3 - Error
Kai’s pulse picked up as he stared at the messages floating in his vision, his little gremlin heart rapidly fluttering in his chest. This was just like one of those stupid litRPG novels or isekai light novels or anime where some idiot gets reborn in a new world and is given overpowered abilities and harems and immerses themselves in an empty, storyless narrative with nothing but progression and escapism and unrestrained wish fulfillment with stat boxes constantly appearing showing random numbers going up over time every time the protagonist sneezed or took a dump or climbed a tree. Sneezing while crapping in a tree +1, you have achieved godhood and can now cast nuclear bombs at your enemies with impunity. BOOM!
He gagged. So lame. Well, except for that one…
The text in his vision faded. A new message appeared:
Please place the entrance to the Admin Area.
A glowing green outline of a door appeared on the blank stone wall in front of him. Wherever he moved his line of sight, the outline followed. He looked around the room, then decided to put it on the wall to the right of the entrance. He looked at the spot where he wanted the door.
“Uh, there.” The outline faded away and the small room became dark again. No door was visible. Confused, he stepped closer, looking harder for the door. Yet there was no handle, no button to press, and he saw no hint of the outline from before. He placed a hand on the stone and gave it a push.
The wall soundlessly swung inward.
He grinned. “Secret door. Sweet.” He entered the new room.
The Admin Area was another small, square room made of reddish brown stone blocks. Facing one wall was a console, like a wide podium. The base was rock, but the top gleamed with the telltale sheen of glass. There was nothing else in the small space.
Striding over to the console, Kai found himself looking way up at it. Whoever had created this had designed it for human-sized users. “Hey! Not cool! This is discrimination against short people!” He booted the console in the base.
The base slowly lowered until it was barely off the floor.
“That’s better.” Kai placed a clawed hand on the glass, his hooked nails clicking on the hard surface.
The console came to life like a computer waking from sleep. Messages appeared:
INITIALIZING. PLEASE WAIT.
Configuring for user.
Loading traps…minions…design features…weapons…
Preparing anti-rogue security system
Feeding slimes
Composing eerie noises
An image of a dungeon appeared. Actually, it was the room outside. Below a series of tips scrolled by:
If adventurers are easily conquering your dungeon and stealing all your treasure, try not to suck so much.
Dealing with higher rank heroes? Try deploying even higher ranked monsters.
Beware of pooing in the dungeon. Employ slimes to keep passages clean and smelling fresh. Consider installing toilets.
Dungeon’s can be fun, but you can’t spend all your time there. Don’t forget to go outside and get some sun. And try to make real-life friends too.
Mecha-gnomes cannot be trusted. AI is evil!
As he read the messages going by, Kai was beset by a mix of emotions. On the one hand, this whole magical dungeon thing was pretty freakin’ cool. On the other hand, he was still grieving the loss of his old life and body. This fantasy world stuff seemed exciting. But knowing he probably had less than twenty years to live depending on how old this new body was had him kind of scared. The idea of growing his dungeon into something grand and amazing was also incredibly daunting. Actually, it was overwhelming. A familiar feeling of negativity came over him.
Realistically, there was no way that he was ever going to grow this dungeon to a hundred floors, meet some gods, and have some wish granted. It would be nearly impossible. Only some try-hard, natural genius type could do that, and Kai was not that.
So why even try in the first place? Why get excited and invest a bunch of time into this dungeon thing only to have his hopes dashed and have his failure prove what a loser he was? He should just give up, walk away, and go make the best of his life somewhere else.
Kai was not the brightest star in the sky. He’d never been the kind to excel at school; he’d never received an honor grade. He didn’t learn things quickly, not as fast as some people, which had been really frustrating at times.
But if there was one thing that many years and hundreds of tv shows, films, and books had taught him, it was that there was one really big difference between winners and the vast hordes of losers in life:
Winners didn’t give up on themselves.
That might be an easy lesson to be aware of on an intellectual level, but it was a whole other beast living it on an emotional and applicable level. Case in point, Kai was kind of a loser. He’d never achieved anything great. He’d never been the best at anything. He’d watched other people around him get higher marks, run faster, pick up hotter chicks, get better jobs, and so on, and so on. When he hadn’t been able to perform as well as the best people in class or at work right away, he’d stared at them with some measure of resentment before defensively trying to shrug it off like it didn’t matter, then giving up on himself — and not trying again, not trying harder.
He’d coasted through life the same as most people, giving up in big ways and in small ones many times. He’d convinced himself that he was a loser, that he couldn’t do anything, that he couldn’t have more. He’d told himself that he was never going to run as fast as that other guy in gym class, so why try? He didn’t want to look lesser in everyone’s eyes. He was never going to look like some Hollywood movie star so why bother dressing nice or working out? Beautiful women were never going to look twice at him, so he’d spare himself the rejection and humiliation and just not ask anyone out. He was never going to get promoted because others were smarter, worked harder, and were more popular. Why bother trying hard when it would all just be a waste of his time and effort and lead to soul-crushing disappointment and pain? He was a loser. He knew this. So many experiences had proven this.
But…what if he was wrong?
Truthfully, he’d never known what he was really capable of because he’d never pushed his limits. He’d always given in to his innate sense of inferiority. But what if — this time — he didn’t give up on himself? The idea was scary as all hell, but also exciting. Part of him wanted to have hope in himself. Dare he risk giving into it?
Here he was, somehow unexpectedly ripped from his normal life and thrust into a new one. It was kind of a fresh start. Actually, every single day was a fresh start, and we could choose to change the course of our lives at any time, but this felt like an even more poignant turning point, a crossroads like he hadn’t been to in a long time.
Kai hated being a loser. He hated that he was always looking down on himself, probably more than anyone else looked down on him. He had a guilty suspicion that being a loser had less to do with what he was capable of and more with a negative perspective of himself, that thinking and feeling this way was his own fault, a result of giving into his own insecurities more than the world at large was trying to keep him down. It was a very hard truth to accept, but the longer he allowed the idea to sit in his mind instead of running away from it, the truer it felt.
He was sick of feeling bad about himself. He really didn’t want to feel like a loser anymore. Maybe it was time to try harder. Maybe, this time, he wouldn’t give up on himself.
What did he have to lose? Some embarrassment if he failed? So what? If people laughed at him for falling on his ass, looked down on him, mocked him, well then, screw those guys. Anyone who did that to another person was a jerk. Their opinion didn’t mean dust.
And if he did fail and had to look in the mirror and come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t the next superstar or world record holder or whatever, then fine. So be it. At least he could be proud of himself for trying his best, for pushing his horizons, and that was more important. Not giving up on himself would make him tough. He liked that idea. The more he pondered it, the more he decided that tough was the kind of person he wanted to be. So, from now on, he was going to be the toughest he could possibly be.
He was now in possession of a magical dungeon. His very own. That was amazing. So what if the guy who’d sold it had said that it took hundreds of years to grow one all the way? Just because that was true for others, it didn’t mean it was necessarily also true for him, right?
Screw the odds. Kai was going to bust his ass and try to get this dungeon to level one hundred before he died. Then he was going to meet the gods, find the one who’d put him in this position and punch him in the face, then get that boon. He’d become human again. Get his life back. And this time, he’d live better.
And if he failed, so be it. The destination wasn’t as important as the journey. He’d read that on a poster at the dentist’s office, and he believed it. He didn’t need to achieve everything. He just needed to prove to himself that he could be a fighter, that he had faith in himself. He could be proud of himself for that.
The console screen froze. Kai tensed in alarm. A red box appeared over the screen image:
CHECKING…
ERROR
NONSTANDARD MODULE DETECTED
Kai’s stomach dropped. “No! Don’t tell me he sold me a broken dungeon core!” Anxiously, he stared at the screen, willing the bad messages to go away.
NONSTANDARD MODULE IDENTIFIED
DETERMINING COMPATIBILITY
VERIFYING…
Kai gulped. Had his dungeon core been hacked or something?
VERIFYING…
AUTHENTICATION ACCEPTED
A happy face appeared on the screen. It winked at Kai, then faded away.
Kai nervously stared at the place the face had disappeared. “Ok… Weird.”