The forest was somehow louder now—pixel-birds chirping dial-up sounds, trees buzzing,and every few minutes, the sun and moon flipped like a light switch.
Ryuu stumbled through broken terrain. Half the tiles didn't connect right, and he had to hop over sudden gaps or floating fragments. One patch of ground had an error message hovering over it:
[Tile not found: forest_chunk_07B]
He stepped around it.
"Okay. First rule of Glitch Isekai: don't trust the floor."
The system chirped mid-step.
[Gacha Wheel: Spontaneous Trigger – Luck Zone Effect]
The wheel appeared again—spun without warning—and dropped…
…a live chicken wearing sunglasses.
The chicken blinked.
Ryuu blinked.
It exploded.
BOOM.
Ryuu hit the ground, covered in feathers and a slight scorch mark on his sleeve.
[Item: Exploding Chicken – Consumed]
[Status: Singed but alive. Congrats!]
He sat up, coughing. "What kind of madman designed this place?"
As if summoned by sarcasm, a soft giggle echoed nearby.
He turned. Floating slightly above a glowing glitch-shrine was… something. A flickering fairy? A sprite?
It hovered closer—small, 8-bit wings buzzing—and introduced itself in a broken voice:
"Wel-wel-WELCOME, User-[Null]. I-I am PATCHIE, your–hzzzt–tutorial sprite!"
Ryuu blinked. "...You're drunk on code, aren't you?"
"Un-un-unlikely! I have been assigned to assist all lucky-luck-chaotic-chaos new arrivals!
You are in the Glitch Zone™. Population: you, me, bugs. Mostly bugs."
"Great."
Patchie floated closer. "First tip: time is unstable. Second tip: don't eat glowing mushrooms. Third tip: all status effects are *stackable.* Even the stupid ones."
"I don't like how you said 'stupid ones.'"
Before Patchie could glitch again, a rustling came from the forest. A mob spawned in—its body low-poly, like a corrupted wolf mashed together with static and random code chunks.
Ryuu stepped back. Patchie shouted:
"GOO-GOOD LUCK! Initiating *Combat Tip* mode:
Press X to doubt yourself!
Press B to scream!"
"SO helpful, thanks!"
The beast lunged.
Ryuu flung his baguette out of panic—it hit the beast, bounced off, and… turned into a temporary shield?
[Weapon-Type: Baguette +1 – Absorbs 1 hit due to 'Freshness' Buff]
He used the moment to duck, roll behind a glitched tree, and scream internally.
When he peeked out again, the wolf had glitched itself into a wall and was… T-posing.
"...I'm both terrified and completely done."
[Mob Eliminated: Self-Corrupted]
[Gained: 3 XP + Random Drop: Loaf Armor (Chest – 1 Defense, Crumb Trail Passive)]
He put it on without thinking—crumbs immediately began falling from the hem.
Patchie flew by. "Nice looting, Hero! You are… 0.03% closer to not dying!"
Ryuu sighed and looked up at the sky. It was flickering between stars and binary code.
"Still gotta survive 22 more hours…"
The sky cracked.
Not thunder—literally cracked. A giant fracture of static split across the digital clouds, followed by a low-pitched error tone like a corrupted violin.
Ryuu ducked instinctively. "That feels… bad."
[World Stability: 41%]
[Night Phase Approaching – Difficulty Spike: HIGH]
His HUD pulsed red.
With Patchie floating in lazy circles above him, Ryuu sprinted across floating terrain chunks, clutching his baguette shield and wearing bread armor that left crumbs with every step.
"Patchie, do mobs get worse at night?"
"Define 'worse.'"
"That's not reassuring!"
He reached a semi-stable area—just enough floating land to stack together like Tetris blocks.
Using trial and error (and a few lucky gacha drops), he constructed a janky elevated shelter: three crates, a vending machine, and one enchanted couch.
From inside the shelter, Ryuu heard screeches echo in the distance—frameskipping mobs flickering in and out of space. One glitched spider spawned with eight legs and eight arms holding weapons.
He swallowed hard.
[Time Remaining: 04:22:15]
He checked his current loot:
- Loaf Armor (crumb trail passive still annoying)
- Half-broken baguette shield
- 1 Exploding Chicken (not yet thrown)
- Gacha Token x1
"…Let's gamble."
He activated the gacha.
The wheel spun violently, glitching in and out—and finally landed on:
[Summon: Tactical Vending Machine Mk.2 – Legendary Drop]
"Legendary?!"
With a whump, a reinforced vending machine dropped beside him. Its menu read:
- Snacks
- Buff Drinks
- Reinforced Wall Mode: Tap twice to deploy
The mobs spotted his shelter. Ryuu panicked and slammed the vending machine twice.
BZZZK! The vending machine expanded into a full metal barricade just as corrupted wolves leapt from the dark.
They slammed into it, pixel-blood splattering like neon ink.
Ryuu, panting, sat down against the wall. "This world is insane."
Patchie floated down. "Your odds of survival just increased by 1%! Yay!"
He took a breath. From his pocket, he pulled out Hinami's charm—still glowing faintly.
Even here, across dimensions, it hadn't glitched once.
He stared at it, heartbeat slowly steadying.
"Guess I'm not alone after all."
00:00:00
The timer hit zero.
The world froze.
Ryuu blinked. The mobs outside his vending machine barrier froze mid-swipe. Even the leaves in the glitch-forest stopped flickering. The wind cut off like someone had unplugged the sky.
[24-Hour Survival Trial: COMPLETE]
[Processing Results…]
The vending machine powered down with a sad beep. Patchie spun slowly in the air, then fizzled like a dying pixel and vanished.
A low hum filled the air. The ground beneath Ryuu's shelter began to unload, tiles fading out one by one like closing tabs.
"Oh, crap—"
Too late. A data rift opened beneath him. Ryuu dropped—again.
Falling through black static and binary spirals, he tried to scream but no sound came. Just a calm, synthetic voice whispering through the void:
[Performance: 61%]
[Chaos Sync: 37%]
[Emotional Stability: …Redacted]
Images flashed: the exploding chicken, the T-posing wolf, Hinami's charm, the sky fracturing above him.
[Luck Status: ACTIVE]
[Corruption Level: Acceptable]
[Player Classification: Patch Candidate]
Ryuu tumbled into nothingness.
Just as the void began to fade, a gloved digital hand—pure static—reached toward him from deeper in the dark.
A new voice. Female. Calm. Curious:
Ryuu crouched, breathing hard. The air shimmered with corrupted code residue—like static buzzing against his skin. Before him, a monstrous figure writhed, glitching violently between shapes and sizes.
It was the last of the mini-boss horde.
With one final swing of his baguette shield, Ryuu knocked the creature off balance. The monster collapsed into pixels, then exploded into a spray of fragmented light.
Amid the debris, something glowed ominously—a small, pulsating object, wrapped in crimson code and warning glyphs flashing "ERROR" in every language.
Ryuu reached out. The system buzzed urgently:
[WARNING: Forbidden-Tier Item Detected]
[Item: Random Gacha Ticket – CORRUPTED]
[Item should not exist in this world.]
[Use at your own risk.]
He stared.
"Why do these things always find me?"
Ignoring the caution, he tapped the ticket icon.
A loud whirring filled the air. The system UI flickered. The familiar gacha wheel spun—this time wildly unpredictable, flashing hundreds of legendary items, some incomplete or glitched.
"Here goes nothing."
The wheel slowed… then snapped to a stop on:
USB GODWIRE – S-RANK WEAPON
The air around him pulsed as the ticket dissolved, summoning a glowing USB cable that hovered midair, crackling with chaotic energy.
Ryuu blinked, mouth dry.
"Okay, that's definitely not normal."
A holographic figure flickered to life beside the USB—an AI avatar with glitching edges and a mischievous smirk.
"Greetings, Chosen Idiot #9,012," it said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
Ryuu blinked. "Uh… what?"
System warnings cascaded down his HUD.
This was going to be… interesting.