IDLE Database

Aldrin woke up in the middle of the night due to the beeping sounds coming from the desktop computer in his room.

'Did I forget to turn it off?' He thought.

Despite the sleepiness that he was feeling, Aldrin stood up to check it and turned it off for good. It's only 2 o'clock in the morning. The world outside was still silent while being illuminated by the two moons up in the sky.

[The secrets of the world. Will you dare pry into it?]

When he reached it and saw the advertisement flashing in his dimnet's browser, he furrowed his brows.

"Dang, games these days are trying to hook people with these boring ads. Why won't they focus on gameplay and story instead?" Aldrin clicked his tongue and complained.

However, despite complaining, he found himself moving the cursor to click on that huge ad banner.

Click!

Because of the silence of the night, the sound of that click filled his entire room. The poster they used was eye-catching. It depicted a gorgeous, kingdom-toppling beauty, gesturing to whoever's in front of the screen to come and take her hand. Whoever drew and animated it, they're naturally baiting those who are like Aldrin.

Someone lonely enough to turn towards fantasy to get by. He neither has a girlfriend nor a 'girl' friend. Hell, his only contact with females was on the dimnet where more often than not, they're male disguising as a female. Ah. There's his mother and his sister but it's been a while since he last saw them. There was also his previous co-worker at the convenience store but... they only had a working relationship and were not even friends.

"Let's see if you're a game worth playing."

Pulling his chair and sitting on it while forgetting his original goal of only turning off his computer, Aldrin waited for his browser to load the dimnet page.

He knew that what flashed on his screen was only a clickbait but at the moment, he's at the lowest point of his life; no job, no special skills and most importantly, no girlfriend.

Satisfying himself with games and any other things he could find. That's his current way of life. He's trying. Of course but at the current age, some things depend on your initial standing in life.

Truthfully, his family didn't have any high expectations from him. After graduating from high school, they only expect him to at least go out in the world to be something else.

However, with the state he was in right now, even his parents would have a hard time thinking about where they went wrong.

Currently, he's living in a small apartment with only one room without even a bed to sleep on.

He could only lie down on the floor which was either hot or cold depending on the current season.

As a consolation, he at least had his own desktop computer of his own. But that's because at this age and time, owning one wasn't a luxury anymore, electricity bills were as cheap as tap water. However, even after owning one, he was only using it to surf the dimnet or dimension net and play games all day.

If it was the long-lost era, he would be called a NEET. Not in Education, Employment or Training.

After waiting for a while, the dimnet page finished loading.

His dimnet's speed was among the lowest of the low, nonetheless, it was miles away from the norm of that long-lost era. The downside was… even a simple page would be worth a gigabyte of data to finish loading.

Somewhat excited despite being conned by the ads, Aldrin peeled his eyes open.

However, instead of his expected clickbaity and fan service-filled game where kingdom-toppling beauties would continue to entice him to sign up and play, a black screen filled with texts written in white registered in his eyes.

"What the heck is this? Is this dimsite hacked or did I get clickbaited to a potential dimnet virus beehive?" Aldrin wondered.

After rubbing his eyes for a while to check if he was hallucinating, Aldrin tried to read what was written on that dimnet page.

To his surprise… he couldn't.

"D*mn, did I enter a bogus dimsite? If this is all there is, I'm wasting my time even trying to understand it. F*ck this shit, I'm out!"

Feeling scammed despite being completely aware that he just randomly clicked a clickbait ad, Aldrin was about to turn off his computer and go back to his not-so-peaceful sleep.

However, before he could even do that, his eyes widened when all of a sudden, he could finally read what was unreadable earlier.

'Cosmic hell! I should really go to an optometrist to check my eyes.'

Before completely reading what was written, Aldrin rubbed his eyes once more to see if it would change again.

And to his expectation, it didn't.

[Do you want to change your average worthless life? Perhaps not… But I can give you a chance to completely turn that useless life of yours around. With just a bit of your DNA, you can take away this…]

'Worthless and useless…' That's too accurate, huh?

But what is 'this'?!

At least complete your sentence!

With a vein popping out of his forehead, Aldrin ended up voicing out his thoughts.

"If you wanted to scam someone out for his DNA, better do a good advertisement! And why are you targeting someone 'worthless' and 'useless' like me? Turn my life around?! Hah! As if it was that easy. Unless you let me win a lottery then… I'll give you the DNA that you want. But this incomplete ad? Alright, go on along now."

With his anger being triggered by what he read, Aldrin almost showered and filled his computer's screen with his saliva from shouting at it. Because of his anger, the impossibility of giving his DNA to the dimsite page flew above his head.

However, when he was about to finally close the dimnet browser and turn it off once and for all, the texts on his screen changed and that made Aldrin reconsider what he just said while his mind became awash with astonishment.

And following that, his dark room brightened like a sun peeking out from the far east when his whole screen suddenly flashed a blinding light.

If someone was spying on him from his opened window, that someone would probably think that he's browsing some dubious dimnet page in the middle of the night.

[Analyzing DNA… Registering… Transferring… Installing… Congratulations! You have been successfully bound to the IDLE Database.]

[You are detected to be at World Zone 89. Planet Dual Moon, Lonewind City, Lessworth Apartment, 4th Floor, Room 412.]

[The Idle Database will now reconstruct the initial data uploaded to synchronize with your current location.]

Huh? What in the twenty-one Cosmic Hells is this IDLE Database?!

But the most important thing is… why am I feeling amazed at this? Isn't this a bogus dimnet page?

And that address… It's too accurate!

"Who?! Who are you?! Of all people you will hack and track, why a worthless guy like me?!" Aldrin lashed out at his monitor, thinking that someone out there was looking through this dimsite, watching him at this moment in time.

However, his question was met with silence. That's obvious since the dimsite only contained a black background and those walls of text.

After a while, the text disappeared leaving only the black background.

Following that, like a system log, new lines of text appeared on his screen.

[Reconstruction and Synchronization Completed. Accessing Database…]

[Detected a lower dimension]

[Do you want to use the Idle Adventure Mode to send a Dimensional Clone?]

This time, after those lines of text, there were two highlighted choices. Yes and No.

Aldrin was still confused about this IDLE database or whoever was watching him that lured him to this… suspicious dimsite.

Nonetheless, he was weirdly feeling the anticipation of what would happen if he did click 'Yes'.

In this day and age where he was someone considered to be 'worthless' and 'useless', believing in something normally unbelievable was his best bet.

It said it can change my life, right? Go on and show me how you will do that! I don't have anything to lose anyway.

Aldrin held his breath as he moved the cursor towards the choice.

Click!

Along with that clicking sound, the apparent text disappeared again and like before, new lines replaced it.

[Idle Adventure Mode activated]

[Your Dimensional Clone will now be sent to a Lower Dimension…]

[Please be advised that you have the option to control your Dimensional Clone, otherwise, it will move by itself]