PSSHH!
"Ahh… fuck." Edwin muttered as the water from the small bathroom sink sprayed directly at his face.
He stumbled backward, rubbing his eyes with his sleeve. "Fucking sink…"
This was the kitchen sink, and it seemed like it was possessed by some demon of water pressure.
If this continued, he'd be paying a water bill big enough to choke a hippo. "I barely have enough for next month…"
He stepped away and sluggishly dropped onto his sunken sofa.
The springs groaned like they wanted to commit suicide. He pressed an arm over his eyes and let out a long breath.
He was tired.
No… he was exhausted on a spiritual level.
Everything began collapsing right after he finished college. He had studied Software Engineering and even received a promising job application that could've set his life on track.
He had imagined saving money, buying a nicer apartment, maybe getting married to his girlfriend…
But reality didn't give a shit about his dreams.
AI had been creeping into the industry for months, but then boom… overnight, it took EVERYTHING.
Companies downsized.
Entire sectors vanished.
Job listings evaporated like piss in the sun.
The company that had promised to hire him shut down before he even submitted his onboarding documents.
He wasn't the only one… new graduates, experienced engineers, senior programmers… everyone was out of a job.
It was like the god of coding decided humanity was obsolete.
Edwin didn't even know if the staff were reimbursed for their early contracts.
The public didn't care. They preferred the perfect, instant, shiny software that AI spat out in seconds.
After that disaster, his parents gave him one last month of support… then cut him off.
"You're a man," they said.
"You need to get on your feet," they said.
He would have preferred a slap.
And as if the universe wanted to make sure he fully understood how much it hated him, his girlfriend posted an Instagram picture.
Her head was on the shoulder of someone he deeply despised back in college… one of those guys who thought breathing was a personality trait.
She dumped Edwin through text a few hours later.
「You need to sort yourself out. I can't date a broke man.」
On one hand, he couldn't blame her.
On the other hand… fuck her.
He had smashed his phone in anger.
Then he cried when he had to pay to repair the screen.
"I'm truly pathetic…" he muttered as he was on the sofa. "Twenty-three years old… no job… no nothing… I'm just tired."
The sound of dripping water from the kitchen echoed like a countdown to homelessness.
"At this rate… I'll be homeless by next month."
He lay flat on the couch and grabbed his phone.
He hated looking at it.
Fixing the screen drained most of his savings, and now? The only notifications he had were sad little reminders that the webnovels he followed updated.
Not that he read lately.
Depression ate his motivation.
He scrolled lazily.
Then…
A foreign notification slid across the screen, covering everything.
『Congratulations, O Jobless One. Rejoice, for you have been hired.』
Edwin blinked.
"Did I get a virus?" he muttered.
It looked like a scam pop-up… it had gold text, glowing borders, and a fancy like a bootleg mobile ad.
He tried to scroll but nothing moved.
"What the fuck…"
He tried pressing the lock button.
The screen refused to turn off.
He tried again.
Again… again….
Still nothing.
"It's like my phone got hacked…" he whispered, then snorted. "Not like I have anything for them to take anyway."
He paused.
"…How did it know I'm jobless?"
Another notification popped up instantly.
『The God of Games has offered you a job.』
"God of Ga—"
Before he finished, his vision blurred.
His limbs lost strength and the world slipped away.
…
Edwin woke with a violent gasp.
His eyes shot open, and instead of his cracked ceiling with mold patches, he saw… polished marble?
A ceiling with golden patterns?
Bright lights that looked too expensive to exist in his tax bracket?
He sat upright.
He was wearing a suit and tie.
A good suit.
The kind rich people wore when suing poor people.
His hair was slicked back neatly, as if someone took time styling it.
The chair under him was ridiculously comfortable.
Like… "I have more money than you" comfortable.
In front of him sat a man.
A middle-aged man with slick silver hair and sunglasses indoors, there was a cigar clamped between his lips, and the most violently colorful suit Edwin had ever seen.
Red, yellow, neon green… like a rainbow threw up on him.
The man leaned forward and grinned.
"No, I'm not a scam, Jobless One," he said, voice dripping with smugness. "It is I… the God of Games. And I'm here to give you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
"A… are you real?"
"No, I am a hallucination caused by stress and poverty. Of course I'm real!" The God of Games rolled his eyes. "Mortals these days… brain smoother than marble."
Edwin stared.
The god continued with a flourish of his hands.
"Welcome to my office! Well, technically my workplace, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. First things first… congratulations on your new job!"
"A… new job?" Edwin muttered.
"Yes!" the god said with a thunderous clap. "A job! Employment! Purpose! Money! well, not money for you, but money for your soul!"
"That sounds… bad."
"Relax, you're already broke. How much worse could it be?"
"Fair point…"
The God of Games puffed his cigar, blowing out a cloud shaped like a game controller.
"You, Edwin, were chosen for your… impressive lack of life success."
"…Huh?"
"A truly rare quality! While others fail but try again, you—" he pointed dramatically "—you failed and stayed on the ground! Splendid! A natural loser!"
"That doesn't sound like a compliment."
"It isn't."
Edwin opened his mouth, but the god raised a hand.
"No interruptions, Jobless One. Let me finish insulting you."
"…Okay."
"You see," the god continued, "among all the lazy, jobless, broken-hearted young adults rotting on your Earth, you stood out."
Edwin blinked slowly.
"Because you have nothing to lose. Absolutely nothing! A perfect candidate for field assignments!"
"Assign… what?"
The God of Games leaned back, placing his expensive shoes on the table in front of him.
"A protagonist. A golden boy. A chosen hero. A sickeningly lucky bastard. I need someone to ruin him."
Edwin's brain froze.
"…Sorry, what?"
"You will ruin him," the god repeated cheerfully. "You will take his opportunities, take his victories, take his future, take his women… basically, cuck him spiritually, emotionally, socially… all the -ly's. That is your new job."