Overworked office drone Lin Mo wakes up inside Pokemon Gold, the game he loved as a child.
He thought he’d escaped the 996 grind and landed in paradise, but then he finds a guidebook in a drawer. On the first page, a chilling line reads:
[Welcome to the Pokemon world. Your ultimate goal is to complete the game.]
It sounds less like an invitation and more like a death contract he can’t refuse.
The warm sunshine of New Bark Town hides danger. Professor Elm’s smile is stiff as a mask, and the Rattata in the grass have blood-red eyes and bloodthirsty fangs.
His only source of help is the notes written in different hands throughout the guidebook:
[The breeze in New Bark Town is real!]
[Don’t trust the professor. Never trust him!]
[Tell him the name of your rival to earn his trust...]
Truth and lies are impossible to distinguish. One wrong step, and he’ll be doomed.
When the “villainous” Team Rocket becomes the only hope of saving the world, when the kindly professor turns into a jailer who imprisons souls, and when the divine beast Ho-Oh turns out to be the System core of this cage...
Lin Mo finally understands the words carved in blood by those who came before him:
This isn’t paradise. It’s an endless hell built to imprison those who “wandered in by mistake.” The guidebook in his hands is written on the bones of everyone who failed.
Completing the game is his only way out.
The truth is hidden on the final page, concealed by countless hands.
