Wayne Shin curled up in bed, staring at her glowing phone screen.
It was the middle of the night, yet she felt no sleepiness.
The events of the day had been somewhat strange, leaving her uneasy and unable to rest.
All day long, Wayne Shin had been refreshing the forum, browsing posts from beta testers. She couldn't understand the foreign languages well, so she tried taking screenshots to translate them with an app. But her phone alerted her that screenshots were prohibited on the webpage. Wayne Shin had no choice but to type out each message and translate them manually.
The forum's membership was growing, the number of posts was rising. Many shared her confusion. Some were already asking about the "Six-Point Announcement for Players" and the blood-red "10,000 Survivors" count at the top of the forum.
Beta testers were also receiving that silver card. Like Wayne Shin, they hadn't entered their addresses on the official game website, yet the silver cards had been delivered precisely to their homes.
Wayne Shin clicked into the most-replied Chinese thread.
Original Poster: In this era of big data, privacy is nearly nonexistent. But isn't this crossing the line for a game developer? If the devs don't address the address collection issue, I won't hesitate to pursue legal action.
The comments below echoed agreement.
But then someone replied: Something feels off about this. It's like something's haunting us. I live in the countryside where deliveries come only every few days. Guess how my game cards arrived? My cat went out for a stroll and inexplicably brought something back in its mouth. I took a look and found it was my game card—with my real name and forum ID printed on it. This is fucking insane!
24L: I live in the countryside too. I spotted my card while checking the chicken coop for eggs. It gave me a hell of a scare...
36L: I ordered an appliance online. When I opened the box, there was an extra package inside. Thought it was a freebie from the seller, but it turned out to be a game card!
This isn't just absurd—it's downright creepy.
The ID numbers follow the order of forum registrations. Making the cards takes time. How could they be produced and delivered the moment someone registers and gets their number? And the ways players received their cards were all over the place—an inexplicable, eerie aura hung over everyone.
Wayne Shin exited the thread and clicked on a card-showoff post.
The poster had blurred out their real name and player ID on the card before displaying it.
The card differed slightly from Wayne Shin's.
Instead of the mechanical hand emblem, the silver card's front featured a pair of scissors—sharp and menacing-looking scissors.
Wayne Shin's card bore the prefix "Depriver," but this poster's card was titled "Acting Agent" instead.
Why is that? What's the difference between a Devourer and a Proxy?
Wayne Shin frowned in thought.
After browsing the forum for a while, Wayne Shin noticed a pattern.
In all the card-sharing posts so far, every card's prefix was "Proxy." Not a single card matched hers as "Devourer."
Wayne Shin reached for the card beside her bed. It glowed with a soft silver light, her true name and serial number engraved upon it like an identity document. She had a name and an ID number now, but the only thing she couldn't understand was the meaning behind the three characters: "Destroyer."
The events of the day left Wayne Shin shrouded in fog.
She glanced at the time: 23:59. Midnight was less than a minute away, marking the official start of the closed beta. Wayne Shin sighed, rubbing her temples wearily as she prepared for sleep—she needed to find a summer job tomorrow to earn money...
The life of a broke kid was plain, unadorned, and utterly dull.
The instant Wayne Shin lowered her phone, it suddenly vibrated. She looked up to see a forum announcement.
"All 10,000 beta testers have registered. Game ID cards have been issued."
"This is a free, non-wipe beta test. There are no shortcuts in this game. Players must remember the six pieces of advice and forge their own endings."
"Wishing all players an enjoyable experience. The game begins."
The game begins?!
Wayne Shin was caught off guard by this statement, utterly bewildered. Before she could react further, she realized her surroundings had shifted.
Wayne Shin's hand felt empty. The weight of her phone vanished. She was no longer lying on her side in bed, but standing in boundless darkness. Looking up, she saw nothing; listening, she heard nothing.
The old house with peeling walls vanished. The window glowing faintly under streetlights disappeared. The whirring sound of the fan ceased. Everything fell silent.
Darkness engulfed Wayne Shin like a tidal wave, swallowing her inch by inch. She instinctively tried to scream, but like a drowning person, no sound came out.
Finally, she lost consciousness.
...
"You have entered the new world."
"Please review your identity configuration within this world."
"Name: Wayne Shin
Affiliation: Federation · Resistance
Identity: Core operative of the Mechanical Dawn organization; Trainee Security Officer, Field Unit 7, Federation Investigation Department; Federation Class-A Most Wanted; Resistance undercover agent.
Mission: Steal Intelligence Bureau classified information, gain their trust, and provide intelligence support for Mechanical Dawn's covert operations."
A muffled electronic voice echoed in her ears. Through the haze, she seemed to glimpse rows of text flashing before her eyes...
Wayne Shin gasped painfully, her head splitting with agony.
It felt like an axe had split her skull open, her head throbbing as if it would explode.
"Suture needles," a man's voice said beside her. "Close her wounds. Give her another dose of the potent analgesic—she's barely holding on."
Was she on an operating table? Wayne Shin couldn't open her eyes, yet her consciousness remained surprisingly lucid.
Wayne Shin felt a sharp needle pierce her arm as the medication was injected. The painkiller worked remarkably fast, easing her headache considerably.
This wasn't a dream. No dream had ever felt this vivid.
Wayne Shin understood that this situation was utterly abnormal, defying all logic. Perhaps she had truly encountered something only found in fantasy novels or films—time travel.
She had been transported from her humble apartment to an unknown location.
The painkiller injected moments ago eased Wayne Shin's physical agony, allowing her to focus her thoughts. She felt anxious and panicked, but these emotions offered no help. She knew she had to stay calm.
The closed beta forum for Crimson Earth had announced the game's start, and then she'd suddenly shifted locations.
Wayne Shin surmised she'd been transported into the game world of Crimson Earth.
She possessed another identity within this world.
Wayne Shin concentrated, and abruptly, a light screen unfolded within her pitch-black vision.
Displayed upon it were the details of her identity in this world, exactly as she'd just heard them:
—Core Member of the Mechanical Dawn Organization, Trainee Security Officer in the 7th Squad of the Federation Investigation Department's Field Unit, Federation Class-A Most Wanted Criminal, Rebel Resistance Undercover Agent.
Wayne Shin: Huh... Seems like I've got a pretty complicated identity.
She read it over and over, feeling utterly flustered.
She had no clue what the Mechanical Dawn Organization was, but terms like "core member" spoke volumes about its significance. Then there was the Federal Investigation Department... clearly an official agency. Worse still, she was also a Federal Class-A Most Wanted Criminal. What the hell was that? And being a Rebel spy? That traitorous label alone was enough to kill her.
Being a traitor had no future!
Wayne Shin had watched countless spy thrillers. Undercover agents rarely ended well. She sensed her own bleak future, a tragic conclusion beckoning.
The clatter of medical instruments echoed incessantly. Wayne Shin vaguely felt the suture needle piercing and pulling through her flesh.
Wayne Shin's heartbeat, frantic when she first regained consciousness, gradually steadied into a regular rhythm. Her mind churned, her emotions calming as she processed.
After an unknown span of time, Wayne Shin suddenly felt she could control her eyelids. The anesthesia was wearing off.
The man who had been operating on her said, "The drugs are wearing off. You should be waking up soon."
Wayne Shin had to abandon her plan to feign unconsciousness. Slowly, she opened her eyes a crack.
The harsh white light made her uncomfortable, and a silver light source kept flickering before her eyes.
Wayne Shin blinked hard, adjusting to the light for a moment. She realized the flickering silver light wasn't a lamp, but the reflection off the lead surgeon's glasses.
She shifted her head slightly, rolling her eyes to gaze blankly at the circle of doctors and nurses gathered around the operating table.
"You're awake?" The bespectacled surgeon nodded at Wayne Shin. "The surgery was a success."
Wayne Shin decided to feign ignorance.
Summoning her best acting skills, she adopted a look of intense recollection: "What... what happened to me?"
The doctor wore a sympathetic expression, looking at her with pity. "You poor thing, such bad luck. Your first field assignment as an intern, and you ran into an armed criminal... Alas, the criminal got away, but you ended up with your skull split open, a fractured cranium..."
"Cranium... fracture?" Wayne Shin feigned confusion, but inside she was overjoyed.
A skull fracture! Such a severe injury would make her feigned amnesia perfectly plausible! Having crossed over without inheriting the original host's memories, she was on the verge of giving herself away.
"Yes, a skull fracture. A gaping hole in your head, blood gushing out," the doctor said kindly. "But don't worry—out with the old, in with the new!"
"What do you mean, 'out with the old, in with the new'?" Wayne Shin asked, confused. "Sorry, I seem to have forgotten a lot of things..."
"It's normal to feel a bit fuzzy for now. You'll feel better once the anesthesia wears off. Your skull fracture was quite severe and difficult to repair, so we replaced that section of your skull," the doctor said cheerfully. " "It's the latest federal tech—ultra-light alloy skull. With this replacement, you'll never have to worry about getting your skull cracked open during field operations catching criminals!"
Wayne Shin: "???"
Holy crap, did she just get the legendary iron skull? Love it!
From now on, when she goes head-to-head in a fight, one headbutt will send the other guy's brain buzzing!