*'Hiiro'*

"Ow," I mumbled as I hit my head as I attempted to raise it. I tried to feel what it was, and it seemed like something made from metal. A bar of some kind?

I squished my limbs towards the rest of my body as I pivoted my head, trying to make out my surroundings. It was dark, a small amount of light came from one side of me, a less intense light came from a gap almost above me. I started to feel a heat, that quickly becoming unbearable. It was then I realized where I was.

'So wait... I pushed my bed from the wall, and rolled through the gap? What the hell?' I thought, trying to piece together what happened. I wasn't used to moving in my sleep, but that's apparently what I just did...

I scrambled my limbs as I tried to get out. There were some boxes of junk and what I thought were my covers trying to stop me, so it took a while to finally sliver out.

The light rushed into view, as I proved I did wake up under my bed. Something like this hasn't happened before, so whilst contemplating the reason it happened, I had a quick shower to cool myself off.

-

I couldn't reach a conclusion so shrugged it off and after changing, my mind became blank. After my stomach kindly reminded me to eat, I went to grab some. Being me, though, I just grabbed some crisps and called it a meal.

There weren't any surprise encounters of the twins, so I ate in the peace as I attempted to plan out my day. Well, that was the plan...

I ended up rapidly devoured them, finishing the large packed in seconds without thinking of anything. I threw the packet away and went back to my room.

Well, I mainly wanted to check to see what happened with the glitch, but I'd probably check up on social media with it.

I looked on the forum and saw no one on.

'Well that's odd... there's usually an admin or two on now, I heard seven usually has break now too. But they're not here... What happened?' I thought, confused to the reason why I was the only one in the forum. I soon remembered that they were admins, responsible for fixing glitches. And I just found a game breaking one...

Putting the pieces together, I stuck my hand to my face, soon peeling it off as I picked up some familiar gloves, and put on an equally familiar helmet.

-

As I tried to log on, I was greeted by a black screen and a message.

Your character is currently in a broken state, so it's now in maintenance.

This will likely take a couple of hours at the very least,

so please remain patient, and we hope this doesn't happen again.

After being kicked out of the game, I just stayed lying in my bed. I didn't really have a plan B for today, because like other days recently, Myth of Men was usually enough to fully sate my boredom for hours straight.

'Well that was a thing, can't they just reset my character or something that doesn't require it to go offline?' I asked myself, curious to why such a glitch required this much maintenance. I knew little about game development, but surely they had an easier way to fix it.

'Wait a second, now that MoM has kicked me out, what do I do now?' I finally considered my position, since I was mainly using Myth of Men to waste the vast amounts of free time I had at my disposal...

I forced myself up and looked around my room. Examining the three bookshelves that were completely filled with my vast collection. I walked up to them, and looked at the titles, hoping

I could've wasted time by playing any of them, but I'm either the world champion at them or there boring or their concepts just bore me.

'Hm... maybe I should get more? But, there hasn't been many releases lately.' I was reminded of the lack of news. It was between console generations right now, the hype of the three or four new consoles was starting, causing a massive outcry between fans of the different companies.

I scoured through my shelves of console games, hoping to salvage at least something of interest... Nothing. I then searched Ice, hoping for some interesting sale or a new game... Nothing again.

Sighing deeply, I attempted to convey my hatred for my new found boredom. Now to the point of looking at all of the releases on each system in hopes that missed something, I realized I did.

An entire console. It was some portable console from an unknown company, that seemingly came up without me knowing. I looked at its current games and was surprised to see none I recognized but some had massive hype regardless.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

'Interesting... It's not usual for anyone but the main three to release things. Seems like I have found something to do then.' I thought, changing into something more formal as I left the dorm.

-

The sunlight blinded me, unsurprisingly. I've been cooped up in my room for a couple days straight, so I had expected such a reaction to happen. It still hurt my eyes, though.

After a while of stumbling around blindly, my eyes adapted to the new levels of light, and I continued on my way swiftly. I looked around as I headed for the heart of the city. There weren't any major differences from when I originally came here.

All of the shops I remembered were all there, still looking as monochromatic and dull as possible. The streets were as crowded, neat and tidy as there were back when I came, brimmed with cops every couple meters and cameras on almost every brick.

The crowds were doing their usual things, walking up and down with their own individual agendas. Conversations escaped from every direction, layering on top of one another to create a very deep atmosphere where all sound was lost.

The noise got worse the further I went, so I soon put headphones in to block out as much of it as I could whilst continuing.

I managed to get to the main shopping district before too long, turning left as I came to the first gaming shop, or I think it is. My languages aren't my strong suit, especially with the written language. I can bare through basic conversation with prior knowledge and a small booklet, but when it gets complicated... it sounded like gibberish to me.

I was confident in my assumption, since the shop's window was coated in gaming memorabilia, mascots and new game releases in a colorful display. It was pretty small compared to the rest of them, seeing it squished between two large general stores was quite funny to be fair.

Upon entering I was proven correct, and they did have the consoles for sale. The typical shelves of games greeted me and the staff seemed normal as the helped the equally normal shoppers purchase thing. But something caught my eye.

The prices. They were ridiculously cheap. The new console itself was only ₩15000, about £100, which was about a third of the price I expected for a brand new, factory sealed one. I concluded that this was a third-party console, or it was just a dead console like the others. I didn't really care about which was the case, so bought it regardless. I could easily get more money from competing anyway.

-

In total, I only spent about ₩70000, about half of what I brought, as I continued to leave with two massive bags over my shoulders.

The streets were even more crowded than before now, as the adults from before were joined by the annoying shrimps you call kids. Large swarms of them rushed past me, as the proceeded to run into the streets recklessly. Their annoying high-pitched chatter pierced my eardrums, even through my headphones, as they proceeded to paint themselves as the pests I knew them best as.

I darted into some back streets in an attempt to escape them. I followed the dark, twisting curved alleyways as I cut through the streets that lead me there.

But as I sore the exit I needed to take, my phone rang. I was puzzled since I had forgotten I even had one, so checked it.

It was as I had suspected, I didn't know this phone, let alone own it. It was a blue version of the newest 'smartphone', which cleverly increased it's repertoire for ways you could easily break than it's predecessor. This version had a massive backlash after randomly blowing up in people's hands, blue screening whenever you had more than one tab. Yeah, let's just say it was never worth ten won, let alone the twenty thousand they sold it for...

Curiosity got the best of me, and I soon regretted it.

I looked at the text.

You have one text from 'His magesty'. 'Hello son.'

I checked the number of the sender, hoping it was just a prank. I recognized it, immediately becoming enraged at the memories that flooded back. I dropped the phone and proceeded to stamp it into the ground, finally kicking it into a wall as I walked off without looking back. I left the back alleys, my anger immediately fading as if it never existed.

-

I soon made it back to the dorms and without distraction, I left for my room. I dumped my bags on the floor and took out the new console. In doing so, I could now see why it was so cheap.

It was a blatant rip off of another console. I think it was supposed to be inspired the Cruc, but it looked like every other hand-held console, that it was hard to differentiate. With a generic black pattern, it was a slim with a screen in the center of one side. Buttons, labeled with 1, 2, 3 and 4 and two thumb-sticks decorated the sides, whilst the logo of the company that created it took up the entirety of the back.

I looked at the titles of the games I brought, yeah... they were ripped off other consoles too. Titles like 'Mini huge world plus' and 'Wapeach Cart' were the clearest examples, but others were more subtle in their ripping off, like 'Self Golden'.

Oh wait, that one was obvious... Never mind then, this is just a rip-off console. But I have nothing better to do, so let's play them regardless.

-

After ten minutes all the initial comedy in these low-quality carbon copies wore off, so I just dumped in the corner of the room I never used and looked up other games I may find interesting.

Nothing new sprouted from my search, but the initial reactions of MoM were starting to come out. I was surprised how contested its reviews were. With some coining the game as a 'marvel of gaming' and others called it a 'hollow shell, using its new controls to overcome its lack of originality', and even split divided players and stirred up debate after debate.

It makes sense that all of the admins weren't there then since they seem to take these reviews harshly. The game admin's comments seemed very sporadic as they tried to control the chaos of the internet, making me feel genuinely sorry for them. The mechanics and controls were solid, the NPCs were ridiculously realistic and, even though it was currently easy to just spam attacks, it has the promise to be a real challenge. But, I guess others are entitled to their own opinions...

With that conclusion reached, I went scoured through the videos and started to nick-pick people's criticism. Wasting hours as I managed to wreck havoc on social media outlets all over the internet. I started laughing to myself maniacally as I indulged in my new sadistic hobby since I found annoying people completely hilarious.

-

After crashing half of the sites I posted on, I was interrupted by a message on the Underscore_Gaming forum. The maintenance was now over.