Raito

So there I was standing in a field overlooking the world I had created at one point in my life.

It wasn't the most ideal way to start an isekai adventure, I must say.

The Beginning was a pretty simple zone.

The only enemies being slimes, large frogs and enemy vegetables.

I intentionally made it as simple as possible because I didn’t want anyone losing before the first town.

The slimes were really the only threat here. Not because they did much health damage but because they actually did durability damage. This meant they dissolved your clothes if they attacked you! And then you'd have to walk to the first town butt naked.

Classic walk of shame, but still pretty safe!

Above me was something new though. A giant digital timer hung overhead of the Beginner zone. Just big numbers changing every second, counting down from ten minutes. I guess the world was starting at that time. There seemed to be a barrier surrounding the Beginning, most likely everyone had to start at the same time here so I guess I had some time to kill.

I wonder what Serenity's up to.

Poof!

The girl in question appeared in a cloud of misty and loose white feathers.

Instantly, she sprang about, frantically picking up each feather that appeared during her arrival. I watched as she packed them in her shirt. I had a feeling she was a bra-stuffer!

“Ah, shii...I mean shoot!” said the Angel, “I don't have pockets to put these feathers in! Each one of these feathers is considered a super-rare item!”

“They look pretty easy to get. Do you always just spray them everywhere when you appear?” I asked.

“That's nice of you to show up to help me on my adventure,” I added.

“As if. I'm just here to open up the gate, NEET.”

Serenity pulled out an enormous key from behind her and pressed it into the barrier, which now looked like a big heavenly gate with the key in it. I still have no idea where she hid a key on her, seeing as she only wore a long shirt and undies at all times.

“What's that huge timer above me for? I don't die when that hits zero, do I?”

“Ah, the other players will start spawning in soon and the rest is obvious. Launch day and the game starts at zero.”

“Launch day?!”

“Yep. Launch day, baby! Even Earth Isekai is showin’ up for launch. Your mom might even show up! Isn’t that cool? I want to meet Leonardo DiCaprio, honestly. Hope he arrives today!”

I looked over a sheet of purple matter near a tree and tilted my head. That was new.

“You can't have real people running around in this world... This is a death trap! You don't even know if the game is working correctly yet. There could be horrible glitches that cause terrible bugs.”

“Well, you have nine whole minutes left to get a head start and visit the areas before they arrive!” said Serenity as she pointed at me, “stop being your usual lazy self!”

“A nine-minute head start really isn't enough time for me to do anything in this world.”

“That's plenty of time for the creator of the game to get a lead. You can at least be one town ahead of everyone else if you keep a steady pace.”

“I won't be able to sleep! Some players binge play for hours at a time! I'll be exhausted if I try to outpace them.”

“Better buy some stamina points then, babe.”

“Another question. What's that huge thin layer of purple matter in front of us near that tree.”

Serenity looked over and put her finger on her chin.

“Oh, hmm. Looks to be a glitch of sorts.” She said, rubbing the back of her neck, “Eh, looks like harmless goop though.”

“That goop is a glitch! We are only a few minutes into this and I can see a glitch from the starting position… 

I dunno, sounds safe though.

” I said mockingly.

“We Angels are busy beings! We had another company come in and do most of the other stuff…”

“That probably explains why besides the timer it says ‘

Please Waiting…’

That's not proper English by the way. It's supposed to be 

Please Wait

…”

“I know that, dummy. I speak every language fluently! I have to as an Angel. And, that's just another error. None of this is very detrimental though. They look safe enough.”

I let out a deep sigh.

“These could be people's lives at stake!”

“Eh, players respawn at level one if they die. We put that edit in just in case people tried to sue us because of the perm-death difficulty you had in the original game. The Almighty hates courtrooms.”

Serenity struggled to push open the big gate.

She let me walk into my world for the first time.

The Beginning world was just as whimsical as I was hoping when I was slaving away in the map editor. Everything looked so fantastic. The grass, the trees, the rocks, the enemies. These weren’t graphics. This was actually a real living world. It had to be.

“Eh, NEET. Help me close this gate before the noobs arrive.”

“Okay,” I said walking over.

Suddenly, a little blue Slime crept up on Serenity.

“Dodge! You gotta dodge!” I said, waving my hands.

“Dodge what? Your advances?!” said Serenity, pointing her finger.

“No, the Slime! Wait...what?!”

The cute little Slime dove onto her, munching away at her clothes.

“What is this Slime doing to me?!”

“They don't do health damage. They just do durability damage so it'll eat your clothes but that's about it.”

“Why would you 

ADD

 something like that?! He's molesting me, help!!”

I drew my spoon, which at this moment, was my only weapon and charged at it. By charged, I meant I casually walked over and tapped her with my spoon.

BLAHHH!

The Slime was defeated in an instance, but so was Serenity's clothes. And it was marvellous. She was completely butt naked beside for a little pouch purse at her waist. The only part left of her shirt was the collar, which loosely hung off her neck like a necklace.

“You're thinking rude thoughts,” said Serenity as she covered herself in her wings.

“Eh, they aren’t that rude.”

“They sure are lewd though! Holy Maker, boys are gross.”

“Eh. Can't be helped.”

I shrugged my shoulders and continued to shut the big gate.

“Alright, down to business! We need to check out this purple wall glitch and see if it's harmless. Eh, I can't believe I'm saying this but put some clothes on, it's very distracting.”

“No! I, for one, am not going to be body-shamed by you.”

“Body-shamed?! I just mean it’s distracting.”

Ah, it’s no use. I continued on with the investigation.

I walked over to the glitchy purple wall and inspected it. Serenity hovered over and stared into the purple ooze with me, but her kosher locker room nudity was making it impossible to concentrate.

“Can’t you spawn clothes or something,” I questioned.

“Eh? I’m a nudist Angel now.”

“So shameless. You don’t have other clothes, do you?”

“I don’t collect clothes like some girls! One outfit is fine by me.”

“Such a tomboy. What about… like... on laundry day?” I asked.

“Eh. We just roll around in puffy clouds. Instant clean. What do you think those laundry detergents are made out of in your Earth stores? Angels have side businesses too, dude.”

She placed her finger on her chin again, doing her typical thinking-face.

“I do have ONE other outfit. But, it’s a Dark Angel outfit! If I wear that publicly it’ll ruin my image!”

“Why do you own something that could potentially ruin your image?!”

“Eh, it’s for streaming in. People love it. So raunchy.”

“So, a Dark Angel outfit will ruin your image but extreme nudity won’t?”

“Nah, Angels are always naked. Haven’t you ever seen the art? That’s straight up how it is. We’d be naked 24/6 if we could,” said Serenity with her thumb up in the air.

“Well, as much as I enjoy it. It’s HARD TO WORK LIKE THIS.”

Serenity’s eyes wandered down to my lower half, inspecting me.

“I’d say. Cover up your shame, human,” she giggled.

Serenity was childish as hell!

“It’s also called 

‘24/7’ 

by the way...” I said, 

‘covering my shame.’

“What? Maybe on Earth, it’s 24/7, but in Heaven, we only have 6 days off a week, and one working day. I hate working!”

I tried to get back to the investigation.

I pulled off a branch from the nearby tree and stuck it in the purple ooze.

A small alert appeared, which notified me of the glitches reaction.

*Error: Error has errored!*

*Error error: Error has error errored!*

Another small alert appeared:

*Error: Anomaly: Deleting Object Data…complete.*

I watched as the tree beside us, exploded into a leafy mess, disappearing from time and space within that moment.

“Eh. Well, that Dark Angel outfit might come in handy actually because I think we're about to switch teams.”

“What do you mean, Raito-san?” said Serenity, tilting her head.

“Well, the way I see it. We don't know that the world is safe yet. Players could die or become disfigured if they interact with these glitches. Who knows what horrors could happen. We can't let them do that. It could be bad if they progress further than us and run into any glitches.”

Serenity placed her finger on her chin and thought. I could tell she was acting like she was on the same page as me, but I’m pretty sure she was just reading my thoughts and acting like she was paying attention.

“So you're planning on switching sides and becoming a

 player killer 

because you know it will restart them at level one. Which in turn will hinder their progression... Eh, it’s not a bad idea.” she said.

“Basically, yeah. Since you said they respawn at death at level 1 it seems like the best way to hinder their progress. We're going the cartoon Villain route. Let's go dismantle some bridges and set fire to some towns. It's safer if they remain at the beginning then it is having them run around in the endgame content testing things before us. And I know if we don’t do this some players will reach endgame before us, seeing as we haven't even left the first area yet...”

“Kinda sounds like fun being the bad guy,” said Serenity as she cheered.

“Yep! That too!” I agreed.

Serenity summoned her Dark Angel outfit by letting out a loud whistle.

A little pet cloud descended down to her with a paper bag of clothes on top of it. She nabbed the bag from the little puff-ball and pulled out her Dark Angel dress, leggings, and black wig. She dressed into her outfit and gave me a big thumbs up.

"My name will be 

Mischief

 now! Serenity is no more!" said the Angel cackling away like an evil witch.