Alvin's back was pressed so hard against the oak tree that he could feel every ridge of the non-glitched bark digging into his spine. His hand, slick with a fresh sheen of terror-sweat, gripped the plastic handle of his [DRAGON-PRO (Slightly Rusted)] box cutter. The chittering sound was getting louder, a dry, multi-legged scraping that made his skin crawl.
He was in a catch-22, a feedback loop from hell.
He'd found a bug (the pixelated tree). But the bug contained a bug (the chittering thing). This was a bug-in-a-bug. A 'nested' error. Back at GigaByte, this was the kind of report that would make Chad's eye twitch and cause the entire dev team to 'suddenly be in a meeting.'
Alvin, however, didn't have the luxury of forwarding the email.
He had to act. He had no time for a 485-year wait. He needed help now.
"Activate skill: Submit Support Ticket," he whispered, his voice trembling. The blue box popped into his vision. He didn't bother with the 1-minute-focus-time version. He was just... filing.
[New Ticket (ID #00000003)]
[Subject Line: URGENT! QA-ENVIRONMENT-BREAK! P1! P1!]
The chittering was punctuated by a low, wet growl. It sounded hungry.
Alvin's fingers flew across his mental keyboard.
[Body: User #8,388,609 (Beta Tester) here. I've located a severe environmental-clipping error (Asset Ref: 'Big-Freaking-Oak-Tree,' approx. 500 paces from my spawn point). The glitched texture is masking an 'un-instanced' developer tunnel. AND... there is a hostile, un-identified entity inside the glitched area. This is a critical error! A monster is loose inside the world geometry! I am requesting immediate asset-identification and removal. Also, this is WAY outside the scope of a 'Beta Test.' I'm going to need compensation. And a real weapon. And maybe a sandwich that doesn't taste like chalk and regret.]
He mentally hit 'Send.'
[Thank you for your query!]
[Your ticket (ID #00000003) has been successfully submitted.]
[Current Estimated Wait Time: 485 Years]
"No, no, no, not...!"
Before he could even finish his new-found tradition of cursing the queue-time, something different happened.
A loud, jarring, B-B-B-BING! echoed in his head, like a slot machine hitting a tiny, depressing jackpot.
The blue box flashed brightly.
[SYSTEM ALERT: TITLE-EFFECT 'FEEDBACK LOOP' HAS TRIGGERED!]
[1% CHANCE SUCCESS! YOUR TICKET HAS BEEN... FAST-TRACKED!]
[Escalating from 'General Queue' to 'Tier 1 Automated Support.']
[Now Connecting you to a Support-Assistant...]
[...Connection established. Please hold.]
Alvin blinked. Hold? He was hiding behind a tree from a monster and they were putting him on hold?
The chittering was right on the other side of the pixelated bark now. He could hear it sniffing and scraping.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon..." he breathed.
The blue box changed again. The border turned from blue to a very 'corporate' and serious-looking grey.
[Greetings, User #8,388,609. This is Sys-T-Bot, your Tier 1 Automated-Assistant. I will be handling your query (ID #00000003) today. How may I be of service?]
It was a chat bot. He had finally, finally gotten a response, and it was a god-damned chat bot.
"It's in my ticket!" Alvin hissed, mentally 'typing' as fast as he could. "The monster! In the wall! What is it?!"
[Sys-T-Bot]: Thank you for your patience. I am reviewing your query now. ... ... ... Yes, I see the report. An entity inside 'un-instanced' world geometry. This is highly irregular. Please standby as I query the asset-registry.]
STANDBY?!
The scraping at the glitched hole stopped. There was a terrible, wet, snuffling sound.
[Sys-T-Bot]: Query complete. The entity you are detecting is an 'Un-Rendered Asset': [Gloom-Weaver Spawnling (Level 5)]. It appears to be an entity that failed to properly de-spawn from a previous patch. My apologies for the oversight.]
"Level... 5?" Alvin's blood turned to ice. He was Level 1. His stats were garbage. A Level 5 monster... he didn't even want to think about what that meant. "Oversight?! Get it out of there! Delete it! Hotfix it like you did the slime!"
[Sys-T-Bot]: I am... unable to perform that action at this time.]
Alvin's jaw dropped.
[Alvin]: What do you mean 'unable'?! You're the System!
[Sys-T-Bot]: The entity [Gloom-Weaver Spawnling (Level 5)] is currently located in 'un-instanced,' 'un-compiled' world geometry. My 'delete_entity' protocols do not have clearance for that specific memory address. To put it in terms you might understand, User: The asset is 'stuck in the wall' and I cannot reach it. This is a... known issue.]
"A known issue?!" Alvin was so furious he was vibrating.
He didn't have time to type a scathing reply.
A sound, like a knife cutting through static, ripped the air.
ZZR-CHIK.
Alvin froze. He slowly... slowly... turned his head.
Sticking through the solid, non-glitched part of the oak tree—right next to his face—was a... leg.
It was a long, thin, insect-like leg, barbed and jointed like a spider's. But it wasn't made of flesh or chitin. It was made of... static. It looked like a 3D model that was missing its texture, a shimmering, black, staticky thing that seemed to absorb the light around it. It was clipping through the solid wood as if it wasn't even there.
"Ah," Alvin whimpered, pressing his face into the bark.
[Alvin]: BOT! BOT, IT'S CLIPPING! IT'S CLIPPING THROUGH THE WALL! IT'S RIGHT NEXT TO ME!
[Sys-T-Bot]: Ah, yes. That would be the 'un-stable interaction-logic.' The entity is not fully 'compiled' into the physical world, so it is not properly obeying the world's 'collision' physics. Fascinating.]
[Alvin]: FASCINATING?! IT'S GOING TO KILL ME!
[Sys-T-Bot]: That is a possibility. As a Tier 1 Assistant, I can only offer the following authorized solutions: 1) Have you tried moving to a different location, at least 500 paces away? 2) Have you tried turning yourself off and on again? (Note: This is a Tier 1-authorized joke. Please do not attempt to 'turn yourself off' as this may result in permanent de-activation. We are not liable for user-inflicted de-activation.)]
The static-filled leg twitched, searching, then retracted back into the wood with another ZZR-CHIK.
Alvin's heart was a hummingbird in his throat. It was in the wall. Like a rat. A giant, Level 5, physics-defying spider-rat.
The chittering from the pixelated hole exploded. The thing was angry. It was now pushing its way out of the glitched opening.
Alvin peeked around the trunk.
It was... horrible.
It wasn't a spider. It was... all the parts of a spider, just assembled wrong. A mass of inky, un-rendered shadows, eight-or-so static-legs, and a cluster of glowing, ruby-red eyes that were just... flat, 2D circles. . It was a 'Gloom-Weaver Spawnling' that was half-monster, half-corrupted-file.
And it was lunging out of the tree, right at him.
Alvin had no time. He couldn't run. He couldn't fight. The bot was useless.
He was just an intern.
And this... this was a bad line of code.
A moment of pure, GigaByte-intern inspiration, born from a thousand wasted hours watching programmers argue over 'null-pointers,' struck him.
"You're not a monster," he whispered, his panic replaced by a sudden, icy-calm. "You're a bug. And I... am QA."
He didn't run. He stepped out from behind the tree.
[Sys-T-Bot]: USER! WE STRONGLY ADVISE AGAINST ENGAGEMENT. YOUR 'UTILITY KNIFE (SLIGHTLY RUSTED)' HAS A 0.00% CHANCE OF DAMAGING A LEVEL 5 ENTITY'S HP POOL.]
"Who said anything about HP?" Alvin snarled.
The Gloom-Weaver shrieked—a sound like a dial-up modem screaming—and lunged, its inky-black, static-fanged maw opening wide.
Alvin didn't try to dodge. He didn't try to block.
He activated his other skill.
"Activate Skill: Submit Support Ticket!"
The blue box flashed open.
[Alvin]: Sys-T-Bot! Tell your bosses I'M FIXING THIS MYSELF! I'M MANUALLY-EDITING THIS ASSET! DO NOT INTERRUPT ME!
[Sys-T-Bot]: ...! USER, THAT IS NOT... YOU CANNOT... THAT IS NOT A THING YOU CAN DO!]
Alvin ignored the bot. He faced the lunge. The world went into slow-motion. He could see the bad-texturing on the monster's fangs.
He gripped his [DRAGON-PRO (Slightly Rusted)] box cutter. This wasn't a sword. It was a tool. It was a debugger.
He didn't aim for the eyes. He didn't aim for the heart.
He jammed the rusty metal blade straight into the middle of the monster's un-rendered, static-filled chest.
ZZZZZRRRRR-THUNK!
It wasn't the sound of cutting flesh. It was the sound of jamming a fork into a live wall-socket. It was the sound of a running computer being unplugged.
The monster froze in mid-air. Its lunge stopped, a single inch from Alvin's face. Its red, 2D-circle eyes twitched.
A new, frantic, system-wide alert, this one pure, screaming crimson, filled Alvin's vision.
[CRITICAL KERNEL-LEVEL ERROR! KERNEL-LEVEL ERROR!]
[USER #8,388,609 IS ATTEMPTING A MANUAL 'EDIT' ON A LIVE-KERNEL-SPACE ASSET!]
[THIS IS... THIS IS... THIS IS NOT AN AUTHORIZED ACTION! STOP! CEASE! DESIST!]
"Fixing... your... bug!" Alvin grunted, his arm shaking from the sheer, unnatural... resistance.
The monster shrieked again, the modem-sound dropping in pitch. It was trying to move, but the box cutter, his cheap, plastic utility knife, was stuck in it, acting like... like a breakpoint in a line of code.
The monster was paused.
"Let's see... what this does!" Alvin yelled.
With all his 'Strength: 5' (plus the bonus from pure, unadulterated spite), he didn't pull the knife out. He dragged it.
He tore the blade downwards.
KRR-SHHHHH-ZZT!
He wasn't cutting it. He was corrupting it.
The effect was immediate. The monster's static-filled leg detached and fell to the ground, dissolving into pixels. One of its red eyes flickered and turned green. Its entire body began to stretch and vibrate, as if it was a 3D-model being pulled apart in a buggy physics engine.
It opened its maw to shriek, but the sound that came out was [ERROR: SOUND_FILE 'MONSTER_SHRIEK_04.WAV' NOT FOUND].
The monster... looked at its own chest. It looked at the box cutter. It looked at Alvin. It jiggled, like a Jell-O mold of pure error.
And then, with a final, wet pop, it... dissolved.
It didn't explode. It didn't die. It... crashed.
It broke apart into a thousand tiny, blue-and-red squares, a shower of broken geometry and 'NULL' values that hovered in the air for a second before fading away, leaving nothing but the smell of ozone and hot plastic.
Alvin was left standing, his entire body shaking, his arm still outstretched. His rusty box cutter was glowing with a faint blue light, and a single, blue pixel was... smoking... on the end of it.
He panted. Once. Twice.
Then he looked at his open chat-window.
[Sys-T-Bot]: ...
[Alvin]: ...
[Sys-T-Bot]: ... Well.]
[Sys-T-Bot]: That... was not an authorized solution.]
[Sys-T-Bot]: ... ... ... Congratulations, User, on your... 'creative problem-solving.' Your ticket (ID #00000003) is... well, it's... I'm closing it.]
[...As a result of 'manually-interfacing' with an 'un-compiled-asset-bug'...]
[...SYSTEM-LOGIC-ERROR HAS OCCURRED...]
[...New Skill Created...]
[You have learned a new skill: 'Debug' (Lv. 1)]
[Sys-T-Bot]: This chat session is now over. I... I have to go file a report. (This is not a lie. I am an automated program, and I am currently filing one thousand, two-hundred-and-fourteen simultaneous reports.) Have a... nice... day.]
The grey chat-window vanished with a snap.
Alvin stood there, in the sudden, profound silence of the forest. He looked at his box cutter, which had stopped glowing. He looked at the pixelated hole in the tree.
Then he opened his skill menu.
[SKILLS]
[Submit Support Ticket (Lv. 1)]
[Debug (Lv. 1)]
He focused on the new skill.
[Debug (Lv. 1)]
(Active Skill)
Allows user to physically interface with 'imperfect' or 'glitched' world assets (e.g., texture-errors, clipping-errors, un-rendered entities).
Effect: May cause... unpredictable results.
Cost: 10 Stamina per second of use.
Cooldown: 60 minutes. (Warning: Use at your own extreme peril. The System is not responsible for data-corruption, asset-loss, or user-'crashing' resulting from improper use of this... 'feature'.)
"A 10-Stamina-per-second cost?" Alvin wheezed, suddenly feeling his Stamina: 3 again. His little 'debug' trick had probably lasted two seconds and completely drained him. He felt light-headed.
He pocketed his box cutter, stumbled over to a different, less-buggy tree, and slid down to sit on the moss, his heart finally slowing down.
He had two skills. One to report a bug. One to break a bug.
He was the "Weak-to-Strong" Isekai hero.
And his 'superpower'... was turning the world off and on again.
He looked at the dark, pixelated tunnel. He looked at his new skill.
"Nope."
He got to his feet.
"Not today. Not ever. I am... I am going to find that water."
He turned his back on the glitched tree, and on the promise of whatever 'secret' lay inside, and started walking.