From Deadlines to Divine Summons

Tokyo’s neon lights flickered through the blinds of a small, cramped apartment. Inside, Saito Minoru sat hunched in front of a glowing triple-monitor setup, his fingers tapping away at a worn-out mechanical keyboard. His eyes, bloodshot and dry, scanned line after line of Excel sheets, SQL queries, and endless reports.

Outside, the city moved on without him—cars honked, trains roared by, and people laughed as they walked home from late-night bars. But Saito hadn’t heard laughter in months. Not real laughter. Not the kind that didn’t come from a sarcastic meme on a Slack channel.

He was 25, but his posture, his eyes, and the dark bags beneath them told a different story. Five years in the data analytics department of a faceless IT company had worn him down to the bones. He’d joined fresh-faced at 20, hopeful that numbers and logic would pave a clear path to success.

They hadn’t.

He was efficient, precise, dedicated—always the one to stay late, clean up messy datasets, automate others' work. His bosses praised him but never promoted him. He received overtime pay, but never time to spend it. Days blended into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years.

And now, for the third night in a row, he skipped dinner, relying on a lukewarm energy drink to stay awake. His vision blurred slightly, and a sharp throb pulsed behind his eyes. He massaged his temples.

"Just one more dashboard," he mumbled. "Just one more deadline."

But then came a blinding pain.

A sharp stab at the base of his skull. Like someone had jabbed a hot needle into his brain. He stumbled backward, knocking over an empty ramen cup. The room spun violently. The monitors flickered. And then—nothing.

When Saito opened his eyes, he was no longer in his apartment.

He was floating.

Darkness surrounded him, but it wasn’t cold. It felt… vast. Infinite. Above, constellations spun slowly like a celestial compass. Below him, translucent streams of light—like glowing rivers of data—flowed into the void.

Then came the voice. Deep, warm, and resonant, as if it echoed from the very fabric of the universe.

“Saito Minoru.”

Saito turned, trying to find the source, but there was no one. The voice simply was—everywhere.

“Your dedication was seen. Your labor, though unnoticed by your world, reached us.”

Suddenly, a figure emerged from the cosmos. A man, tall and imposing, with eyes like collapsing stars and a robe stitched from constellations and formulas. Arcane runes and mathematical symbols danced across his sleeves.

“I am Kakuji,” the being said. “God of Balance and Knowledge. I have summoned you here with a purpose.”

Saito blinked. “Summoned? Wait—am I dead?”

Kakuji smiled faintly. “No. Not dead. Liberated. Your body failed you. Your mind cried out across dimensions. And I answered.”

Saito’s thoughts were still swimming. He felt light, untethered, as if the stress and exhaustion of his previous life had been stripped away.

“Why me?” he asked, not out of modesty, but genuine confusion. “There are thousands—millions—more worthy than me.”

The god floated closer, a gentle cosmic wind swirling around them. “Because you never stopped learning. You built meaning from numbers. You saw order where others saw chaos. You found peace in logic when the world around you was irrational.”

With a wave of Kakuji’s hand, lines of glowing text and symbols filled the space around them. Code. Pure and alive. Saito recognized patterns—recursive loops, data trees, syntactic structures—but they shimmered with mana, forming spells and magical runes.

“In the world I send you to,” said Kakuji, “there is magic, but no understanding. Power without structure. Strength without wisdom. You will be a bridge. You will wield Code Magic—the fusion of logic and spellcraft.”

Information streamed into Saito’s mind. Variable bindings etched in arcane stone, functions executed by voice alone, loops manifested as elemental incantations. It was overwhelming—but it made sense.

“And the people there?” Saito asked.

Kakuji’s smile faded. “They struggle. Beastmen who hoard food because they lack agricultural planning. Elves who possess ancient libraries but no way to teach. Half-demons who are feared, not understood. They survive day by day, lacking the very foundation to build a future.”

Saito clenched his fists. “So, you want me to save them?”

“Not with the sword,” said Kakuji, “but with ideas. With numbers. With code. You will teach them not just how to cast magic—but why it works. You will give them language. Tools. Mathematics. Systems. You will lead a revolution of thought.”

Then, the void began to fade. Light enveloped him. He felt his body returning—but it was stronger now. Taller. His back no longer ached. His mind—sharp, alert, almost electrified with clarity.

“Wait!” Saito called. “Do I get a weapon? Or companions?”

Kakuji chuckled. “You’ll find what you need. But remember this, knowledge, once shared, spreads faster than any sword can swing.”

With a blinding flash, Saito landed on soft grass.

The sky above him was tinted purple, and two moons—one blue, one silver—hung lazily in the twilight. Nearby, strange birdcalls echoed through the trees. The air smelled of lavender and rain.

He sat up. Around him were tall trees with glowing leaves, their roots pulsing faintly like veins of mana. Farther in the distance, smoke rose from chimneys—a village. But something felt off.

He approached slowly, crouching behind a bush. What he saw made his heart sink.

Beastmen the humanoid creatures with animal ears and tails—argued over burnt bread. Children sat on the ground, playing with sticks. No books. No schools. No writing. The blacksmith hammered away blindly, measuring nothing. A healer waved her hands over a wound but had no way to calculate dosage or precision.

It wasn’t just poverty. It was lack of knowledge.

They weren’t dumb they were uneducated.

Saito stood up, his enhanced body barely making a sound. The compiler of his Code Magic lit up in his mind’s eye, ready to run scripts powered by mana.

He looked at the children.

Then the sky.

And then his own hands his laptop started glowing, he powered on it an came to know that his laptop has magic imbued within it

He smiled not with arrogance, but with a quiet determination.

“This world doesn’t need a hero,” he whispered.

“It needs a teacher.”

And with that, Saito took his first step toward building a future—not of swords and blood, but of ideas, education, and logic.

The Age of Code was about to begin.