Free Web NovelChapter 3: The Other Side of the Glass [2]
Zen’s eyes skated over his status screen, and he froze.
His expression turned grim when he read his name on the status screen.
He recognized this status screen.
But more importantly, he recognized the name.
’Mikael Morwell???’
"Shit, why this guy!?"
Out of all the characters, out of all the worlds.
Why did this have to be him?
He knew that face looked familiar.
He’d recognized it somewhere deep in his subconscious, but his brain had been too scrambled by panic to make the connection.
’No, this might still be a coincidence.’
Not like there could be only one Mikael Morwell.
He knew it could be the very world he was thinking of.
Yet.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, He still clung to that small, stubborn hope that his assumption was wrong.
He needed more information.
He looked around as his eyes landed on a small writing desk beside the bed.
He quickly walked there.
There was a small black leather book on top of the desk.
He picked up the book, and a thick parchment letter fell from it. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
Zen’s eyes paused on the blue wax-sealed, imprinted letter.
He put that book aside and quickly tore the letter open.
It was written in an unknown language... but for some reason, he understood it perfectly.
[Invitation to Astralspire Academy Entrance Examination.]
Zen froze.
’Astralspire Academy?!’
The words echoed in his mind. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
He had to accept this now.
He had indeed been transmigrated into the very same game he used to play in college.
"Fuck"
***
Eclipsed Realms.
A dark fantasy RPG game, famous for its brutal difficulty, branching storylines, and multiple playable protagonists, was developed by a small indie studio called Obsidian Veil.
It had gained a cult following for its punishing mechanics and sprawling narrative that shifted based on which protagonist you choose.
You could play as Aldric Vane, the disgraced knight seeking redemption.
Or Seraphina Ishtar, a prodigy mage running from her bloodline.
Or any other three characters, each with their own unique path through the shattered continent of Aetheris.
The game was mercilessly hard.
The boss fight required pattern memorization, resource management was brutal, and death meant starting the entire Chapter over.
Players used to wear their completion rate like badges of honor, and the online forums were full of heated debates about optimal builds and hidden endings.
But
Then the developers decided to get cute.
To celebrate the game’s third anniversary, they released a free DLC that added a new playable character.
A bonus protagonist.
The announcement trailer showed a pale, ghostly, grey-eyed boy standing in the rain, atop Astralspire Academy’s tower, staring up.
The tagline read:
[Some fates are not meant to be survived]
That character was Mikael Morwell.
The developers had created him as a joke.
As a challenge.
A middle finger to those players who boasted that Eclipsed Realms wasn’t hard enough for them.
They designed Mikael’s route to be borderline impossible.
He started with the lowest stats among all the protagonists.
But that’s not all.
He also doesn’t have any affinity or any ability.
Players who tried his route posted screenshots of their death counts: thirty-seven times before reaching the academy.
One infamous streamer had died eighty-nine times in a single session and rage-quit so hard he broke his keyboard on camera.
The forums had turned Mikael into a meme.
"Mikael Morwell is what you play when you hate yourself."
"Eclipsed Realms hard mode? Nah, real masochists play Mikael."
"Has anyone actually finished his route without cheats?"
There were theories that players had to perform several conditions to unlock a secret class.
But unlock conditions were so specific that only a handful of players had stumbled on it.
And even they couldn’t figure out how to build him properly.
Most people just accepted that Mikael’s story was one long, unavoidable tragedy.
And that’s not the worst part---
He never played the game as Mikael Morwell.
’Yes, kill me for that.’
The DLC was released after he had already graduated and gotten a job.
And with his busy overtime job as a software engineer, he never had the time to play Eclipsed Realms again.
"....I am so fucked."
*****
*Tsssss.... *
The steady stream of tap water falling on the smooth porcelain of the bathtub was the only sound breaking the silence of the luxurious bathroom.
It wasn’t exactly massive, but it was quite luxurious.
Zen lay submerged up to his neck in the cold water as his ghostly grey eyes stared blankly at the ornate ceiling above.
The chilling cold seeped into his bones, making him realize again and again that he was not dreaming-- reminding him of his new reality.
Five hours.
It had been five hours since he transmigrated into "Eclipsed Realm".
He had spent every minute of these five hours hoping this would end.
Hoping that he would close his eyes and find himself back in a small apartment.
But he never did.
He raised his hand out of the water towards the ceiling, raising it above his eye level as water droplets raced down his forearm, dripping back into the bath.
He kept staring at his pale hand for some time.
He had become Mikael Morwell.
The worst playable character in the entire game.
The thought almost pulled a bitter laugh from his throat.
’No.’
This won’t do.
His thoughts drifted back to his original life... his cramped apartment.
Back to the Sunday dinners at his parents’ house, his caring mother, and his strict but kind father.
Back to the cheap bar with guys.
His life hadn’t been glamorous.
Hell, it was boring most days.
Wake up, work, eat, sleep, repeat.
It was the same monotonous life.
But... it was his life.
And the people in it.
He loved them, loved his parents, loved all of it.
And he wasn’t ready to let that life slip away.
"I need to find a way back home."
Back to earth.
He had some ideas about this.
He had consumed enough transmigration novels in his college and high school years to have a rough idea about how he could go back.
But.
Knowing and actually doing were two very different things.
As for now, he could think of two ways to go home.
The first was simple---
Finish the game.
Easy, right?
No, it wasn’t.
He’s Mikael now, one of the worst playable protagonists in the entire Eclipsed realm.
And on top of that, he doesn’t even know Mikael’s storyline like those other novel protagonists.
In the eclipsed realm, every playable protagonist has its own storyline.
And he didn’t even know anything about Mikael’s route, except that the difficulty was hellish.
A quiet sigh escaped his lips.
The second path was that stupid antique mirror he had won in that lottery.
It was the one responsible for his transmigration.
If it could pull him inside... it can also send him back.
But that path feels even more dangerous than the first one.
He still remembered glimpsing at the silent void when the mirror pulled him inside.
The memory alone of that mirror world made his stomach lurch.
An endless expense of nothing, where time didn’t move, sound didn’t exist, and he was utterly, completely alone.
There was only the sensation of endlessly falling and freezing and tearing apart.
If possible, he doesn’t want to experience that again.
He shook his head, forcing the memory away.
No matter which path he chose... in both cases one thing is common, and that is ---
To get as strong as possible.
He decided to pull his status screen again, bracing himself.
But before he could, a different window flashed in front of him.
****
