Clang, Clang, Clang!

“Rise and shine, it’ll be your turn next.”

A guard rattled the cell bars with his sword, shaking Onima from his sleep.

Onima’s eyes shook as they slowly opened, taking in the view of his surroundings. He dimly saw a few lines streaking across his vision with a blob beyond the lines.

His sight slowly cleared as his mind cleared from the grogginess built up from his slumber. He took in a deep breath and inhaled the scent of... iron?

His eyes snapped open as Onima realized that he was in an unfamiliar environment, different from where he fell asleep.

He heard the sounds of boots stomping against a muddy ground, creating a sloshy sound that reverberated through the long hallway his cell was connected to. He noticed that his cell bars were made of what looked like iron except it was coated in a thick layer of rust.

The cell itself wasn’t like what he had seen online in modern jails. The walls were made of crude cut stone that was layered irregularly. It felt like the construction of the cell was rushed.

A stack of clothes that seemed like they were thrown there a long time ago. They were covered with a light, visible layer of dust.

It was at this moment when Onima realized that he had no clothes on. He was bare-back naked with nothing on. Sprinting to the stack of clothes, he hurriedly pulled them on and tried to organize his thoughts.

The last thing he remembered was going to sleep after being banned from the only game he ever dedicated his time too. A game where he enjoyed so much that the normal features of the game were no longer enough for him. The mere ability to win over his opponents easily no longer appealed to him. He wished to completely and utter dominate his opponents without them being able to retaliate at all.

Onima suddenly felt very frustrated remembering this when a ding sounded inside of his head, creating a weird looking panel in front of his eyes, but even if it was a weird looking panel, he recognized it instantly. It was the cheat menu he had created for the game Throne of Gods. It had three tabs, respectively labeled Status, Cheats, and Accounts.

Finally seeing something familiar out of all the unfamiliar things made him feel comfortable. He reached his hand out to touch his own creation, only to pass straight through. Astonished, he waved his hand through his menu multiple times, each time only to pass straight through like trying to catch mist. It spread out into pieces and came back together after the disturbance stopped.

It’s not a computer monitor? He thought.

At this time, it finally hit him what kind of a situation he was in. He was in an unknown place at an unknown time for an unknown reason. He felt his emotions start to flare… or should have started to flare. He felt nothing, it was as if something was preventing this certain emotion he wanted to feel from surfacing.

His cheat menu shook slightly in front of his eyes as the tab switched to the “Cheats” tab and an option glowed for an instant before changing to a gray color. It was labeled as:

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Emotion Suppression

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And had a tiny switch that he could set on and off.

He realized that a cheat he had implemented into his menu to help in game was actually appearing in real life. Emotion Suppression was suppose to stop his character from feeling any negative emotion in any environment to prevent any bad debuffs from occurring. Of course there were items in the game that also helped prevent this, but there was no item that completely and utterly stopped it from happening at all.

Onima wanted to turn it off so he tried a different tactic. He remembered that in all light novels that had a menu of some sort, rather than being able to physically touch the menu, they all had to “will” the menu to change. It was more efficient and allowed for quicker changes.

He tested his theory, mentally crossing his fingers that it would work, and, surprisingly, it did! He could feel his mind connecting with the menu as a link was formed. He could freely change through the tabs of the menu now. He switched to the “Status” tab to see basic information about his statistics and other info.

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Stats

Name: ???

Job: ???

Level: ???

Health: ???

Mana: ???

Stamina: ???

Abilities: ???

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This info was shown at the top followed by a list of other bits of information Onima programmed his cheat to receive. Although he noticed that all of the usual text in his menu was replaced by ???. He did not know the reason that his flawless menu was suddenly act weird, but he tried to push that thought back to his head, trying to explain it by acting as if it was happening on purpose. He didn’t intend to do that, but his menu was nearly the only thing he cared about after so many years, he wanted it to be perfect, to have no mistakes. Something he could look up to and not have anything to improve upon. He had a slight complex about the perfection of his menu.

He tried to mentally flip the switch that was labeled “Emotion Suppression” off, but it wouldn’t budge. He could feel the connection with the menu, but it felt like he had no control over the state of “Emotion Suppression”.

Right when he was about to explore the rest of the options available in his menu, he heard the sloshing footsteps of the guard earlier once again, stopping in front of his cell. The guard jingled some keys as he picked out a specific one that unlocked Onima’s cell door. Then he proceeded to unlock the door and pulled it open, turning to proceed down a long, dark hallway that reeked of old blood, stains of dried brown spots flowing all along the walls. Without looking back, the guard ordered, “Follow me.”

Onima’s shoeless feet started squelching as they stepped on the waterlogged ground. Each step echoing down the dark hallway that he had stepped into. There were long rows of cells on each of him, but even so, it was eerily quiet. The only sounds that could be heard was the sound of his steps and the guard’s steps.

Each of the cells he passed were empty, the only evidence that a human being had ever been in them was the scratching that ran across the walls and bars of every cell, some even had puddles of blood that had something small crawling within them.

The long hallway seemed to stretch to infinity, each step taking a little bit of energy from Onima. His sight of the hallway blurred as he walked. He blinked once, twice, his vision fading away as he walked. He took one last blink before he suddenly appeared before a door.

The guard fumbled with his keyring as he picked one particularly devious looking key. Inserting the key into the door, he pulled it open while turning to face Onima, “Take one, move on to the next room after.”

The opening door revealed a room stocked with weapons. The weapons ranged from old rusty weapons that still had stains on them to dull weapons that didn’t seem like they could cut through anything.

When Onima hesitated a moment to enter the room, the guard gave him a shove and Onima fell into the room. Closing the door, the guard locked it and left Onima to his own devices in the room.

Onima knew the guard left as he heard the jingle of keys fade off into the distance.