The Word Is A Game: Rise Of The Limping King

Gathering the Losers

Three hours had passed since the sky over Jakarta split open, and the city was no longer a place Rian recognized. The once-smooth asphalt now jutted upward like the broken teeth of a giant. Black smoke billowed from towering buildings, and the wail of police sirens had been replaced by the howls of creatures that should not exist on Earth.

Rian moved slowly through the ruins of a shopping center in Central Jakarta. His left leg still dragged, but every time his foot touched the ground, a pulse of energy supported his weight. In his vision, a small status window kept blinking, informing him that he had reached Level 6 after taking down several “Gutter Rats” along the way.

"Help... someone... please!"

The cry was faint, nearly swallowed by the rumble of collapsing concrete. Rian stopped and sharpened his hearing. As a pro gamer, he was used to picking out the sound of enemy footsteps amid the chaos of exploding grenades.

"Over there," he whispered.

Rian shot forward. Phantom Step activated passively, making it seem as if he were gliding through the air. Behind a pile of shattered concrete pillars, he found a chaotic scene. A girl with disheveled hair and torn college clothes was pinned beneath a slab of concrete. Around her, three men, an older man and two young adults, trembling, tried to lift the slab without success.

But the slab was not the real problem. On what remained of a nearby rooftop, four Scavenger Imps, small green-skinned creatures clutching bone daggers, grinned as they prepared to pounce.

"Don’t move," Rian called out as one of the young men raised a wooden beam to strike the slab.

All four of them turned at once. Their eyes widened at the sight of a skinny, limping teenager standing calmly in the middle of the chaos.

"Kid! Run! There are demons up there!" the older man shouted, his voice rough from dust.

"If I run, you’ll all be dead in ten seconds," Rian replied coldly. He did not look at them. His focus remained on the four Imps, which had begun to drool. "They’re opportunists. They won’t attack as long as the target looks strong or has some form of defense."

"What are you even saying, you crippled brat? Help us or get lost!" one of the young men snapped, his voice shaking with emotion.

Rian ignored the insult. He picked up an empty soda can from the ground. Analysis. Imps have sensitive hearing but poor vision in the dark. Attack pattern, simultaneous strikes from opposite directions.

"Listen to me." Rian’s voice suddenly carried authority, the same tone he used when leading raids with his team. "Sir, stay where you are. You two, crouch beside the girl. Don’t make a sound. Don’t look up. Now."

Whether it was his commanding tone or fear reaching its peak, they obeyed. Rian tossed the soda can in the opposite direction, deep into the shadows of a ruined shop.

Clink!

The sound of metal striking tile triggered the monsters’ instincts. Just as Rian predicted, all four leaped toward the noise at the same time.

"Now."

Rian moved.

It took only two seconds. In one fluid motion, he grabbed the iron pipe strapped to his back. Using his left leg as a pivot, he spun with incredible speed, driven by his abnormal Agility stat.

Craack!

The pipe smashed into the first Imp’s head, destroying it midair. Without landing, Rian used Phantom Step to reposition behind the remaining three. Three rapid thrusts followed. The small bodies hit the ground with dull thuds, then shattered into digital particles before they could make a sound.

Silence.

Rian exhaled slowly, then walked toward them. His left leg dragged again, scraping softly over gravel. The kinetic effect of his skill had faded.

"Y-you... who are you?" the trapped girl asked. Her swollen eyes stared at him with a mix of fear and awe.

"Rian," he answered shortly. He crouched and placed his hands beneath the slab pinning her legs. "Sir, help me lift from the right side. You two, pull her out when I give the signal."

"But it’s too heavy, kid! The three of us couldn’t lift it earlier," the older man protested.

"Earlier you were using muscle. Now we use the system." Rian closed his eyes. Mana Manipulation, Kinetic Burst.

Blue energy crept from Rian’s palms into the slab. With a sharp motion, the hundreds-of-kilograms slab lifted a few centimeters.

"Pull!"

The two young men snapped out of their shock and quickly dragged the girl free. Once she was clear, Rian released the slab, letting it crash back down with a heavy thud.

The girl gasped for breath, clutching her injured leg. "Thank you... my name is Siska. I thought I was going to die here."

Rian stood upright, brushing dust from his clothes. He looked at them one by one. These people, Siska, Pak Kus the gardener, and the two students, Budi and Dodi, were the kind the world usually ignored. People considered to have no future in the middle of an apocalypse.

"The world has changed," Rian said, meeting each of their eyes. "You see the blue window in front of you, right? You’re not hallucinating. This is our new reality. And in this world, you only have two choices, become prey or become players."

"We can’t fight like you, Rian," Budi said weakly. "Look at my hands, they won’t stop shaking. I’m just a law student, not a soldier."

Rian let out a quiet chuckle, tinged with bitterness. "I’m just a cripple who used to get beaten up by thugs every day. But this system doesn’t care who you were in the past. It only cares how willing you are to learn how to play the game."

Siska stared at him intently. "Why did you help us? You could have just left after killing those monsters."

Rian fell silent for a moment. He remembered how even his own family had treated him as a burden because of his disability. He remembered Gardo stepping on him like he was nothing.

"Because this world is full of people who think they’re the strongest just because they got lucky with a powerful skill or weapon." Rian clenched his fist. "I need a team. Not a team full of arrogant geniuses, but one made of people who know what it feels like to be thrown away. People willing to fight from the very bottom."

"What do you mean?" Pak Kus asked, confused.

Rian looked up at the still-cracked sky, glowing with an ominous purple light. A vision began to take shape in his mind.

"I’m going to build a guild. A place for losers like us to rise and take control of this game." Rian turned back to them, his eyes shining with cold determination. "I’ll call it Noob Slayer. Are you in, or do you want to wait for the next monster to show up?"

Just as Siska was about to answer, the ground beneath them trembled violently. A roar far greater than any monster they had heard echoed from the direction of the city center, followed by a system announcement ringing in everyone’s head.

[Global Notification: Field Boss ‘Ironclad Ogre’ has appeared in Central Jakarta District.]

[Open Mission: Defeat the Boss to prevent total destruction of the safe zone.]

Budi and Dodi’s faces turned pale instantly. "That... that sounds really close!"

Rian smiled faintly, a dangerous expression on a teenager’s face. "Looks like the tutorial is over. Siska, can you walk?"

Siska tried to stand, wincing in pain but nodding firmly. "I can. What should I do?"

"Good." Rian turned toward the source of the roar. "Because now, you’re going to see how losers win an impossible game."