Kai blinked awake to the crystal blue sky. The same exact view from before.
"Well, that's embarrassing," came the now-familiar bored voice. "Rage-quit accident. Don't get many of those."
Déjà vu washed over him as Azrael stood before him in her crisp business suit, holographic screens hovering exactly as they had before. Same name tag. Same unimpressed expression.
But this time, Kai knew what came next.
He sat up quickly. "I'm dead. Kai Sakamoto, 19, e-sports benchwarmer. No notable achievements. You're Azrael, Reaper Class 4, and I've been assigned to Arkanis with a reverse checkpoint ability."
Azrael's mouth fell open, her professional demeanor cracking. "How did you—" She narrowed her eyes, swiping frantically through her screens. "Oh. Oh. You've already died once in Arkanis. That was... quick."
"Night wolves," Kai said, standing up and brushing non-existent dust from his clothes. "Not the welcome committee I expected."
A small smile played on Azrael's lips. "Most newcomers last at least a day." She tilted her head, suddenly interested. "You've experienced the reverse checkpoint, then. How does it feel?"
"Painful," Kai admitted. "But useful. I have questions this time."
"Shoot." Azrael checked her watch. "System transfer initiates in three minutes regardless."
"If I die in Arkanis, I come back here, 24 hours earlier. But the world keeps going, right? So the wolves that killed me—"
"Will still be there, yes. Stronger, probably. The system scales challenges based on world progression." Azrael raised an eyebrow. "You're thinking like a gamer already. Good."
"What about skills? Do I keep those between deaths?"
"Player data is preserved," she confirmed. "Experience, skills, knowledge. But physical inventory resets to whatever you had at the checkpoint moment."
Kai's mind raced. In every game he'd ever played, this kind of mechanic would be considered broken—a developer's nightmare. You could theoretically grind skills infinitely while the world only progressed once.
"One last thing," Kai said as the sky began to crack around them. "You mentioned something about finding a bug in the death code. What exactly am I looking for?"
Azrael's expression darkened. "That's classified. But..." She glanced around nervously, then leaned closer. "Look for glitches. Areas where reality doesn't render properly. NPCs with strange dialogue loops. And watch out for the Admins."
"Admins?"
"System overseers. They look human but they're not. If they realize what you can do—what you know—they'll patch you out of existence."
The fractures in the sky widened, reality peeling away.
"Wait!" Kai called. "How do I contact you again?"
Azrael's form was already dissolving. "Die spectacularly!" she called, her voice echoing as she faded. "I only reap the interesting ones!"
Then Kai was falling again, but this time he wasn't screaming. This time, he was planning.
If this world runs on game logic, then it has exploits. And if anyone can find exploits...
The benchwarmer who'd spent his career analyzing games rather than playing them smiled as the vortex swallowed him.
It's someone who watches from the sidelines.