The wind shouldn't flicker.
Leo stood still.
Very still.
His eyes remained fixed on the horizon where the fields stretched endlessly beneath the pale sky. The grass swayed again, naturally this time, brushing against itself in soft whispers as if the brief distortion from moments ago had never happened.
But he had seen it.
Not imagined.Not mistaken.
The world had flickered.
Not like a graphical glitch.Not like lag.
More like a page in a book being turned and then forced back into place.
"…That wasn't normal."
His voice was quiet, steady, controlled — but his mind was already racing far ahead of his words.
Think.
First: physical sensation.
He clenched his hand slowly.
Muscle tension responded immediately. Skin stretched. The faint sting of dry air against his knuckles felt real. Too real.
Not haptic feedback.
Not a simulated pressure system.
This was indistinguishable from reality.
Second: environment consistency.
He turned his head left. Then right. Then up.
Lighting was natural. The sun's position cast accurate shadows. The wind direction was consistent with the movement of the grass. No repeating animation loops. No artificial sound layering.
Even the silence had depth.
"…No UI."
He blinked deliberately.
Nothing appeared.
No health bar.No menu.No player interface.No log notifications.
That alone was enough to eliminate one possibility.
"This isn't a standard login state."
In Eidolon: Last Route, even the earliest versions had at least a minimal interface during spawn. A small compass. A faint system overlay. Something.
But here?
Nothing.
Leo inhaled slowly, then exhaled just as carefully.
Panic would be inefficient.
Observation first.
Conclusion later.
He looked down at his clothes again — the same hoodie, the same sweatpants, the same slightly wrinkled sleeves he had been wearing in his room just minutes ago. Even the faint crease near his wrist was still there.
No character model swap.
No equipment screen.
No transition avatar.
"I wasn't assigned a body," he murmured.
"I came as myself."
That realization settled heavier than anything else so far.
In the original game, players never entered as their real selves. Even though the model mirrored the user's body, it still passed through a character initialization layer.
But he had skipped that entirely.
No selection.
No confirmation.
No spawn animation.
Just arrival.
Leo slowly lifted his foot and pressed it down harder into the grass.
The blades bent under pressure.
The ground resisted with natural firmness.
A faint sound accompanied the motion — soft, irregular, realistic.
He crouched and touched the soil.
Dry. Slightly warm. Granular.
His fingers paused.
"…Smell."
He brought his hand closer unconsciously.
Earth.
Actual earth.
Not the faint artificial scent full-dive games usually replicated with reduced intensity to avoid sensory overload.
This was complete.
Full.
Unfiltered.
His heartbeat quickened slightly.
Not out of fear.
Out of realization.
"If this is a simulation… it's beyond the original system's capabilities."
And that made no sense.
Because Eidolon: Last Route was old.
Outdated engine.Discontinued updates.Abandoned player base.
It shouldn't be capable of this level of immersion stability without visible system architecture.
Unless—
Leo stopped the thought midway.
Speculation without sufficient data was a waste.
He stood up slowly and turned toward the distant town.
From this distance, he could make out stone rooftops, narrow towers, and faint trails of smoke rising into the sky. The architecture matched the beginner town almost perfectly.
Almost.
His eyes narrowed.
"…The spacing is different."
In the game map, the bell tower should have been slightly to the left of the main plaza, not centered. And the outer wall should have been shorter in height.
Yet here, the proportions were subtly adjusted.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to feel wrong to someone who remembered the layout well.
Which most players wouldn't notice.
But Leo had spent hundreds of hours wandering that starting region alone.
Silently.
Carefully.
Memorizing routes out of habit rather than necessity.
"The design isn't copied," he concluded quietly.
"It's… interpreted."
A soft bell rang again from the town.
Clear. Resonant. Natural.
He froze.
The timing.
In the game, the bell rang every in-game hour as part of the ambient schedule system.
If the pattern was the same—
He looked up at the sun's position.
"…Too early."
The bell should not have rung yet.
Not according to the original time cycle.
A faint chill ran down his spine.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Deviation.
The wind picked up again, brushing past him in a sudden gust.
And for the briefest moment—
The sound of the bell echoed twice.
Once naturally.
Once slightly delayed.
Leo's pupils shrank.
That echo hadn't been acoustic.
It had been… layered.
Like overlapping audio tracks trying to sync.
Then it stopped.
Silence returned.
Completely normal.
As if nothing strange had occurred.
He said nothing for several seconds.
Then quietly:
"…So it corrects itself."
He didn't know why he said that.
The words simply felt… accurate.
Like a conclusion forming before the evidence fully aligned.
Leo began walking toward the town.
Each step was cautious, deliberate, measured.
Not because he was afraid.
But because acting impulsively in an unknown environment was irrational.
Especially one that behaved inconsistently.
The grass parted naturally under his movement. Small insects scattered near his feet — another detail that didn't exist in the original game's ecology system.
His mind cataloged everything.
Wind pattern.Sound layering.Environmental density.Structural deviations.Absence of system interface.
And one more thing.
"No players."
He had not seen a single person yet.
Not on the road.Not in the fields.Not in the distance.
For a game that once had an active beginner zone, the emptiness felt unnatural.
Lonely.
His chest tightened slightly at that thought.
Familiar.
Too familiar.
Leo's grip on his sleeve tightened unconsciously before loosening again.
Emotions later.
Analysis first.
The town gates grew larger as he approached.
Old wooden doors. Reinforced hinges. Stone walls with faint moss growth along the edges.
More detailed than he remembered.
More aged.
More… lived in.
He stopped just a few meters away from the entrance.
Voices.
Faint.
From inside.
Human voices.
His heartbeat paused for half a second.
NPC dialogue in Eidolon: Last Route usually triggered only after crossing specific proximity thresholds.
But these voices sounded unscripted.
Irregular.
Natural conversation flow.
Leo didn't move immediately.
Instead, he listened.
"…heard the bell early today?"
"…strange weather lately…"
"…maybe the routes are shifting again—"
The conversation cut off abruptly.
Not faded.
Cut.
Like a sentence erased mid-thought.
Leo's eyes sharpened instantly.
That wasn't natural interruption.
That was forced narrative truncation.
The wind blew past the gate.
And for a split second—
The shadows on the ground shifted in the opposite direction of the sunlight.
Then snapped back into alignment.
Leo's breathing slowed.
Very slow.
Very controlled.
"…I see."
His voice was barely a whisper now.
"This world isn't broken."
He stepped forward.
Just one step closer to the gate.
"…It's adjusting."
And somewhere deep in his chest, a quiet, unsettling realization finally settled into place:
He wasn't inside a game that was glitching.
He was inside a world that was trying to remain consistent—
Despite his existence.