The fight in the atrium of Mall Taman Anggrek wasn't a dance; it was a desperate, ugly brawl. Every time the Glitch Amalgamation slammed its massive, cable-braided limbs into the floor, the world seemed to stutter. Dust and shards of ancient marble choked the air, making every lungful of oxygen feel like a punishment. But Arlan didn't care about his lungs. He moved with a cold, jagged precision that defied any logic the system tried to impose on him. He wasn't just fighting a monster; he was fighting the very code that had stolen his life.
With a gutteral roar, Arlan lunged. His blade, screaming with an Elemental Infusion: Fire that burned a sickly, desperate orange, sliced through the air. He didn't aim for the limbs. He aimed for the flickering, red-core data pulsing at the center of the mannequin-heap's chest.
BOOM!
The detonation was deafening. The Glitch Amalgamation didn't just die; it shattered. Thousands of black, oily data fragments sprayed across the atrium like a shower of digital coal. Arlan stood in the center of the fresh crater, his shoulders heaving, his chest burning. His bronze armor was a wreck—scratched, dented, and covered in a film of grey grime. But his fingers were locked tight around the Large Fragment of Memory. It pulsed in his palm with a pure, white light that felt like the only real thing left in this godforsaken city.
Mario and his two lackeys, finally free from the ice but looking like they'd seen a ghost, could only stare. The air around Arlan was heavy, a suffocating pressure that made their own levels feel like a bad joke.
"Who... who the hell are you?" Mario's voice was a pathetic tremble. The Level 27 tag above his head looked like a neon insult now. A man who had just dismantled a Level 28 nightmare solo was standing right in front of him, and he looked like he was ready to kill the world. "A Level 25 shouldn't be able to do that. It's not possible."
Arlan didn't even give him a glance. Reputations, guild politics, the "rules" of the game—none of that meant a damn thing anymore. Time was the only currency he cared about, and he was running out of it. He reached into his belt and pulled out a dull blue crystal—a Teleport Stone.
"Use what's left of your time to get the hell out of here," Arlan growled, his voice a low rasp. "The system's going to format this zone any second now. If you stay, you're just more trash for the bin."
Sring!
Arlan crushed the stone in his fist. The blue light swallowed him whole, and in a heartbeat, the ruins of the mall were gone. The silence of his cramped, stale-smelling apartment unit in the Jakarta Sector rushed back to meet him.
He didn't wait. He ran. His boots thudded against the floor as he burst into the room. His mother was still there. Still in that same, soul-killing position in front of the cold stove. Still stirring that empty pot with that same mechanical, dead-eyed focus. The [Maid NPC — Level 1] label was still there, mocking him.
Arlan dropped to his knees in front of her. His hands were shaking so hard he could barely hold the Fragment. He pressed the glowing white object against her chest, right where her heart should have been.
"Mom... please," he whispered, his voice cracking with a decade's worth of bottled-up grief. "Just come back. Really come back this time."
The white light didn't just glow—it screamed. It filled every corner of the room, burning away the shadows, burning away the digital gloom. Arlan felt a jolt of pure energy, a raw power that felt like the old world trying to punch its way back through a thick wall of static.
[Status Update: NPC 'Mother' — Consciousness Restored: 95%]
[System Alert: Anomaly Detected! Human Soul interference with Game Logic]
The blinding light faded, leaving behind a heavy, expectant silence. Arlan opened his eyes and saw his mother slumped on the floor. But something was different. Her pupils weren't glassy anymore; they were vibrating, focusing on his face for the first time in an eternity. Real, salty tears began to track through the dust on her cheeks.
The nauseating green label above her head flickered, turned a static-filled red for a split second, and then settled into a soft, steady white. The text had changed: [Zero Player].
Arlan's breath hitched. Zero Player. He'd heard rumors of it in the deep forums—a status given to those who regained their humanity in a world of code. It was a massive, dangerous anomaly. In a city where the world level was barely scratching 25, a Zero Player was a target. But she was alive.
"Arlan...?" Her voice was shaky, rough, but it was her. No echoes. No distortion. "Why... why are you crying, baby? And why are you wearing that... that metal suit?"
Arlan's resolve finally broke. He threw his arms around her, burying his face in her shoulder as he sobbed like a child. "You're back... you're really back."
After the world seemed to steady itself a little, Arlan helped her into the room's only wooden chair. He gave her a bottle of purified mana water, watching her color return to a healthy, human glow. But even in the middle of his relief, a name was burning in the back of his mind. A reason why he had to keep this armor on.
"Mom," Arlan said, taking her hand. It was warm. It felt like home. "While I was gone... did you see Maya? Did she ever make it here?"
His mother's face, which had just started to brighten, suddenly turned pale and haunted. She looked down at the floor, her hands twisting in her lap as she tried to pull memories out of the fog of her NPC-loop.
"Maya... I remember the first day the sky turned that awful purple," she said, her voice trembling. "She called me. She sounded so scared, Arlan. She said she was trapped in her office in Kuningan. Something was wrong with the elevators, and people were... they were turning into light right in front of her."
Arlan's heart stopped. "Kuningan? Mandiri Tower?"
His mother nodded slowly. "She said she was going to try and get to the top floor because the monsters were coming up from the basement. After that... the phone just went dead. I haven't heard from her since."
Arlan stood up, his eyes turning to the window. Outside, the skyline of Jakarta was a jagged mess of concrete and violet fog. Kuningan was a Red Zone. A slaughterhouse. The monsters there were rumored to be Level 40 and up—way beyond what any normal player could survive.
"If she's still conscious, and she made it to the roof, she's still fighting," Arlan muttered. He tightened his fist until his metal gauntlet groaned.
"Bring her home, Arlan," his mother pleaded, her voice a fragile whisper. "Bring Maya back to us."
Arlan nodded, his face turning into a mask of cold determination. He checked his sword one last time. The fire was still there, waiting. His journey hadn't ended with his mother's return; it had just gotten a hell of a lot more dangerous. In the corner of his eye, the system window blinked, showing his updated stats from the mall massacre.
[ STATUS PLAYERS ] :
- Name: AzureBound
- Level: 26 (Level Up!)
- Job Class: Sword Magician (1st)
- Strength: 29
- Agility: 31
-Intelligence: 30
-Dexterity: 7
-Vitality: 10
- Mother's Status: Zero Player (95% Consciousness)
- Current Objective: Reach Kuningan, Mandiri Tower Floor 30.