A young girl, clad in flowing garments evocative of a woodland nymph, moved with quiet elegance around a slumbering young man, his form resting gently atop a bed of vibrant grass. Her steps traced a deliberate circle, each movement imbued with a rhythm that felt both ancient and arcane. The scene could have easily belonged to the mythic groves of the second city—The Land of Gua, where nymphs and spirits were known to dwell.
But this tranquil vision unfolded in the most unlikely of places: Beginners Town.
Designated as the first bind spot for all new adventurers, Beginners Town served as the foundational sanctuary—a place to grasp the game's mechanics, explore early quests, and prepare for the vast and treacherous world beyond. It was rare, almost unheard of, for a being like her to appear here. And yet, here she was—dancing through a patch of digital sunlight that filtered through gently swaying trees, as if summoned by something—or someone—beyond routine.
In the real world, Japan had emerged as a nexus of cutting-edge innovation, with virtual immersion having reached its apex. The boundary between dream and simulation had all but vanished. Letheon, the game in which this scene took place, was a triumph of that era: a world where imagination was the only true limit.
Yet, even in a domain shaped by infinite potential, mastery was not a gift freely given.
Two core challenges lay at the heart of this truth.
First, there existed individuals who, despite being born into power, could not unlock its full potential. Fear often held them back—fear of failure, of consequences, of the unknown. Others lacked the natural aptitude or the crucial hands-on experience that tempered raw skill into true ability. These were the "sleepers," their greatness dormant beneath layers of hesitation and misdirection.
Second, the system itself resisted ease. Letheon did not reward the careless or the complacent. Its design mirrored life: complex, merciless, and richly rewarding to those who dared to master it.
And now, within the sanctity of the game's first sanctuary, a mystery stirred.
The girl continued her dance, her expression unreadable. The boy remained still, caught between worlds, his breathing slow and even. He had arrived not through standard channels, but through something else entirely.
A glitch?
A miracle?
Or perhaps… a fate long overdue?
Secondly, a distinctive restriction loomed over the virtual world: the prohibition against taking virtual life. In the formative years of Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (VRMMORPGs), game design leaned toward the whimsical, tailored to be accessible—even endearing—for younger audiences. Monsters appeared in exaggerated, often cartoonish forms, their deaths sanitized to preserve a sense of detachment from reality. Their demise was more comedic than consequential.
But what if that line blurred?
What if virtual violence began to mirror real-world brutality? If a blade strike sent blood spraying, if a dying heartbeat pulsed through haptic feedback, if viscera and gore rendered in high fidelity spilled across the battlefield, or worst of all—if a creature's head erupted in a grotesque spray of digital brain matter—the implications would be far more severe. What was once fantasy would edge dangerously close to horror.
Such realism could no longer be dismissed as mere pixels. Developers would find themselves under legal scrutiny, held accountable for psychological impact and moral implications. Lawsuits, bans, and societal backlash would follow in the wake of such graphic immersion.
And so, despite the limitless potential of the virtual frontier, the evolution of digital worlds was—and remains—shaped by the tension between technological advancement, human psychology, and the norms that govern society. Letheon, like its predecessors, had to walk the tightrope between immersion and ethics, freedom and responsibility.
Letheon, however, carved its own path. It defied convention.
At the heart of its design was an unflinching devotion to the monster-hunting experience—a vision the developers believed would define the game's legacy. To them, success lay not in novelty or casual escapism, but in refining the thrill of the hunt until it bordered on the sublime. This pursuit of authenticity, however, veered into territory many would consider brutal.
But Letheon's idea of realism wasn't just skin-deep.
The developers drew a hard line: there would be no grotesque entrails, no exploding skulls, no maggots squirming from open wounds. And yet, blood flowed with striking veracity—deep red, unpredictable, staining armor and earth alike. Monsters didn't sit idle as players carved through them. They fought back—with pain, with rage, with instinct. A wounded beast would recoil, roar, limp, and lash out wildly. Each battle felt visceral. Alive. Dangerous.
For some players, this was exhilarating—a rush unmatched by any other game. For others, it was too much. The illusion of fantasy crumbled under the weight of simulated suffering. The stress of each encounter overwhelmed them. Dread replaced joy.
And so, many quit—not because the game was broken, but because it worked too well. Their inability to master Letheon's challenges became, in their minds, a kind of failure. Not of reflexes, but of will.
Recognizing this challenge, the game developers crafted an elegant solution—an intricate tutorial designed not merely to instruct, but to gently usher players into Letheon's brutal world. Their aim was clear: to smooth the jagged edges of initiation, sparing new adventurers from crushing despair before they had truly begun. After all, gaming was meant to be a journey of challenge and triumph—not a descent into relentless stress.
Amidst this backdrop, Aiken found himself gripped by an overwhelming sense of disbelief. The memories replayed in his mind with relentless clarity—the sudden, horrifying crash between the bus and the truck, the instant his consciousness seemed to fade into darkness. Yet now, he stood somewhere impossibly different. The vivid reality of Letheon surrounded him, though no conscious choice or memory of logging in accompanied his presence.
Confusion churned within him, a tempest of doubt. Was this a twisted hallucination, the aftermath of trauma distorting his senses? Or had he somehow crossed a threshold, slipping beyond the boundaries of his known reality into an uncanny new existence?
The questions haunted him, but no answers came. For now, all that remained was the undeniable fact of his strange, surreal new world.
"Hey, kiddo, are you still sleeping with your eyes open?" a grating voice pierced through Aiken's fog of confusion, yanking him from his reverie.
Before him hovered a diminutive figure—almost human, yet unmistakably smaller. She shimmered with a pair of delicate, rainbow-colored wings, semi-transparent and fluttering softly. Her long, verdant hair cascaded down her back like strands of living moss. The sight was so surreal that Aiken briefly questioned his own sanity. Maybe I really do need to see a psychiatrist, he thought, heart pounding.
He scrambled to his feet, only to have his movement halted as the sprite-like girl reached out, her small hands grasping his wrist—right over a patch of burned skin, a scar that had no place in this digital realm. A wave of unintended panic surged through him. Reacting instinctively, Aiken jerked away, inadvertently colliding with the fairy.
In that instant, a startling detail caught his eye: a glowing HP and MP bar hovered above her head. The reality of this strange being deepened the mystery. Was she an ally, or a threat cloaked in innocence? The flicker of doubt was enough to sharpen his senses and propel him into a guarded stance, ready to face whatever this enigmatic creature truly was.
"Is that how you thank someone who just saved you?" The fairy's voice brimmed with exasperation as, with a sudden shimmer, she grew before his eyes—morphing into the form of a teenage girl. The transformation caught Aiken off guard, and before he could react, a swift punch landed squarely against him, sending a sharp, undeniable ache radiating through his body.
He glanced down at his bruised arm, then to the bandage wrapped around his chest, confusion knitting his brow tighter. His gaze drifted back to the enigmatic girl, eyes trailing from her vibrant hair down to her poised stance.
Without warning, a quick chop snapped against the side of his head, jolting him back to reality.
"You know," the fairy chided with mock severity, hands planted on her tiny hips, "it's rude to stare at a girl like that."
Aiken groaned and rubbed his temple, still reeling from the blow to his head. "Like there's anything worth staring at…" he muttered.
Whack.
A second chop landed squarely on his skull, sharper this time—more warning than wound. Delivered with the exasperated fondness of a mother scolding her wayward son, it drew a wince and an audible ow.
"Who are you?" he demanded, tone pitched somewhere between panic and disbelief. "What am I doing inside Letheon? Why—?"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" The fairy waved her hands frantically, as if trying to calm an anxious squirrel. "I'll gladly address every one of those buzzing little questions in that overclocked brain of yours. But let's take it step by step, okay?"
She straightened with theatrical pride, one hand sweeping into an exaggerated bow. "I'm Althea, the Fairy of the Three Lights: Sun,Moon, and Star. Consider me your personal health companion!" She beamed, clearly having practiced this line a dozen times in front of a mirror—or whatever counted for a mirror in her realm.
Aiken blinked. "Huh?"
The confusion on his face was almost endearing, the perfect picture of a man completely lost in a tutorial he didn't remember initiating. But just as the gears began to grind behind his eyes, something clicked—a flash of memory, a forgotten obligation.
"Wait!" he blurted. "What time is it?" His hand shot out and grasped Althea's shoulder with sudden urgency, eyes wide. "I'm supposed to—!"
"H-Huh? Ah… it's 18:32," Althea replied, blinking. The confusion in her voice mirrored the growing tension in Aiken's posture.
The moment the numbers registered, Aiken visibly deflated.
His shoulders sank.
His breath caught.
It was as though someone had reached inside and flipped the switch labeled hope to off.
"…No," he whispered, staring into the void as if it might offer a do-over. "I missed it."
He raised a hand and tapped his wrist with the listlessness of a man accepting his fate. A faint beep responded, and a semi-transparent, note-sized hologram flickered into view. The edges glitched ever so slightly, but the information was still painfully clear:
[Aiken Clint]
- Level 1
- Class: Villager
- Title Count: ------
Stats:
> Strength (5)
> Stamina [HP] (13/15)
> Intelligence (10)
> Magic [MP] (---)
He stared at the status screen like it had personally insulted him. A villager. Level 1. Not even a title to his name. A tragedy wrapped in disappointment and wrapped again in digital humiliation.
Just then, the window blinked with a soft chime—News Update: Trending Event.
Before Aiken could dismiss it, Althea's wings fluttered with curiosity. She zipped forward and shoved her tiny body between him and the screen, commandeering the display with all the grace of a sugar-fueled cat.
"Oooh, what's this?" she chimed. "Are you famous already? Is there drama? Is it a scandal?"
Aiken didn't answer. He was too busy mentally cataloging every plausible way to eject this irritating creature from his life—banish spell, silence spell, maybe just… quietly unplugging her. Sadly, none of those options existed. Yet.
"Heyo, guys~! This live broadcast is brought to you by me, SONG from ORION ARENA!" The screen pulsed with vibrant color as the pixel-perfect AI anchor lit up the hologram, her chipper voice slicing through the room like a neon blade. "As you all know, our Top 15 strongest user accounts are nowhere to be seen! Yep, you heard that right—poof, vanished simultaneously!"
Aiken blinked. The words were almost too surreal to grasp.
"Even the current #1 user, the elusive Ms. Ram, remains absent," Song went on, her tone walking a tightrope between bubbly and ominous. "No gameplay. No login trail. No status blips. Her account's been wiped cleaner than a newborn inventory. What's the scoop, folks? What lies ahead for the deserted Guilds? Is it sabotage? A digital coup? Or just a curious twist of fate~?"
Her voice dropped into a mischievous purr. "Keep your eyes peeled for more updates. This is Song, exclusively for Lethe Online gamers. Muah~ "
The screen faded, the silence that followed heavier than it had any right to be.
Aiken sat there, stupefied.
Gone. The Top 15. All of them.
That included him. Or rather… who he used to be.
The weight of Song's announcement pressed down like a stone. Aiken's mind spun with questions, doubt swirling in every corner. What had happened? Why erase them? Who could've done it?
He slumped back, still staring at the screen as if it might offer a follow-up, a footnote, anything.
Sure, Song's playful tone might fool the casual viewer—but Aiken knew better. Knew her better. Song might've been the queen of fanboys, especially those drawn to her flirtatious flair and anime idol aesthetics, but under the hood? She was an Artificial Intelligence powerhouse, the crown jewel of a genius named Syrup.
And if she was breaking the news first…?
Something was very, very wrong.
The weight of the update hung heavy in Aiken's chest, a silent storm churning behind his eyes. The accounts—the blood, sweat, and sleepless nights poured into Letheon by millions—were gone. Wiped clean. Erased.
And yet… he was still here.
Inside the game.
Why?
Could this all be a glitch? A rollback? But no—if it were something that simple, the GMs would've already dropped in, resetting things, issuing statements, restoring order. That was their job. And yet the silence was deafening. No red-tape protocol. No emergency maintenance alert. Just that sickly smooth quiet stretching endlessly around him.
Aiken exhaled sharply and raised his wrist again, opening the familiar menu with a flick of his fingers. His cursor hovered over the "Log Out" button, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Just tap it. Easy out.
He hesitated.
Stay calm, he told himself. Don't spiral. He tried to wrestle his thoughts into a more positive shape. Maybe this was just server-side chaos. Maybe they'd patch it in a few minutes.
He inhaled deeply, steadied his hand—and clicked.
Except he didn't.
The screen flickered before contact. Jagged lines of raw code slashed across the interface like graffiti, distorting the "Log Out" text until it became an unreadable mess of corrupted characters and glitched pixels. For a heartbeat, the entire display froze—then spasmed.
Aiken recoiled, bile rising in his throat.
"Oh, hell no! Not another Sw*rd *rt incident!"
His voice echoed across the frostbitten terrain, cracking through the eerie silence like a flare. Frustration, disbelief, and dread collided inside him, the implications sinking in deeper than before.
He wasn't stuck in just a game.
He might be trapped in a story he already hated.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───