Chapter 1: Prelude
"Why, just why isn't there any other ending in this game?"
Noah slouched in his desk chair, the dim light casting shadows on his face as he ran his fingers through his short, tousled black hair, deep in thought with finding an new ending for the game.
The faint hum of his pc filled the quiet of his room. His clear blue eyes stared at the monitor displaying the text [Bad Ending #78].
"This is really getting on my nerves, damn it!" Noah muttered, leaning back in his seat with a frustrated sigh.
At 16, Noah felt like just another guy in the sea of teenagers, his days a repetitive cycle of school lectures and endless homework, the only solace he found was in Video games, they were his escape.
For the past year, he'd been hooked on Survival of an Extra, a classic RPG where players survived as an "extra" in a sprawling fantasy world alongside epic heroes, the true main characters of the game's world. The game was an open-world RPG with fantasy elements, multiple scenarios, and various endings. All players controlled an extra character named Noctis Nightryn.
The game offered two modes:
Story Mode—also known as easy mode, where the player gains the unique regression skill and is tasked with surviving alongside the main characters. There isn't a linear progression in this mode; players could skip most main quests and do nothing, and the game would progress with the main quests without them. The regression skill helps players survive most events and reach the mode's single ending.
Abyss Mode—also known as hell or hard mode, with its permadeath mechanic and the unique skill Fate's Gambit. Players are forced to participate in most events, or the consequences lead to their death.
The community had uncovered countless endings, from heroic sacrifices to quiet survival, which could also lead to bad endings.
But Noah craved something new. Since the game's release a year ago, Abyss Mode had a total of 100 bad endings and over 500 different approaches, all leading to one of those 100 endings.