The 56k modem screech echoed through the Glitched Forest as Yamete and GLich-chan sprinted through trees that flickered between oak and palm models. Yamete's lungs burned—not from exhaustion, but because the oxygen mechanics in this area were clearly bugged.
"Can't—breathe—" Yamete gasped, clutching his chest where his stamina bar should be. "Why does it feel like I'm breathing soup?"
GLich-chan, floating backward to face him, shrugged. "The devs never finished the respiration system. Just pretend you're underwater!"
Behind them, the Glitched Golem MK-II emerged fully—this time with 'two' missing texture holes where eyes should be and an extra pair of arms that occasionally detached and floated independently. Its movement wasn't walking, but more like a slideshow of teleporting frames.
Yamete risked a glance back. "Why is it talking in all caps?!"
"Because it's 'dramatic'," GLich-chan said, as if that explained everything.
---
Yamete fumbled with his cheat menu, selecting the newly unlocked "Clip Through Walls".
"Okay, one second of intangibility... maybe if we—"
He activated it just as the Golem swung. For a single, glorious moment, Yamete phased through a tree—
—and immediately got stuck inside it when the duration ended.
"Uh. Little help?" His arm protruded from the bark, waving pathetically.
GLich-chan sighed and yanked him free, leaving half his shirt texture embedded in the trunk. "We 'really' need to upgrade your cheat tier."
The Golem, confused by its target's disappearance, paused to buffer. Its limbs twitched in different directions like a corrupted animation file.
"Now's our chance!" GLich-chan grabbed Yamete's wrist. "Follow me!"
---
They dove into a fissure in the terrain that shouldn't have existed—a jagged tear in the world's geometry, pulsing with error-code static. Inside, the cave walls were 'wrong': half-rendered, with sections that flickered into wireframe models or dissolved into rainbow-colored noise.
Yamete pressed a hand to the wall. His fingers sank slightly, as if pushing against gelatin. "What 'is' this place?"
GLich-chan's glow dimmed. "The backend. Where unfinished assets go to... well, 'exist' uncomfortably." She floated deeper, her light reflecting off floating fragments of broken quest items and NPC dialogue that never made it into the game.
A muffled roar echoed from outside. The Golem was close.
Yamete eyed a particularly unstable-looking section of the cave. "Can we trap it in here?"
GLich-chan bit her lip. "Maybe. But we'd need to force a crash."
---
Options:
1. Freeze Value (Useless against a rebooting enemy)
2. Damage Boost (Temporarily unavailable—"Please wait 24h")
3. Item Dupe (50% chance of spawning nightmare fuel)
4. Clip Through Walls (Cooldown: 59 minutes remaining)
"...We're screwed," Yamete concluded.
GLich-chan, however, grinned. "Nope. We're gonna 'overload it'." She pointed to a cluster of floating numbers nearby—raw code snippets that leaked into the cave. "That's its HP data. If we corrupt it—"
The Golem's fist smashed through the cave entrance, sending rock fragments (and a stray "Quest Failed" notification) flying.
"No time! Do the thing!" Yamete yelled.
---
GLich-chan darted to the code cluster, her tiny hands moving rapidly.
"Okay, let's see... if I just... 'rewrite this value' —"
The Golem staggered as its health bar glitched, flipping between "∞" and "NaN". Its movements became even more erratic, limbs spasming in unnatural angles.
Yamete spotted his chance. He grabbed a nearby rock—this one thankfully faceless—and charged.
"Hey, trashcan!" he shouted, channeling every ounce of gamer rage from his twenty lost boss fights. "Ever heard of a 'patch'?!"
The rock connected with the Golem's knee (or where a knee should be).
The Golem's form dissolved into a storm of pixels, its final roar cutting off mid-screech like a corrupted audio file.
Silence.
Then—
'Ding!'
[Quest Complete: "Defeat the Glitched Golem MK-II"]
Reward: "Cheat Engine Upgrade - Tier 2 Unlocked!"
Yamete collapsed onto the cave floor. "I need a vacation."
---
GLich-chan hovered nervously as Yamete caught his breath.
"So. Uh. About where I come from..."
Yamete groaned. "Let me guess. You're some kind of rogue debug tool?"
"Worse." She fidgeted. "I'm the 'emergency backup' of the lead developer's assistant AI. When the game got abandoned, I kinda... 'woke up'."
Yamete stared. "You're telling me this whole world is some dude's unfinished homework?"
"More like a tax write-off," GLich-chan admitted. "But! The cheat engine was 'his' prototype—a way to test game systems. That's why it's so... 'creative' with physics."
Yamete lay back, staring at the cave ceiling where floating "TODO" notes drifted like ghosts. "Great. So we're stuck in a glorified dev build."
"Yep!" GLich-chan popped the 'p'. "But hey, look at the bright side!"
"...There's a bright side?"
She summoned his upgraded cheat menu with a flourish:
New Abilities:
- Frame Perfect Dodge (0.5s invincibility, 3x/day)
- Texture Swap (Change an object's appearance for 1min)
- Low Gravity Mode (Lasts until you vomit)
Yamete considered this. Then the cave shook as something *much bigger* started moving in the depths.
"Can the bright side wait until after we escape?"
GLich-chan grabbed his hand as the walls began to dissolve. "Nope! Running now!"