So I walked.
Through prefab marble and air-conditioned arrogance. Past booths that looked like mall kiosks crossed with tech cult recruitment centers. Most of them glowed. Some even had floating signs with garbage like:
BOOST YOUR START: POTIONS, GEAR, PREMIUM COSMETICS AVAILABLE NOW!
I stared at one as I passed. Some guy in a cloak bought a ring that made his hands shimmer gold. I shit you not.
What the hell were they buying it with?
Currency? We're like twelve hours into planetary integration, what, did they open a bank account mid-apocalypse?
Did I miss the tutorial on interdimensional crypto?
I slowed at one display. It was selling titles. Titles.
Knight of Iron Dawn – 500 Merit
Savage Ascendant – 750 Merit
I didn't even have a wallet, and they were out here trying to sell me branding packages.
Nearby, some User walked up to a vending unit and pulled out a gleaming can of Stamina+ like he'd just finished a gym set instead of a bloodbath. He looked refreshed. Hydrated. Fuck him.
It all gleamed, but the shine didn't feel free. It felt like bars plated in gold, still a cage, just one you were supposed to thank them for.
I passed a glowing pillar that chirped at a passing Cleric and displayed her current gear score and social rating. It ignored me.
Like I wasn't supposed to be here. Like I hadn't been rendered in the right resolution.
Like I was not a person.
Just a liability.
I drifted past clusters of players, neat rows of color-coded competence. Warriors with matching pauldrons and smug posture. Rogues checking stealth cooldowns in reflective glass. A mage in spotless robes walked past me and winced like my existence might be contagious.
I caught a few stares. Then the look-away reflex.
Not fear. Not even disgust.
Just discomfort.
Like seeing something that didn't fit into their worldview. Ah. Everything's back to normal.
Eventually I found a raised platform, clean lines, glowing terminals, a velvet rope that didn't actually exist but might as well have. A sign overhead read:
Orientation Queue – Classed Users Only
Figures.
A long line of proud new System believers waited in practiced formation. Most of them had some kind of badge hovering by their name. Class icon. Rank. Buffs. Tutorial performance score. One guy had "MVP [Tutorial Node]" floating above his head like a high school varsity jacket.
I hovered nearby.
Didn't step into line. There wasn't a spot for me.
Then I spotted it, old, scuffed, and tucked behind a vending kiosk.
A sidedoor.
Metal plate (heavily rusted barely readable by the way) read:
Orientation Queue – Legacy Users Only.
Of course.
No polish. No welcome. Just corrosion and fine print.
It felt honest, though.
Like the first thing here that wasn't pretending to give a shit.
Shoved in a corner and stapled on last-minute.
Ugly. Overlooked. Mine.
Ha. Fuck you guys. I don't have to stand in line.
I was almost at the door when someone shouted.
"Wait, yo, is that the no-class guy?"
I didn't stop walking.
Didn't need to look.
I already knew.
The voice had that tone. The anime-protagonist-who-thinks-he-earned-it voice. All confidence, no soul. Like the System had installed a personality pack and this was the trial version.
Heavy footsteps followed. Slow. Loud enough for attention, soft enough for swagger.
Then he was there.
Front and center.
Hair styled like he hadn't just come out of hell, it was actually spiky. Honest to god. And it had a glow (bet he bought one of those cosmetic items i saw before). Teeth too white. Plate armor so clean I could see my cracked ribs reflected in it. Sword the size of a church bench strapped across his back like it meant something.
And the badge above his head?
Tylen – Warrior – Level 5 – Tutorial MVP
He wasn't alone. Of course he wasn't. Left arm: Cleric, all white robes and bedroom eyes. Right: Rogue, leather everything and a smirk like she was cosplaying backstab fetish. Both glued to him like this was his poster shoot.
He stopped in front of me and tilted his head like a dog seeing stairs for the first time.
"Holy shit," he said. "You're still alive?"
He grinned. He was proud of that sentence. It probably took him at least half an hour to think up...
The rogue leaned in, stage-whispered loud enough for god to hear: "Legacy, right? I thought they almost never made it to the hub" then she laughed.
Warm, bright, fuckable laughter.
I didn't say anything. Just stared at him.
He looked me over like I was a scuff on his UI.
No badge. No gear. No class. Not even a shirt," he said. "And they just let you walk around like that?"
He didn't sound angry. He sounded amazed. Like I was a stray cat that had managed to enter a luxury spa.
"Guess it's true what they say," he added. "Even trash can walk uphill if the wind's right."
My hand was already moving.
His face looked so incredibly punchable. Totally just that.
Wasn't jealous of that pretty cleric at all. Nope.
And he got two of them? C'mon. Leave some for the rest of us."
I swung. Full weight behind it. All the pain. All the hours. All the swallowed blood and broken promises. Right into that pretty-boy jaw.
It connected.
Good hit. Clean. I felt it. Right on the chin, the kind of punch that knocks someone clean out.
And he just stood there.
Didn't even blink. Just blinked... slower.
Then he laughed.
"Oh damn. That was you trying."
And then he hit me.
I didn't see it coming, just felt my ribs fold and the air vanish.
[WARNING: Blunt Trauma Detected]
[ROOT RESPONSE: +2 VIT, +2% Resonance]
I hit the floor. Hard. Couldn't tell if it was my lungs or my soul that stopped working.
Somewhere above me, a System drone beeped.
"PVP not allowed in shared Hub spaces. Please return to your assigned orientation zone."
Tylen raised both hands like he was surrendering to a party invite. "Hey, all good. Just saying hi."
He turned. Walked off like he hadn't just cratered me into the tile.
"Don't stress it, dipshit," he called. "There's always work in sanitation or something, I'm sure."
The girls giggled. One blew me a kiss.
Not kind. Not playful. Just... the sort of gesture you make at a mascot before walking into the real game.
I stayed down.
Longer than I meant to.
The floor was cold. My ribs weren't working right. I was pretty sure something important had just shifted inside me in a bad way.
I could still feel where the punch landed, not just in my side, but in my bones. But it was slowly shifting back. This body of mine has gotten way less human since that new skill BERSERKSÚLUR. Or perhaps it's the new evolved root, I'm still kinda salty that they reset my root% but at least they couldn't take the stat I already got.
I lift my eyes in time to see Tylen's crew walking away, the cleric fussing over him like he's some fallen god. They don't even glance back at me. A twisted knot of envy forms in my throat, not because he beat me, but because he has people who actually care that he won.
It wasn't the hit that stung. It was watching him get lifted by their smiles, by their hands on his shoulders. I'd never had that. Never. The punch was already fading. The envy wasn't.
I've never had that, and it stings worse than my ribs. For a moment I wish things were different... that I was different. Then a familiar anger hardens around the hurt. Screw that. I don't need their pity, I'll get up on my own.
I wasn't even a person, not to them. Just a small background character cutscene shuffling past their dialogue tree, to showcase how big and strong the hero is to the love interests. Perhaps if the system hadn't decided to take those stats away from me I could at least have given him a bloody nose.
I rolled. Sat.
Spat blood. I tasted it. Sat with it a second.
Then I got up.
Slow. Shaky. No drama. Just movement.
Because stopping here? That's what they were waiting for.
And if they thought I was going to just roll over, thank them for the scraps, and line up for some golden-boy onboarding?
Fuck that.
If the only door they left open is rusted, half-buried, and smells like old regrets, then that's my door.
Let's see how deep this rabbit hole of rejects goes.
I limped toward the door marked Legacy Users Only like it was a war crime in progress.
The door creaked when I opened it.
Not hissed. Not slid. Creaked.
Like it hadn't been touched in a very long time.
Inside: dust. Stale air. A single flickering holo-sign over a cracked console that read:
WELCOME LEGACY USERS – [DATA CORRUPTED]
Well. That's promising.
The floor was tiled but chipped, scuffed, and covered in something that might've once been carpet. The lights didn't turn on. Just a motion-triggered glowstrip limping to life near the back wall, like it had to think about whether I was worth it.
And then I saw something that was moving.
Slumped on a bench. Or at least boards arranged kinda in the shape of one.
Wide shoulders. Stocky frame. Shirt unbuttoned halfway down. Pile of empty bottles scattered at his feet. One was still in his hand. Another was tucked behind his head like a pillow.
At first glance, he looked like a wrestler or maybe just a barbarian and gladiator mix.
Second glance?
Tusks. Jagged. Yellowed. Like two small knives poking up from his bottom jaw.
Broad face, nose like a smashed brick, one eye half-swollen shut. Hair a matted silver-black mess. Just... wild.
Pale skin, like rock salt dragged through coal ash. Scarred in places, faded in others. Old violence. He looked like a dwarfs and orcs unholy union but with very pale skin.
I took a step closer. A bottle rolled underfoot.
The guy grunted. One red-veined eye cracked open.
Stared.
Didn't speak.
So I did.
"You the orientation guy?"
He blinked once.
Then again, slower.
"...Well fuck me sideways with a grav-pike. You're human."
He sat up, kind of, and rubbed his face with the hand still holding the bottle.
"Didn't think this new planet was going to have any made like you. Last couple Legacies I got saddled this integration with looked like they'd bruise from a stiff breeze... And then you walk in, scarred up, beard wild, shoulders like a siege ram. The kind they used to break keeps."
I just stared back. Six-four, two-forty, hair gone reddish-brown shag, beard worse. None of it cared for in a while. Scars old and new cutting through the mess. Yeah. I wasn't pretty. But I sure as hell wasn't fragile.
I just stared.
He squinted at me. Then leaned forward, eyeing the bandages, the blood, the absence of badge.
First the System's MVP golden boy. Now this wreck. Guess that's the range: saints up front, drunks in the back. Tylen got a cleric with legs for days. I got a tusked drunk.
He scratched at a spot between his tusks, then gestured vaguely at the room.
"Well. Welcome to the party. You're only... what, one in a few thousand who didn't croak by now?"
He yawned.
"No formal seating. Hope that's not a dealbreaker."
I walked in fully. Door clunked shut behind me.
"Orientation?" I asked.
He gave me a look. The kind usually followed by a bar fight.
"You want the System script or the honest version?"
I shrugged.
He sat up straighter. Drained the last of whatever was in the bottle, tossed it lazily behind the bench. It didn't break. Just thudded. It sounded way heavier than it had any right to be.
Then he cleared his throat.
Raised one hand like a bored receptionist.
"Welcome, valued Legacy Path User. Due to your
...
"Please direct any questions to your nearest deprecated advisor or postmortem evaluation queue."
"Enjoy your stay."
He dropped his hand.
Cracked his neck to one side.
"And that's the speech I have to give to all new suckers that pick Legacy"
I blinked.
I think I just blacked out, that was pure legalese, I hope it wasn't too important.
"Nice delivery."
He snorted.
I looked around. There were no chairs. No terminals. Just old screens, wall scarring, and a stain in the corner that probably had a tragic backstory.
"Is this... it?"
The man, I didn't know his name yet, nodded.
"Yeah. Legacy orientation. They don't exactly care much for us anymore, as I'm sure you've figured out, it wasn't always like this."
He patted the seat beside him.
"You're the first human I've seen in years. So go on, Legacy boy, that's what your species calls males right? Almost no one makes it through the golem fight they force all legacy people through. Sit. Ask your questions."
I didn't sit right away. Just stood there for a second, bleeding and sore and wondering if this was all some long-con hallucination.
I squinted at the flickering sign, then at the rusted bench, then back at my charming new guide.
"Serious question," I said, waving vaguely at the dust and despair. "Why is this still a thing?"
He blinked. "This?"
"The door. The speech. The whole 'Congratulations, you're deprecated but legally visible' vibe. Why not just kill the option and stop pretending?"
The orc? snorted. Loud. Wet. Like something in his nose disagreed violently.
"Because they can't, dipshit. Didn't you listen to my introduction or is your brain as banged up as you are. Accord says they gotta show it. So they do. Bare minimum. Just enough not to get sued by the gods or whatever runs the back end."
"So we're what... a compliance footnote?" I asked.
"No," he said, grinning like a chipped gravestone. "You're the fine print people scroll past before clicking 'Accept.'"
I stared at him.
"Cool. Love that for me."
"Let me guess," I muttered. "The System forgot to delete the tutorial for us?"
He let out a dry laugh. "Oh no. It's worse than that. They left it in, the same one. Same monsters. Same objectives. Same scaling."
He leaned forward, bottle tilting like a lecture pointer.
"Except it was built for the Golden Path crowd. You know, buffs, support, prefab team balance, the whole fairy circle jerk."
I frowned. "But I was alone."
"Exactly," he said, jabbing the bottle in my direction. "Legacy Users always are. It's not a challenge. It's a culling. They push us through the same meatgrinder and hope none of us crawl out the other side."
He grinned, but there was no joy in it.
"Statistically speaking, you're not supposed to be here. You're the guy who survived a roulette round where every number's a bullet. So far you are the first Legacy to arrive in Orientation Lobby 329455B"
I stared.
"You're not special," he added, "you're just inconveniently alive. That's your crime."
A pause.
"Welcome to the fine print."
The System had its golden children.
And I'd been handed a drunk orc-dwarf with a broken bench and a speech recycled from a toaster...
The System had its golden children. And me? I was the fine print. The part nobody reads. The part you bleed on until you can't be ignored.
Where is my super hot pocket cleric!