Existence in the Shadows

Dave opened his eyes to the world around him. He was in a small rural village. A village one would consider as average. Uninteresting. Basic. Small. But to Dave it was a calm and serene place. He recognized this place and wanted to recreate the vibe of older JRPG games. The little village for beginners that makes you feel right at home. The kind of place to which you come back years later full of nostalgia. Nothing to rush. The adventure awaited you, the player. But it never pressed you. It let you feel, let you enjoy the atmosphere, the quiet, the peace of the Dawn Village.

Dave felt at his core that he achieved this feeling. He could not help but feel his eyes watering just a bit. He was there. In the world he created. The world he literally dedicated his life to. And at this moment he felt relieved. Relieved that he never had to go back to this cold place where no one needed him. Where no one wanted him... No, where no one cared about him.

He felt the love he put in the early stages of the game in every little detail around him. The pavement in white stones, the simple and yet delicate flower patches here and there, the well at the center of the village, the people going about their business... All of it really came to life before his eyes. "I can't believe I did this... No, it's not just me. It's not just the 3D rendering on my old piece of junk. This world is its own thing now. Everything is how I envisioned it to be. Wrong again... It's much more. Everything is much more beautiful, I feel like I just took a trip to another side of my original world. Everything feels so real." Dave thought.

After taking the scenery in for a while, he decided to look around. And as he walked through the streets, a ball came down rolling at its feet. As the kids approached him, he was about to get on his knees and pick up the ball for them. That's when it hit him. His hands passed through the ball. He could not actually touch it. The only thing that happened was that a floating text box with a bunch of data about the ball appeared in front of him. But Dave was more concerned about not being able to touch the ball than the pop up text. The kids picked up their ball by themselves without paying attention to Dave who tried to call them out. But to no avail. They did not react at all. He tried to grab one of them by the shoulder. His fingers phased through and once again a bunch of text appeared before his eyes. Dave shouted at the children to get a reaction. He got right in front of them and made big gestures. No luck. He was just a ghost. A shadow. No one could see him and he could not interact with anything at all.

As he fell down on his knees full of despair, regret, sadness, rage, a feeling of betrayal,... Just a turmoil of negative emotions brewing from within, he snapped. A scream without any echo. He died alone. He would now live alone as well. He just yelled insults to the mysterious man who promised him a new world. A new hope. A new meaning to his life. And now, nothing. In his old life he still could escape putting his mind into creating his own little universe. But now, he is trapped inside. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to go. He just stood still for a while.

After a couple of hours, he calmed down. There was nothing much he could have done more. He thought about what to do next and thought that he had to find a solution. It's too early to give up. He did not try everything he could yet. He then remembered how some text popped out of thin air when he phased through objects. He tried to experiment this phenomena a bit more. As he tried to pick up a rock, a floating text box appeared on top of it.

[object name: common rock]
durability: 3
rarity: 1
weight: 1.2gr
size: 5cm
...

Dave was surprised because he realized that it's the exact lines of code he used for the properties of the common rock. He then tried to interact with the interface and he was speechless as it responded to his inputs. He could even drag and drop some of the property codes out of the text box and carry it with his hand. An idea emerged from his mind. He put the line "weight: 240gr" out of the rock and he slid it into a leaf that fell down near him. As he tried to pick up the leaf... He was astounded by the sudden change of its natural weight. He could not believe it. He was not a part of his own video game world as a player, but he still reincarnated in it as a game developer. He let out a sigh mixed with a chuckle.

"So that's how it is, huh? So that's what it's gonna be, huh..." He was relieved he was not powerless in this situation but he was still frustrated that he could not live out his dream of adventures on his own terms. He thought that if he could manipulate the lines of code of the universe itself, then it's not far-fetched to think there is a way he can properly reincarnate himself as a "player character" in his very own game. There was still hope. He just needed to figure out how.

The logical solution would be to change his own lines of code and modify his attributes within the game world. But he quickly realized how pointless it was as he felt his whole body up and he could not get any interface out of him. Consequently, the next most logical way of dealing with this would be to look for the source code of the game world and change its content there. Only, he did not have the slightest idea where the source could be hidden in the game world. Would it be deep within ground? or would it be in some special area such as in the castles of the main kingdoms or even somewhere on the Demon King's dominion.

As he was thinking deeply about the next steps he would take, he started walking around the village. He saw the NPCs talking to each other, actually living and having their own business to take care of. Their behaviour was more realistic than having set paths around town and few small dialogue lines. Dave was an introvert, but he also longed for social interactions, friendship and intimacy with someone special, deep within him. He was actually looking forward to talking to the nice people he coded. Of course he made sure to put some bad apples in the bunch to add to the realism, but that's what makes the charm of a city.

Then when he arrived at the heart of the Dawn village, where the well resided, his eyes laid upon an anomaly. Something so out of place, he thought he was hallucinating. A tall individual wearing a set of leather armor and covered in a red cloak. But the most bizarre bit was his face...