---
> "You still breathing, rat?"
"Maybe this time we broke his headset too."
"Trash like you doesn't deserve a game like that anyway."
The blows weren't the worst part.
The laughter was.
Yuto Akiyama lay curled up on the cold tiles behind the school's gym hall, his hands clutching the old NeuroDive VR headset like it was worth more than his life. Maybe it was.
Blood trickled from his lip. His stomach ached where someone had kicked him. Again.
As their footsteps finally faded, he waited a minute. Then two. Then pushed himself up slowly, dusting off his hoodie and pulling the shattered strap of his headset back into his torn school bag.
He didn't cry.
He'd run out of tears a long time ago.
---
The apartment was dark when he got home. One room. No kitchen. A flickering bulb. Just a mattress on the floor, a power strip, and the tiny cracked screen of his second-hand phone.
His mother hadn't come home in days.
Yuto sat cross-legged in the silence, plugging his headset into the only working outlet. The charging light blinked uncertainly, like even the device was considering giving up.
> "Don't fail me now."
He glanced at the clock. 8:58 PM.
> Two minutes until launch.
Eclipse Genesis Online — the most hyped virtual reality MMO of the decade. A world with infinite class possibilities, a player-driven system, and full neural sync. A place where the broken rules of reality didn't follow you in.
A place where you could start again.
Even if you didn't matter in the real world.
---
> [Welcome to Eclipse Genesis Online.]
The neural link activated. His mind buzzed. Light poured in through his vision, and the weight of the world—the bruises, the cold, the silence—faded like mist.
---
> Please enter your player name.
He thought for a moment.
Then typed:
> Reven
Short. Forgettable. Just like him.
> Name accepted.
Loading world...
---
Yuto braced himself for a glowing city. A starter village. NPCs with welcome banners.
Instead, he opened his eyes… and stood in silence.
No buildings.
No players.
No warm tutorial voice.
Just… fog.
A dark, broken forest. Trees stripped bare. The sky dull gray. Wind howled through splintered stone ruins like the game itself had forgotten to finish loading.
> "What the hell…?"
---
> Name: Reven
Level: 1
Class: —
Gear: None
Gold: 0
Quests: None
Title: None
There was no map. No quest marker. Just one message:
> "Explore and grow. Your class will emerge through action."
Yuto moved forward cautiously, pushing through bramble and ash. A corrupted beast snarled from the trees—level 1, easy.
He struck with a rusted starter dagger.
The kill felt good. Clean.
He leveled up.
> [Level Up! You have reached Level 2.]
[Analyzing class profile…]
[Error: No compatible class found.]
He blinked.
"...What?"
He ignored it.
Fought more.
Leveled again.
> [Level 3. Error: Class not assigned.]
[Level 4. Error: Class undefined.]
[Retrying classification…]
Other players celebrated in global chat:
> [Player: KuroSoul] became a Dark Blade!
[Player: IceShiver] gained class: Frost Archer!
Reven?
Nothing.
---
Hours passed. He explored. Fought. Survived.
The world kept glitching around the edges—floating rocks, twitching shadows, doors that led to empty blackness.
Like he was walking through a game that didn't finish rendering for him.
At Level 6, a strange message blinked in his peripheral vision:
> [Class Analysis Failed. Classless anomaly detected.]
> [System Note: Consider rerolling to a compatible profile.]
He clenched his fists.
> "No."
No rerolls.
No resets.
He didn't get one in real life, and he wouldn't beg for one now.
---
Somewhere beyond the broken trees, a strange flicker pulsed—like a glitch in the corner of the world.
And through it… something watched.
---
To be continued.
---