Prelude: The Final Patch
My name was Sato Kaito. In my previous life, I wasn't a hero, a martial artist, or even a particularly successful adult. I was a "Cleanup Coder"—the guy companies hired when their game was a buggy mess and the launch was forty-eight hours away. I lived on a diet of lukewarm energy drinks and the faint, glowing hope that I'd see my bed before the weekend.
I died during the "Final Patch" of an ambitious open-world project. My heart just… gave up. The last thing I saw was a screen filled with red error text: Critical Failure: System Overload.
Then, the world went quiet. There was no tunnel of light, no weeping goddess, and no choir of angels. There was only a flickering blue interface floating in a void of absolute nothingness.
[System Booting...]
[Hardware: Soul-Container detected.]
[Installing Utility Suite: COPY / SYNTHESIS / INFINITE STORAGE]
[Warning: AI module corrupted. Proceeding in Manual Mode.]
'Manual mode?' I thought, my consciousness drifting. 'Great. Even in the afterlife, I'm stuck with a broken build.'
I reached out with a hand I didn't realize I had and tapped the Status Panel.
Name: Sato Kaito
Level: 1
HP: 10/10
MP: 10/10
Traits: [None]
'Ten hit points. I'm a glorified glass ornament,' I grumbled internally. 'And "Traits: None"? I spent fifteen years mastering C++ and Java. Does that not count for a "Logic Mastery" skill or something? Cheap system.'
Suddenly, the void cracked like a broken monitor. A blinding light poured through the fractures, smelling intensely of pine needles and damp earth. Gravity, an old friend I hadn't missed, slammed into me with the force of a freight train.
I hit the ground face-first.
"Gah! Dust! I'm eating dust!" I coughed, rolling over and blinking against the sunlight.
I was lying in a grassy field. In the distance, the colossal, medieval stone walls of a city loomed against the horizon. They looked exactly like the illustrations of Seiryuu City from the Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody light novels I used to read during my lunch breaks.
'Wait. I know this place. This is the Shiga Kingdom. Which means somewhere out there is a guy named Satou who is about to become a God by accident. And then there's me—the guy in the "404: Sleep Not Found" t-shirt.'
I sat up and tapped the air. The menu appeared, cold and silent. No "Welcome, Brave Hero" message. Just the tools: [COPY], [SYNTHESIS], and [INFINITE STORAGE].
'It's a developer's toolkit,' I realized, a grin slowly spreading across my face. 'I don't need a quest. I just need to be a bug in the system.'
A rustle in the tall grass caught my attention. A small, blue-furred rabbit hopped out. It had a tiny, sharp horn protruding from its forehead—a Horned Rabbit.
'Target acquired. It's adorable. It's fluffy. And according to the lore, it's fast enough to kick a hole through a human's shin.'
I began to crawl forward on my stomach, my heart hammering. If I was going to survive a world filled with dragons and demons, I couldn't stay a baseline human. I needed to harvest.
I waited until the rabbit was distracted by a patch of clover. With a desperate lunging flop, I reached out and brushed my fingers against its soft fur.
[COPY] Initialized.
Target: Horned Rabbit.
Select Trait: [Leg Strength - Low] / [Enhanced Hearing] / [Quick Flight].
'Give me the legs! I'm a programmer; my natural state is sedentary. I need the ability to bolt!'
[COPY] Successful. [Leg Strength - Low] moved to STORAGE.
The rabbit, startled by the strange man poking it, let out a tiny squeak and vanished into the brush. I didn't care. I opened my [SYNTHESIS] menu, dragged the "Leg Strength" icon into my own character slot, and hit enter.
A jolt of electricity shot through my calves. My muscles tightened, feeling like they'd been replaced with high-tension industrial springs.
I stood up and took a single step. I didn't just walk; I practically launched myself five feet forward.
'Oh… oh, this is going to be fun,' I whispered, looking toward the city gates. 'I don't need to train for ten years. I just need to touch the right people. Watch out, Shiga Kingdom. The ultimate kleptomaniac has just logged in.