MMORPG: Surviving a Death Game with a Glitched System

Ash’s options were limited.

To be specific, he had two: summon either the tome or the bow.

The goal was to use one of them as an anchor and stop himself from falling further. After all, it was already a miracle he’d fallen back into reality. Ash doubted another world existed below the tundra.

In any case, he’d chosen the bow because it was easier to hold onto. He couldn’t get a firm grip on the thick book.

Grunting, Ash drew his first breath and felt his heartbeat steadily increase. With oxygen coursing through his system increasing, it felt as though he’d cast [Focus]. Only, his capabilities were returning to normal rather than being enhanced.

’Closer...’

Ash was falling headfirst. Any second, he’d plunge back into the tundra’s depths.

Honestly, it was a bit scary.

Without his glitch, he’d simply splat and die. But with it...

Ash locked his fist around the bow.

Once again, everything went black as his head breached the plane.

A moment later, his entire form stuttered. His arm jerked upward, stretching farther than it ever had before.

With touch as his only remaining sense — and the bow the only object he could feel — he focused on hauling himself up.

Half-dead and limited to one hand, Ash poured every scrap of strength into the bow and heaved his body upward. His momentum carried his shoulders over the surface.

His head burst out of the snow, and a familiar sight above greeted him.

Much like he had when giving Cross one final scare, he draped his chest across the bow. With his weight supported, he summoned [Tome of Might: Thick Skin]. Once it formed beside him, he hooked his arm over its edge and dragged himself fully onto it before settling into a seated position. As an added precaution, he summoned Seal Scrawler meat and laid it within reach, giving himself something else to grab if he began to slip.

Naked, in immense pain, and stranded in the middle of a frozen desert surrounded by rotten-looking meat, Ash sighed.

"I don’t know how long it will take..."

Ash’s gaze drifted up. As he looked at the ceiling of the place he’d previously mistaken for a sky, he noticed a large crack running across it in either direction.

"But I’ll make it back."

Until then...

’I have to survive.’

The question was... how?

His immediate objective was clear: kill monsters and collect their drops, hoping for... anything, really.

Something to wear would be ideal.

He couldn’t risk sleeping until he got clothes.

First, however, he had to wait for his mangled body to repair itself.

After that came the matter of finding a way back.

’Hmm...’

Ash studied the crack.

Only then did he recognize an obvious oversight.

’I don’t know why I hadn’t considered it, but... I’ve been in the seal the whole time, haven’t I?’

"Wait, that’s right..."

The first thing the princess had said to him was:

"My presence here is proof I’m an enemy."

Afterward, she had accused him of putting on an act, insisting that the only explanation for his prior presence was that he belonged to one of ’his’ dogs. Her conviction that he was trying to deceive her had stemmed from more than simple skepticism.

’Was she referring to Cross at that time? Her father? Someone else?’

"Argh... the pain’s finally getting to me. It’s getting hard to think."

But...

If Ash had been in the seal from the beginning, and if the ’hell’ and tundra were merely separate pockets of the same space, then it would make sense for the seal’s actual entrance to be accessible only to those who had created it.

’It doesn’t make sense that it would be in the middle of nowhere.’

While he couldn’t draw any conclusions, he could make one reasonable conjecture: such a dangerous Great Spirit — one so feared that it needed to be sealed away — wouldn’t be left unguarded.

There was also a physical detail connecting the tundra to the magma sea.

The haze.

He’d seen it in both places.

Its presence alone wasn’t important. The possible cause was. At first, it had seemed nonsensical; nothing more than random fog draped across the landscape.

’But what if... the haze is caused by the other area’s existence?’

"Oh my..."

"I think I get it now."

The wolf’s words came back to him. Its explanation about mirages.

"Mirages form from light bending through air at different temperatures. Somehow, someway, the two areas are linked. And the haze appears whenever that connection forms because it isn’t actually haze at all, it’s a massive mirage."

It wasn’t a true haze. It never had been. What he saw was the landscape itself warping as light bent between the two extremes.

Discovering that might not accomplish anything — and his theory could still be completely wrong — but it was undoubtedly a clue to how he might return to the other side.

’Once the pain lessens and I can focus, perhaps I should try to learn about mana.’

For better or worse, he would have plenty of downtime.

The monsters in this area seemed to spawn only at night...

Or whatever constituted night here.

Outside those periods, wandering aimlessly would likely accomplish nothing.

Though that was irrelevant for now, considering he couldn’t walk at all.

Hell, even if he were perfectly healthy, he could only get around by playing a warped game of the floor is lava, using everything in his inventory.

In his current state, he could only move by planting the bow ahead of him, swinging his body forward, and repeating the process; something resembling a one-armed salmon-ladder climb across the tundra.

"Man, this situation pisses me off to no end."

Thankfully, he’d discovered a few more things about his glitch during his confrontation with Cross.

Mainly...

Casting [Focus] while inside another object or creature was a two-way street, damaging both parties.

"Ah..."

In his current situation, Ash faced a morbid choice.

Either he could launch himself out of the ground and try to kill an enemy within the skill’s five-second window, or cast [Focus] while one of his limbs was embedded in a vital part of its body.

He’d be sacrificing flesh, or perhaps even an entire limb. But now he knew his body could regenerate, however pitifully slowly.

’Ergh...’

Having already endured the unbearable agony of it twice, Ash didn’t necessarily want to experience it again. Let alone on purpose when he had an option not to.

At the same time, if he attempted the former and failed, his target would retaliate. Worse, even if by accident, it might destroy one of his items in the struggle and send him back into an endless plunge.

Ash let out a wry chuckle and rubbed the stump of his left arm.

"I’ve got quite the painful future awaiting me..."

But that was merely the price of ambition.

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