Clock Out, Then Become the Boss of an Infinite Instance

[Main story complete. Bonus chapters update at midnight; updates at other times are all revisions and typo fixes. Next up: I’m Not Interested in Cyberpunk Games. Completed novel: The Girl Who Sells Starships, a long-form space adventure.]

Feng Yuan was an utterly ordinary office worker.

Every day, his boss made empty promises, his coworkers dumped their work on him, and he pushed through the crowds in the city, cramming onto the subway, eating takeout, earning a modest salary, and living in a cheap rental.

He was pretty satisfied with that. He’d gone to great lengths to keep all sorts of strange things from disrupting his peaceful (?) life.

But one day, darkness fell,

and the office tower where Feng Yuan worked turned into an escape-game arena.

·

Monsters lurked in the dark, and deadly danger could strike at any moment. His coworkers fled in panic as screams rose all around them.

Feng Yuan expressionlessly stuffed a headless ghost into a drawer, locked it up, and walked away.

The headless ghost curled into a ball in the corner of the drawer, screaming in greater terror than even the novice players:

Help! The Demon King himself is here!

The monsters fled at the news, and the game ended before it could get started.

==

This world has countless hidden realms.

Players are forced to keep taking part in all kinds of brutal games in these realms. Only by clearing them can they return to the real world for a short while.

In the bloody, eerie legends of the hidden realms, there is an entity known as the “Demon King.” He is an indescribable horror, an insurmountable barrier. Even “X,” the player ranked No. 1, fears him.

·

The day the scarlet arrived, the hidden realms began to consume the real world.

Buildings consumed by them turned into game arenas, while one office tower remained peaceful and quiet, as if nothing had happened.

·

Feng Yuan: It’s not like they can stop paying me just because the company’s turned into a game arena, right?

X: What’s wrong with being afraid for my wife?

–

1. An unconventional infinite-flow story.

2. Invincible lead, the protagonist is the strongest.

3. CP: An evil god feared throughout every realm who only wants to work (uke) × the top player in the infinite game, a fun-loving guy who only wants to pursue his wife (seme).

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Next up: I’m Not Interested in Cyberpunk Games. Add it to your reading list from the author’s page!

At first, Ning Baiye thought he’d simply entered a cyberpunk sci-fi game.

Beneath a steel sky, conflicts erupted between cyborgs and people with supernatural abilities. Behind the sharp neon lights, megacorporations and criminal assassins traded secrets. The city and disaster went hand in hand, as did danger and opportunity…

But Ning Baiye didn’t think it was a big deal. It was just a game. All he had to do was follow the System’s instructions to complete instance missions, raise NPC affection, and collect his rewards.

.

So, brimming with confidence, he infiltrated a high-security prison to find a hidden instance, stole a sealed artifact from the final boss, ignored the pursuit of corporate giants, and went undercover to deceive the leader of an opposing faction while maxing out his affection!

.

It wasn’t until one day that he suddenly realized he couldn’t leave the game and return to his own world…

.

“I’m just an utterly ordinary player. I have no interest whatsoever in a bloody, brutal, dangerous game like this. I’m only playing around. Don’t take it seriously.”

So said Mr. Ning Baiye, mysterious leader of the obscure marker group “Black Box,” legendary investigator of the Alliance, recipient of the Purple Star Order of Merit, honorary vice president of the Academy of Truth and Wisdom, chief consultant of the World Karst Research Institute, and mentor to the prophet.

–

1. The protagonist’s titles are tentative. I’ll make them up as I go, and they may change.

2. The seme is the leader of the opposing faction whose affection he raises.

3. CP: A madcap uke with secret identities everywhere and a knack for extreme moves who never slips up × a high-ranking seme who runs all over the world chasing his wife and keeps getting tricked by him → [Enemies to lovers]

.

“How could my sworn enemy possibly be the person I loved and lost?”

“No, this time I absolutely won’t let him trick me again. You’re asking why I’m following him and why I’ve rescued him twice?”

“You wouldn’t understand. It’s all part of the plan.”

“An enemy is an enemy. An enemy cannot become a wife. I forgot what came before, what came after, and everything in between.”

“Why hasn’t my wife come back to me yet?”

The commander, still waiting for his wife to come home today.

Theme: When you stop believing in fate