Chapter 10: The Infinite Loop

  The Adventurer’s Guild of Moonveil looked exactly like Alex expected, yet entirely different from what he saw.

  To Thorne, it was a raucous, sprawling mecca of hardened warriors, boasting mages, and quest boards covered in parchment. To Alex, it was a chaotic, unmoderated chat room buzzing with background scripts and overlapping User IDs.

  They pushed through the heavy oak doors. Alex immediately noticed the Guild Receptionist. She was efficiently stamping documents, but over her head hovered a steady, glowing [NPC_HANDLER: QUEST_DISTRIBUTION_ROUTINE].

  "We need a Copper Tag," Thorne announced, slapping his hand on the counter. "My party is sponsoring him."

  The receptionist eyed Alex’s strange Earth clothes. She pulled a dull, stamped copper coin from a drawer and pushed it across the wood. "Blood signature required. Prick your finger and press it to the metal."

  Alex hesitated, then obliged. The moment a drop of his blood touched the copper, the metal flashed.

  In Alex's vision, a crisp green notification materialized:

  [GUEST_USER_ACCEPTED. ACCESS TOKEN GRANTED: LEVEL_F]

  "Welcome to the Guild, anomaly," she said dryly. "The bounty board is on the left."

  Thorne dragged Alex over to a massive corkboard plastered with bounties. "We need 500 Silver Marks, fast. Let's see... 'Slay the Frost Drake?' No, that's Adamant rank. 'Harvest Crystalblooms?' Silver rank." Thorne’s finger dragged down to the bottom corner. "Here! 'Clear the cellar of the Crooked Coin Tavern. 500 Silver Marks.'"

  Alex frowned. "Five hundred? For a cellar job? Why does pest control pay as much as a high-level medical isolation ward?"

  "Because," a gruff voice grunted beside them. A heavily scarred dwarf with an iron tag spat on the floor. "Nobody can clear the Crooked Coin. The rats there ain't normal. You cut one in half, two more spawn from the blood. They've eaten through the stone, the ale casks, and half the foundation. Tavern's gonna collapse by morning."

  "We'll take it," Alex said, ripping the parchment off the board. He looked at Thorne. "Lead the way."

  Stolen story; please report.

  Ten minutes later, they were standing at the top of a rotting wooden staircase leading into the pitch-black cellar of the Crooked Coin. The air smelled of stale beer, damp earth, and... ozone. Faint, electric static prickled the hairs on Alex's arms.

  Thorne drew his iron sword, his hand trembling slightly. He cast a basic [LUMINESCENCE] spell, creating a glowing orb of light that floated above his shoulder.

  The cellar was massive, but it was almost entirely empty. The stone pillars supporting the ceiling looked like they had been chewed through by acid.

  And then, the shadows began to move.

  Dozens of red eyes snapped open in the dark. They were the size of medium dogs, covered in bristling, greasy fur. But as they hissed and lunged forward, Alex's Architect vision flared.

  They weren't biological.

  They had no organs, no bones, and no heat signatures. They were literal bundles of jagged, self-replicating malware. Above the swarm, a terrifying line of red text was looping infinitely:

  while (true) {

  replicate(rat_entity);

  consume_memory(target_environment);

  }

  "Stand back!" Thorne yelled, stepping in front of Alex and swinging his iron sword in a wide arc. The blade cleaved smoothly through the closest rat.

  But there was no blood. The two halves of the rat hit the floor, dissolved into a burst of red pixels, and instantly recompiled into two fully grown, aggressive rats.

  [replicate(rat_entity) = TRUE]

  "It's a multiplying curse!" Thorne panicked, backing up as the swarm surged forward. "We can't fight them! The more we strike, the more they grow!"

  "Stop hitting them!" Alex shouted. "It's a recursive loop! You're just triggering the copy command every time you break their geometry!"

  Alex stepped past Thorne, putting himself directly in the path of the snapping, glitching malware-rats. He didn't have a weapon, and he didn't have Mana. But he had root access.

  He closed his eyes and visualized the code hovering in the damp air. He didn't try to delete the rats one by one—that would take forever, and the system would just spawn more. Instead, he went for the source. He reached out with his mind, grabbing the localized while(true) condition that was powering the swarm.

  If I can't delete the loop, Alex thought, his brain burning with the effort of the edit, I'll change the condition.

  With a forceful mental strike, Alex highlighted the word true and overwrote it:

  while (false)

  The entire cellar froze.

  The rats, caught mid-leap, suddenly stopped moving. The red error text above them flickered, confused by the sudden change in their foundational logic. Without the true command telling them to exist and multiply, the system's garbage collection routine immediately kicked in.

  In perfect unison, all fifty giant rats collapsed into a shower of harmless, fading digital snow. They evaporated into the stone floor, leaving behind only silence and the smell of stale ale.

  Thorne lowered his sword, his jaw hitting the floor. "You... you didn't even cast a spell. You just stared at them, and they turned to dust. What are you, Alex?"

  Alex wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, breathing heavily. The mental strain was like doing advanced calculus while sprinting.

  "I'm the IT guy," Alex muttered. "Let's go get our money and save Locke."

  Quest Complete!

  Alex just proved how incredibly overpowered (and utterly confusing) his abilities are in a fantasy setting! They've secured the bag and can pay Elara Moonwhisper to keep Agent Locke alive.