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The transparent pop-up interface that hovered before Leo Richter’s eyes in the Berlin office did not trigger panic in him, but rather a cool, almost clinical fascination. For him, the muffled screams coming through the soundproofing of the Aether Dynamics branch were merely the noise of a flood of data that needed to be organized. He had mentally clicked on "start game" without hesitation, driven by the deep-seated conviction that every phenomenon, no matter how irrational it seemed, had an underlying logic waiting to be deciphered.

The three-dimensional selection of the twelve character classes now rotated in front of him. He instinctively ignored the warrior - too brute, too unstructured for a global crisis. Healer? Emotional first aid was alien to him, his focus was on individuals, not on the system as a whole. A mystic seemed too esoteric, his methods too imprecise for an exact analysis. His eyes lingered on the craftsman who could theoretically rebuild the infrastructure, but that was fighting symptoms, not curing the cause. No. His choice was clear.

"Scholar," Leo murmured, his voice quiet but firm. This was the only class that offered a chance to catalog the unknown and regain control through understanding. Knowledge was the key, the ultimate salvation in this apocalyptic regression.

The office space around him resembled a madhouse. Colleagues stumbled over chairs, stared at blank screens or desperately tried to reach their loved ones. For Leo, their panic was just another variable in his equation, a pattern of human failure that he now had to analyze. He noticed the different reactions to the pop-up: the young marketing assistant who hastily chose the Ranger, probably driven by a survival instinct. The experienced controller who chose the trader, presumably hoping to turn the economic chaos to her advantage. Every click was a record, every choice a hypothesis to be verified.

He tried to access the global networks in order to grasp the extent of the catastrophe. But the servers were not responding, the data lines were overloaded. The world’s digital nervous system seemed to be collapsing. A deep frustration ran through him, a first small crack in his otherwise so controlled façade. He hated unpredictability, the loss of control.

Instead of surrendering to the growing chaos, Leo pulled out his small notepad and ballpoint pen, always ready to record thoughts and observations. He began to document his first impressions of the "start of the game": Time of appearance, global match, initial behavior patterns. This was not an escape, it was his mission. He sensed that this was more than just a bizarre phenomenon. It had a logic, a structure - an incomprehensible but existing cause. This "game" was not random. It was the ultimate problem, and he would decipher it.

Next Chapter: The Big Deal