“Fucking finally!” Arman exclaimed at the end of the world.

  Or at least, he would have if exclaiming were still a thing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. He was suspended before a wall of text in a lightless void, and the whole making noises thing didn’t seem to work. He also realized that he wasn’t breathing, which gave him a momentary panic attack before he focused on the text again and forgot all about it.

  Edition: 55th

  Species: * (H:H ^). Error code S5709.

  Faction: Earth2

  Integration requirement: Completed. Multiple errors found.

  Welcome to the Cosmos System, an artificial world created for all intelligent life that meets the requirements for integration.

  ***

  Unfortunately, your world has been integrated because of unforeseen circumstances.

  Expect delays.

  ***

  Your body will be placed in stasis and transferred to the Cosmos System Library, while your consciousness is routed into the game New World Universe (NWU). Your introduction will begin shortly.

  -

  During all stages of your gaming experience, your stored physical body will not age, require nutrition or change in any way. However, vital functions such as breathing will remain part of the game to ease reentry to your real body at the end of your gaming experience.

  -

  After consultation and character creation, you will be transferred to the tutorial. This portion of the game is mandatory. The only way to skip it is through experiencing in-game player death.

  -

  At the end of the tutorial, you may choose to continue or return to your body on your home world.

  -

  Should you require further clarification on any matter, please consult your liaison.

  -

  The second part of the game will be explained upon finishing the tutorial or by your consultant.

  -

  Confusion is normal at this point. Your consultant will answer most of your questions shortly. The tutorial will begin once all consultations are complete.

  Arman grinned at the void. For years, he and his therapist had workshopped ‘starting over,’ with little traction. Whatever this was, it felt like permission to just fuck right off. No more working, studying, or self?improvement grinds. And best of all, no more deciding what to make for fucking dinner. New life and escapism at full throttle until you die—as long as this game wasn’t some elaborate kraken, or worse, dragon, trolling.

  Also, he was pretty good at games. Sure, he’d discovered esports late and bounced off the scene, but this time everyone would start together. No Finnish Striga dominating the ladder with an absurd MMR the moment he logged in.

  He was still thinking about finding his gamer friends when the void swirled, pixelated, and collapsed into the most boring, cookie?cutter office imaginable. It consisted of a desk with a few scattered papers, a lamp that gave off a dull yellow glow, a computer humming faintly on standby, and a window that looked out over a gray parking lot lined with faded white stripes.

  “No, no, no!” he said, staring at the blinds covering the window panels that separated him from the rest of the space. “This can’t be. This is not right! Where are all the swords and magic and shit? No. Na-ah. Can’t do that. Geneva Convention forbids you!”

  “Mr. Arman, please calm down,” said a calm, female voice from behind the desk, where a woman materialized. She wore a white buttoned shirt and a black fitted suit, her hair gathered in a neat ponytail, and she emanated professionalism like the battle aura of a tank in a game. The office — and her appearance — was already drawing his aggro.

  A thin tablet materialized in her hands as she said, “We need to go over a few things.”

  “They’ve gotten to you too,” Arman said with distaste as he walked to the chair across from the woman.

  “Who has gotten to me, Mr. Arman?”

  “No, not just you. Your entire civilization. Because you’re not from Earth, are you?”

  “No, Mr. Arman, I’m not, and I don’t understand what you—”

  “The corporations!” He slammed his palm on the desk. “Humanity’s greatest virus. It spreads, it corrupts. One day you’re chilling in a small fishing village watching the sunset, everything peaceful. Then suddenly, BAM, and the next thing you know, some asshole hopes his email finds you well.”

  “Mr. Arman, are you having a mental crisis?”

  “Would having one prohibit me from gaming?” he asked with a grin, retracting his hand as though brushing dust from the table.

  “If you're evaluated as not psychologically capable of entering the game, your entry might be refused by the system. In some cases, your closest relative may be asked to make an informed decision on your behalf.”

  “Ma’am—your name?” Arman straightened, suddenly all attentiveness. “I assure you I’m perfectly fine. Please don’t call my mother; that would be… unfortunate.”

  “Amelia, sir. I’ll be your consultant today and your liaison with the game during your experience. I’ll answer your questions and cover a few important points.”

  “So, Amelia, can I ask you like… any questions about that game?”

  “Yes, anything not restricted. But first, a brief introduction.”

  He gestured grandly. “Proceed.”

  “Regarding the error: While integrating the new world, another world was also pulled in unexpectedly. According to the memo we received, it can best be described as originating from an alternate reality—something that was never part of the plan. So besides Earth, your planet was also added, overloading the system and creating errors.”

  “Is that why my faction is Earth2?”

  “It appears so.”

  “Early?release fuck?up, then,” Arman said, stretching out. “An extra planet. The wrong planet. No name, no plan. And you still released the game, plowing ahead like Titanic. Or considering that we’re basically like kids in this game, knowing jack about it, like Anakin in the training chambers. Bravo!” He clapped his hands.

  “There are many people working on it and a large amount of computing power dedicated to it,” Amelia said, unperturbed. “I have complete trust that they are handling the issue as well as possible.”

  “Thoughts and prayers to us folks. Please continue; the show must go on. You know,” he whispered, “shareholders are waiting.”

  Amelia blinked, sighed, then recovered. “The goal in NWU is to become the dominant faction by the end of the game or be the only one left standing. Details on victory conditions will follow. For a player inside the game, a season lasts up to approximately thirteen years by your planet’s reckoning. There will be a fraction of a second time difference between the two places.”

  “All right. So we spend all this time in the game. What does it cost us?”

  “As far as I know, nothing.” Amelia answered with a smile.

  “OK. But really.”

  “No, Mr. Arman. Participation is free.”

  “So you sell personal data you’ve collected for years?”

  Amelia removed her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I know this does not match norms on your planet, but the game isn’t designed to sell anything to anyone.”

  “I’m dying to know what norm?defying purpose this ‘free’ game serves,” he said, eyes on her—and then pivoted. “Okay, shelving it. Explain factions and what happens if we win.”

  The sudden change in attitude almost made Amelia reel, but she collected herself fast enough, even enthusiastically. She could talk factions, she could talk them long and with heart. As long as she didn't need to hear any more f-word from the man in front of her, she'd happily give him all the actually game-relevant information he wanted.

  She nodded, all business.

  “Factions are groups of individuals who band together, visible on the leaderboard. Anyone may create or join a faction. No game tool can force joining or leaving. Leaving is only possible during a racial level?up, with the last opportunity at Alpha. Consequently, creating a faction is only possible up to Beta. Faction information is public and visible at all times.” Amelia said, leaning back. “Reward for the leading faction:,” she smiled, “your own terraformed planet. Details forthcoming; there are a few errors to resolve.”

  “And ‘free’ is still the hill you’re willing to die on?” Arman asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Amelia sighed.

  “So the show is being broadcast to every participating planet, every sapient being, to any device with a screen…” Arman recounted slowly, pronouncing each word with care.

  Amelia slipped off her shoes under the table and rubbed her aching foot. Why women on this planet willingly subjected themselves to so many torture devices, she'd never understand.

  “Yes. That is why, at the end of your gaming experience, you will have the choice to…”

  “And you still claim it’s free?” Arman raised his eyebrows.

  Amelia almost buried her face in her hands before remembering all the makeup she’d been forced into before her shift began.

  “YES,” she repeated. “And if, because of your actions in the game, you would rather not return to your planet, you will be given an alternative. Everything will be explained to you at the end of your gaming experience.”

  “Are you an AI?”

  “No, Mr. Arman, I’m not an AI. I’m a liaison between you, the production team, and the system governing the game. I can’t go into details.”

  “Ah, sure—and nobody pays you,” Arman said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “You’re like one of those business owners who swear they’re losing money on every deal. Because, you know, the game is ‘free.’”

  Amelia groaned.

  “So, let’s say I find an exploit… or I think of one. How do you treat those?”

  “It is extremely hard to find exploits in NWU. But if you do,” she added quickly, seeing him open his mouth, “you can report it to me, and I’ll forward the information to all the correct places in the correct ways.”

  “Well, yeah, that’s all fine and such, but what’s in it for me?” He raised an eyebrow in amusement.

  “For you, Mr. Arman?”

  “Oh, come on. I know you work for free and all, but you don’t actually expect me to report exploits instead of using them if I get nothing out of it.” He paused. “Are there any punishments for using exploits?”

  “Again, it’s unlikely you’ll find any…” She tapped on her tablet. “Aaaand I just confirmed the system is not designed, nor does it intend, to punish players for finding exploits. Again, though, it’s highly unlikely…”

  “No exploits in a ‘free’ game.” Arman snorted.

  Amelia pulled the hairpin from her hair and rubbed her temple. She already knew this would not be a quick consultation. A glance at her tablet showed that 23.6% of players had already been integrated into the game. No, this was definitely going to be one of her longer days at work.

  “So when we speak here, other players haven’t started the game yet, correct?”

  “Yes, Mr. Arman. The game begins as soon as all players deemed fit to participate finish their consultations. Right now, everyone who has done so is locked in the starting area. Knowing you must be very excited, we can begin…”

  “Perfect.” He cut her off.

  Amelia had a bad feeling about this day.

  “So you will start in the Earth2 faction during the Tutorial. Your race is automatically assigned based on your current one, so you’ll begin as human…”

  Amelia didn’t get to finish before a deafening roar tore out of Arman’s throat.

  She screamed, startled and terrified, shoving herself back from the desk until her shoulders hit the wall.

  A moment ago she had been bored, frustrated, half?asleep—sitting across from a man in his late twenties with neatly styled brown hair, hazel eyes, a well?groomed beard framing his jaw, and that cheeky smirk that never seemed to leave his face.

  Then his skin rippled. His spine arched. With a sound like tearing silk and cracking bone, his body began to shift. Muscles bulged, shredding his shirt. His neck stretched, then split—once, twice, again—until five serpentine heads rose from the wreckage of his human form. Each was different: one red and horned, one yellow with golden eyes, one dripped saliva from its wide maw, one purple and almost asleep, and one with shining green eyes, but all snarling.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The carpeted floor buckled under his growing mass. Cubicle walls bent, then snapped. A monitor sparked, hissed, and died.

  The blinds fluttered as one head snapped toward the window, the other toward the hallway. The ceiling panels above collapsed, unable to contain the creature’s height. Fluorescent tubes shattered. Chairs were crushed beneath clawed limbs. The hydra’s green scales shimmered under the flickering lights, streaked with purple plating that gleamed like armor forged in nightmares.

  “What the fuck!?” Amelia screamed.

  One head lowered until its eyes locked on hers.

  “A human!?” it roared. “What’s next? You’ll tell me I’m a D?R?A?G?O?N!?”

  “No wonder this game is free,” came a muffled voice from under her desk.

  “Now it all makes sense,” sighed another voice from somewhere in the back.

  “Um…” came a hesitant tone from outside her office. “I know this room wasn’t designed for the greatness in front of you, but I’m terribly sorry about the mess. Also, I think I broke your virtual reality a bit, because it looks like there’s only black out here with a floating office in the middle. It’s… kinda creeping me out.”

  A ceiling panel cracked and fell. Another head pushed through from above.

  “Got any snacks?”

  Amelia was proud of herself. In the years of preparation for this integration, she had assimilated into Earth’s culture so thoroughly that even cussing came naturally. She still didn’t quite understand the planet’s fascination with reproductive organs and the sentiment attached to procreation. Nevertheless, she had learned that humans loved to weaponize their mating vocabulary, tossing it around more often than commas, and especially when startled.

  Okay, she realized, her brain had just derailed into useless tangents to avoid the hydra in the room. Because yes, even she recognized the monster in front of her was a Hydra. She had not signed up to be a leading hydra consultant. And her mind, in rapid?fire panic, began spitting out problems.

  What was this creature’s natural form? Human or hydra? It seemed offended by the first. From what she could tell, it had five heads. Did that make it one character or five? The base stats had to be massive. There was no way she could squeeze it into the typical one?to?ten scale. Should she even apply a normal stat system or a monster system? And how the hell did dragons factor into all of this? Wait. Were dragons also real?

  “All right,” Amelia said, staring at her tablet, “so it looks like I could put you down as a shapeshifter.”

  “Or even better,” Arman replied with amusement, “you could put me down as a hydra. That is my primary nature.”

  The office around them remained unchanged. The broken panels and empty windows revealed nothing but a disturbing void in which the entire room seemed to float. The sight was eerie, and it contrasted sharply with the calmness of a man in a bathrobe, perched casually on the fragment of table that had survived the chaos.

  “Yes, or even better,” Amelia sighed, her voice heavy with exasperation. “I can ask the system to build you a completely new being with completely new stats and a completely new framework in which it operates. Because why not? What else could the system possibly have to do right now, other than deal with an entirely new and unexpected planet filled with beings who only pretend to be human and who have somehow been integrated into the game.”

  “Exactly,” Arman said with satisfaction.

  “It is free, so of course it must have unlimited resources,” Amelia continued, grumbling as she tapped furiously at her tablet. “Unlimited resources for everything except fixing a fucking office where I am supposed to work. Because apparently accommodating a hydra is perfectly reasonable.”

  “Swamp hydra,” Arman corrected. “I am not just any hydra.”

  Amelia threw her hands up. “Fine. Accommodating a swamp hydra is perfectly reasonable. But providing a new desk and a comfortable chair for the worker who is doing her absolute damnedest is somehow too fucking much.”

  “Amelia, are you having a mental breakdown?” Arman asked, a smirk tugging at his mouth. “Should we call your mom?”

  Amelia glared at him with murder in her eyes.

  “You know,” Hydrion said, unbothered, “funny story. I met this chick once. Crazy lady, collected wonderful sculptures around her house. So she had a bunch of snakes in her hair…”

  “Okay, so your race will be Human, Swamp Hydra.” Amelia blew air out through her mouth, then drew in a steadying breath. “And before you say anything, I get it. You don’t know how it works, I don’t know how it works, and I’m willing to bet the system doesn’t have the faintest idea how it works either.”

  “Swamp Hydra, Human,” Arman corrected.

  The sound of nails, polished into neat points, scraped across the plastic surface of the desk, filling the office with a slow, grating rhythm.

  “Next is class,” Amelia said cheerfully. “I have a list of millions of classes you could choose from, but go ahead. Give me something crazy, like a Potato Monk. The system is practically bending over backwards for you, and I can’t wait to see what it will be this time.”

  “Healer.”

  “Healer?”

  “Healer.”

  “Healer…”

  “Yes, healer.” Arman confirmed with a nod. “As fun as a Potato Monk would be, precious, I want to be a healer.”

  Amelia sat dumbfounded for a full minute before she managed to regain her composure. Arman, graciously, allowed her the silence.

  “Why… healer?” she asked, still confused. “I mean, a healer!” She tapped quickly on her tablet. “Done and sealed! But… why healer?”

  “Oh, that’s simple, Amelia.” Arman radiated confidence, professionalism, and the smug wisdom of a sage in a black bathrobe, gesturing with one hand as if lecturing a class. “Everyone needs a healer, and finding a competent one is always the hardest. Everyone else goes for fighters, assassins, mages, and all that. The harder the class, the more glass?cannon it is, the merrier.”

  “Well, the competent position will still be open,” Amelia muttered as she scrolled through her tablet. “So, ranged healer…”

  “No, no, no.” Arman waved her off. “Close and personal.”

  “Close?range healer is still a ranged healer,” she said, frowning up at him.

  “I want to be a close?combat healer.”

  “Adventuring style: melee.” She mumbled, still confused about his choices.

  “What about the name?”

  “What about it?”

  “Well,” he spread his arms, palms up, “don’t I get to choose my name?”

  “What’s wrong with Arman?”

  “Well, that’s my real?life name,” he explained. “Nobody wants to use their real names in a game. That’s weird.”

  “Weird?” Amelia asked. “Being a swamp hydra melee healer is perfectly normal, but using your real name is where you draw the line?”

  “Hydrion.”

  “You want to be a hydra, a swamp hydra, named Hydrion?”

  “I gave it a lot of thought,” Arman explained.

  “Somehow I doubt it,” Amelia sighed.

  "So, for your statistics… this is going to be interesting." Amelia frowned at her tablet. "What the system is showing me so far is that you will retain your swamp hydra stats, but they will be significantly reduced whenever you are in human form—your health included. Think of your hydra HP as your real health pool. Human form only lets you access a fraction of it. Drop to zero in human form, you revert to hydra. Drop to zero in hydra form, that's final. And whichever form you are in during experience-gathering events will directly affect the amount of experience you gain."

  She paused, tapping the screen, then gave a small shrug. "Well, let's get those stats sorted out."

  Oh, how she wished she had never ventured into the stats conversation. She knew she had to, but even as the words left her mouth, a sense of dread washed over her.

  Now? Now she was resigned to her fate. She slouched in her chair, back pressed against one armrest, legs draped over the other, and kept firing absurdly detailed questions into her tablet, one after another.

  Back in her time in the game, she had joined a faction that most of her planet ended up opposing. The system had warned her of the dangers that might await if she returned home after those choices. Amelia knew it was illogical, but she couldn’t shake the intrusive thoughts battering her tired brain—that maybe, just maybe, it would be easier to go back than to endure what she was enduring right now.

  “Are you seriously basing my stats on an elephant?” Hydrion asked, shocked.

  “That is the closest thing we have to a swamp hydra with sufficient information.” Amelia sighed again. “The system will allow for some stat modification, but not much.”

  “So how would that work?” he asked, confused. “Elephants are insanely strong. They can lift what, six hundred? Seven hundred pounds? So my strength will be twelve or fourteen times that of an average human?”

  “That’s just one statistic,” she countered. “And no. Here is what we’re getting…”

  “I am an arcane being!” Hydrion roared, and Amelia noticed his eyes begin to glow with a red hue. “This is slander!” The red shifted toward gold, and Amelia was fairly certain none of that was good news. Still, she refused to back down. With this guy she had already learned that if you gave him even a finger, you would soon find yourself inside a stomach, being melted by acid.

  “You are a magical creature, and the system can accept that you were arcane?adept on your planet. But this game is different, and magic here is governed by a completely different set of rules. Most people will be starting with either a zero or a one mana point, maybe a two if there is something extraordinarily special about them. So I am not nudging you off the fifty. Take it, or I will revert it to the initial values.”

  “There is nothing stealthy about a hydra!” Amelia snapped. “If an elephant walked in here, it would be stealthier than you!”

  “Have you ever seen a swamp hydra in the water!?” Hydrion shot back.

  “That,” Amelia said flatly, “is the only reason you’re not getting a zero.”

  “A ten!? Oh, I’ll remember that!” Hydrion’s eyes shifted to a stormy gray.

  “That’s why you’ve got ninety in memory,” Amelia shot back. “Though I still don’t buy that you actually remember Plato or Aristotle.”

  “Girl, I got so wasted with Democritus once on honeyed wine that we woke up halfway to Chios!” He exclaimed, then added softer. “And he still wouldn’t shut up about atoms rearranging themselves.”

  “Social skills of one!?”

  “Yes.” Amelia grinned.

  “Why!”

  “Because,” she said evenly. “I can. And I will.”

  Amelia leaned toward Hydrion and jabbed a finger at his nose.

  “I don’t know, I don’t care, and I’m not going to check who came up with those racial level names,” she hissed.

  “I mean, Omega to Alpha? There are going to be a lot of confused people going ‘huh?’.”

  “They’ll learn. It’s not that hard or confusing.” She snapped. “What’s next?”

  Hydrion scratched his chin.

  “I guuuess you gave me a basic rundown of stuff…”

  “Basic? Basic!?” Amelia fumed. “Do you know how many players are waiting for you to finish? Do you know how many of them are already done? Ninety?eight point four percent! And,” she barreled on, not letting him get a word in, “most of the one point six percent of people probably won’t even be playing for one reason or another. You are probably the last person in the universe to get sent to the game. Do you know how many I was supposed to work with today? Seventeen. Seventeen! Because we’re on shifts this time around. And do you know how many I’ve actually seen today? One!”

  “But with five heads.” Hydrion smirked—just before a mangled stapler whistled past his face.

  “We are done here,” Amelia hissed. “Have. A. Good. Luck. And. Have. Fun.” She forced the words through clenched teeth.

  Then, with the finality of a breaking dam, she slammed her finger onto the tablet.

  In that instant, two things happened. The first was Hydrion beginning to pixelate—the standard first stage of being sent into the game. Amelia had seen it countless times. The second was not standard at all: the tablet was suddenly wrenched out of her hands by a massive hydra head that lunged from nowhere.