[Faulty Broadcast]
Bzzzt… Click…
(A sound like the needle skipping on an old gramophone, followed by an announcer’s voice crackling with static.)
[Faulty Broadcast]: “Breaking in with a midday, wait, what time is it now? Anyway, here’s a quick update at ‘that time of day.’ Today marks the 52nd anniversary of the ‘Great Collapse.’ Back then, the lord of the seventh-layer dungeon confidently promised, ‘As long as we dig deep enough underground, disaster won’t catch up with us.’ Turns out he was wrong. Disaster caught up with us and clogged our ventilation system while it was at it. Current air quality index: extremely dangerous. We advise listeners to wear gas masks when going outside. If you don’t have one, a wet cloth over your nose and mouth will do… though it won’t help much. Hey, you watching this, ready to see some poor bastard who has to budget every breath risk his life in a sewer full of grease and the smell of rust to find medicine for his wife? Don’t blink. It’s a lot more interesting than working overtime.”
Synopsis:
When every breath is charged by the second, staying alive becomes a careful calculation.
There are no heroes here to save the world, only an ordinary man named Chen Mo, dragging his body, which is about to fall apart, through a suffocating maze of steel. He fights to the bitter end for the small hope of “going home to cook a meal.”
(Note: The [Faulty Broadcast] is a reader-exclusive perk. The protagonist can’t hear it; it’s just the author making one-way snarky comments to you.)
