The sun above him shone brightly—
But it was square.
The clouds were fluffy and white—
But they were square.
The trees, the grass, the flowers all bloomed lush and full—
But they were all perfectly blocky.
But it was square.
The sheep by the roadside looked lively and adorable.
But they were square.
The towering mountains loomed with grandeur.
But they were square.
The vast, seemingly endless plains stretched far into the horizon.
But they were square.
Everything he saw was square. Not only that—he could feel it. A creeping sense that this world was actively rejecting him.
It was a sense of alienation, of being undeniably out of place.
How to put it… like going to the movies and realizing you're the only one there without a date. Or joining a tabletop RPG club only to find they're all obsessed with investigative horror, while you're a die-hard Dungeon fighter online fan.
Or like joining a debate about whether tofu pudding should be sweet or savory… and quietly taking out your own concoction—cheese, honey, rock sugar, soy sauce, chili oil, pickled mustard, and bitter melon all mixed in.
Utterly, hopelessly incompatible.
And right away, Ryuji understood why.
"Is it because I'm round? Is this world rejecting me because I'm not square? But even on Earth, in real life, there are no perfect circles either. So why the rejection?"
He looked at his not-at-all-square hand, then back at the pixelated world around him—composed entirely of little square blocks—and sighed helplessly.
"This is seriously ridiculous… So this is MC?"
Looking at the serene world—blue sky, green earth—so different from the apocalypse he'd just escaped, Ryuji felt his mind relax a little.
Instinctively, he reached out and punched the tree in front of him.
His fist hurt like hell.
But the spot he hit… began to shimmer with a pixelated texture.
Then he took out a sword and struck again. This time, the bark peeled away in neat, blocky segments. Even more surprisingly—
A small wooden block popped out of the chopped section, but—
The tree didn't fall. It just floated there midair, completely unfazed.
When he tried to pick up the block, however, his hand passed through it like it wasn't even there.
"…Yeah, this is definitely MC. And the fact that I can't touch anything is probably because of that rejection effect."
He nodded, temporarily confirming his location—Minecraft.
Even though he couldn't fully interact with the world, the fresh air, peaceful scenery, and vivid greenery lifted his spirits. Still… he couldn't help but feel like his very presence clashed with the world's art style.
Everything here looked exactly like that game.
Minecraft, or MC for short—a game all about survival and creativity.
The whole world was like a giant collection of toy bricks. You could use the materials around you to build literally anything you could imagine.
But… well…
Ryuji never played it seriously. He'd never really farmed or gone on long adventures. He just built a few libraries. Heck, he hadn't even cleared the game once.
But there was one thing he did know.
This world wasn't safe.
At night, it would swarm with skeletons, zombies, and spiders. And then there were the Creepers—those green bastards that blew up if you got too close.
And that wasn't all.
There were all kinds of monsters out there.
More importantly—
While civilization didn't play a huge role in the game…
It did exist here.
Witches, persecuted villagers—evidence that this world had intelligent life and structured societies.
Then there were the dungeons and mines scattered everywhere…
In the game, none of it felt like a big deal because the player was basically a god.
But if this world was real—
"…Please don't let me be in My Three-Body."
Ryuji pressed his hands together and prayed.
My Three-Body was a fan-made animation based on The Three-Body Problem, crafted entirely in MC. In fact, it looked better than most CGI animations out there. That was how he'd first heard of Three-Body to begin with.
But if this was that world…
Ryuji was convinced he'd be captured by those godlike species in no time.
Those entities eventually gained the ability to restart the universe. They were basically deities.
After finishing that prayer, he offered up another.
"And please… don't let this be a modded MC world. Or worse—a modded Three-Body MC world."
He hadn't played Minecraft in years, but he knew how wild its mods could get—metals that turned you into an idiot just by touching them, infinitely duplicating plants, time machines, world-ending bombs…
MC's core game was simple, open-source, and ridiculously moddable, which had only one outcome:
Its mod scene was even crazier than Skyrim's.
He wasn't even sure which god he was praying to—or whether prayers in this world needed routing through some celestial customer service desk—but once the symbolic gesture was done, he tightened his grip on the sword in one hand and his machine gun in the other.
After scoping out the area—no large beasts in sight, no shady archers hiding in the cliffs behind him, and a full field of vision in front—he nestled himself behind a rock and finally started inspecting his system.
He only remembered one thing clearly:
He had been hit by the shockwave from the world's collapse. Something had entered his body—something agonizing. It felt like it had torn him apart and stitched him back together.
"If I remember right, just before I lost consciousness… I clicked 'Confirm' on something called 'World Power'?"
Ryuji opened his backpack, pulled out some food, and munched while going over what had happened.
He had sent the others away.
But he'd still been too slow.
Maybe not by much—but still. He had been struck and thrown into this strange new place, which looked suspiciously like MC, instead of arriving at the dungeon world he'd originally intended.
"So… what kind of change did that cause?"
Ryuji opened his status screen, hoping to find some answers there.
Nakamura Ryuji
Level: 1
Skills: Endless Traveler(LV3), Incomplete Primodial Power (LV1), Fire Keeper(LV1), Merchant Summoner (LV1), World Power User (LV1)
Energy: None.
World Power: None.
Current Logged Worlds:
–7 Days to Die (Destroyed)
–Minecraft (Temporary Residency)
–Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma
–Dungeon Fighter Online
Ryuji blinked in surprise. He already knew his energy had dropped to zero, but now his attention snapped to the skills that had changed. His gut told him the answers he was searching for were hidden among them.
•Endless Traveler (LV3):You are now a traveler capable of moving freely between multiple worlds. You can temporarily reside in or observe a world without consuming Energy or World Power. However, you still cannot permanently roam the Sea of Worlds.
While temporarily residing in a world, you can physically interact with it—but you cannot replenish resources or fully utilize its rules. If you use your own world's rules to drastically alter the current one, you may be erased or expelled.
In observation mode, you cannot affect the world physically, but you can communicate and exchange energy or materials with local life—if they consent. However, 90% of any transferred energy will be siphoned away by the world, and you'll be charged a hefty "shipping fee." Materials sent to the world will become part of it if not retrieved by a being capable of your power.
Good luck, World Traveler! Push forward toward total freedom!
Ryuji narrowed his eyes. So this upgrade was caused by his close contact with the girls, huh? But it didn't specify how to upgrade to the next level.
Still, the most urgent task was figuring out what exactly had happened.
He glanced at the Incomplete Primodial Power next, but found no change. So he moved on to the new skill:
•Fire Keeper (LV1):You are one who saves broken worlds. You can use fragments of a destroyed world to reconstruct it.
A broken world has chosen you, hoping to be restored through your power. You must gather its fragments and the parts it lacks.
Alternatively, you can directly complete fragments using your own World Power within the Sea of Chaos.
As a reward for rebuilding a world, it will become wholly yours. In that world, you are a perfect god—life and death, the cosmos itself, will bend to your will.
If you rebuild using fragments instead, the world will continuously provide you with World Power. And as long as the world persists, you will never truly die.
Logged World: 7 Days to Die
Full restoration requires: 9999 + 1000 "Big Number Units."
"Okay… 'Big Number Units' I know, that are the names given to large quantities of numbers, like million, billion, trillion, and beyond."
"But what the hell is the exact number ten trillion? ten quadrillion? quintillion… god damn it" Ryuji muttered, pressing a hand to his temple.
He quickly decided to stop thinking about it.
Obviously, rebuilding the world was out of the question for now.
And as for collecting fragments…
Yeah, no. Good luck finding those. Who even knew where the pieces had scattered to?
Ryuji moved on to the other two skills.
•Merchant Summoner (LV1):During the moment a world fragment struck and merged with you, some bizarre fate granted you a unique power: the ability to summon and trade with specific merchants.
You can summon a merchant you've logged within a 50x50 area, spending 10,000 energy points. Once summoned, she remains until you cancel it.
Merchants can sell any item from their original world. However, items with unique rules or effects may consume energy or World Power upon use, depending on compatibility with the current world.
Purchases use the merchant's native currency, or converted materials based on your own World Power. You can also trade directly using World Power, but whether that's wise… is up to you.
Merchants may also issue quests, which reward world-specific items or powers—but again, these may require constant energy or World Power upkeep.
Note: Logging a merchant consumes varying amounts of World Power based on their capabilities.
Logged Merchant: Jen (7 Days to Die)
Next to the entry, a familiar face appeared—Jen, the busty merchant he'd… interacted with many times. Ryuji instantly understood the purpose of this skill.
"Yup. Looks like a money sink," he sighed. "Too bad I'm broke."
His energy bar sat at a flat, lifeless zero.
If he had even a sliver of energy, he could've left by now.
So if this world didn't have any inhabitants… he was going to be in trouble.
Suppressing the anxiety brought on by his empty resource pool, Ryuji focused on the last skill.
•World Power User (LV1):By an extraordinary chance, you've gained a power beyond mortals. Fortunately, you survived its awakening.
A broken world has chosen you to help restore it, and preserved the power and knowledge you gained from it.
You will be able to use this power that is not for mortals, but because this power is so great, you cannot use it perfectly, or even understand it.
Currently, you can:
–Use World Power only in specific locations.
–Sense nearby concentrations of World Power.
–Consume World Power to read fragments of world information.
–Invoke rules from one world while residing in another.
Yet this is only a sliver of what World Power can truly achieve. Sadly, for now, you lack the capacity to wield it directly.
You can exchange energy points for world power, and when you use world power to enter a world you have entered before, you can decide whether to return to the time when you left by consuming world power. This way, you can leave for countless years, but in the eyes of the people of that world, you have never left.
Keep using the World Power, because it will allow you to understand the ultimate answer after a long journey.
Logged World:7 Days to Die Rule Application: None
Ryuji tapped on 7 Days to Die, curious. A pop-up immediately appeared.
Apply "7 Days to Die" World Rules? Note: Activation will consume variable amounts of World Power based on your actions and current world conditions.
Ryuji glanced at his World Power value—also a resounding zero—and just shook his head.
Yeah… he didn't have that luxury.
Not even a single point of World Power. And honestly, he still had no idea how to even earn Energy.
"If only I'd managed to enter the Arad world properly…" he muttered. "Seria might not be able to hand out ten thousand points again, but at least it would've been something."
Ryuji let out a sigh, clinging to his last hope as he tried to open the inventory from the 7 Days to Die system.
Unsurprisingly, nothing happened.
He wasn't too disappointed—he'd already mentally prepared himself for this outcome. Ever since waking up, he'd noticed that even his action bar was unusable. The only reason he still had a gun was because he'd stored one in his backpack ahead of time.
And if Rias hadn't left his backpack with him before she left, he probably wouldn't even have any food right now.
"How pathetic... I wonder if the residents of this world can generate Energy for me."
Stuffing the last piece of bread into his mouth, Ryuji stood up again and prepared to climb the nearby mountain. He wanted to see if there were any roads in the area—or even better, if there was a village nearby.
If there was...
Well, as much as he didn't want to admit it, if those long-nosed villagers could provide him with Energy Points, he wouldn't hesitate.
After all, no matter what, the best thing he could do right now was leave this world. He had no idea how to get out of this so-called "temporary residence" state, and lingering here was clearly a dead end.
With that in mind, he turned toward the mountain and began to climb.
As he made his way up, he saw countless pigs and sheep roaming freely, along with a scenic view that lifted his spirits a little.
But halfway up the slope, his knees were practically giving out.
Each block in this world was one meter tall. With his height, he had no choice but to either jump up or scramble over them—and naturally, he chose to jump. By the time he reached the halfway point, both of his legs were screaming in pain.
Sitting down heavily on one of the dirt steps, he leaned back and watched the carefree pigs and sheep bouncing around on the one-meter-high platforms like it was nothing. He couldn't help but shake his head.
"Man... without ten times my usual strength and regeneration, this is brutal…"
Muttering to himself, he turned to look at the scenery in the distance.
He had to admit—the view in this world was absolutely stunning. Up close, everything looked like blocky pixels, but from afar, the landscape was beautiful enough to ease his mind.
Unfortunately, there were no signs of civilization.
No villages. No ruins. Nothing.
And certainly no cheerful, square-headed people swinging hoes.
"This really is a dead end, huh."
Sighing at his own situation, Ryuji pushed himself back to his feet. He had to keep going—he needed to find some kind of path.
But just as he was about to continue his climb, a sudden cry echoed from above.
Startled, he looked up—and saw two beams of light streaking across the sky. Within one of the glowing trails, he could make out two small figures, clearly struggling as they plummeted through the air.
They were fast—so fast that the moment Ryuji spotted them, they had already zipped past him and were crashing into the distant mountainside.
"Gods haven't abandoned me yet?!"
That was his first thought. Without hesitation, he ignored the pain in his knees and activated his blood energy technique. His speed more than tripled in an instant as he bolted toward the crash site.
But as he watched the two shooting stars streak away, he found himself praying for two things.
First—
"Please be alive!"
And second—
"Please give me Energy even if you're dead!"
~~~~~~~
Bonus chapter every 200 PS.