Jaka sat beneath a crooked beringin tree, surrounded by the silence of the forest clearing. Sweat cooled on his back, blood still throbbed faintly in his wrists, and his bamboo blade lay discarded beside him like a molted shell.
He exhaled sharply and whispered the familiar trigger:
"DPIM."
Core Attributes:
Strength: S (129/100)
Agility: S (217/100)
Dexterity: S (203/100)
Intellect: A (51/100)
Endurance: S (6/100)
Charisma: S (3/100)
He stared at the numbers without flinching.
S for Strength.
S for Agility.
S for Dexterity.
S for Endurance.
S for Charisma.
Jaka chuckled bitterly.
"S," he muttered, "as in Suck being me."
It looked impressive—but he knew the truth behind those numbers better than anyone. Because he was the one who designed them.
A hundred points to break a rank. Anything beyond that?
Overflow.
He remembered writing that line of code late at night, fueled by cheap coffee and delusions of grandeur. Overflow points don't vanish—they spill into the next cycle. When a player levels up, the system resets all core stats to I-Rank, but overflow gets carried over.
It was supposed to reward consistent growth. A little bonus for the ambitious.
"Yeah. Real clever, past me." He scoffed softly. "You're now in your own game and trapped like a golden cage."
He sighed.
Strength at 129. That's 29 extra points waiting to be dumped into the next reset. Agility and Dexterity? Hah. I'll break the next rank before I even breathe.
Still… he couldn't help the smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.
"This mechanic's pretty dope," he admitted to himself. He shook his head with a half-smile. "Damn, I'm good."
Then he frowned.
Too bad the game he created betrayed him.
No warning. No bug report. No event teaser. Just bam Truck-san—dragged into his own world, thrown into his own hell, like a dev forced to QA-test his worst code.
And yet… the system still worke. Flawlessly. Even the overflow.
Somewhere in that malicious code… a part of him was still clapping.
He exhaled. The window flickered slightly, then the border pulsed gold.
A soft chime echoed in the clearing.
[Level Up Achieved]
New Level: 2
All Core Attributes Reset to Rank I
Overflow Applied
A ripple of light flickered across Jaka's body, like the system itself took a sharp breath. He blinked at the screen as the numbers reloaded—slick, efficient, just as he programmed them.
[Status: Jaka – Level 2]
Core Attributes:
Strength: I (29/100)
Agility: H (17/100)
Dexterity: H (3/100)
Intellect: A (51/100) ← Wait. What?
Endurance: I (6/100)
Charisma: I (3/100)
Weapon Proficiency:
Blunt: C (3/100)
Blade: C (91/100)
Polearm: E (72/100)
Throwing: E (39/100)
Bow: E (52/100)
"...The hell?" he muttered.
Everything had reset—except Intellect.
He stared at the screen for a long second. Refreshed it. Blinked.
Still, A (51/100).
"That's… not how I coded it."
Core Attributes were designed to always reset upon leveling up. Overflow applied, sure. But this? This wasn't overflow.
This was untouched.
His fingers curled into a fist.
"…because I know too much, huh."
He was the architect.
The god in the machine.
He knew animal spawn points, quest flags, events, dialogue trees. He could recite every skill branch by heart and predict AI fighting-style down to milliseconds.
Maybe that's why Intellect can't be reset.
Maybe the system sees it as something beyond calculation.
A grin escaped from Jaka's lips.
"Now how does it feel, system? Hurts, doesn't it? Can't reset my brain." He spat the words like a challenge, though no one was there to hear.
But even as the words left him, his smile faded.
If his Intellect was truly beyond the system—if it had transcended the rules—then it made sense why it couldn't be reset.
That thought settled in his chest like a stone. He'd built this world. Truck-kun came and said hello. Now the game had locked him inside.
He should've felt rage.
But instead, a tiny part of him—the version that once pulled all-nighters on energy drinks and half-baked documentation—chuckled softly.
"Damn, I made a good system."
He hated himself for admiring it. But even betrayal couldn't erase pride.
Jaka's gaze drifted to the distant horizon, where the forest met the sky. He could feel the weight of time pressing down on him, a relentless countdown that had been ticking long before he'd even realized it. The world he had built wasn't just his playground anymore—it was his prison.
One month.
He exhaled slowly, steeling himself as the realization settled deep into his bones.
Kalentang Village would burn.
In exactly one month's time, the flames would consume it—set in motion by forces far beyond his control. It had been programmed into the game long ago, an event coded to test the limits of every player's resolve. But now that he was in the game, now that he was Jaka, the creator... the stakes were different. The lives were real.
There was no time to waste. He needed to level up—needed to push past his limits.
Level 3. That was his next goal.
A surge of determination coursed through him. If he could just break through that next threshold, if he could master this system, maybe—just maybe—he could stop the fire before it started.
The game had its rules. But he had something it didn't.
Time. And now, a purpose.
Jaka closed his eyes for a moment, then reopened them with a fierce resolve.
One month. That was all he had. And in that time, he would level up—because Kalentang was more than just a mission. It was his last chance to rewrite the code.
The countdown had begun.