"Bounce!" Pigglesworth shrieked, jumping up and down on the black plastic surface. "It is useless! We are light as feathers! We lack the tonnage!"
"It's the physics engine!" Kai yelled, grabbing Gideon’s shoulder to keep the Knight from sliding off the slick plastic. "We're just hitboxes! We don't have mass!"
The Great Polish roared over the crater lip. It didn't look like a wall anymore. Up close, it was a tsunami of static. It was the end of math. It erased the space bar and then 'F1' key. The Rain from the sky, the bleed from the Real World was pouring down harder now. But it wasn't enough. The key wouldn't budge.
"Kai!" Maya screamed, pointing at the wall. "It’s over! We can't press it!"
Kai looked at the wall. He looked at the unpressed key beneath their feet. He looked at the rain leaking in from reality. Reality isn't enough, Kai realized. We don't need physics. We need a glitch.
He thought back to the very first moment he woke up in this world. He thought about every time he tried to curse. Every time he tried to scream his frustration, and the System replaced his rage with a troll gimmick. The Text Engine, Kai thought. It's breaking down. The wall is erasing the UI.
"Grom!" Kai grabbed the Orc. "Get off the key! Everyone, clear the landing zone!"
"WHY?" Grom roared. "ARE YOU SURRENDERING?"
"No," Kai grinned maniacally, staring at the sky. "I'm going to summon a Reinforcement."
"What reinforcement?" Gideon asked. "We have no allies!"
"We have one," Kai said. "The Autocorrect."
Kai stepped to the center of the key. He looked up at the flickering, glitching sky of the office. He took a deep breath. He filled his lungs with all the rage of a gamer who has died on the final boss. He thought of every microtransaction, every unskippable ad and lag spikes.
"System!" Kai screamed at the heavens. "Hey, System!"
The static wall loomed over him.
Kai threw his head back. "GO FUCK YOURSELF!"
The universe froze. The silence was deafening. The System had heard the Forbidden Word. The Ultimate ToS Violation. Red text exploded across the sky, glitching and tearing as the graphics engine failed.
[SYSTEM ALERT] [CRITICAL PROFANITY DETECTED] [INITIATING CENSORSHIP PROTOCOL] [TEXT ENGINE: OFFLINE] [ERROR: CANNOT REPLACE STRING WITH TEXT] [SOLUTION: DEPLOYING PHYSICAL REPLACEMENT ASSET]
"Incoming!" Kai dove off the key.
Above them, the sky tore open. It wasn't a word that fell. It was a Duck. But not just any duck. It was the Developer’s Rubber Duck looking like the Debugging God. A solid, yellow, high density mesh the size of a minivan. It plummeted from the render limit, accelerating with the wrath of a 1000 censored chat logs.
[ASSET SPAWNED: THE MOTHER DUCKER] [WEIGHT: HEAVY AF]
QUACK.
The sound was deep, bass boosted, and terrified. The giant yellow duck slammed into the [Esc] key.
KA-CHUNK.
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The impact was seismic. The key didn't just go down; it bottomed out. The spring shattered. The circuit closed.
[COMMAND RECEIVED: FORCE QUIT]
The world didn't fade to black. It snapped. The White Wall froze inches from Grom’s nose. The rain stopped in mid-air. The giant Rubber Duck bounced once, looking oddly satisfied.
And then, the sound. ZZZZZRP-CHHHHK. It was the sound of a hard drive dying. The sound of a God pulling the plug.
The light died. Total, absolute darkness.
[SYSTEM REBOOTING...] [INSTALLING UPDATE 1 OF 5,000...] [DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR REALITY]
[LOCATION: UNKNOWN] [TIME: 02:14 AM] [WEATHER: MISERABLE]
Pain. That was the first thing Kai felt. His back was aching. His head throbbed. His left leg was asleep.
He gasped, sucking in air that smelled of... exhaust fumes. Wet concrete. Old garbage. He opened his eyes.
He wasn't on the keyboard. He wasn't in the office. He was lying on his back on a rough, black surface. Rain freezing cold rain was pelting his face.
[DEBUFF APPLIED: SOGGY SOCKS] [-10 DIGNITY]
Kai sat up, groaning. His clothes were soaked. He looked around. He was sitting in the middle of a street. Streetlights reflected off the puddles, casting long, orange glares on the wet asphalt. Cars were parked along the side of the road, real cars, with dents and rust.
"Ugh," a voice groaned next to him. "Why is the ground so... hard?" Kai looked over. Pigglesworth was lying in a puddle, looking like a drowned rat in a tuxedo. He looked... incredibly real. Every hair / blemish was clearly visible. "I …" Pigglesworth whispered, horrified, looking at a smudge of dirt on his cuff. "I am high definition."
"Grom?" Kai called out. A massive shape shifted in the shadows of a bus stop. Grom stepped out. He was terrifying. In the game, he was a cartoonish brute. Here, under the streetlights, he was seven feet of hulking muscle, mottled green skin, and tusks that curled up past his nose. He looked like a CGI movie monster brought to life in 8K resolution.
"I AM COLD," Grom complained, his voice vibrating in Kai’s chest. "AND THIS AIR TASTES LIKE SOOT."
A group of drunk university students walked past. They didn't scream. They didn't run. One of them stopped and pointed at Grom. "Whoa, mate. Sick cosplay. Is that Warcraft?"
Grom narrowed his yellow eyes. "I AM GROM! THE GUILDMASTER!"
"Method acting. Nice," the student laughed, pulling out a phone. "Can I get a selfie? Do the roar."
Grom looked at Kai, confused. "WHY DOES THIS PEASANT NOT FLEE? I AM HOLDING A WEAPON."
"It's London, Grom," Kai sighed, picking himself up. "Nobody cares unless you block the sidewalk."
"We made it," Maya said, wiping rain from her eyes. "We Force Quit into reality. We're free."
Kai smiled. The relief washed over him. No more health bars. No more grinding. No more paywalls. "We actually did it," Kai laughed. "We beat the sys—"
PING. PING. PING. PING.
A sound echoed in Kai’s ears. It wasn't ambient noise. It was the UI. Suddenly, text boxes began to cascade over his vision, stacking on top of each other like a popup virus.
[NEW ZONE DISCOVERED: LONDON] [WARNING: COST OF LIVING IS 'EXTREME'] [STATUS EFFECT: RENT (DRAINS GOLD EVERY 30 DAYS)] [DEBUFF: ANXIETY (PERMANENT)] [REMINDER: STUDENT LOANS HAVE NOT BEEN PAUSED]
Kai froze. He looked down the street. A red double decker bus drove past them. As it turned the corner, the back of the bus clipped through a parked taxi. The textures flickered. Above the bus driver's head, a nameplate hovered: [NPC: UNDERPAID DRIVER] [PATHING: BROKEN]
Kai’s heart stopped. He looked at the Clock Tower in the distance. Floating directly above the face of Big Ben was a bright red bar.
[RAID BOSS: BIG BEN] [LVL 99 CONSTRUCT (UNDER CONSTRUCTION)] [PASSIVE ABILITY: BONG]
"Oh no," Kai whispered.
"What is it?" Grom asked, hefting his minigun. A notification popped up over the gun: [ITEM FLAGGED: HIGHLY ILLEGAL].
"We didn't just escape the game," Kai said, staring at the HUD overlaying the real world. "We installed it."
Kai looked at the sky. He looked at the rain. He looked at the impossible situation. He looked up at a CCTV camera mounted on the lamppost. The red light was blinking, watching him. He stared directly into the lens.
"Duck you," Kai whispered.
[SYSTEM ALERT] [PROFANITY FILTER: ENABLED (PARENTAL LOCK)] [WOULD YOU LIKE TO PURCHASE THE 'EXPLICIT LANGUAGE' DLC?] [PRICE: ￡4.99 / MONTH]
Kai stared at the notification floating in the London rain. "No," he said, shaking his head. "I'll wait for the patch."
[END OF BOOK 1]
Click the cover to start reading on Royal Road
FantasySlice of LifeAdventureActionLight Litrpg
Orius Kane already lived his legend. He reached the apex of magical power, survived his age’s greatest calamities, and retired to the Realm Keepers: a circle of Archmages sworn to keep the world from ending.
What to expect
- OP MC
- MC and Apprentice Pov
- Organisation building
- city building eventually
- Weak to strong side character
- Slice of life moments
- No MC romance
Starring
- Orius Kane - Our Irreverent Realm Keeper
- Emmeline De Valemont - Our suffering guide/apprentice
The golden age of magic may be dead. Orius Kane disagrees. He’s willing to drag it back, kicking and screaming if he has to.