Thwack! Thwack!

Lee Taebaek was getting the baton treatment from the guards. It was payback for spewing vulgar curses in the sacred courtroom.

As a death row inmate handed the maximum sentence, piling on more punishment wouldn’t make a difference anyway. So he was just paying it off with his body. It hurt like hell. Fuck.

“Where do you get off spouting that crap in a sacred courtroom? You think you can run wild just ’cause you’re headed for the chair?!”

“You think the big shots upstairs will blink if a reactionary punk like you croaks before execution? Whether we beat you to death here or let you starve, the City Government brass won’t give a damn!”

“Guh… ughh.”

His whole body screamed in agony. Clutching the back of his head with both hands, he curled into a ball.

A pitiful pillbug pose, but let’s size up the situation here, Lee Taebaek.

These guys absolutely can’t kill me.

That much he was dead certain of. If they did, they’d be the ones strapped to the electric chair.

This world was a deranged city that pinned “national disruption” charges on the innocent and fried them alive.

This place—this stage’s backdrop, Lake City—was drowning in cold chrome and plastic. Human dignity had withered away, and the air was long past polluted into outright rot. A mad world.

No one living in a city like this could be sane. The higher up the ladder, the worse they got. Corrupt elites were a staple of any game narrative anyway.

Perverted officials with a taste for it watched executions like sport. Sipping champagne, tittering through the grotesque show.

But if their toy, Lee Taebaek, fried before reaching the chair? Whoever stole their fun got the next slot.

That’s why these clowns were beating him while avoiding the solar plexus and the head.

He regretted it now.

If he’d known it’d come to this, he should’ve made a chill healing game like Stardew Valley.

Back in the day, he’d mocked the healing game team next door as kids playing house…

…Thwack! A baton cracked his shin. The blow landed with a sickening solidity. His eyes flew wide like saucers.

“Ah.”

It had hit bone.

Aaaargh!

He gnashed the inside of his cheek to muffle the scream. Normally, one hit like that would’ve knocked him out cold, but for some reason, his durability had toughened up.

Because he’d possessed a game?

No need for this gamey bullshit!

Moments later, Lee Taebaek twitched and spasmed.

“Haa… haa…”

The two guards wiped sweat from their brows with their sleeves. One of them spat toward the sprawled Taebaek.

“You’ve got a week till the chair, right? We’ll be patrolling your ass, so let’s get real friendly.”

The iron door slammed shut. Heaven and hell parted ways.

“Oh, and those bars? Same as the chair—200,000 volts of high-tension juice running through ’em, Taebaek old pal.”

One guard sneered his parting shot at Taebaek as they left, grinning feebly.

“Touch ’em and your flesh melts off. If your hands turn to mush, we gotta wipe your ass, so consider this a heads-up.”

“Hell, don’t even bump ’em in your dreams. Few days from now, your whole body’s getting barbecued anyway!”

They left him face-down and flattened. Footsteps faded into the distance. Only then did he groan, rubbing his forehead like it ached.

Crunch.

His free hand clawed at the floor. Nails gouged concrete. Amid the black tangle of hair, his eyes flashed blood-red.

“I’ll… pay it back more than I received.”

But first, there was business to handle.

Right.

Time to plan an escape.

Let’s think this through, Lee Taebaek. His eyelids were puffy as hell, but his pupils gleamed with calm focus through the slits.

When something utterly surreal hits you, people actually get colder-headed. Who knew.

Start with background.

Arms crossed, he dredged up memories deep. Any named death row NPCs? Nope. Ninety-nine percent went poof at execution.

This place holding Lee Taebaek—the Gaol. The City Government boasted it was escape-proof, an ironclad fortress. And damn if they weren’t right. From Taebaek’s angle, it was airtight. No hyperbole.

The City Government’s custom-built Avici hell. But exceptions crop up everywhere. The Gaol had seen escapees.

One, to be exact.

Just one.

Hypothesis time. Was this body that guy? Nah. Ages didn’t match.

That escape attempt happened mid-thirties-ish. This meat suit? Mid-twenties on a good day. Plus, that one was a lifer, not death row.

“I’m jealous.”

Lee Taebaek sighed and slumped against the wall at an angle. The stone’s chill soothed his pounding head.

Pinpointing whose body this is seems pointless.

Even as one of this world’s creators, he couldn’t know everything.

“Point is, no escape means electric barbecue for real.”

His gaze drifted to the cell corner. A spider was mummifying its prey—mirroring his own predicament perfectly.

Anxiety gnawed; he chewed his nails ragged.

Instinct tolled like a bell.

Die here, and that’s curtains.

A flash.

Lightning bolt of thought.

Why hadn’t it hit sooner? Lee Taebaek licked his chapped lips and bellowed at full volume.

“Status window!”

“…….”

“Stat window!”

“…….”

“Fuck you!”

His desperate shout bounced off walls, ceiling, bars—echoing into hollow nothing.

Damn it. Figures.

Idiot for even hoping. Death row possession meant shit fate from the jump.

“Operator Mode access would fix everything…”

…Except this was a lightless abyss. Zero paths out. As he wallowed in gloom…

“Wha—huh?!”

Sudden text bloomed before his eyes. He reached out instinctively to grab it.

Time froze.

What makes a game highly rated?

Balance. Plain and simple.

Huge freedom? Eye-searing graphics? Burning hype drawing massive crowds? All flop hard without balance. They don’t even break even, let alone profit—fading into obscurity.

So devs obsess over in-game balance. Steady patches can revive games on death’s door. Balance patches are the operator’s sacred duty—and exclusive turf.

“Not a gifted trait, but authority?”

Lee Taebaek’s face went slack with shock.

Raken’s had skills acquirable postnatally, and gifted traits innate from birth.

Sensing or manifesting Magic Power? Gifted territory.

Learning and casting spells after? Skills.

But…

Temporary Authority?

Unheard of. Not even a term you’d see in-game. Alien to players, but familiar to operators.

Authority instead of skills or gifts? What broken-ass balance! Releasing Raken’s like this would’ve tanked it hard.

God, if only there was a line back to Earth. Hotfix this crap. Get me outta here!

“Un-fucking-believable… Huh?”

A disbelieving laugh bubbled up, but lowering his gaze, Lee Taebaek rubbed his eyes. Vision going bad?

…Buff had just dealt Taebaek a stinging shock, and now nerf?

Devs always hit nerfs first in balance patches.

Easier that way. More reliable results trimming OP stats than buffing.

Point is, nerfs show visible effects faster than buffs.

One word: Broken. Straight-up cheat-tier.

This was off-rails. Trash game.

He’d thought the character was trash. Turns out the game was. It hurt worse than the beating had.

The game he’d poured his twenties into, Raken’s, could all go to waste if released like this. The loss stabbed deep.

If this were Earth, I’d have hotfixed this first.

Shock aftermath? Exhaustion crashed like a wave. No warning, eyelids drooping heavy as leaden chopsticks tilting sideways.

All-day stress and beatings piling up? Or just crashing now. Felt like a thousand pounds dragging him down. He collapsed into sleep like a limp chopstick.

Without knowing the truth, Lee Taebaek fell asleep as if collapsing.

And from the opposite cell, a shadow watching him silently all the while… cracked a grin.