MMORPG: Surviving a Death Game with a Glitched System

Ash...

A glowing crown of cerulean blue fire. A skintight green jumpsuit made of thick scaled snakeskin. Sleek black combat boots. Glasses. A missing arm and tail. All while he sat on a gothic stone throne, resting his cheek on the back of his curled claw.

Needless to say, the four who had just reached him stopped and stared in awe at how drastically he’d changed since they last saw him.

The first thing Ash noticed was that they were rocking some new gear as well, though nothing as flashy as his. The second was that they still had all their limbs.

Perhaps most importantly, the [Glasses of Knowledge] let him glimpse approximation of their status as well as their levels: ’Level 5’.

’So, they completed an instance too...’

And got the Class Selection tome.

If it was anything like Ash’s, even he was a little impressed they had managed to survive.

Éloi, wearing an identical pair of glasses to Ash’s, stared deadpan for a moment, then shouted:

"Bro! Your arm!"

Ash looked at his left shoulder.

"Ah, this? It will grow back."

"Grow... back? Why did you say that as if you’ve already tested that?!"

Ash returned his blank stare while studying them.

"..."

Éloi flinched, then yelped:

"Gyah?! The hell, Epitome!"

Ash sighed.

"It obviously wasn’t on purpose, but I’ve lost three arms and two legs in total."

Leaping back as if Ash had threatened him, Éloi yelled:

"Y-you are a monster! Liar!"

’I didn’t even respond when he asked that...?’

How could he lie about something without saying anything?

Besides, they were all monsters in a way. They were Dragonkin.

Claude placed a hand on Éloi’s shoulder and rubbed his forehead with the other before saying:

"I guess that kind of hardship makes sense considering where you were. Still, I’m glad to see you’re safe. You know, we ran into our fair share of trouble trying to come save you."

Ash’s eyes narrowed.

’They knew...?’

And what did Claude mean by ’come save you’?

Claude stepped forward, then continued:

"What were you thinking entering a Level 15 instance?"

’Oh, I see.’

Ash stared blankly for a few moments.

Then, he explained that a monster had tossed him inside. He even revealed that he lacked a system interface and had no idea what the instance was until he’d been thrown inside — or that level suggestions even existed.

The others listened...

For the most part.

Sandra was slumped against the Totem, while Nora sat on the far side, listening from a distance.

At the end of his short story, which wasn’t even half of it, Claude detailed what had happened on their side.

They had discovered the scene Ash left behind in his fight and pieced together what had likely happened to him. Then they had tried to speed-level so they could enter and help him. After reaching the Level 4 bottleneck, however, they had decided to attempt a gray instance, working on the theory that it would unlock the next level.

Their plan from there had been to gain as many levels as possible before attempting a rescue — assuming Ash could hold on long enough.

Given the glitch, they were somewhat confident he’d survive for a while, but...

Claude took a deep breath and said:

"Finishing it? Are you crazy, Ash?!"

Ash flatly replied:

"Maybe from your perspective. But not mine."

Éloi frowned, then interjected:

"Wow. Three out of ten on that aura lob."

’Aura... lob?’

Confused, Ash simply ignored the fool.

Claude sat on the ground, exhaustion plain on his face.

"Well, Ash. I don’t really know what happened in the last week, but it’s good to see you’ve opened up a little."

Ash huffed at the words but didn’t care to refute the assumption. After all, it was true, in a sense.

With the initial surprise of their reunion out of the way, Claude began to tell Ash what the group had gone through in their instance.

They’d been summoned as part of an escort mission across a desert wasteland. Their job was simple: protect the payload and reach the destination.

As Claude described it, he revealed something interesting...

They had ridden in a motor vehicle.

There weren’t any guns or anything similar, nor was the vehicle particularly fancy, but it was gas-powered. The place where they’d delivered the payload had also looked like, according to Claude, an "early Las Vegas."

None of them knew the exact implications of such modernity, but they all took note of it.

However, there was one other important detail: the desert wasteland.

While their instance had begun within the grassland zone they were currently in, a desert had been visible far away on the horizon.

’Why such drastic shifts...?’

Earthly geology and biology seemed best left out of any attempt to understand the world’s structure.

Such questions likely had esoteric answers that simple pondering would never uncover. One way or another, they had to venture out and discover reason.

At the very least, they could say they’d discovered three zones.

So far, they had been given arbitrary names: Mountains of Spring for their current location; Ashes of Evercrest for the volcanic zone, named after Ash revealed that Evercrest’s capital had once stood there in his instance; and, finally, Scarab Sands.

Éloi had been responsible for that last name, saying it sounded cool. And, well, according to the others, there had been an abundance of overgrown scarabs in the desert. They had been the main antagonists of the instance, so the name fit.

As for the final bit of practical information they shared...

Their classes.

Ash revealed that [Focus] was his basic skill and that he’d chosen the Archer class. He even told them about [Rancor] and [Hunter’s Hymn], though he didn’t explain what they did.

Pretending to shed a tear, Éloi cheered:

"I-I’m so proud of you, Epitome!"

Claude barely managed to stop the blonde maniac from hugging Ash in his excitement over Ash ’trusting’ them enough to reveal his abilities.

Éloi then revealed that both he and Nora had selected the Mage class, though neither had any class-related tomes.

’How... useless.’

Thankfully...

[You have equipped [Tome of Wisdom: Vortex]]

Ash held out the tome and willed it into Éloi’s possession.

[[Tome of Wisdom: Vortex] has been lost!]

Ash grumbled, then said:

"I don’t care which one of you uses it."

Éloi shouted as he examined the gift.

"Wowzers to the max! I’ll talk with Nono about it later!"

’Nono...?’

Éloi smiled.

"Ah, you look curious about the nickname! It’s because it’s a ’no no’ to talk— gah, why did you hit me, Cloudy?!"

Claude gave Éloi a stern look, his fist still tightly clenched.

"Because. Let’s not give her more reasons to want to kill you. And no calling me Cloudy."

"Then stop it with the ’gloom and doom’ all the time!"

After that little hiccup, Claude revealed his chosen class: Assassin.

While Ash was certainly quick to judge others, he rarely cared enough to dwell on their choices.

Yet, he couldn’t help but question this one.

’He’s tall and seems quite... direct in his approach to things.’

The shadow-stalking path of an Assassin didn’t seem to fit Claude, who appeared more like a leader. Ash would have assumed he’d choose the Warrior class.

In any case, there wasn’t any reason to be conservative and stunt their strength out of conceit. He gave the [Tome of Shadows: Stalk] to Claude, who graciously accepted it.

Last was the strangest of them all: Sandra.

The timid worrywart had apparently chosen the Warrior class.

Ash would have expected her to choose Mage or Archer, but nope...

Oddly, his surprise was his alone. Neither Claude nor Éloi seemed surprised by her choice. In fact, both seemed somewhat scared of the sleeping woman.

Ash kept most of his curiosity to himself, giving Claude the two items — [Tome of Might: Rampage] and [Tome of Might: Thick Skin] — to pass on to her when she woke up.

However, Claude wore an odd, almost fearful expression when he noticed the names of the tomes...

Finally, Claude began explaining the strange wooden ring around the territory. His guess was that it would serve as the foundation for a wall they’d build in a future quest.

After a bit more discussion, and once Éloi recovered enough to spam [Mend] on the group, they collectively decided to rest.

[Mend] couldn’t accelerate his limb’s regrowth by much, but every bit helped. Combined with [Embers of May], he’d probably have his arm regrown to the wrist and half his tail restored by the time he woke up.

Ash didn’t care to keep his guard up any longer.

He wasn’t going to deny his body rest. Besides, giving the others the tomes and acting far more amicably than before made Ash feel oddly secure around them... as though none of them would take advantage of him while he slept.

Not that he could pinpoint why.

With the [Snow Crawlers] beneath his head, his dawgs out, Ash lay on the grass and watched the stars.

Under the cosmic blanket, he fell asleep upon the verdant slope.

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