Elliot's fingers flew across the controller, his eyes tracking every pixel of movement on the cracked monitor. The hum of the janitor's closet light stuttered overhead, each flicker a countdown to discovery. Three hours into his shift and already hidden again—back pressed to detergent shelves, headset cords tangled in mop handles.
Outside, a floor buffer droned like distant thunder. He paused once, listening. No footsteps. Good.
On screen, the hero of Nythor Conquered faced the corrupted beast. Light magic against shadow. Predetermined, safe. A world with rules, equations, and balance.Unlike his own.
Unlike the day social services had shown up at the orphanage with that expression—the one that said we know who your father was. Unlike the hallway whispers that followed every transfer, every new school: Serial killer's son.Unlike the job applications stamped rejected before anyone even looked him in the eye.
Pixels didn't whisper. NPCs didn't flinch. Games didn't care who your father was.
He adjusted the headset, heart steadying to the rhythm of combat. Nythor Conquered especially didn't care. Survival came down to strategy, memorisation, timing—things Elliot excelled at
He'd memorised every ending, every dialogue branch, every glitch that could be exploited. The world inside the screen obeyed logic. People didn't. Maybe that was why it felt more real.
The hero struck the final blow. Victory.
A smile crept across his face—rare enough to feel wrong, like using a muscle he'd forgotten existed. Then the hum of the fluorescent light wavered, dimmed. His phone buzzed. Shift over.
He sighed, powering down the monitor. The reflection in the black screen looked back at him—pale, sleepless, almost transparent. Like a ghost haunting the wrong world.
...
On the walk home, Elliot's mind drifted back to playing *Nythor Conquered* in the closet, trying to work out what he could do better. He had won. But he didn't like the outcome. The boss didn't react the way it usually did to certain attacks.
He was certain he had figured out bugs in the code that made certain attacks happen 100% of the time. But he was wrong.
Elliot knew the characters were life-like and acted like they made a decision, but that is an illusion he knows that. It's a game. It's made of millions of lines of code. Code is logic, and logic is easy to understand. You can't make life-like characters of code alone and make they truly life-like. There have to be flaws to this method. Elliot was determined to find them.
Being isolated led him to try to understand human nature more than most people, trying to find the underlying logic behind each choice a human made. But he never could do it. He knew humans were unpredictable. But there had to be a reason why.
But what he didn't know was because of his inability to interact with people limited his knowledge. Maybe he could figure it out if he broke through the barrier separating him from others.
Instead, he relied on online knowledge, which he applied to his logic and games; he presumed that developers would try to make the NPCs as life-like as possible. But that was never true. He just didn't know that.
He finally reached home and went to the scrambled Rubik's Cube that was lying on his desk and solved it in seconds. It had become a habit to scramble it before work and solve it. To keep his mind going and test his problem-solving skills was still up to par. Even when it was on a 9x9 cube.
He jumped onto the bed, his tense body finally getting the chance to relax. *ding* Elliot looked over at his phone to see a notification from *Nythor Conquered*
---
We are excited to announce that we will be releasing a DLC for the game, which will show new characters, new areas to explore and more endings to unlock.
MAKE SURE TO PRE-ORDER NOW WITH THE FOLLOWING LINK htpst://nythorconquered.com/dlc/preorder/
---
Elliot jolted forward, staring at his phone. Shock ran through his brain as his eyes stared at the screen, unmoving as he looked at the notification. A grin was plastered over his face as he stared long and longer, before clicking on the message.
Instantly, he was taken to the store page for the DLC.
---
Dive back into the world of *Nythor Conquered* and explore it like never before.
Meet new NPCs to interact with
Explore new, dangerous areas
Battle new beasts
And this time, truly save the world!
For $7.89
---
Elliot instantly went to check social media to see the reaction
Instantly, notification noises rang from his phone. Qeet feed was full of qeets asking about the DLC.
---
NythorMaster67: That's about as much as the game on release!!!
-> NoobGod: Who cares if it's good, I'll buy it.
-> GodDestoryer: I agree
-> xIanXXfanxx: Just don't buy it then
---
Multiple discussions like this were all over the internet and forums about the game. But no one seemed to care about the idea of 'truly saving the world'.
Elliot was puzzled about this. Why would that not be a topic of discussion? Maybe there was a hidden ending no one had managed to get to yet. That they turned into a whole new story.
---
HeroLoverOriginal: Why's no one mentioning the new ending
-> GodDestroyer: Cause no one cares
-> ALiG0D: get a life, the DLC doesn't give achievements. Why would I care
---
Elliot threw his phone onto his bed. People really didn't make sense. How could they not be excited by a new ending? It could change everything.
He grabbed his phone back and went to buy the DLC, well, pre-order it. He had to be one of the first to get it. He wanted to be the first to fully complete the DLC. That would be something he could brag about.
Determined before the DLC update came out to test his theory on the hidden ending booted up the game. He would look at every secret spot he could find and talk to every NPC he could.
Time flew by, hours passed that felt like seconds, but Elliot had no luck. For the first time in a long time, he thought he may have been wrong. As he put his phone down to rest in exhaustion, it was now 4 am he needed some rest before a full day's shift tomorrow. A small number of pixels in the corner of his screen caught his attention.
The phone was snatched from the comfort of the bed and back into the rough hands of Elliot. He quickly turned the camera to see what it was.
A black statue stood there ominously in the shape of what resembled a engine; his memory could tell him that this hadn't been discovered yet.
"YESSSSSSSSSSS!"
"Can you keep it down? Some people around here like to sleep, " Came from the walls around him
"Sorry, " Elliot shouted back, embarrassed at screaming like that.
He quickly clicked on the statue, and a text prompt appeared on the screen covering it whole.
---
Congratultions player,
Well done on finding the secret statue hidden in the game. As a reward, we can let you be the first person to see the DLC.
[yes] [no]
---
Elliot didn't hesitate. His thumb hit Yes
---
Thank you... And good luck.
---
The words glowed faintly before the screen went black. For a heartbeat, the air around him seemed to hum, like static before a storm. Then fatigue swallowed thought, and Elliot fell into darkness.