There was even an option to romance certain characters—or multiple at once, if that was your thing.
I ignored that nonsense completely. I wasn’t here for digital porn with pixel waifus. Besides, if I wanted that kind of stimulation, I had the real world. Or at least, better distractions.
The story itself? Bearable. Nothing revolutionary, but not a complete dumpster fire either.
You played as a slum-born boy who stumbled across a cursed artifact during a particularly brutal winter. It was a sword—ancient, worn, and soaked in malevolence. They called it Living mory. Pretty edgy. I liked it.
The blade whispered things. mories of its past wielders leaked into the boy’s mind, pushing him to awaken.
With it, he gained strength—enough to crawl out of the mud and into the wider world. That classic "rags to reluctantly badass" arc.
From there, it was a journey through kingdoms and crumbling lands. The boy gathered allies in strange ways.
So joined because of charisma. Others fell for his lies. A few were manipulated, and the rest? Beaten into submission. My kind of party-building.
Eventually, the ragtag group, now known as the cohort, began moving across regions, challenging lords of the realms.
With each victory, they stole fragnts of the defeated’s power. Bit by bit, they grew stronger—both in skill and in presence. They stopped being nobodies.
Naturally, the closer they grew, the more tangled their relationships beca. Romance blood within the group.
Tension, jealousy, affection—it all unfolded as they ventured deeper into chaos. There were options to dive into those relationships too.
I didn’t. I kept my character focused, distant. A lone wolf among wolves. And because of that, I was labelled "maidenless."
A lot.
To the point where so dumbass NPC brought it up mid-conversation, laughing with a group of others about how I couldn’t get anyone. So, I did the rational thing.
I murdered him on the spot.
And you know what? No one even reacted. Either the devs were lazy, or they secretly agreed with .
But then... there was her.
The most unusual character I ca across.
Purple hair. Crimson eyes. Silent. Subtle.
She never showed up like the others. She was there on the edge of the screen, watching from a rooftop. Sotis in the shadows of a ruined hall. Always quiet. Never speaking.
She’d appear randomly—during boss fights, in towns, even mid-cutscenes. She’d interrupt quests, sotis helping, sotis sabotaging. No pattern. Just chaos.
They clearly tried to code her as creepy, but honestly? It didn’t work. She was cute. Her tiny smirk, the way her head tilted when things got ssy—I found myself waiting for her appearances. Looking forward to them.
There was sothing... magnetic about her.
She wasn’t romanceable. At least, not that I saw. She didn’t even have a na in the character log. Just "Unknown Entity." That added to the charm.
Eventually, the ga ended. No big cinematic. No achievent pop-ups. like I got from that arcade run before.
Maybe because I wasn’t in an official ga pod. Maybe the ga just wasn’t popular enough to have reward data embedded.
Either way, I didn’t care.
I stretched out on the couch, arms above my head, the weight of the last few hours loosening off my shoulders. The leather of the sofa squeaked beneath as I leaned back.
And that’s when I saw her.
Kaelira.
Standing just behind the couch, arms crossed, hair damp. A thin towel was lazily wrapped around her neck.
Her tanned skin shimred under the soft light, beads of water tracing down her collarbone. The scent of shampoo and warm soap lingered faintly in the air.
She wasn’t staring at , though. Her eyes were glued to the monitor, focused entirely on the ga I’d just finished.
I snapped my fingers. "Hello? You alive? Or do I need to punch you in the face to check?"
Her head tilted slowly down to et my gaze. Her eyes narrowed, like she was seriously questioning if I’d follow through.
Judging by her face... she’d concluded I would.
She scoffed, turning her head. "You’d actually do that... dostic abuser."
"Hey," I retorted instantly. "We’re not even married."
She rolled her eyes and let out a dramatic sigh. "I’m going to sleep. You go enjoy your all-nighter, gar boy."
I raised my hand in lazy farewell. "Sure will."
She didn’t bother with another word. Just turned, pulled the sheets back, and slipped under them with practiced ease. A few seconds later, she was already out, her breathing slow and rhythmic.
anwhile, I turned back toward the console and opened the ho screen again.
This ti, I wasn’t looking for gas.
I needed the web.
Apparently, this system had its own network—sothing like the internet, though filtered and regulated by regional mana grids.
That ant limited access unless you were cleared, but I’d already linked my ID.
My card was still inserted.
Which ant I was definitely being monitored. Logged-in activity, usage pattern, behavioral imprinting—it was all being recorded sowhere.
Probably stored in a neat little folder tagged with my na and status. If I suddenly started typing "Astreel Family secrets" into the search bar, I’d have a couple of agents knocking on the door before Kaelira could even finish snoring.
So, no. I needed an alibi.
And really, there was no better cover than searching brainrot.
If the internet existed in a world—any world—then brainrot was inevitable. It was a universal law, right up there with gravity and people pretending pineapple didn’t belong on pizza.
It was one of my sincerest beliefs. If there was a Net, there was nonsense.
So I leaned back and began scrolling casually, letting the algorithm do its thing.
Just as I expected, the top trending video?
A girl dancing. To a song that sounded like soone was trying to summon the devil through autotune.
She was flailing her arms around, mana twinkling in a glittery haze around her, while so sound-reactive runes pulsed beneath her feet like a magic-powered dance floor. It was supposed to look stylish.
It didn’t. It looked like soone shoved neon into a blender and called it art.
And it didn’t stop there.
Every video in the trending section was peak degeneration. People doing magic tricks while in bikinis.
So half-naked guy flexing his wind manipulation skills while playing so battle rhythm ga. A duo playing strip-mana-chess. Don’t even ask.
Mana-powered stupidity.
"What the hell is wrong with this place?" I muttered under my breath.
For a second, I considered the possibility. ’Maybe... porn did exist here.’
My cursor hovered.
Then I shook my head.
Nope. Not tonight. I didn’t need that kind of distraction.
And with Kaelira just a few feet away—definitely still awake and probably pretending to sleep—I’d never hear the end of it if she caught mid-NSFW click.
Her verbal slander would be relentless, and I valued my sanity, if not my dignity.
So I closed the trending tab and switched lanes.
Sothing quieter. Safer. Forums, maybe. Blogs, if they weren’t dead yet.
Took so digging, but eventually, I found a thread hub—halfway between Reddit and an ancient ssage board.
A mix of flashy headlines and cheap clickbait thumbnails. Most of it was gaming-related, which suited just fine.
I skimd the top posts:
♦ LORD VAYLIN STRIKES AGAIN!!!
User: AetherBlade69
The legend himself—Lord Vaylin—has entered the 345th Battle Royale Tournant preview matches and wiped the floor with the competition.
Match One: 30 kills.
Match Two: 25 kills.
Straight annihilation. No survivors. The man didn’t even break a sweat.
Is he even human? Debate below.
♦ ASTREEL LORDS MAKE BIG ANNOUNCENT!
User: NewsOrbOfficial
In a surprising twist for this year’s Battle Royale Tournant, the Astreel Lords have announced a jaw-dropping grand prize: 1,000,000 RHB.
That’s right. One million.
On top of that? Bonus credits per confird kill. This is going to be the bloodiest tournant yet.
And I’m so here for it.
♦ OGA-SENSE ARENADECK XZ-9000: FAILURE OR FUTURE?
User: ManaByteReview
The newly released ArenaDeck model has split the community.
So say it’s cheap for a reason—buggy, laggy, poor optimization.
Others defend it as affordable and accessible.
Verdict? It’s both.
Cheap AND bad. Great for broke students, terrible for anyone expecting quality.
♦ GLITCH?? HAUNTED CODE??
User: GhostPixel420
Across multiple gas, users have reported encountering a strange character that doesn’t follow normal ga chanics.
The entity doesn’t register as a party mber or NPC.
Appears mid-quest, often unprompted.
So users report getting a text bubble:
"Help !! I’m alive. Please get out."
The devs are radio silent.
Forums are exploding.
So think it’s a hidden event. Others think it’s a haunted AI.
Either way, it’s creepy as hell.
I leaned back, fingers steepled.
A prize pool like that? The Astreel Lords weren’t playing small. That kind of money could fund for a lifeti—or make soone very dangerous, very fast.
But that last thread... the glitch one. That caught my eye.
’Looks like I need to join the battle royale.’ I wanted to see Vaylin rage again. And see what he would do to a guy this ti.
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