Have you ever seen reality buffer?
I don’t mean a YouTube video stuttering on bad Wi-Fi. I mean the actual fabric of existence pausing to load.
It started with the sound. The hum of the mana geyser cut out instantly, replaced by a silence so heavy it felt like pressure in my ears. Then, the visuals glitched. The jagged stone walls of my Core Room didn't crumble; they pixelated. Seraphina, who had been standing there looking horrified, froze mid-blink, her image tearing like a corrupt JPEG.
Lilith’s clipboard hung suspended in the air, defying gravity.
"Oh, this isn't good," I thought.
Then, the world went white.
Not a bright, holy white. This was the blinding, sterile white of a blank Word document. My dungeon was gone. My body—the obsidian crystal—was gone. I was back to being a floating consciousness, a disembodied ego in an infinite void.
I recognized this feeling. It was the waiting room.
A desk materialized in front of me. It was massive, made of some dark, polished wood that smelled like ozone and old money. Behind it sat a figure.
It wasn't a bearded man in robes. It wasn't a glowing orb.
It was a teenager in a hoodie. He looked about nineteen, had messy hair, and dark circles under his eyes that rivaled Seraphina’s. He was typing furiously on a holographic keyboard, surrounded by floating screens of cascading code.
He didn't look up. "Entity 404-Null. Max. You have caused a fatal exception in the Local Economic Subroutine."
"I prefer the term 'Disruptive Innovation,'" I projected, manifesting my Executive Avatar. I straightened my tie, though I felt weirdly naked without my dungeon walls. "Who am I addressing? Tech Support?"
The teenager stopped typing. He spun his chair around. His eyes were binary code, scrolling too fast to read.
"I am the System Administrator," he said, his voice flat, synthesized. "I manage the physics engine. I manage the drop rates. And right now, I am managing a headache because you decided to divide by zero."
He swiped a hand, and a graph appeared in the air. It showed a red line plunging off the chart.
"You crashed the value of Mana in Sector 7," the Admin said. "The gold standard is ruined. The Church’s prayer-to-power ratio is broken. Do you have any idea how much coding it takes to fix a hyper-inflation event?"
"I saved myself," I argued, stepping up to the desk. "The Church was using your system to exploit a monopoly. They were stifling growth. I just... corrected the market."
"You broke the rules," the Admin countered. "The protocol is deletion. I’m supposed to wipe your code and reset the sector to yesterday’s backup."
I felt a chill. Deletion. No afterlife, no second chance. Just Control-Alt-Delete.
"Wait," I said, holding up a hand. "Let’s look at the metrics."
The Admin blinked. "Metrics?"
"You’re running a simulation, right?" I pointed at the screens. "This whole world—the levels, the xp, the gold—it’s a user engagement loop. You want active users. You want conflict. You want growth."
I leaned over the desk, channeling every ounce of boardroom confidence I had.
"Look at the Church’s user data," I bluffed. "They’re stagnant. They hoard resources. Low-level adventurers quit because the grind is too hard. That’s bad for your numbers. It’s a dying business model."
The Admin hesitated. He glanced at one of his screens.
"User retention in the Kingdom of Aethelgard is down 14% year-over-year," he muttered.
"Exactly," I pressed. "Now look at my dungeon. In three days, I’ve generated more economic activity than the local guild has in a month. I created a trade war. I stimulated the potion market. I hired the unemployable."
I slammed my hand on the desk.
"You don't want to delete me, Admin. I’m the only one here generating fresh content. The Church is playing Solitaire. I’m playing 4D Chess. Who would you rather have running the server?"
The Admin stared at me. The binary in his eyes slowed down. He tapped his chin.
"You are high risk," he said.
"High risk, high yield," I shot back. "Don't delete me. Invest in me. Give me a provisional license. Let me run my dungeon my way. If I don't increase user engagement by 20% in the next quarter, you can delete me then."
The teenager sighed. It was a very human sound. He looked like he just wanted to go back to playing video games.
"Fine," he said. "But the debt stays. You don't get a free ride."
"I don't want a free ride," I smiled, baring my teeth. "I just want a fair market."
He snapped his fingers.
"Rebooting in 3... 2... 1..."
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.