Chapter 48: The Real Glitch Slept Through It
Chapter 48: The Real Glitch Slept Through It
Glitch died forty-three minutes after Jin sent him back into Mossy Hollow.
The real Glitch slept through the entire thing.
He was curled on a folded blanket beside Jin’s cot, his bandaged leg stretched out and his belly swollen from the largest meal of his life. His breathing didn’t change—not once, not even slightly—while his digital body dissolved into gray particles on the phone screen beside his nose.
[Digital Avatar Defeated]
[Death Penalty: None]
[Estimated Recovery Time: 01:58:43]
Jin’s hand shot out anyway.
He knew the rules. He had tested them repeatedly during the little more than four weeks since the Engine awakened, yet his hand still went straight to the warm ribcage in the darkness.
Rise. Fall. Rise.
Warm. Slow. Fine.
Glitch made a comfortable sound in his sleep and pushed his snout farther beneath the blanket.
Jin sat back.
Somewhere beyond the walls, a Tamer was probably sitting in a medical tent after making one mistake during the examination. That mistake might have left a permanent hole in their life shaped like the beast they had raised from an egg.
Jin had seen what that looked like.
One mistake outside could cost everything. One bad decision, and someone might spend the next ten years behind a warehouse desk, refusing to speak about the partner who never returned.
Jin’s mistake had cost him one hour, fifty-eight minutes and forty-three seconds.
This isn’t fair, he thought with the deep contentment of someone who had never wanted things to be fair.
They had returned home earlier that night.
Elena had cried briefly, wiped her eyes and then produced a serving of real protein she absolutely couldn’t afford.
She placed it before Glitch without saying anything.
Glitch, after spending four days in the examination zone surviving on rations and whatever else he could find, inhaled it.
Then he looked at the empty bowl.
Then at Elena.
Elena refilled it.
Elsa had already fallen asleep. Arthur had gone to bed wearing a faint smile he appeared unaware of.
Jin rewrapped Glitch’s injured leg using his father’s correction—bit tight at the top—and Glitch passed out halfway through chewing.
Jin should have done the same.
He was exhausted. Four days of examinations, ruined bridges, contaminated rivers and collapsing terrain had left his eyes feeling as though someone had rolled them in sand.
Then he had opened the Engine, intending only to check it.
[Digital Avatar: Fully Operational]
And that was that.
The exhaustion remained.
It simply stopped being relevant.
Somewhere inside Jin, the same creature that had once climbed a fence at two in the morning for a mythic spawn sat up and cracked its knuckles.
Fourteen days. We’re burning daylight.
"Mossy Hollow," Jin muttered.
He pressed deploy.
The avatar appeared beneath the beginner dungeon’s false green sky.
And limped.
Jin frowned and checked the status screen.
No injury. No debuff. No damaged limb.
The avatar had spawned at full health, but Glitch had spent four days learning to protect that leg. The injury was gone. The habit remained.
Try putting weight on it.
The avatar stopped and drew his head back suspiciously.
It doesn’t hurt here. Test it.
Glitch slowly lowered the leg.
He shifted a little weight onto it.
Nothing happened.
He pressed harder.
Still nothing.
Bright confusion traveled back through their connection.
Glitch took one careful step, then another. Something in his posture changed.
He ran.
It was only a short burst at first, all four legs striking the mossy ground. Then he turned and sprinted in the opposite direction.
He completed an entire lap of the clearing for no useful reason whatsoever.
Pure joy flooded through their connection—the uncomplicated delight of a creature who had spent four days being careful and had suddenly been given his body back.
Beside Jin, the real Glitch snored.
His bandaged leg remained stretched across the blanket, swollen and healing at the slow pace of an ordinary body.
On the screen, his digital counterpart performed another unnecessary lap.
Yeah, Jin thought.
This is the good part.
This was the reason Jin had spent weeks shut inside his room while Elsa believed he was wasting his life.
Every other Tamer exchanged their beast’s safety for progress. Injuries required rest, and time spent resting meant falling behind.
Glitch could grow while his real body recovered.
Jin would have felt guilty about the advantage if guilt had been included in his build.
He began micromanaging almost immediately.
Left. No, the other left. Hit that one. Not that one—the one behind—
Glitch stumbled, overcorrected and got struck by a slime he should have flattened without effort.
Jin stopped.
Right. I’m being an idiot.
He remembered Lucian inside the Silent Command Arena.
Lucian hadn’t steered his Falcon through every movement. He had given it an objective and trusted it to decide how to accomplish it.
Jin took a breath and released the imaginary controls.
Clear the small slimes.
Gather everything useful.
Avoid the large one.
Three objectives.
No steering.
Glitch went to work.
Jin leaned closer to the screen.
This wasn’t the Glitch from their first Mossy Hollow runs. Back then, the avatar had needed instructions for everything.
Now Glitch recognized a slime’s lunge before Jin noticed the wind-up. He used a rock cleft to force two enemies to approach from the same direction. He deliberately braced his shoulder and allowed a weak attack to strike his hardened hide because absorbing one manageable blow was more efficient than dodging into the second.
He also noticed the glowing herbs without being told.
During his first visits, the herbs had been scenery. Now Glitch registered their positions during combat and collected them while moving to his next target.
[Small Slime Defeated ×4]
[Beginner Herb Obtained ×2]
[Coins Obtained ×5]
[Combat Instinct: Minor Accumulation]
None of it was spectacular.
Glitch wasn’t destroying enemies in one strike. He was simply competent in the deep, unglamorous way that came from repeating something until it became natural.
Jin watched him fight and experienced a strange spark of pride.
I raised that.
Huh.
Then Jin made the mistake of looking away.
The large slime had positioned itself across the entrance of a valuable gathering pocket, sitting before three Beginner Herbs like an unpleasant landlord.
Leave it. Go around.
Glitch stopped.
His objection traveled through their connection, hot and immediate.
It was the Silent Command Arena all over again. Another enemy hissing at him while Jin repeated ignore it, leave it, not worth it.
Glitch. Around.
A pause.
Then the avatar turned and began walking away.
Good.
Jin switched to the loot panel to check the herbs.
He looked away for perhaps six seconds.
The screen flashed.
When Jin switched back, Glitch was inside the gathering pocket, airborne, his jaws locked around the large slime’s crest.
You absolute little—
The first ten seconds went surprisingly well.
Glitch had attacked from above, securing a position where the slime couldn’t easily fold over him. He tore chunks from its body while it flailed beneath him.
For one dangerous moment, Jin thought Glitch might actually win.
Then the slime split.
Its body separated into four smaller masses.
Jin understood the mechanic half a second too late.
The slime didn’t possess a normal health bar.
It was a bank.
Every piece Glitch had torn away hadn’t been damage.
It had been withdrawal.
The four bodies closed around him.
Glitch stood in the center of the pocket with a stone wall behind him and no room to escape. The slimes attacked from four directions.
OUT!
His health vanished.
Fast.
Glitch killed two, but the remaining pair crashed over him before Jin could activate extraction.
The screen turned gray.
[Digital Avatar Defeated]
[Death Penalty: None]
[Estimated Recovery Time: 01:58:43]
At that exact moment, the real Glitch rolled onto his back, exposed his stomach to the ceiling and released a deeply satisfied sound.
Jin looked at the death screen.
Then at the sleeping lizard.
Then back at the screen.
"You disobeyed me from another reality without waking up," he said. "That’s impressive."
Glitch continued sleeping, innocent and enormous-bellied.
"I hope you learn something from this. One of you. Either one."