BZZZZZZZT. BZZZZZZZT. BZZZZ—
Cino's hand flopped out from under the blanket, slapped wildly until it hit the right corner of his phone. Silence. Blessed silence.
He lay there a moment, staring at the blank ceiling of his cramped one-room apartment, eyes unfocused, half-asleep, the alarm echo still buzzing in his skull.
His room smelled like cup ramen and dry plastic.
His spine popped as he sat up. Slowly.
"Fuuuck my life," he muttered under his breath, voice rough and dry.
At six-foot-one, Cino was lanky in the unfortunate way: all limbs and no coordination until caffeine kicked in. His back ached like he'd fought a minotaur in his sleep and lost. He rolled his neck. More pops. Cracked his knuckles — left, then right. Wrist, ankle, elbow. The full gacha pull of morning joint-cracking.
He squinted at his phone. 9:42 a.m.
" Is my sleep seasonal or what ? Sometimes ,I sleep 15 hours , other times , I'm okay with 4 . What the hell's going on ?. "
Cino said , the annoyance in his voice clear. Last night he had went to sleep at around 1 am. Clearly planning to wake up early and get some work done.
A ping came from his phone , he increased his phone brightness and looked.
{ Asset debugging request.
Deadline : 2 days
Pay : 756 BD ( Bronze Dollairs )
Early finish bonus : 100 BD }
By now his bladder had awoken and was screaming at him to go to the bathroom.
So, he dragged himself up and made his slow, crooked way to the bathroom. Pee. Wash. Splash cold water on his face. Look in the mirror.
Still him. Pale, messy black hair. Sleep lines on his cheek. Eyes a little sunken from too many screens and and bad sleeping habits. His blue eyes a bit dull. As if they had lost some colour. Although he didn't have a terrible face , long time habit of not taking care of it had definitely did a number.
He ran a wet hand through his hair and left it sticking up like a tired hedgehog.
Back in the room, he tapped the electric kettle. It hissed to life. He cracked open a cup ramen— spicy miso — and pulled out a folding stool from beside his desk.
He poured hot water into the ramen, mixed the seasoning packets , set his phone up against the wall, and sat down, joints still protesting.
The faint sound of bubbling water and sizzling plastic filled the room.
While waiting, he opened up his feed and began scrolling.
📰 Morning Feed: June 14, 2025
Nintendo Switch 2 had officially become the fastest-selling console in company history.
3.5 million units worldwide in under two weeks.
The performance bump was real — Cyberpunk 2077 could run smoothly on handheld now, and every first-party Nintendo game had a remastered edition available.
The only downside? Battery life sucked. Three hours tops on high-load titles.
But the speakers were amazing. Full stereo, even in handheld mode.
" Yeah , that battery life is definitely gonna be memes to hell and back " cino said , putting another bit of ramen Noddle into his mouth with the chopsticks.
DanDaDan Season 2 to be released on July 4.
" Finally. That cliffhanger at the end of season 2 was diabolical"
Fans were buzzing. Cino bookmarked it.
Lord of the Mysteries got a hard launch date: June 28.
Twelve episodes.
Over 800 chapters condensed.
Rumored 30,000 frames per episode.
"Shoving in over 800 chapters into one 12-episode season?" Cino muttered. "Those animators are gonna be treated worse than MAPPA's."
Across the room, his laptop hummed on standby. A backlog of freelance work sat untouched — code audits, asset cleanup, minor script fixes for indie games. Nothing urgent. Nothing exciting.
His room was a cave of clutter: shelves stacked with light novels and manhwa, leftover convenience store bags, a tangled nest of USB cables, and a plastic model of a mech knight he never finished building.
He scrolled again, letting the rhythm lull him into that familiar haze between breakfast and boredom.
Then something different popped up.
{ Breaking News: Minor Dungeon Rift Detected in Central Tokyo
Location: Shibuya Station Area
Status: Tier-2 Dimensional Fluctuation
Casualties: None Reported
Response Teams En Route
Citizens Advised to Avoid Area }
"Again?" Cino said around another mouthful of noodles. "That's the third one this week. Is shibuya actually cursed or something? "
He wasn't surprised. Dungeon rifts weren't uncommon anymore. The world had changed 5 decades ago when magic reentered the ecosystem. Gates. Rifts. Monsters. All that used to be fantasy — now it was city policy.
And of course, along with the monsters came Awakened — people born with gifts, or who had been chosen by the world's strange new systems. Guilds, rankings, dungeons, stats — all of it had become part of life, like weather reports or stock prices.
But Cino? He wasn't one of them.
No magic. No stats. No super strength.
Just a guy with a broadband connection, a solid internet history of anime and engineering tutorials, and one really good MMA coach back in high school.
He slurped the bottom of his ramen, tossed the cup in the trash, and leaned back on his stool.
Somewhere out there, awakened people were fighting monsters and leveling up.
He had a crick in his back and spicy broth on his hoodie.
He put his bowl down and stood, stretching again, spine clicking like a broken zipper. He walked over to the window and pulled open the blinds.
" Sigh , I should really pick up some yoga classes . This back pain will be the end of me "
The city looked normal.
Bright. Loud. Cars zipping by. Delivery drones overhead. People walking by . Some glued to screens, while others talking and joking with friends. Nothing dramatic. Just regular life.
But for now, he lay back down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling again, ramen settling in his gut, thoughts drifting between half-read books and unfinished dreams.
" I really should focus on finishing one novel before I pick up another " he mumbled.
The morning faded. The light shifted. The city outside kept moving.
Eventually he got himself to stand up and sit back down on his desk. He accepted the request. " Let's see what half-baked code I have to fix today "
Debugging Session Snippet
Bug #1: Off-by-One & Null Render
// Fixed: Render Inventory
function renderInventory(items) {
for (let i = 0; i < items.length; i++) {
const item = items[i];
if (item !== null && item !== undefined) {
displayItem(item.name, item.iconPath);
}
}
}
"Basic stuff. This shouldn't even make it out of QA."
Bug #2: Memory Leak in Combat Log
The combat log used an unbounded array to store messages like "You hit the goblin for 12 damage."
After ~30 minutes of auto-battle, it slowed the game to a crawl.
Cino added a cap of 100 entries and flushed old data as new lines came in.
"You don't need to remember every fight in the history of orcdom."
Bug #3: Audio Stutter During Spellcast
Spellcasting sounds were being triggered every frame instead of once per cast.
He moved the sound trigger outside the animation loop.
"No one wants to hear 'FIREBALL!' 60 times per second."
Bug #4: Crit Chance Bug
Crits were meant to trigger at 10% base rate.
Due to a misplaced decimal and bad seeding, every first hit was always a crit.
"The lucky sword strikes again... on every first swing? Fix your RNG, buddy."
Bug #5: Mobile HUD Misalignment
On mobile, the HUD would shift offscreen if the player switched weapons mid-fight.
He added a responsive layout hook and device check.
"If I see one more dev forget mobile exists, I swear."
Finally after 4 hours his work was done. He looked at the time. It's now 1:50.
" Well I'm overdue for some lunch "