The first thing Kaelen felt was the cold.
It seeped through the threadbare fabric of his trousers, a damp, grinding chill that spoke of stone and ancient mildew. The second thing was the smell—ash, wet rust, and something sweetly rotten, like forgotten flowers in a tomb.
He opened his eyes.
Grey. Everything was grey. A vaulted ceiling of cracked, soot-stained stone arched above him. He lay on a floor of uneven flagstones, in what looked like the ruins of a grand hall. Windows, once magnificent, were now jagged teeth of colored glass, filtering a sickly, bruised twilight from a sky he couldn't see. The air was silent, a thick, woolen silence that seemed to swallow sound before it could be born.
Where…?
His last memory was of his office. The soft couch, the muted palette, the gentle hum of the air conditioner. Mrs. Abernathy was crying again, talking about her husband's emotional distance. Kaelen had been formulating his response, a carefully calibrated blend of empathy and cognitive reframing.
Then, a pain behind his eyes like a white-hot needle. Then, nothing.
Now this.
He pushed himself up, his hands scraping on the gritty stone. He was still in his tailored suit, the light grey one. It was hopelessly out of place here, a splash of muted color in a world of monochrome decay. A psychologist's armor, useless against… whatever this was.
A sudden, violent jolt of panic shot up his spine. It was primal, overwhelming. His breath hitched. He was not in control. He was not the calm, observing professional. He was prey, in a place that felt deeply, fundamentally wrong.
BONG!
A cheerful, crystalline sound, utterly alien, echoed inside his skull. Before his eyes, the world dissolved into pink.
A translucent, bubblegum-pink interface flickered into existence, overlaying the grim hall. Rounded, cute fonts in white and baby blue spelled out words. A tiny, cartoon heart pulsated in the upper right corner. A jaunty, synth-pop tune with a catchy beat began to play, a sound so aggressively upbeat it felt like a violation.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE!]
[WELCOME, PLAYER #KAELEN-7!]
[THE 'GALGE CONQUEST PROTOCOL' IS NOW ACTIVE!]
[OBJECTIVE: BRING LOVE TO A LOVELESS WORLD! ♡]
Kaelen stared, his mind freezing between terror and absurdity. A dating sim interface. In a place that looked like the set of a Gothic horror film.
[SCANNING LOCAL ENVIRONMENT…]
[LOCATION: THE GRAND HALL OF SORROWS, KINGDOM OF CINDERFALL.]
[INITIALIZING TUTORIAL ROUTE…]
[LOVE INTEREST DETECTED!]
The pink window shifted, forming a heart-shaped frame. An arrow, sparkling with tiny stars, pointed across the vast hall.
Kaelen's eyes followed it.
There, at the far end, on a crumbling throne of black stone, sat a knight.
It was not a man in armor. It was the armor. Fifty feet tall if it was an inch, a mountain of tarnished, pitted steel, fused and grown into a monstrous humanoid shape. Its helm was a faceless, smooth dome, but from the shadows within its visor slit, two pinpricks of smoldering red light glowed like dying coals. In one massive, gauntleted hand, it rested the hilt of a colossal sword, the blade plunged into the stone floor at its feet. The air around it shimmered with a heat haze of pure, unadulterated despair.
[LOVE INTEREST IDENTIFIED: 'THE SORROWFUL KNIGHT - SIR GARETH THE UNFORGIVEN']
[AFFECTION METER: 0/100 (NEUTRAL)]
[TUTORIAL OBJECTIVE: INITIATE FIRST CONTACT! RAISE AFFECTION TO 5!]
[WARNING: FAILURE TO ESTABISH AFFECTION WILL RESULT IN A 'BAD END.']
A Bad End. In a dating sim. Kaelen's professional mind, trained to analyze and deconstruct, latched onto the term with hysterical clarity. It meant death. Here, in this reality, it meant being crushed by that mountain of animated grief.
The knight's head tilted. A low, grinding sound echoed through the hall, the sound of metal scraping against stone as it moved. The two red coals focused on him.
Kaelen's body screamed to run, to hide, to do anything but stand there. But his legs were locked. The absurd pop music tinkled in his ears. The pink interface hovered, waiting.
A new window popped up, bright and cheerful.
[DIALOGUE OPTIONS DETECTED!]
[CHOOSE YOUR OPENING LINE!]
[OPTION 1: "Hey there, big guy. Come here often?"]
[OPTION 2: "Your armor… it looks heavy. Can I help you carry that burden?"]
[OPTION 3: "I've been lost, but seeing you gives me hope."]
[OPTION 4: (Remain Silent. Back away slowly.)]
Kaelen's heart hammered against his ribs. This was insane. This was a joke. A terrible, cosmic joke. He was a psychologist, not a… a dating sim protagonist. He analyzed defense mechanisms, not dialogue trees for eldritch horrors.
The Sorrowful Knight shifted its weight. The floor trembled. It began to rise, pulling its sword from the stone with a screech that set Kaelen's teeth on edge. The red coals in its helm flared. It was not a move of aggression, not yet. It was a slow, ponderous acknowledgment of his presence. A question.
The System's music took on a slight note of urgency.
Kaelen looked at the options. Option 1 was flippant, disrespectful. In his old world, it might be a cheesy pick-up line. Here, it would be a death sentence. Option 4 was his instinct—flight. But the System had warned him. A Bad End.
He looked at the knight, truly looked. The way it held itself, the slope of its massive shoulders. It wasn't standing in a proud, combat-ready pose. It stood with a permanent, world-weary slump. The sword wasn't held aloft; it was dragged, a weight it could not put down.
"Your armor… it looks heavy."
It was a statement of pure observation. The armor was heavy. But not just the steel. The guilt. The sorrow. It was a symbol, a self-imposed prison. Kaelen had seen it a hundred times in his practice. The clients who wore their trauma like a coat of lead, who believed they didn't deserve to put it down.
The System wasn't asking him to flirt. Not really. It was asking him to connect. To see the monster, and speak to the pain behind it.
His mouth was dry as dust. The knight took one earth-shaking step forward. The red eyes bored into him.
Kaelen chose.
He took a shaky breath, and spoke, his voice a fragile thing in the vast, silent hall.
"Your armor," he said, forcing the words past his fear. "It looks so heavy."
The knight stopped. The grinding of its movement ceased. The red coals flickered.
[SELECTION CONFIRMED: OPTION 2.]
[ANALYZING RESPONSE…]
[EMPATHY DETECTED. BONUS AFFECTION CALCULATED.]
The pink heart in the corner of his vision pulsed.
[AFFECTION METER: 0 → 7/100]
A chime, like a small bell, rang in his mind.
The Sorrowful Knight stared at him. It did not move. The oppressive aura of despair seemed to… hesitate. For a fraction of a second, the smoldering red of its eyes softened to a dimmer, more amber glow.
Then, it slowly, ever so slowly, sank back onto one knee, resting its sword again. It was a posture of… not peace, but ceasefire. A momentary truce born of being seen.
Kaelen's knees almost buckled with relief. He had passed. The first, impossible test.
But then, the System chimed again, brighter.
[TUTORIAL OBJECTIVE COMPLETE!]
[FIRST CONTACT SUCCESSFUL!]
[REWARD UNLOCKED: 'WHISPER OF SORROW']
[A SLIVER OF SIR GARETH'S POWER IS NOW YOURS TO WIELD. USE IT TO DEFEND YOUR LOVE.]
A cold, sharp sensation pierced Kaelen's palm. He looked down. A faint, greyish aura, like clinging mist, shimmered around his right hand for a moment before fading.
[NEW OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE THE NIGHT IN THE GRAND HALL. AFFECTION MAY DECAY OVER TIME. MAINTAIN CONNECTION.]
The pink interface faded slightly, but the music kept its cheerful, relentless tempo. The knight remained kneeling, a silent, mountainous monument to grief, now watching him with a passive, eerie curiosity.
Kaelen stood in the grey hall, the smell of ash in his nose, the ghost of a dead knight's power in his hand, and a yandere dating sim as his only guide.
He had survived the first minute.
The longest night of his life had just begun.