Welcome to Respawn City (Population: Idiots

Respawn City was, in a word, chaos.
In several words: a beautiful, glitchy, physics-defying disaster that somehow functioned despite violating every law of architecture, logic, and common sense.
The city walls were made of mismatched textures—stone here, wood there, and in one concerning section, what appeared to be pure unrendered polygons that flickered between existence and the void. Guard towers floated at random heights, some upside down, with NPC guards walking on invisible platforms while spouting dialogue like "HALT! Who goes—goes—goes there?" on infinite loop.
The main gate, a massive wooden structure with iron reinforcements, had a sign that kept changing:
> **WELCOME TO RESPAWN CITY**> **Population: 347 (±50 depending on deaths)**> **Days Since Last Incident: 0**> **Please Respawn Responsibly**
"This is where we're living now?" I asked, staring at a building that was actively being built and demolished simultaneously by glitched construction NPCs.
"This is where EVERYONE lives," Haruka corrected, pointing to the crowds. "Look."
The city square was packed with players. Real, actual human players, not NPCs. I could tell by the usernames floating above their heads and the fact that they were all doing the universal MMO activities: arguing, trading, sitting on the ground for no reason, and jumping repeatedly because they were bored.
Some wore proper armor. Most wore whatever mismatched gear they'd managed to scrounge up. One player was wearing a barrel. Just a barrel. His username was **BarrelBob87** and he seemed very committed to his aesthetic.
"How many players are trapped here?" I whispered to PatchNotes.
> "Current active player count: 347. Total players who've logged in since beta launch: 892. The difference is... concerning. Do not ask what happened to them."
"I'm asking."
> "They clicked things they shouldn't have. Deleted save files. Permanent death. You've been very lucky."
"That's horrifying."
> "That's Eryndale Online. Enjoy your stay."
---
Gloopina bounced excitedly beside me, taking in the sights. "Oh, darling! Look at all the people! Should we introduce ourselves? Make friends? Start a book club?"
"A book club?" Haruka repeated.
"I'm very literary! I've absorbed three whole books!"
"You... absorbed them?"
"I'm a slime. It's what we do."
Before I could process the implications of my wife eating books, a player approached us. She was a tall woman, probably mid-twenties in real life, with silver hair (definitely a customization choice) and armor that looked like it had been through a war. Her username read: **SilverKnight_Mom**.
"You're the new arrivals?" she asked, her voice carrying the exhausted tone of someone who'd given up being surprised by anything.
"Uh, yes?" I said.
She looked at me. Then at Haruka. Then at Gloopina. Then at Nugget, who was perched on my shoulder like a feathered judgment machine. Then back at me.
"You're the idiot who married a slime princess and tamed the Unkillable Chicken."
"I prefer 'innovative problem solver.'"
"Everyone prefers something other than what they actually are." She sighed. "I'm Sarah. Welcome to Respawn City. Try not to die too much. It's bad for property values."
"Property values?" Haruka asked.
"We've developed an economy. It's terrible. Come on, I'll give you the tour before you break something else."
---
Sarah led us through the city, pointing out landmarks with the enthusiasm of a tour guide who'd seen too much.
"That's the Market District," she said, gesturing to a plaza where players had set up shop stalls. "We trade items, information, and occasionally our dignity. The Slime Mafia controls most of the potion trade, so prices are... negotiable if you know the right people."
I saw players bartering with varying degrees of success:
"I'll trade you this sword for a sandwich!"
"The sword is made of foam!"
"The sandwich is TWO DAYS OLD!"
"DEAL!"
PatchNotes commented:
> "Player economy status: Functional (barely). Currency includes: gold coins, rare items, emotional blackmail, and actual blackmail. Inflation rate: yes."
We passed by a building labeled **"THE NAKED GUILD - NO PANTS, NO PROBLEMS."**
"Oh no," I muttered.
"Oh yes," Sarah said. "They're exactly what they sound like. A guild of players who've embraced the 'spawn naked, stay naked' lifestyle. Their leader is a guy named Gary who insists clothing is a social construct invented by the devs to control us."
Through the windows, I could see at least a dozen players sitting around in their underwear, having what appeared to be a very serious strategy meeting.
"Do they ever wear clothes?" Haruka asked, morbidly curious.
"Only in winter zones. They lose a lot of members to frostbite. Digital frostbite. Which apparently still hurts."
"How are they still alive?"
"Spite, mostly. And they're surprisingly good at dodging."
We kept walking. The city was a maze of mismatched architecture—medieval buildings next to what looked like debug placeholder cubes, a perfectly rendered fountain next to a tree that was just a flat texture rotating to face you at all times.
"That's the Crafting Quarter," Sarah pointed to an area filled with forges, alchemy stations, and NPCs who were stuck in crafting animations. "If you need gear, weapons, or potions, that's where you go. Warning: half the craftsmen are glitched. They might make you a sword. They might make you a fish. It's random."
"What do you do with a fish?" I asked.
"Hit people with it. It does slap damage."
PatchNotes added:
> "Slap Damage: Non-lethal but humiliating. Effective against players with low dignity stats. You qualify."
---
We arrived at a large building that looked more stable than the others—actual stone construction, proper roof, no visible glitches. A sign above the door read: **"CAMP FIREWOOD +1 - COMMUNITY CENTER & SAFE ZONE"**
"This is the neutral ground," Sarah explained. "No PvP allowed here. No guild drama. Just players trying to survive and figure out what the hell is going on. It's run by a player named Marcus who's basically become our unofficial mayor."
Inside, the atmosphere was completely different from the chaos outside. Players sat at tables eating digital food, talking in normal conversation volumes, sharing information. It felt almost... peaceful.
A man approached us—tall, dark-skinned, with kind eyes and armor that had clearly been repaired multiple times. His username was **MarcusTheBuilder_Lv15**.
"New faces!" he said warmly. "Welcome to Camp Firewood. I'm Marcus. You must be Kazuki and Haruka—word spreads fast about the guy who married into slime royalty."
"Does everyone know about that?" I groaned.
"Everyone knows everything here. Small trapped community. No privacy." He smiled. "Don't worry, we've all done embarrassing things. I once tried to romance an NPC who turned out to be a placeholder model. She had no dialogue, just a text box that said 'INSERT_RESPONSE_HERE.' I brought her flowers."
Haruka snorted. "That's actually sad."
"It gets worse. I proposed."
"Oh no."
"She said 'ERROR_404.' I still have the rejection screenshot."
I decided I liked Marcus.
---
He showed us around the community center. There was a quest board covered in player-written missions:
**"HELP: Lost my pants in the Forest of Eternal Darkness. Reward: 50 gold"**
**"WANTED: Someone to explain how the skill tree works. Mine grew legs and walked away."**
**"FORMING PARTY: Need healer for dungeon run. Must tolerate screaming."**
**"FREE THERAPY: I'm not qualified but I listen good. -Jenny"**
There was a crafting area where players were teaching each other skills, a library (just three books, all glitched, one was screaming), and a memorial wall.
The memorial wall made me stop.
It was covered in names. Hundreds of them. Player usernames with dates next to them.
"What is this?" I asked quietly.
Marcus's expression became somber. "Players who didn't make it. Permanent deaths. When you die too many times in certain ways, or click the wrong thing, or... the game just decides you're done. We don't forget them."
The mood in the room shifted. This wasn't just a funny broken game anymore. People had actually died here. Maybe not in real life—we hoped—but their characters, their access, their ability to exist in this world... gone.
**DarkKnight_23 - "Clicked a suspicious chest"**
**HealerGirl_Sarah - "Fell through the world"**
**xXSephirothXx - "Challenged the chicken"**
"The chicken got someone?" I whispered.
"The chicken got TWELVE people before you tamed it," Marcus said. "You did something impossible. That's why people are watching you."
I looked at Nugget, who was grooming his feathers without a care in the world, completely unaware he was a mass murderer.
---
We were shown to a small room on the second floor—basically a glorified closet with two beds (one for me and Haruka, one for Gloopina who didn't technically need to sleep but insisted on trying).
"It's not much," Marcus said, "but it's safe. The building has protection protocols. No PvP, no monster spawns, and the beds actually save your spawn point here instead of the city square."
"Wait, we've been spawning in the square?" I asked.
"Where did you think you respawned?"
"I don't know! I was too busy being dead!"
After Marcus left, Haruka and I sat on our respective beds. Gloopina had already melted into her bed, literally—she was now a slime-shaped puddle snoring softly (how does a slime snore?).
"This is real, isn't it?" Haruka said quietly. "Not just a game. We're actually trapped here."
"Looks like it."
"And people have died. Permanently."
"Yeah."
She was quiet for a moment. "We need to find a way out."
"Agreed."
"But first, we need to survive."
"Also agreed."
"And you need to stop clicking suspicious things."
"That one's harder."
She threw a pillow at me. I caught it. It immediately turned into a frog and hopped away.
PatchNotes appeared:
> "Pillow has been compromised. This is normal. Welcome home."
---
That night, I couldn't sleep. I walked downstairs to find the common area still occupied. Players sat around, talking in hushed voices, sharing stories about their lives before Eryndale, their theories about what was happening.
I overheard fragments:
"...my daughter's birthday is next week. I'm supposed to be there..."
"...been stuck here three months game time, no idea how long in reality..."
"...Code Breakers think they can hack us out, but I don't trust them..."
"...that NPC in the market square? I swear she LOOKED at me. Like, really looked. They're not supposed to do that..."
I found BarrelBob87 sitting alone, staring at a mug of digital ale.
"Mind if I sit?" I asked.
He gestured to the chair. Up close, I could see his face through the barrel opening. He was young, maybe early twenties, with tired eyes.
"Why the barrel?" I asked.
"Started as a joke," he said. "Spawned without gear, found a barrel, wore it ironically. Then I died. Respawned in the barrel. Died again. Barrel again. Now the game thinks it's my default equipment. I'm cursed to be Barrel Bob forever."
"That's... actually terrible."
"Yeah." He took a sip. "But at least I'm memorable. In a world where you can disappear permanently, being memorable feels important."
I understood that more than I wanted to admit.
---
The next morning, I was woken by screaming.
Not panic screaming. Excited screaming.
I ran downstairs to find a crowd gathered in the square. In the center, surrounded by players, was a group I hadn't seen before.
They wore robes made of feathers. Chicken feathers. They had painted their faces with beaks. Their leader, a player named **ChickenProphet_LV7**, was holding a staff topped with what looked suspiciously like one of Nugget's molted feathers.
"BEHOLD!" he shouted. "THE CHOSEN ONE HAS ARRIVED! THE MASTER OF THE SACRED CHICKEN! THE PROPHET OF PECK!"
He was pointing directly at me.
"Oh no," I whispered.
"PRAISE BE TO THE CHICKEN LORD!" the crowd chanted.
"Oh NO," I repeated.
Nugget, perched on my shoulder, clucked once. The crowd went wild.
Haruka appeared next to me, saw the chicken cult, and immediately turned to walk away. "Nope. I'm not dealing with this before coffee."
"HARUKA, DON'T LEAVE ME!"
"YOU MARRIED A SLIME, YOU CAN HANDLE A CULT!"
ChickenProphet approached me with reverence. "Oh great Tamer of the Unkillable One, we have awaited your arrival! The prophecy spoke of one who would come, wearing pants of minimal shame, carrying the Debug Cloak of legends, riding the Sacred Chicken into battle!"
"There's a PROPHECY?!"
"We wrote it last Tuesday, but it's very accurate!"
PatchNotes appeared:
> "Congratulations! You've unlocked: Religious Following (Unwanted)"> "Side Effect: You are now responsible for their emotional well-being"> "This will end badly."
The chicken cultists began chanting: "CLUCK CLUCK, PRAISE THE PECK! CLUCK CLUCK, BREAK THY NECK!"
"That's ominous!" I shouted over the noise.
"IT'S INSPIRATIONAL!" ChickenProphet corrected.
Marcus pushed through the crowd. "Alright, alright! Prophet, take your people back to your compound. Kazuki hasn't even had breakfast yet."
"The Chicken Lord needs no breakfast! He feeds on GLORY and BUGS!"
"I definitely need breakfast," I corrected.
---
After the cult was dispersed (they left reluctantly, bowing and clucking), Marcus pulled me aside.
"Welcome to Respawn City," he said with a weary smile. "Where nothing makes sense, everything's broken, and you've somehow become a religious figure before lunch."
"Is it always like this?"
"Usually worse. You haven't seen the PvP tournaments yet. Or the NPC that gained sentience and started a philosophy club. Or the dungeon that's actually just a very aggressive tax office."
I stared at him.
"You get used to it," he said. "Or you go insane. Flip a coin, really."
Haruka returned with coffee (somehow). "So. What's our plan? Survival? Investigation? Joining the barrel cult?"
"There's a BARREL CULT?!"
"I'm making assumptions based on trends."
I looked around at Respawn City—the chaos, the glitches, the players trying to make a life in a broken game. The memorial wall. The chicken cult. The economy running on spite and slime.
"We figure out why we're trapped," I said. "We find whoever or whatever is keeping us here. And we either fix it or break it worse."
"That's not really a plan," Haruka said.
"It's a Kazuki plan."
"Like I said. Not really a plan."
Nugget clucked approvingly.
Gloopina bounced out of the building. "Good morning, honey! I had the strangest dream that you started a religion!"
"That actually happened."
"Oh. Well. That's nice! Very entrepreneurial!"
PatchNotes appeared one last time:
> "Tutorial complete: 'Welcome to Respawn City'"> "Achievement Unlocked: 'You Live Here Now'"> "Next objective: Try not to die (again)"> "Side objective: Figure out what's wrong with this world (everything)"> "Good luck. You'll need it."
I looked at my party—my cousin who could actually fight, my slime wife who'd absorbed books, my murder chicken who'd killed a dozen players, and my sarcastic AI companion who might be a ghost in the machine.
"Alright," I said. "Let's see what other trouble we can find."
"Please don't say it like that," Haruka groaned.
But it was too late.
In Respawn City, trouble didn't need to be found.
It found you.
---
> **End of Chapter 5**>