Alvin sat on the moss, his entire body trembling in the aftermath of the adrenaline dump. His left leg was a tapestry of agony. The chemical burn from the slime wasn't just a surface sting; it was a deep, throbbing, sizzling pain, as if the acid was still happily chewing on his shinbone.
"Okay," he panted, his voice shaky. "Okay. Survived. I survived."
He looked at the Basic New-User Starter Kit (Slightly Damaged) sitting innocently on the ground. The singed corner looked less like a cosmetic flaw and more like a threat.
"Please be useful," he muttered, half-praying to the non-existent Customer Support Goddess. "Please don't contain a 'Get Well Soon' card and a complimentary bag of peanuts."
With his good leg, he nudged the box closer. His hands, still shaking, fumbled with the simple wooden clasp. It was stuck.
"Of course it is."
He jammed his thumb under the lid and pulled. A sharp crack echoed in the quiet forest as a splinter, roughly the size of a railroad spike, drove itself deep into his thumb-pad.
"YEE-OWCH!" he yelped, pulling his hand back as if he'd been bitten. A bright bead of blood welled up. "You... you box! You're actively malicious!"
He glared at the splinter, then at the box. He was now bleeding from two separate, idiotic injuries.
"Fine. We're doing this the hard way."
Ignoring the throb in his thumb, he gripped the lid with both hands and tore it off its hinges. The cheap wood splintered and gave way, revealing the contents within.
Alvin stared. It was... underwhelming.
There were four items, nestled in a bed of what looked suspiciously like packing peanuts.
A small, dark-green ceramic jar, about the size of his fist. It was unlabelled, but a thick, mucous-like substance was leaking from under the lid.
A fist-sized, lumpy, greyish-brown... thing. It was wrapped in wax paper and looked like a rock.
A waterskin. It was made of rough-looking leather and was, as advertised, already damp on the outside, as if it were sweating.
A small, metal object. It looked... familiar.
He pushed aside the weird, rocky-lump and the sweaty bag, his eyes zeroing in on the leaking jar. If this world ran on any kind of fantasy logic, this had to be his healing item.
He picked it up. The green goo that had leaked out was sticky and smelled, bizarrely, of mint and old socks.
"Bottoms up," he muttered, his leg pulsing with a fresh wave of fire.
He clawed the simple cork lid off. The smell intensified, making his eyes water. The "salve" inside was a truly offensive shade of snot-green.
"Here goes nothing."
He scooped out a big, gelatinous glob with two fingers. The second it touched his skin, he hissed. It wasn't soothing. It was cold. A deep, penetrating, icy-burn that was almost worse than the acid.
"Gah! Cold! Why is it cold?!"
He grit his teeth and, with a series of pained grunts, smeared the viscous paste all over the angry red welts on his shin, ankle, and the now-bloody splinter in his thumb.
For a second, nothing happened. The cold burn and the hot burn just... existed together, a thermal paradox of pure suffering.
And then... relief.
It washed over him like a wave. The sizzling stopped. The throbbing faded to a dull, distant ache. The angry, purple-red skin slowly calmed, and the small puncture on his thumb sealed itself shut before his very eyes. It was... working. It was actually working.
A laugh, this one genuine, escaped his lips. "It worked. It's disgusting, and it tried to give me frostbite, but it worked!"
He checked his status.
[STATUS]
Name: Alvin Banks
Level: 1
Title: Bug-Finder (Beta Tester)
HP: 85/100
[Condition: Minor Chemical Burn (Healing)]
"HP!" he shouted. "I have HP! I lost 15 HP! And now it's... well, it's not going up, but it's not going down anymore."
He felt a surge of triumph so potent it almost made him dizzy. He had faced a monster, used his (terrible) skill, survived, and healed himself. He wasn't just a victim. He was a... a very, very inconvenienced participant.
Buoyed by this small victory, he turned his attention to the other items.
First, the metal object. He picked it up and his face fell. It was a utility knife. A standard, cheap, snap-off-blade utility knife, just like the one he used to open packages back at GigaByte. This one was slightly rusted, and the brand name on the side, 'DRAGON-PRO,' was clearly just a cheap logo printed on plastic.
"A box cutter," he said, flicking the blade out. It was sharp, at least. "They gave me a box cutter. Not a sword. Not a dagger. A box cutter."
He sighed. Still, it was better than a damp stick. It was a weapon. A [Utility Knife (Slightly Rusted)]. He'd take it.
Next, the sweaty waterskin. He uncorked it and sniffed. It smelled like... water. And old leather. He took a tiny, tentative sip.
It was just water. Clean, cool, and blessedly free of any magical side effects. He drank greedily, the simple act of hydration feeling like the height of luxury after his near-death-by-heatstroke.
Finally, he looked at the grey-brown rock-thing. The wax paper was greasy. He unwrapped it. It was a dense, square bar, the color of wet cement. A faint label was stamped into its surface: [RATION BAR (FLAVOR: 'NUTRIENT_PASTE_#4')].
His stomach growled. He hadn't eaten since... well, since before he'd died.
"Nutrient Paste Number Four. My favorite," he deadpanned.
He took a bite.
His entire face seized up.
It was... It tasted of... chalk. And salt. And, faintly, of what he could only describe as 'disappointment' and 'industrial lubricant.' It was dry, tough, and instantly sucked every last bit of moisture from his mouth.
"Ugh... blargh... why?" he gagged, frantically chugging from the waterskin to wash the gritty, chemical flavor down. It was, without a doubt, the worst thing he had ever eaten.
But as he swallowed, a warmth spread through his stomach. He felt a tiny bit of energy return. His 'Stamina: 3' didn't suddenly become 'Stamina: 10,' but he no longer felt like he was going to collapse.
He had a (mostly) healed leg. He had a weapon (sort of). He had water (probably). And he had food (technically).
He was... a functional human being.
"Okay. One last thing."
He'd been so focused on the loot, he'd almost forgotten the other "reward." He called up his status screen.
[TITLE: Bug-Finder (Beta Tester)]
He focused on the title, willing it to show him more. A new box popped up.
[Title: Bug-Finder (Beta Tester)]
(A title awarded to a User who, through sheer, idiotic luck or profound desperation, successfully identifies and submits a Priority 1 System Bug.)
[Effect 1 (Passive): 'Keen Eye']: You are slightly more attuned to the... 'imperfections' of the world. You have a 5% higher chance of noticing environmental glitches, asset-clipping, and texture-mapping errors.
[Effect 2 (Passive): 'Feedback Loop']: The System values your... input. All future Support Tickets have a 1% chance of being 'Fast-Tracked' for immediate review. (Note: 'Immediate' is a relative term. Do not abuse this privilege. We are watching.)
Alvin read the description twice.
"'Idiotic luck or profound desperation'?" he grumbled. "It was both, thank you very much."
He looked at the effects. A 5% chance to spot glitches. A 1% chance to have his ticket... not take 485 years.
It was the most pathetic, 'on-brand' buff he could have possibly received. He wasn't a warrior. He wasn't a mage. He was Quality Assurance.
"This is my life now," he sighed, clipping the rusty box cutter to his new linen belt. "I'm the Isekai QA Intern."
He re-wrapped the remaining, disgusting Nutrient_Paste_#4 and stashed it in a pocket he was delighted to find in his pants. He topped off the leaking salve-jar and secured it.
He was ready.
He stood up, putting weight on his injured leg. It twinged, but the burning was gone. The skin was a pale, shiny pink, but it was closed. It held.
"Okay. Back to the plan. Find water. Follow it. Find civilization."
He picked the same direction he'd been heading before the slime rudely interrupted him. He walked.
The forest was beautiful, he had to admit. The air was clean. There were no sirens, no marketing drones, no Chads in boat shoes. Just the rustle of leaves and the occasional zzzt of 'Glitch,' the bug-butterfly, who had returned and was now orbiting his head like a tiny, erratic satellite.
He'd been walking for about ten minutes, his 'Stamina: 3' already making itself known, when his new title kicked in.
It was a strange sensation. A faint, digital hitch in his vision, like a single skipped frame in a video. He stopped.
"What was that?"
He looked around. Everything seemed normal. Trees. Moss. Rocks.
He looked again. And he saw it.
To his left, there was a large, ancient-looking oak tree. It was identical to all the others, except for one, tiny detail.
A small, square patch of its bark, about the size of his hand, was... wrong.
It wasn't flickering. It wasn't glowing. It was... pixelated. It looked like a low-resolution JPG that had been badly stretched to fit a high-resolution world. The texture was muddy, flat, and didn't match the crisp, detailed bark around it.
It was, without a doubt, an environmental glitch.
"Huh," Alvin said, walking over to it. "Five percent chance, first try. Lucky me."
This was... a bug. He was a Bug-Finder. He should... report it.
He raised his hand to file a ticket, but paused. His first ticket had been a life-or-death scream. This was... just a visual error. It was a 'Low Priority' bug if he'd ever seen one.
What happens if I just... poke it?
He reached out his index finger. He tapped the pixelated bark.
His finger didn't stop. It... went in.
"Whoa!"
He yelped and pulled his hand back. It was fine. Just... cold. He looked at the "bark" again. It was an illusion. A fake wall. A classic 'asset-clipping error.'
He pushed his whole hand through. It felt like sinking his arm into a tub of cold, static-filled water.
He took a deep breath. "Well... 'venture-capital' rewards the bold, or... something."
He pushed his head through the glitched texture.
It wasn't a solid tree. The 'bug' was a hole, an opening. On the other side was a narrow, dark tunnel, sloping gently downwards. It looked less like a cave and more like an unfinished part of the world, a developer's tunnel left behind by accident.
He pulled his head back out, his heart hammering.
This was either a secret, bonus-loot-filled dungeon... or the place where the System dumped all its deleted files and monsters.
As he was trying to decide whether to report it or explore it, the choice was made for him.
From deep within the dark, glitched tunnel, he heard a sound.
It wasn't the wet plop of a slime.
It was a low, scraping, chittering sound. The sound of too many legs on stone. And it was followed by a deep, guttural, growl.
Alvin scrambled back from the tree, his hand immediately flying to the rusty box cutter on his belt. The tiny blade snapped out with a pathetic click.
He was hidden from the path by the tree itself, but the sound was getting closer.
He had a weapon. He had a (mostly) healed leg. And he had one, single, all-powerful, bureaucratic skill.
Alvin pressed his back against the non-glitched side of the tree, his breath held tight in his chest. He closed his eyes, his mind already flying.
To: System Administration.
Subject: URGENT: Potential Hostile Entity in Glitched Environment! Requesting Hazard Pay!