Chapter 1
I opened my eyes and found myself lying in the wide prairie outside Ethille, the spawn point for every new adventurer in Etherissia Online.
Tall grass swayed in the wind, brushing against my cloak as wildflowers dotted the rolling fields that stretched endlessly toward the horizon. Birds circled overhead, their sharp calls cutting through the open sky, and for a brief moment the world felt almost peaceful, like nothing had ever gone wrong, almost.
But I knew better.
Everyone else had been reset to Level 1, yet I hadn't lost everything. My skills, my spells, the countless tricks and techniques I'd accumulated over years of playing, they were still there, buried beneath the system's reset like nothing had changed.
Something about the glitch had preserved me, and I could feel it in the way magic still responded to my thoughts when I flexed my fingers.
I slipped behind a cluster of rocks, making sure no one was nearby, and raised my hand as I whispered.
"Fireball"
A small sphere of flame formed above my palm, warm and steady, the faint scent of sulfur drifting into the air. It worked. Still mine. That realization alone was enough to shift my thoughts into survival mode.
If I played it carefully, I could pretend to be just another beginner, take low-level quests, stay unnoticed, and figure out what was really happening before anyone realized I was different.
I brushed the dust off my cloak and made my way toward Ethille. The town looked alive at first glance, merchants shouting over each other, blacksmiths hammering metal in rhythmic bursts, children laughing between the stalls.
But something about it felt off, wrong in a way I couldn't immediately explain. Windows flickered like broken glass, street lamps blinked on and off without reason, and NPCs stood frozen in place repeating the same lines in distorted loops:
"Welcome, traveler… Welcome, traveler… Wel…come… traveler…"
A chill crawled up my spine as I tightened my grip on my sword and slipped into a narrow alley.
I opened my status window, and what I saw made me pause. My stats were still Level 1.
But the numbers were far higher than they should have been for a beginner, Health, Mana, Strength, all of it sitting above what I remembered being possible at this stage.
It wasn't endgame power, but it was wrong enough to make me uneasy. I closed the window and exhaled slowly, forcing myself to stay calm, reminding myself that the smartest move was still the same: act weak, move like a beginner, survive.
The plaza ahead was crowded with players gathered around the fountain, but panic was spreading through them like wildfire. People shouted about missing logout buttons, about bugs, about the system not responding, their voices overlapping into chaos.
"No logout button!" one yelled, shaking his interface as if it would fix itself. "It's a bug! It has to be a bug!" another said, pale and shaking.
Others whispered in fear, asking what would happen if they died here, or if anyone outside could even hear them anymore. I stayed at the edge of it all, silent and watching, but unease settled heavily in my chest because the truth was becoming harder to ignore.
The world wasn't just glitching anymore, it was breaking.
I left Ethille soon after and found myself outside the town where new Level 1 players were already being overwhelmed by kobolds.
A furfolk mage stood frozen in fear as one of the creatures lunged toward her, her hands trembling as she tried to cast a spell too late to matter, and that was when the system suddenly flashed in front of me.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
EXCLUSIVE QUEST AVAILABLE
Quest: Save the Adventurers
Reward: ???
Accept? [YES / NO]
It felt like a test. Help them and expose myself, or do nothing and watch them die. I stepped forward anyway, and in that instant time locked in place.
The kobold's attack froze mid-air as everything around me turned still, like the world itself had been paused.
I moved through it calmly, blade flashing twice in clean, precise arcs before stepping back as time resumed.
The kobolds collapsed instantly into dust, and silence returned as if nothing had happened.
A reward notification followed, along with a glowing scroll that dropped at my feet. I accepted it without hesitation, slipping it into my inventory for later.
Around me, the other players stared in shock, whispering about what they had just seen, and one of them finally stepped forward to speak.
The furfolk mage introduced herself as Lyra, an Arcane Mage, followed by a dwarf named Garrick, a Rune Cleaver, and an elf named Selene, a Phantom Dancer.
They were still processing what had happened when another group arrived, clearly intent on taking loot from the fallen kobolds.
The tension escalated quickly. The group's leader, a brute named Dieval, acted like they owned the area, and before anything could be properly resolved, things turned violent.
I took the first hit before I could fully react, pain exploding through my jaw and ribs as laughter followed, and for a moment everything felt familiar in the worst possible way.
Old memories surfaced, being the quiet target, the easy one, the one people didn't think twice about hitting. Then I saw someone different in the chaos, a player named Riven, who stood firm even while being overwhelmed.
Something about him snapped something inside me, and I finally spoke up, drawing attention to myself and dragging myself into the fight without meaning to.
Later, Riven helped me up and handed me a game disc, telling me Etherissia might be worth trying.
That night I put on the CPR gear, Comprehensive Personal Reality, not knowing it would be the last time I ever logged into a normal world.
---
Now, standing back in the present with Dieval grinning in front of me and demanding loot, I stepped forward and defused the situation, letting them take it.
There was no point dying over something so small. Survival came first.
Not long after, another system quest appeared requiring a five-person party for a Blobbling hunt.
I joined Lyra's group, and soon after a final member arrived, a horned girl named Kina, calm, dangerous, and clearly not ordinary.
Together, the five of us formed a party called Green Verdict and set out toward the forest as the sun began to set, the light spilling gold across the prairie while Blobblings bounced harmlessly ahead of us.
The others talked as we walked, debating survival, teamwork, and whether clearing the game was even possible, but I stayed slightly behind, listening and observing everything carefully.
Something about all of this still didn't feel right. When I asked how long they had been together, Lyra explained that they had been part of a party since the early days, before the glitch, before everything reset them to Level 1 with no logout option.
The idea that they had experienced the same collapse as me made the situation feel even more real, and more dangerous.
The wind shifted as we reached the edge of the forest. It wasn't natural anymore. Selene noticed it first, then Lyra raised her staff, and Garrick tensed.
The Blobblings scattered, sensing something none of us could see, and the system offered no warning at all.
I tightened my grip on my sword as the bushes ahead began to shake, something moving inside them too fast to identify.
Whatever was there, it wasn't part of the normal game anymore. It was something else entirely, and it was about to show itself.