Prologue

It was 9 pm, and Charlie was stuck in the office doing grueling work. 

It was the much beloved overtime again, yay… 

Really, if it weren't for the sake of his family and his own deteriorating love for his job, he'd have quit a long time ago, throwing a lawsuit somewhere in there for good measure. 

However, he couldn't. In some ways, he didn't even really want to.

His fingers flashed across the screen faster than the most adept clerk. He chuckled to himself at the speechless expression of his own appointed secretary when she saw his fast fingers that had outpaced her own. 

Realizing that he needed one, Charlie took a break, exiting his cubicle to get some coffee from the office's coffee machine. Sighing at the taste of refreshing caffeine, he took a look around his workplace idly.

An exotic room with rich furnishings designed to show opulence rather than serve a functional purpose. Despite working for the biggest video game corporation, Ether Works, Charlie was still astounded by the sheer lack of employees. 

For such a large office space, one would expect cubicles for as far as the eye could see, but rather, there were roughly twenty of them in total. There was one bordered-off conference room for the upper echelon and a beautifully outlandish office for the CEO, Jack Sparks. 

Littering the walls, desk - and primarily - the CEO's office were figurines, posters, and acrylic stands of anime characters. After all, Ether Works primarily produced fighting, adventure, and sometimes crossover games of popular anime and manga titles. 

Everyone in the office was either a big nerd or an anime elitist, believing their tastes were superior. Truthfully, their small size and shared passion made working here very pleasing, minus the harsh overtime.

Jack stated that he wanted only real skill and passion, as opposed to filling the office with mindless drones. Charlie was pragmatic enough to understand his point, as Ether Works had benefited greatly from its compact nature. 

His paycheck alone was higher than most other AAA company's project managers and lead developers, so he couldn't really complain. More work for more pay was the essence of employment under capitalism after all.

Sighing, Charlie sat behind his computer again, getting to work programming the company's latest – and greatest – project: J-stars Online. 

A large crossover FIVR – Fully Immersive Virtual Reality – game featuring an MMO-styled world with every racial archetype in popular anime and manga series. The world was so expansive and tailored that it needed two different AI controllers to handle the automation and progression, leaving very little for the developers to do minus set the directives, which was why the office was empty except for him.

Unfortunately, he was the poor sod who had to program the AI. 

So far, he was 95% done if he were to estimate it. He was basically cleaning up bad bits of code as well as running various simulations. 

It would be disastrous to have the game crash while players were immersed; the lawsuits alone would cripple the company and his own reputation. 

So far, the two seemed to be playing nice, sticking to their commands and running smoothly. Charlie felt confident shutting down the system and packing up for home, this recent batch of coffee not having as much of an effect as earlier cups.

He cast an eye about the office for anything out of place before retiring for the night. 

When the sound of his footsteps had faded to silence, the seemingly inactive office came to life through a single console: Charlie's own. 

As silently as possible, a bug was implanted that would change the world in ways no one ever thought possible.