The last thing I remembered was the glow of my third monitor.
I had been awake for seventy-two hours. The raid boss—Var'koth the Undying—was at 0.5% HP. My guild was dead. My healers were out of mana. It was just me, my keyboard, and a frame-perfect rotation of cooldowns.
I hit the execute command. The boss fell. The achievement popped up: [World First].
Then, my chest felt like someone had detonated a frag grenade inside my ribcage. My vision went black. I slumped forward, my forehead hitting the spacebar.
Click.
And that was it.
"Wasted," I muttered, expecting to wake up in a hospital bed with an angry nurse and a disappointed mother.
Instead, I woke up in a white room.
No, not a room. A lobby.
The floor was a glossy, impossible material that looked like liquid mercury frozen in time. Above, there was no ceiling, just a swirling code-stream of golden fractals.
I stood up. I checked my hands. They were translucent.
"Ghost avatar," I noted. "High transparency. Something seems off."
I wasn't alone.
Standing in a wide circle around me were twenty other figures. I scanned them instantly. You can tell a lot about a gamer by how they react to a lobby crash.
To my left, a guy was pacing back and forth, muttering about "lag." The Speedrunner. Impatient. High APM (Actions Per Minute).
To my right, a girl was checking her translucent reflection, posing. The Streamer. Narcissistic. Likely plays Charisma builds.
Across the circle, a guy with broad shoulders was trying to punch the invisible wall. The PvP Main. Aggressive. Low impulse control.
Twenty-one of us. All confused. All dead.
"Welcome," a voice boomed. It didn't come from a mouth; it came from everywhere, vibrating through our spectral bones.
The center of the room distorted. A figure manifested. It wasn't an old man with a beard or an angel with wings. It was a geometric humanoid shape made of shifting blue light. It looked like a developer's default asset.
"I am the Administrator," the entity said. Its voice was autotuned perfection. "Congratulations. You have all suffered a critical hardware failure in your previous dimension."
"We're dead?" someone shouted. "I can't be dead! I have a tournament next week!"
"Your biological hardware has been scrapped," the Admin continued, ignoring the outburst. "However, your software—your souls—have been selected for a migration project."
A giant holographic screen materialized in the air. It showed a map. A massive, sprawling continent with twenty-one distinct kingdoms, separated by mountain ranges, oceans, and vast, dark forests.
"This is Aethelgard," the Admin said. "It is a world on the brink of a server wipe. In eighty years, an entity known as the Demon King will awaken. If he succeeds, the world is deleted."
I stepped forward. I couldn't help myself. "So it's a Save the World quest? Standard JRPG stuff?"
The Admin's featureless face turned toward me. "Not quite, Player 21. Aethelgard has had heroes before. They all failed. They lacked... efficiency. They lacked the ability to optimize."
The map zoomed in, showing armies clashing.
"This is not a cooperative campaign," the Admin stated. "This is a Grand Strategy Battle Royale."
The air in the lobby grew cold.
"Each of you will be reincarnated into one of the twenty-one kingdoms," the Admin explained. "You will be born as infants. You will grow. You will rise to power. You may become a General, a Merchant King, a Archmage, or a Monarch. Your goal is to accumulate Contribution Points (CP)."
A leaderboard appeared. It was currently blank.
"You gain CP by killing monsters, conquering territory, and optimizing your kingdom's economy," the Admin said. "When the Demon King falls, the player with the highest CP will be granted Administrator privileges. You will become the new God of this world."
"And the losers?" the PvP guy asked, cracking his spectral knuckles.
"Deletion," the Admin said simply. "Total format. You cease to exist."
Murmurs broke out. Some were crying. Some were shouting.
I stared at the map.
Eighty years. A full lifetime. A competition against twenty other top-tier gamers. Economic management. War strategy. Personal leveling.
My heart, or whatever ghost organ I had, started to race. Not with fear. With excitement.
This wasn't a tragedy. This was the ultimate expansion pack.
"I have a question," I said, cutting through the noise.
The room went silent. The other players looked at me like I was insane.
"Go ahead, Player 21," the Admin said.
"Is the system balanced?" I asked. "Or can we exploit the physics engine?"
The Admin paused. The blue light seemed to pulse with amusement. "The physics engine is robust. But... creative use of mechanics is encouraged."
"Good," I nodded. "And the level cap?"
"The standard limit is 99."
"Boring," I muttered. "Is there a difficulty setting?"
The Admin hesitated. "There is. But choosing a higher difficulty imposes severe penalties on XP gain."
"Show me the math," I demanded.
The Admin waved a hand. The floor beneath us dissolved.
"Time to choose," the voice echoed. "Select your Kingdom. Select your Class. And select your Fate. The timer starts... now."
We fell.
As the others screamed, flailing in the digital wind, I crossed my arms and closed my eyes, already calculating the build.
Druid, I thought. Versatile. High skill ceiling. Good for economy and combat.
I opened my eyes as the white void consumed me, leading me to that fateful black screen and the four difficulty options.
I was going to break this game. I was going to 100% it.
And God help anyone who tried to steal my kill.