Chapter 1 : End Starlight.

“Well… this is it.”

The words left my mouth quietly, almost reverently, as I lay back in my chair, its fresh leather creaking beneath my weight. 

The room was dark save for the pale glow of my monitor, which painted my ceiling in shifting hues of blue and white. On the screen before me stood the familiar title screen:

End Starlight.

A name that had once meant everything.

Some would call it a classic. 

Others would scoff and dismiss it as a relic—an outdated fossil from a time before full-dive systems, neural gaming, and games so realistic they blurred the boundary between simulation and life itself. 

We were living in what people proudly called the golden era of gaming. And yet, here I was.

An old head.

No—more than that.

I wasn’t someone who simply preferred old games out of nostalgia or stubbornness.

I was the kind of person who, once he fell in love with something, would see it through to the bitter end. 

I invested myself fully—time, effort, emotion—until there was nothing left to give.

No matter how breathtaking modern titles became. 

No matter how they evolved until characters could breathe, bleed, and cry with frightening realism. 

No matter how the market was shattered again and again by “revolutionary releases.”

My soul always drifted back.

As if, deep down, it rejected humanity’s relentless advance.

End Starlight was special.

At its core, it was a tower defense gacha game—something many people used to belittle it. But at the time of its release, it was absurdly ambitious. 

Overflowing with content. Systems layered upon systems. Strategy, positioning, timing, synergy.

And above all—

A story.

A story that balanced hope and despair so delicately that it felt cruel. 

A world populated by races pulled from every corner of fantasy—beasts, spirits, machines, angels, demons, things that defied classification. 

Each character felt like they belonged, not just as a unit, but as a person.

The game didn’t force you into a single way of playing.

It lets you express yourself.

Defensive players. Aggressive players. Tactical minimalists. Overprepared planners.

The battlefield reflected who you were. 

And despite being “just” tower defense, it broke through its genre’s limitations and exploded in popularity.

Game of the Year.

Forums on fire.

Fan art, theories, endless discussion.

And then—

It all fell apart.

Power creep.

Not the subtle kind. Not the slow, creeping imbalance you could forgive. No—this was blatant. 

Shameless.

As if the developers had lost all sense of restraint, or perhaps all respect for their own creation.

Units released that trivialised entire rosters. Balance shattered overnight. Old favourites rendered obsolete in a single patch.

Worse still, they began releasing “EXPs”—grotesquely overpowered evolutions of already weaker units—clearly designed to squeeze money from players desperate to keep up.

The community erupted.

Massive discussions. Detailed breakdowns. Spreadsheets, math, pleas.

People weren’t angry because the game changed.

They were angry because it was losing the very thing that made it shine.

The developers never budged.

Not once.

Years passed. Patch after patch. Banner after banner.

And eventually, people stopped arguing.

They stopped caring.

They left.

One by one.

Until, without realising when it happened—

I was the only one left.

The servers were still up. Barely.

Automated maintenance. No events. No announcements. Just silence.

And me.

I had done it all.

Every unit collected. Every path unlocked. Every character raised to perfection—not because they were meta, but because I wanted to see through the end.

I cleared the final challenge again, watching the screen fade to black as the last enemy fell.

Completion: 100%.

A new message appeared.

[Global Server chat]

…Huh?

A chat window opened.

[ArcEndDev]:
Is someone really still playing?

I chuckled softly.

[AloneStar]:
Looks like it.

There was a long pause.

[ArcEndDev]:

…You cleared everything. Even the abandoned content.

I honestly didn’t think anyone would.

[AloneStar]:
Someone had to see it through.

Another pause. Longer this time.

[ArcEndDev]:

Why?

I stared at the screen, fingers hovering over the keyboard.

Why?

Because it mattered once.

Because it was beautiful once.

Because it hurt to watch it rot.

And mostly , because it was fun.

[AloneStar]
Honestly?

In the end… It was a trash game.

The cursor blinked.

[AloneStar]:
But it was a fun one.

No response came.

Instead, the screen began to flicker.

At first, I thought it was my monitor giving out.

Then the light grew brighter. Warmer. Almost… alive.

The glow spilled out of the screen, flooding the room, swallowing the walls, the floor, my body.

I tried to stand.

I couldn’t.

My vision dissolved into white.

And just before everything vanished—

I heard something whisper.

Not from the speakers.

But from everywhere.

“Thank you for staying.”

Then—

The light took me.

———

I awoke to the smell first.

Dry hay, aged wood, and something faintly animal—warm, earthy, and unmistakably real. 

My consciousness surfaced sluggishly, as though dragged up from deep water. 

When I tried to move, my body responded with a stiffness that did not belong to me, joints creaking in unfamiliar protest.

My eyes opened.

Above me stretched a low wooden ceiling, uneven beams darkened by time and dust. 

Moonlight filtered through thin gaps between planks, drawing pale lines across the interior. 

I was lying on a bed of hay, the rough strands pressing against my skin through fabric that felt… wrong.

Not uncomfortable.

Just unfamiliar.

For several long seconds, I simply lay there, listening. The distant chirp of insects. 

The soft rustling of something shifting in the dark—perhaps livestock. 

A barn.

The word surfaced unbidden.

My heart thudded once, hard enough that I felt it echo in my ears.

This wasn’t a dream.

I pushed myself upright slowly, half-expecting my body to resist me entirely.

Instead, it moved—too smoothly. 

Too lightly. 

The balance was off. 

My centre of gravity felt subtly altered, as though the rules my muscles had lived by were no longer valid.

Confusion settled in, heavy and cold.

I looked down.

That was when the unease sharpened into certainty.

Something was missing.

No—multiple things.

The weight, the presence I had never once thought about until it was gone, simply… wasn’t there. 

My chest felt different too—sensitive in a way that made me freeze, breath hitching as my brain scrambled to reconcile sensation with memory.

I swallowed hard, my throat tightening, and pressed a hand against my chest—smaller, softer than it should have been.

The hand itself was slender, fingers longer, nails clean and short. Definitely not mine.

“I…” My voice came out quieter than expected. Higher. Clearer.

I stopped speaking immediately.

There was no denying it anymore.

I was inside someone else’s body.

The realization didn’t hit all at once. It came in layers—each one heavier than the last.

Panic threatened to rise, but it was smothered by something else. A strange calm.

 

The same composure I’d had when clearing impossible stages, when everything was on the line and hesitation meant failure.

I forced myself to breathe.

Slowly.

If this was another world—then panicking would solve nothing.

I stood, feet sinking slightly into the hay, and steadied myself against a wooden post. 

The barn door was ajar, moonlight spilling in like an invitation. 

Drawn to it, I stepped forward, my movements cautious, testing this borrowed body with every step.

Outside, the night opened up.

The sky stole my breath away.

Three moons hung above the horizon, each distinct in colour and size—one pale silver, one faintly blue, and one a muted crimson, casting overlapping shadows across the land. 

Their light bathed the fields in an otherworldly glow, illuminating rolling grass and distant silhouettes of simple buildings.

There was no doubt left.

This wasn’t Earth.

A cool breeze brushed against my face, carrying the scent of soil and night-blooming flowers.

As I took another step forward, my foot splashed into a shallow puddle left behind by recent rain.

 

The surface rippled, distorting the reflection within.

Instinctively, I knelt.

The water stilled.

And I saw her.

Short hair framed a face that was sharp yet youthful, features balanced in a way that leaned more practical than elegant. 

The body staring back at me was lean, compact, undeniably tomboyish. 

There was strength there, restrained and understated.

I stared, unmoving.

I knew this face.

Not personally.

But I knew it.

A memory surfaced.

Leon.

A name that appeared once, briefly, before vanishing into obscurity.

The 20th Imperial Princess.

An NPC.

One with barely a past. Barely a presence.

She only ever appeared during a single event—the academy expulsion arc. 

A background figure mentioned in passing. A political footnote. 

And now—

I was her.

The moonlight shimmered across the puddle, and for the first time since I woke up, something resembling dread settled into my chest.

Not fear of death.

But fear of significance.

Because in a world I knew inside and out—

This body was never meant to exist beyond a few lines of text.