The healer girl—Yue, I assume—just sits there, staring at her hands like they're new.
I'm still kneeling beside her, trying to decide whether this is brilliant design or actual madness, when a horn blasts across the square.
BLARGGGGGG!
It's sharp.
Loud.
A proper game cue.
Finally, I think.
Something familiar.
But no system quest pops up.
No glowing arrows.
No "Help defend the town!" splash text.
Just a blur of movement on the far end of the plaza as half a dozen ragged-looking figures rush in from the alleyways.
Bandits.
I recognize the model.
Starter zone mob pack—meant to scare noobs, not kill them.
Their blades are chipped, their armor's rust-stained, their aggro radius is pathetic.
Normally, they'd scream "Hand over your coin!" in the same fake-gruff voice. Then wait politely while you drew your sword.
Instead, one of them runs straight up to an old man NPC selling fish and slashes him across the stomach.
The cut sprays red.
Real red.
The old man doesn't flinch. Doesn't speak a damage line.
He screams.
A real, guttural, panicked scream.
It's not just sound—it's pain.
It rattles through me.
Yue gasps beside me. Her hands grip her staff.
"I—he's not scripted to—he's not supposed to scream—"
The fish cart collapses as the man falls onto it.
The apples scatter, rolling across the stones. One of them glitches mid-bounce, freezing in the air before dropping again.
Another bandit kicks a child. Not slaps. Kicks.
The child NPC hits a wall, hard. Cracks it.
That's not a low-damage knockback.
I'm already moving before I know what I'm doing.
"Stay here," I snap at Yue as I sprint toward the chaos.
Two of the "bandits" turn toward me.
They don't have aggro markers. No red names. No health bars.
They charge anyway.
The first swings a blade. It whistles past my shoulder.
I duck, pivot, slam my elbow into his ribs. No system-assisted targeting. Just instinct. Muscle memory. Reaction.
The second bandit jabs low. I jump—roll—and sweep his leg out from under him.
He hits the ground, groaning. I look around for something, anything, to use.
A fallen spear.
I grab it, spin, and brace it like I actually know how to fight with one.
But then everything freezes.
Literally.
Bandits mid-strike, fish seller bleeding, players mid-run.
Frozen. Like the pause button got hit.
Except me.
I'm the only one still breathing.
I back up slowly. Even the leaves in the trees are locked in mid-sway.
A new sound hums in the air. Deep. Mechanical.
Something buzzes to life above the rooftops. I turn toward it.
A shape descends.
Metallic. Faceless.
Floating two feet off the ground with jointless limbs and a white-lit core. Smooth chrome from head to foot—no features.
Just a hovering humanoid drone that looks more like an executioner than an admin.
Words scroll across my vision in pale system text:
ADMIN CLEANER DEPLOYED.RESPONSE PRIORITY: LEVEL 2 ANOMALY.SCANNING...
The thing angles its head toward me.
UNRECOGNIZED CODE FRAGMENT.PREPARE FOR DELETION.
And just like that, everything starts moving again—
Except now, it's moving for me.
I run.
The Cleaner hums like a dying server, chasing without footsteps. It doesn't walk. It glides.
Reality bends around it—textures blur and reform behind its motion like it's rewriting the world as it moves.
The first time it fires, I don't even register it. A pulse of light rips past my ear and unmakes the air beside me—literally deletes part of a stone wall like it never existed.
I don't stop to admire the code art.
Down a narrow alley. Over a low fence. My muscles feel too responsive.
Not System-enhanced—just… raw. Like my avatar is reacting at human speed.
No stamina bar. No health bar. No slowdowns.
Just adrenaline. And that thing gaining.
I slap my hand forward and say, "System, open logout!"
No menu. No screen.
I shout it again, louder. "LOGOUT! LOGOUT!"
A pause.
Then the air flickers in front of me—finally, a response.
A glowing frame opens:
[ERROR 500]
LOGOUT FUNCTION TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE
PLEASE CONTACT YOUR ADMINISTRATOR
I stop dead in my tracks. The menu vanishes.
Then I hear it again.
That hum.
Right behind me.
I whip around.
The Cleaner's hand is raised.
Time stutters.
The people in the square—players, NPCs, even the child Yue healed—all strobe like corrupted files. Some flicker out for half a second, then reappear.
Others duplicate.
For a single heartbeat, I see three versions of the same woman turning to run—then two vanish.
A corner of a building collapses, not from damage, but because a section of its code reverses itself. Dust falls up into the roof. A sign flattens and rewinds midair.
Everything is glitching.
Because of me.
I take off again—harder this time.
My foot hits a chunk of cobblestone wrong. I trip, skid. The Cleaner raises its arm again, light surging into its palm.
Panic spikes in my throat.
And that's when everything slows down.
Not just the Cleaner.
Not just the world.
Me, too.
I feel the lag.
No—I cause the lag.
I see the trajectory. The blast. The broken ground. My falling posture. The rock to my left—
I grab the stone mid-fall, yank my body with it, and twist.
The ground ripples beneath me like liquid data.
Then reality shatters under my feet.
It's like gravity loses interest.
I fly upward—not like a jump, but a snap.
The air flickers as my avatar yanks free from the frame rate.
The blast misses by inches, obliterating a merchant stall below. The particles don't even explode right—they stretch, freeze, corrupt.
I land two rooftops away, tumbling in a roll that should've broken a leg. But no fall damage pings.
There's no damage system running at all.
I breathe hard, crouched low behind a spire.
Below me, the Cleaner scans the plaza. My path is gone. I rewrote the scene.
I just broke a system-locked encounter.
And I didn't press a single skill key.