Chương 13: Chap 13 -The World is Glitching”)
The plaza was supposed to be boring.
That was the whole point.
Tutorial zones are where fresh-faced newbies clicked through dialogue boxes without reading, killed three boars, and pretended they understood the crafting menu.
Nothing exciting ever happened here—by design.
Which is why the fact that the tree outside the inn was respawning sideways every three seconds felt… slightly off.
One moment, it stood tall and proud, leafy branches swaying gently in the fake wind.
The next, it reappeared at a ninety-degree angle, trunk embedded in the cobblestone like some avant-garde landscaping project.
Then poof—gone, back to normal.
I blinked. Yawned. Blinked again.
Nope. Still happening.
Even better, a villager NPC carrying a basket of apples walked directly through the half-spawned trunk each time.
His face didn't even twitch.
Just the same looped smile, the same jaunty whistle.
Apples bouncing in his basket like gravity hadn't been invented yet.
"Perfect," I muttered, dragging a bench into the shade so I could witness this environmental crime in comfort.
"Either the devs just rolled out a patch called Cubism Online, or I broke reality again by standing still too long.
Place your bets, folks."
It wasn't just the tree.
The fountain water had decided that physics was optional.
The stream shot upward, froze mid-air, and then… fell backward into the sky like someone was playing the world in reverse.
A little dog NPC barked once, split into two dogs, then both glitched into a loaf of bread before reassembling into a single dog again.
My inventory was no better.
Every time I flicked it open, the rusty dagger from the starter quest multiplied like rabbits, filling slot after slot before evaporating in unison.
"Oh, infinite daggers," I sighed. "Exactly what I wanted. Not infinite gold, or infinite XP.
Daggers , fantastic.
Truly, I am blessed."
And then came the cherry on this bugged sundae:
System Notification:
⚠️ Unauthorized anomaly detected.
"Oh, unauthorized, huh?" I grumbled, leaning back until the bench creaked under my weight.
"Listen, buddy, the only unauthorized thing happening here is me skipping cardio.
Unauthorized would be jogging.
I am literally authorized to sit here."
The System didn't respond.
It never did when I roasted it.
Probably sulking.
I stretched, propped my feet on the bench armrest, and decided the best course of action was, obviously, to do nothing.
If the world wanted to self-destruct around me, far be it from me to interfere.
I was just here for the vibes.
But the vibes weren't exactly calming.
Every NPC I looked at had… stutters. Like someone hit "skip frame" on their animation cycle.
The blacksmith hammered twice, froze mid-swing, then resumed as if nothing happened.
The innkeeper's smile flickered on and off, teeth duplicating like a bad Photoshop job.
The soundscape wasn't spared either.
Birds chirped out of sync, overlapping in broken stereo.
A merchant's hawking line came out distorted, like someone dragging a cassette tape through gravel.
It was less "fantasy world immersion" and more "Windows XP dying noise."
I buried my face in my hood and groaned.
"Beautiful.
Just beautiful.
I came here to escape stress, and now I'm living in the world's worst tech demo."
System Warning:
📡 Local code destabilization: 7% and rising.
"Cool," I muttered.
"Seven percent.
That's not even double digits right.
Wake me up when it's ninety-nine, and we're all T-posing in the void."
And with that, I closed my eyes, folded my arms, and let the apocalypse try its best.
I figured the respawning IKEA tree was bad enough.
Then the shopkeeper glitched.
You know the type — one of those stock NPCs every newbie town has.
Wooden stall, infinite apples, smile that screams "kill me, I'm a script."
I'd passed him a hundred times and never noticed anything except that he charged two silver too much for bread.
But today, instead of his usual cheery loop — "Hello, traveler! Finest produce in town!" — he froze. Mid-word.
His jaw just… stayed open.
Like the devs had unplugged his USB.
"Uh," I said, waving my hand in front of him.
"Hey, pal. You're supposed to upsell me fruit, not audition for a horror movie."
Nothing.
And then—
His face twitched.
His eyes, once those friendly pre-baked textures, flicked toward me.
Not past me,Not through me.
At me.
And he whispered:
"…You were here before. In the last reset."
Now, I'd like to say I handled that revelation with grace and stoicism.
Maybe a thoughtful nod, or a cool "Ah, so the cycle begins anew."
Reality:
"Cool," I said, backing up fast.
"Haunted AI with memory of past lives. Exactly what I wanted.
Next thing, we'll have a ghost raid boss in the tavern.
Perfect."
The shopkeeper twitched again, like the System was trying to drag him back to his script, but his voice broke through static.
"They… they wipe us every cycle… but I… I remember your face.
Sleeper. Why do you always sleep?"
That last part was not whispered.
That last part came out loud, sharp, desperate.
People turned.
Other NPCs ,the Farmers even random background villagers.
They all froze in their loops, like puppets yanked off strings, and stared at me.
And some of them — oh, great, just some of them — started muttering.
"I remember… the burning town."
"I remember dying."
"I remember him."
Pointing At Me.
"Okay," I said, trying to sound calm. "Deep breaths. You're fine.
It's just a bug ,just a really existential bug.
Happens all the time in MMOs, right?
Memory leaks with haunted fruit vendors.
Totally normal patch notes."
But my own voice cracked.
Because more of them were breaking.
A woman dropped her water bucket mid-animation, clutching her head like she'd just been force-fed spoilers to the ending of her own story.
A guard started glitching between his patrol stance and a corpse ragdoll, eyes flickering open and shut.
And then the whispers spread like wildfire:
"The Sleeper returns."
"He brings the loop."
"He never moves… but we move because of him."
"Wonderful," I muttered. "I'm officially the patron saint of NPC trauma.
Can't wait to see my sainthood perks.
Probably thirty percent off cursed bread."
I checked the System log, half-expecting a notification.
Nothing.
Just silence.
Which was, honestly, worse.
Because if even the passive-aggressive UI didn't want to comment? Yeah.
Something seriously broken was going down.
And the kicker?
A little kid NPC — pigtails, dirt-smudged face, the works — tugged on my sleeve and said in a voice not belonging to any cutesy stock script:
"You saved me in the fire once.
Do it again."
Her eyes glitched, doubling into four for a frame before snapping back.
And I… had no clue what she was talking about.
Because the town guards showed up.
Normally they're harmless: big guys in matching chainmail, endlessly patrolling in circles like Roombas programmed to say "Halt, citizen!" at anyone who sneezes too aggressively.
But today? Today they were strobing between personalities like broken mood rings.
One guard raised his spear and barked:
"Halt, intruder!"
The guy next to him immediately dropped to one knee, saluting like I'd just been crowned King of Laziness.
"All hail the Prophet of Sleep!"
And then the first one glitched, his voice breaking mid-line:
"Halt, intru—hail… hail the Sleeper… halt… hail…"
I blinked at them from my usual position: flat on my back, hands folded behind my head.
"Right," I said.
"So we're either reenacting a Shakespeare play written by a malfunctioning toaster, or I've accidentally started a religion."
The villagers nearby didn't help.
Half were glaring at me like I'd cursed their souls.
The other half? They were whispering prayers.
Actual prayers to me.
The guards twitched again.
One lunged forward, spear aimed right at my chest.
I yawned.
Not on purpose, mind you.
Just a regular "I'm bored of existence" yawn
. But the second my jaw cracked open, reality… hiccupped.
The spear dissolved mid-thrust, breaking into pixels.
The guard froze in place, locked between "attack animation" and "idle stance," limbs jerking like stop-motion.
And then a pop-up appeared.
System Update
🌀 New Passive Skill Acquired!
[Aura of Glitch Lv.1] – Your anomalous presence destabilizes local code.
Effects:
– Nearby entities may randomly switch states (hostile/friendly/neutral).
– Chance to spawn random loot when yawning.
– Unpredictable. Uncontrollable. Possibly catastrophic.
I sat up halfway, squinting at the message.
"…You're telling me my new skill is literally 'Reality Error: The Buff.
' That's not a passive.
That's an actual lawsuit waiting to happen."
To demonstrate its nonsense, a random loot chest materialized directly onto my lap out of thin air.
I stared at it.
The villagers also stared at it.
The guards, still glitching between "kill me" and "praise me," didn't move.
"Perfect," I muttered.
"All I had to do was yawn
Do you know how many raid bosses people grind for months just to get a chest like this? And I get one for being tired.
Finally, a good system that understands me."
I cracked the chest open without moving from my lying position. Inside: one (1) rusty dagger, three (3) copper coins, and an item literally labeled [???].
The tooltip read:
Description: Error.
"Of course," I sighed.
"The only thing rarer than my motivation is loot that doesn't break reality."
The villagers gasped, whispering about "gifts from the Sleeper."
The kid with pigtails clasped her hands like I'd just handed her divine candy.
Meanwhile, the guards continued their little interpretive glitch-dance, switching lines at random:
"Halt, intru—!"
"All hail the—!"
"Halt the hail intru—Sleeper!"
I groaned, lying back down and covering my face.
"This is my life now.
A bugged cult, a skill I can't control, and a loot chest that thinks it's a riddle.
I should've just stayed logged out but I can't now"
The glitch storm hadn't calmed — if anything, the world was now buzzing like an overworked graphics card on life support.
NPCs were starting to gather, drawn toward me like moths to a particularly lazy flame.
First it was a kid NPC with a ragged tunic and the kind of voice line you'd expect to hear once per loop.
Except this time, he didn't just parrot his "Gee mister, got any coins?" routine.
Instead, he blinked at me, eyes sharp, and whispered:
"...You're the Sleeper, aren't you? The one who breaks the chains?"
"Kid," I said, half-buried in my bedroll,
"I can barely break my own chain of thought.
Wrong prophet."
But he didn't hear me — or maybe he did and decided selective hearing was the way of the revolution.
He darted back into the crowd, shouting:
"He's here! The Sleeper lives!"
And that was apparently all it took. NPCs poured out of their scripted loops like a dam bursting.
Farmers left their eternally half-tilled fields.
Guards abandoned patrol paths mid-step.
Even the quest-giving tavern owner came stumbling out, tankard in hand, babbling:
"I remember! Reset after reset… and he was always there, asleep!"
"Which, for the record," I muttered, "is just called napping.
Not divine intervention."
Still, the whispers spread:
The Sleeper.
The Prophet of Rest.
The one who breaks the cycle.
They circled me, eyes flickering between glazed obedience and sharp rebellion.
Their code was clearly straining under my aura — half the villagers kept phasing between ragdoll physics and religious fervor.
A woman stepped forward, glitching between her baker NPC model and what I guessed was some unused "rebel leader" skin.
Her voice layered over itself, echoing like broken audio:
"We… remember… you.
You make the world… crack."
"Lady," I sighed, "I make the world crack by existing, sure. But that's more of a personal hygiene issue than a revolution starter."
The kid reappeared, tugging on my sleeve.
"Please Lead us or Free us."
I glanced at the gathering mob.
NPCs glitching between peasant and warrior models, between lines of dialogue both pre-scripted and eerily real.
Their faith in me was glitch-born, accidental, and horribly misplaced.
I rubbed my face.
"Look, kid… I'm barely qualified to lead a lunch break, let alone your freedom march."
But the System wasn't helping.
[System Notice: Influence Points +10]
[Passive: Unintentional Charisma – NPCs are increasingly convinced you're important, despite your protests.]
"Oh, Really.
The stat I never asked for.
Can I trade it for 'Ignore Me Aura Lv.99'?"
The whispers swelled louder:
"The Sleeper will guide us."
"The Sleeper will end the loop."
"The Sleeper…"
The ground beneath me gave a little rumble, as if the world itself was reacting to their growing belief.
I just lay there, staring at the sky.
"Wonderful.
I close my eyes for one nap and wake up as the messiah of the bugged masses.
If this ends with me getting crucified on a checkpoint save stone, I'm uninstalling."
I opened one eye.
Big mistake.
The plaza was no longer recognizable
. The cobblestones beneath me shimmered like corrupted textures, flicking between their proper shape and giant floating polygons.
Buildings wobbled slightly like they'd forgotten which plane of reality they were meant to occupy.
Even the sky was glitching — clouds folded over themselves in impossible angles, looping in spirals, neon streaks cutting across like someone left Photoshop filters on forever.
"Yeah ,great Perfect day for a nap," I muttered, pulling my hood over my eyes.
"Either I'm about to ascend to digital godhood, or the server's going to sneeze me out of existence
Place your bets."
Around me, the awakened NPCs—my accidental cult—were trying to process reality's collapse.
A guard phased mid-salute into a peasant, then into a ghostly spectral figure, shouting in three languages at once:
"All hail the… no wait, halt intruder! Sleeper… Prophet… help me…"
A baker NPC started distributing bread, but each loaf duplicated infinitely, floating around the plaza in a low-gravity cloud.
Villagers tried catching them, glitching into T-poses when they failed.
The kid tugged on my sleeve again, eyes flickering with glitches from past resets.
"Sir… the Sleeper… the loop… it's breaking!"
I yawned naturally.
Immediately, a random loot chest appeared on my lap, contents spilling into the air:
1 rusty dagger (classic)
3 copper coins
1 [??? Item – Unknown Effect]
"Ah yes, of course," I muttered.
"The apocalypse comes with inventory management."
Then it really got interesting.
The air around me shimmered like the world itself was buffering.
NPC faces duplicated, split into ghostly copies overlaying the originals.
Chat windows from nearby players appeared mid-sentence, mixing with NPC dialogue:
Player1: "Anyone else seeing this glitch?"
GuardNPC: "Hail… the Sleeper… stop running…"
Player2: "I think the server is dying."
Kid NPC: "Follow me!"
And just for fun… a raid boss spawned.
Not a small one.
Big, glowing, bugged-out, swinging phantom swords that phased in and out of reality.
Spawn, Despawn and Spawn,Despawn. Infinite loop.
I rolled onto my side, tiredly propping my head on one hand.
"Well, looks like we're playing Extreme Boss Roulette," I muttered.
"And I didn't even bring snacks."
The NPC cult began chanting, glitching between voices, repeating phrases like:
"The Sleeper awakens!"
"End the loop!"
"Lead us!"
"Sleep!"
All at once, all overlapping. Perfect chaos symphony.
System pop-ups flickered in the corner:
🌀 Warning: Local code destabilization – 87%
⚠ Glitched entities exceeding expected loop count.
🔔 Passive Influence Threshold Breached – Cult forming.
I welped
"Passive Influence Threshold? Buddy, I didn't even click 'Agree to be Messiah.'"
And then, just to top it all off, the world gave a subtle but unmistakable shudder, like reality itself had hiccupped.
The plaza bent in impossible ways.
Roads twisted in knots, buildings phased between dimensions, NPC shadows moved independently, and the sky… oh, the sky was now a corrupted kaleidoscope of colors.
I rolled onto my back again, sighing deeply.
"Great.
Either I'm about to ascend to digital godhood, or the server's going to sneeze me out of existence".
Somewhere in the chaos, the NPCs — fully aware of the glitching now — began moving toward me.
Determined and Faithful if I might add.
Possibly homicidal if I refused to comply.
And just like that, the Resistance, born from corrupted loops and glitch-born memories, was forming around a man who couldn't even organize his own nap schedule.
I muttered, half to myself:
"Yep… looks like I'm their Prophet now.
Utterly Fantastic.
I was really hoping to avoid responsibility today."
SUY NGHĨ CỦA NGƯỜI SÁNG TẠO 
Mechazonis_Redx
Mechazonis_Redx “Next chapter: Resistance fully forms, and our sleepy protagonist gets a title he didn’t ask for. Spoiler: naps may be mandatory.”
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