There’s Always a Catch

There was no way in hell I could dodge the slime in time. The only thing I could do was cover my head with my arms and look away, eyes squeezed shut.

I wasn’t sure what exactly happened next. All I could recall was a strange, distorted noise booming through my ears, followed by a prickly, tingling sensation coursing through my veins. It lasted for a split second, but after that, only silence remained.

I carefully opened my eyes to find the slime gone.

“Huh?” I looked around. “Eh? Little buddy? Where’d you go?”

Could slimes disappear that fast? No, that couldn’t be right. It attacked me barely a second ago! Where did it go? Did someone save me?

“Uh, hello?” I called out. “Is someone out there?” I took a few steps following the dirt path, a new wave of unease creeping up on me. No matter how many times I called out to the forest, nobody answered.

“Geez, what was that all about?”

Taking a deep breath, I gradually calmed my nerves and continued down this road before me.

I’d been clearly transported to a fantasy world, but where exactly was I? What sort of world did I end up in? What types of threats should I be worried about? What abilities, if I even got any, could I do?

So far, the only clues I got were… my warped appearance, a slime that vanished out of thin air, and a weird numbing sensation.

Yeah, nothing about this made any sense.

It’s fine. I just have to take it easy. It’s barely been five minutes since I arrived! I just need to find someone and ask some questions. In that case, the first thing I should do is find civilization. Simple enough!

Or so I thought.

“Hm?” While planning out my first self-assigned quest, I stopped in my tracks and turned toward the trees, where something brown and blocky stuck out of a bush.

“This is…” I cautiously stepped toward it, but once I got close enough, my heart made a little leap of excitement. “It’s a wooden chest!”

I moved away the bushes and knelt before it, eyes gleaming with anticipation. “Woah, it really is a chest! What’s it doing out here? Did someone leave this?”

I paused.

Wait, what if this was someone’s secret storage box? I couldn’t just snoop on someone’s private belongings.

But this was a wooden chest, placed in the middle of a lush forest. Something like that would always happen in any fantasy game. Even the RPG I’d been working on had something like this at the start of the tutorial. In fact, the player would wake up all alone in the forest…

Who happened to have a highly similar appearance to mine…

With an empty inventory…

And encountered a level one slime that they’d defeat with their bare hands…

And would later find a wooden chest on the forest road… that looked exactly like this…

And when they open it, they’d find… their first weapon…

…Hold up. Wait a goddamn minute.

“N-no way.” I swallowed. “I have to be overthinking it.”

With trembling hands, I carefully opened the treasure chest and peered inside. My breath hitched, my stomach did a flip, and my jaw dropped to the ground at the sight of the gleaming silver sword inside it.

And just like that, everything instantly clicked.

The black hole that emerged from the very computer that stored the unfinished RPG I knew inside out, the clothes, the hairstyle, my empty pockets, the slime, this chest with The Rookie’s Sword…

I was transported into the world of Crownless Saga!

“I-I can’t believe it!” I whispered in awe. I grasped the sword, the blade gleaming under the sunlight. “I know this world! I know everything about it! I made it! I was the one who named this weapon!”

I finally figured it out! I was at Oakheart Forest, the beginner area of the starter kingdom, Grovendale, and in the world of Erudios! Mystery solved, at least on where I ended up! Now the next mystery was…

“How the hell did I end up looking like… this?” I mumbled, squinting at my reflection on the sword.

Sure enough, my face and hairstyle were the exact same as the protagonist's. The only difference was, my right half was colored brown like my former hair and eye color. It was as if I didn’t get fully converted into the protagonist when I arrived here and still kept a portion of my old self. Did something go wrong during the summoning?

Not to mention, I still couldn’t figure out what happened with that slime incident. I didn’t exactly hit it, but it disappeared anyway. The hell was that about?

“Hmm, if this world is based on the game, I wonder…” I balled my fists, took a deep breath, and faced the sky. “Open profile!”

…But nothing happened.

“Uh, E key? B? Open menu? Escape key? Status check! Open sesame? Abracadabra! U? I? M? J key? Ugh, show me something, damn it!”

I tried shouting out every possible control key or magic word I could remember at the top of my head, but still, nothing happened.

I sighed and scratched my head. If only someone were here to explain the mechanics. The dev team really should’ve made a mascot.

Well, for now, I should assume I was given the protagonist’s role. Easy enough—I knew exactly what to do now: follow this path, beat up some more slimes and some boars, and start the main story quest at Wellclaw Harbor and make my way to the capital city, Cindespoir!

“Alright!” I said, grinning excitedly. “Cindespoir City, here I come!”

Sword in hand, I began my march on the road, taking in the beauty of nature surrounding me. The swaying tree branches, the waving grass blades, the birds chirping, the soft, cool breeze, the leaves riding the wind… It had been an awfully long time since I had a hiking trip this soothing.

I still couldn’t believe it was all real. How, or why, did I get summoned anyway? Who’d pick a loner like me?

I still had so many questions, but in the end, I decided to table those thoughts for another day. I could only learn so much in such a short time before my head could burst.

As I continued walking and sorting my thoughts, a small group of slimes appeared right on cue. I smirked and raised my blade at once.

“Sorry, little ones, but it’s nothing personal!” I said, charging at them. “Take this!”

I swung my arms.

But my sword didn’t follow.

“...Eh?” I blinked at my palms and looked around. “What the…?” Where the hell did my sword go? I’m pretty sure I gripped it tightly a second ago! What—

As fast as lightning, a distorted wave slashed through the slimes. None of them, including me, had the chance to react at all. I could only gape in confusion and astonishment as my sword miraculously soared on its own, swinging around sporadically through the air as if invisible strings were yanking it around.

It didn’t stop after reducing the slimes into puddles. It kept swinging, slashing violently and randomly at the trees, the bushes, and the ground. To my horror, it even started teleporting randomly, emitting distorted noises.

“What the hell?!” I sputtered, taking a step back.

I couldn’t believe it. It was almost like… I was witnessing a glitch in physical form.

I should’ve known something went wrong with the summoning the moment I saw my clothes. I should’ve known a smooth isekai journey on a world I already knew was far too good to be true.

There was always a catch, and that catch finally came to light the moment the sword swung in my direction and phased right through my head. That somehow finally activated the profile tab I’d been asking for and confirmed my worst suspicions before me.

—————

[ PRO̵͓̽FIL̸͖̑E ]  

⮽ NA̴̟͌ME: Haruma Kurimoto

🅇 C̶̱̚L̸͖̑A̷̡͝SS: [ERR█R - DATA C̶͍͘O̵͓̽Ṛ̶͗R̶͓͝UP▓ED]

☒ LȨ̶̈́VEL: ▓▓

🅇 HP: ▓▓▓▓ / ▓▓▓▓

🅇 M̴̰̑P̸̼͑:̶͔͂ ▓▓▓ / ▓▓▓

☒ STA̴̟͌M̸̱̃I̶̯̒NA: ▓▓▓ / ▓▓▓

[ Ä̴̬́Ţ̶̿T̶͎͌RIB█TES ]

☒ STR: ▓▓

🖾 INT: ▓▓

⌧ D▓X: ▓▓

🅇 V̵̬̊Ĭ̵̬T̸͈͑: ▓▓

☒ LCK: ▓▓

[ SKILL̸̗͋S ]

☒ ▓▓ ▓▓█▓[ACT̶̻̚I̵͇͝VE]

⮽ ▓█▓▓█▓ [̴̧̦̄̑ ̷͎̯̓̓A̸̡̪̔C̵̰̗͊T̶̢̠͛I̷̻͝V̷̖̟̒͑Ȩ̶̈́ ̸̯̠̂]̸̫̼͂̔

⌧ ▓██▓ ▓▓▓▓[ACT̶̻̚I̵͇͝VE]

🅇 ▓▓▓█▓▓ [PĂ̵̜SSI̸̍IVL̸̗͋]

[ WARN̵̞̐̀I̸̝͊͂N̴̫̅̚G̴̗̭̔:̴̮̕ ̸͉͎͛̿S̷͓̰̓YSTEM ERR̴̘̀OR DETEC̴̮̿̚T̵̖̒ED. Ȋ̴͜N̵̯̑I̷̪̓TĬ̷̘Ă̵̜TIN̶͔͘Ḡ̵̠ ̸̥̅È̶ͅMȨ̸̈́RG̵̮̅EN̸̝͠C̷͚̏Y̴̤̑ SEL̸̗͋F̸͇͊-̵͓̇DE̸͇͌S̶̭̒T̶̤̂R̶͖̚UĊ̷͔T̷̝͝Ì̷̯Ȯ̵̱N ̶͇͒]

—————

Before I could even read that last line of glitchy text, it’d already started.

The texts crumbled and twitched around. Blocks of red static consumed the frames before it swallowed the rest of the screen, and a low whirr rapidly grew louder. My instincts as a software engineer kicked in, and I bolted toward the nearest tree and took cover. The moment I crouched down and covered my ears, a massive explosion thundered, shaking the trees and knocking the breath out of me.

After all the painfully obvious evidence displayed before my eyes, I couldn’t deny it anymore, this catch that insulted my very title as a game developer.

I had been summoned in Crownless Saga but with a game-breaking glitch.