“Strange carpet... wait, there’s no carpet in my room!”

Brandon Jenkins jolted awake, his not-so-bright brain starting to work again.

“I remember, I was... I was... right, I was trying to port Elden Ring to the neural interface. Did it actually work?”

Brandon Jenkins got up from the ground, and what met his eyes was a scene of desolation: broken chairs, a dim room, sparse withered weeds poking through the cracks in the bricks. Yes, this was exactly where Elden Ring begins—the Chapel of Anticipation.

“Did I really succeed on the first try? Could I actually be a genius?”

Brandon Jenkins excitedly felt around his armor—the cold touch, the battle-worn damage... it all felt so real.

“Haha! Elden Ring, here I come, Malenia!”

He walked and jumped around the cramped chapel, drew his longsword and slashed at the surrounding chairs, watching them shatter before him, savoring this unparalleled “gaming experience.”

The chapel was too dim. After a while, Brandon Jenkins found the corpse of the Finger Maiden Witch by the dark wall, along with her dying words.

‘Even though the guidance is long broken, please, become the Elden Lord.’

Looking at the witch who had died before he ever met her, Brandon Jenkins couldn’t help but sigh.

“Sigh, she’s just an NPC with barely any text, I don’t even know her name... but actually seeing her corpse still feels a bit sad.”

“And having to shoulder someone else’s expectations is a lot of pressure for me, I’m already sweating, man.”

Brandon Jenkins turned to leave, but suddenly wanted to see what she looked like. So he squatted in front of the witch, reaching out to lift the hat brim covering half her face. But since the corpse was already lying on its side, the hat unexpectedly fell off.

Startled, Brandon Jenkins instinctively picked up the hat. At that moment, a line of small text suddenly appeared before his eyes:

“Finger Maiden Witch’s Hat”

Brandon Jenkins was instantly shocked.

This equipment isn’t supposed to be obtainable here, but now he’d gotten it from a dead NPC. He had only crudely ported the game, without modifying any content, so where did this hat come from?

This game seemed to be getting a little strange. Faced with this anomaly, Brandon Jenkins suddenly felt a bit scared.

Thinking back to the incredibly realistic sensations just now, this was clearly not something a forcibly ported game could produce in a neural interface. Coupled with this equipment that shouldn’t exist, a terrifying thought surfaced in his mind.

Maybe this isn’t a game anymore.

He tried to open the menu and exit the game, but what used to be a simple thought now wouldn’t work no matter what he did.

No matter how he shouted, there was no response.

A blurry memory suddenly surfaced as well—the very last memory before Brandon Jenkins died, one his body had forgotten for self-preservation.

He had forgotten until now.

Forgotten the pain of electricity coursing through his body, forgotten the deadly sound when the neural interface malfunctioned and burned out.

Brandon Jenkins suddenly remembered—he was already dead.

“So this is how I died... I just wanted to play a game...”

“I don’t want to die yet...”

------------

Chapter 2: I Must Survive

Death—a heavy topic. People always think it’s far away from them, but when it truly arrives, they’re shocked by how sudden it is.

Brandon Jenkins was just an ordinary person. Though his parents divorced early and each started new families, they humanely left him a tiny apartment. With the help of relatives, he grew up healthy, went to an average university, and after graduation found a quiet job close to home that required almost no communication. The pay wasn’t high, but the hours were short, leaving him plenty of time to play games after work.

Since he didn’t need to pay rent, he gradually saved up quite a bit. Aside from daily expenses, almost all his money went into gaming. On his 28th birthday, he’d finally completed his collection of gaming devices like Xbox and PS, and even remodeled his bedroom into a gaming room.

Naturally, as soon as neural interfaces came out, he got one. Unfortunately, it was also the neural interface that ended his life at 29.

His childhood family situation led Brandon Jenkins to seek solace in games early on. Whenever life got tough, he’d escape into virtual worlds for comfort. The virtual world was his true home—or so he used to think.

He had imagined death before, but never thought it would come this way, at this time, so suddenly.

“Please, anyone, I beg you, let me go back...”

But the Chapel of Anticipation remained desolate and cold, with only the statue on the wall gazing at him indifferently.

In this hopeless land between worlds, where everyone is struggling to survive, no one would answer his call.

Deep down, Brandon Jenkins knew that waiting for a miracle was impossible—he just needed to vent.

“There’s no way... how am I supposed to survive in a world like Elden Ring...”

“But I don’t want to die again. I want to live.”

“I must survive.”