Pao_Duola

In a fantasy world called Eldoria, a young man named Kael lived as an ordinary NPC (Non-Player Character) in the small town of Arindale. However, everything changed when he suddenly realized that his world was nothing but a broken simulation. Every 100 years, this world would reset, and the memories of all its inhabitants would be erased. Kael, who had miraculously gained awareness, discovered that he could collect Memory Fragments—pieces of memories from previous resets. With this ability, he began to uncover the horrifying truth behind Eldoria.

But Kael was not alone. The Debug Knights, an antivirus program tasked with maintaining the stability of the simulation, started hunting him down, considering him an anomaly. Together with a group of heroines, each harboring their own secrets and motivations, Kael must find a way to stop the reset cycle before their world is erased forever.

The Last Save Point

The interior of Lira's sanctuary shifted subtly as they settled in, the room adjusting itself to accommodate their presence. Furniture phased into more stable configurations, though everything maintained that slight unreality that marked it as existing outside the simulation's normal parameters.

"That memory fragment," Lira began, gesturing to the crystal still clutched in Kael's hand. "I've never seen one react like that before. Usually, they just contain snippets – pieces of past resets that survived the system purge. But yours..." She leaned forward, studying the pulsing light within the crystal. "It's like it recognized you."

Kael opened his hand, watching as the fragment's glow reflected off the cabin's shifting surfaces. "When I touched it, I saw more than just memories. I saw patterns, connections. Lives that felt like mine, but different. And in many of them, you were there."

Lira's expression tightened. "That's not possible. The fragments don't contain that much data. Unless..." She stood abruptly, moving to a section of wall that flickered to reveal lines of base code. "What's your exact designation?"

"NPC-K137," he replied, the identification coming to him with unexpected certainty.

The code on the wall fragmented momentarily, responding to his words. Lira turned back to him, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and concern. "The Original," she whispered. "They said you were deleted in the first reset. Some claimed you never existed at all – just a story awakened NPCs told themselves about the first one to break free."

She knelt before him, her voice taking on a new urgency. "Do you understand what this means? If you're really NPC-K137, if you've somehow survived all these resets..." She glanced at the memory fragment. "Those aren't just random memories you're seeing. They're your memories. Somehow, a part of you has been hiding in the system all this time, waiting to be pieced back together."

The Price of Knowledge