutting through the trees. Bushes slapped against his legs. Branches broke under Dusty's hooves. The forest began to shift again—trees too close together, shadows moving the wrong way. It was like the path was… rewriting itself.
Ji-hoon gritted his teeth and focused ahead.
Finally, they broke through the woods into a stretch of dry fields. Ji-hoon pulled Dusty to a stop. Sweat ran down his back despite the cool wind. He turned and looked behind him.
The forest was quiet again.
Normal.
The sun was back.
The trees no longer twisted.
No glitches.
No static.
Just the soft rustle of grass.
He checked his system.
Back to normal too.
No anomaly warning. No errors. Just his base stats and the weight of unease.
"What the hell was that…?"
He opened his mission log. The delivery task was still complete. He was still on track. Everything was back the way it should be.
But Ji-hoon knew something was wrong.
He had been playing this game for years before the incident. He knew the mechanics. The triggers. The designs. Nothing like that had ever existed.
A rogue event?
A bug?
Or something else?
He didn't want to think about it.
All he could do now was ride.
Dusty trotted more slowly now, ears flicking at every noise. Ji-hoon kept one hand on her neck, trying to calm her. He didn't know what he'd just passed through. But it had followed no code. No rhythm. No logic.
And it had whispered to him.
Not like a message from the game.
Like something alive.
He reached the old stone bridge that marked the final stretch back to the Trader's Camp. Ji-hoon stopped and looked at the sky again. Clear. Blue. Peaceful.
But something deep in his gut told him this world wasn't just breaking.
It was waking up.