The surface world moved on.
To them, Rael Vale was dead. A tragic casualty of an unstable dungeon collapse. The raid report listed his squad as KIA—"no recoverable remains." Not even the guild that dispatched him raised a brow. Just another number in the growing list of fallen F-ranks. No memorial, no obituary. Just silence.
Elysira's neon towers buzzed on. Rael's name flickered once on the mission log... then vanished.
Rael Vale opened his eyes in a void far colder than death.
His body still buzzed from the system's rewrite. The Echo Protocol had fused into his bones like wildfire cooled by cosmic frost. His veins pulsed with corrupted mana—unstable but alive. Each breath he took now wasn't just survival—it was defiance.
[ New Class Acquired: GLITCHBORN. ]
[ Starting Title: Abandoned One. ]
[ Trait Gained: System Immunity - Rank E ]
"...Figures," Rael muttered, reading the console that hovered before his face. "Even when I win, I glitch into an error class."
He stood in the center of a malformed space. Jagged chunks of dungeon stone floated in air like frozen debris from a shattered world. Gravity was...optional.
"Where even am I?"
[ You are within: Sub-Dimensional Error Zone — 'Vestige Echo: 9A' ]
"A future that never lived."
The voice again. That whisper. Older. Broken. His own, and yet... not.
"Your graveyard, Rael. Welcome back."
In a city far above, guilds bickered over territory.
"Another F-rank squad lost in Floor 9A," scoffed Lady Ceriel of the Ivory Blades, watching holographic charts shift above the Guild Tower.
"They were undertrained," said another. "Besides, F-ranks are cheap."
Kael Riven sat in the back of the meeting room, arms folded, brows furrowed.
Cheap? That squad was his friend's.
He hadn't believed it. Not really. Rael was an idiot, sure, but not the kind to die quietly. Something felt wrong.
"You still brooding over Vale?" his squad leader asked later.
Kael didn't respond. He just stared out the tower window, down into the lights of Elysira. Somewhere out there, maybe...
No. He was dead. Right?
Back in the error zone, Rael's HUD blinked.
[ Quest: Assimilate System Override — 0% ]
[ Reward: Full Host Control / Reality Re-Entry ]
[ Penalty for Failure: Permanent Exile. ]
"Well," Rael said, "at least the stakes are casual."
The first step came in a scream.
A beast formed from pixelated bones and code corruption lunged from the shadows. It looked like a dungeon wraith—but fractured, unstable. A Bugspawn.
[ New Monster Identified: Bugspawn Wraith — Rank D ]
No weapon. No health potions. No exit.
Just Rael. And the glitch.
He rolled under its strike. A jagged claw missed his skull by inches. He landed on a floating stone shard and kicked off. Instinct told him to run.
The glitch whispered: "Adapt."
Rael's fingers sparked. Not with magic—but with raw code.
He touched the floating stone.
[ Ability Unlocked: Code Rewrite — Lv.1 ]
[ Trait Gained: Adaptation Field - 12% corruption sync. ]
The stone dissolved into his palm. A shimmering spear erupted from his hand, glitch-textured and unstable.
He smiled.
"Let's see if I can cheat physics."
Rael lunged forward. The spear passed clean through the Bugspawn's data. The monster shrieked, trying to phase out—too late.
[ Kill Confirmed. Sync +4%. ]
Rael panted, standing over the dissolving code. His hand trembled. Not from fear.
From connection.
This place responded to him. Not like a world—but like a broken game begging for a player to finish it.
And he would. Not for vengeance.
But because no one else had.
"I'm coming back," Rael whispered to the glitchscape. "And when I do... you'll remember my name."
The Protocol hummed in approval.
In Elysira, Kael watched old footage from Rael's last mission.
He paused it. Zoomed in.
One frame. One flicker. A spark of light near Rael's chest—just before the collapse.
"...That's not mana," Kael muttered.
He stood abruptly. "I'm going back to Floor 9A."
His squad mate laughed. "You trying to die too?"
Kael grinned.
"Not die. Just check for ghosts."
And somewhere beneath the layers of reality, a ghost was learning how to break the world.
[ Chapter 2 End. ]