In the game world, a golden-haired boy wanders daily in his small garden. He is just an ordinary NPC, like any other villager in the game.

01

His routine involves staying in place, providing food and herbs to passing players, or opening dialogue boxes to offer information. As an NPC, his dialogue is limited to a few preset lines by the game system.

Countless players pass by the garden, exchange a few words with the boy to get the information they need, and then hurry off to the next part of the main game.

No one ever looks back at the boy, and when they meet again, they are strangers once more. NPCs in the game have no memory; each system refresh wipes away their previous encounters with any player.

However, the golden-haired boy is different. Even after the system refreshes, he remembers the players he met before. He also knows and remembers all the interesting new stories that have happened in the game world during their absence.

Being an NPC alone in the garden is lonely. Each time he meets a returning player, the boy is delighted. He sneaks new dialogue behind the system-set lines, waiting to share them with familiar players. He believes that while the first meeting is an introduction, the second meeting makes them friends, and friends can chat more.

Unfortunately, no player has the patience to listen to all his words.

As soon as they see the boy, they press the skip button, bypassing the entire dialogue and rushing towards their goal of completing the game as quickly as possible.

For seasoned speedrunners, this is the most important thing. No one notices the lonely boy left behind, watching their disappearing figures with a soft sigh.

One day, a freckled girl stopped in front of the boy’s garden. She was a somewhat clumsy novice player who had failed several times at the small dragon-slaying quest near the village.

This was her seventh time passing the golden-haired boy. The boy expected her to skip through his dialogue like everyone else. But she didn’t.

The freckled girl always listened to the boy’s words attentively and sometimes lingered in the garden, watching the flower buds sway gently in the breeze and sunset.

The boy thought she must really like the garden. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have had the patience to discover the “Praise Garden” option hidden in a half-bloomed rose.

This option wasn’t part of the game system; the boy had secretly added it because he was so proud of his little garden.

In his spare time, when no players were around, the boy diligently tended to his garden, carefully pruning each leaf and branch to make it beautiful.

This garden was his pride and joy, and only the girl noticed it. When she selected the “Praise Garden” option, the boy’s heart leapt with joy.

He gathered the courage to add more dialogue boxes, trying to talk more with the girl.

The girl noticed that the boy’s garden blossomed differently with each season and that his dialogue was not always the same, filled with various interesting game anecdotes.

These included the uses of dragon scales, the weaknesses of the demon king, and tips for gardening.

Though these changes didn’t help in completing the game, the girl was happy to share these moments with the unremarkable NPC, treating him with patience and kindness as she would a real-life friend. She never skipped their conversations, enjoying their time together.

02
Gradually, the golden-haired boy found himself falling for the girl. But he was too shy, and as an NPC in a game, he couldn’t express his feelings to a player in the usual way. All he could do was tend to his little garden, making it as beautiful as possible so that the girl would be happy when she saw it. When the girl felt frustrated at her inability to defeat the dragon near the village, he would place words of encouragement and concern in his dialogue boxes, hoping she wouldn’t lose heart because of a temporary setback.

“Don’t forget the joy you set out to find on this journey,” he would remind her.

These words seemed to help. The girl would log back into the game, full of determination to challenge the dragon again.

Finally, one day, the girl defeated the dragon for the first time. But instead of following the game’s usual questline—taking the dragon scale back to the village to exchange it for a rare herb with the village chief—she went to see the boy. She wanted to give him the shimmering silver dragon scale.

The boy was bewildered. No one had ever tried to give him, an NPC, a gift in the game. He didn’t know what to do. He brought up the dialogue box, asking the girl what she wanted to do. Since the boy didn’t know the answer, the dialogue box offered no specific options, just a blank field for text input.

The girl typed her response:

“You once said that dragon scales can help flowers grow better if buried in the soil, aside from being exchanged for herbs. Your little garden is the happiest place in the entire game; it deserves a dragon scale.”

“This is my gift to you. Thank you for you and your garden.”

The boy’s heart swelled with joy. He wanted to respond, to tell her how much this meant to him, but as an NPC, his ability to communicate was limited. Instead, he carefully buried the dragon scale in his garden, watching as the flowers seemed to bloom even more brightly and beautifully than before.

From that day on, whenever the girl visited, the boy made sure the garden was in full bloom, with new colors and blossoms greeting her each time. The garden became a symbol of their unique bond, a place where an NPC and a player could share moments of genuine connection and happiness.

03
The boy decided to give the girl a return gift. But as a simple NPC in the game, he had no useful items or equipment to offer. What could he give her? Fortunately, he had his beautiful little garden, where dew-kissed roses bloomed in the morning sun.

Blushing, the boy picked a rose and handed it to the girl. This gesture was already bold for him, and he didn’t have the courage to bring up a dialogue box asking if she wanted to accept the rose. But there was no need for a dialogue box; the girl immediately reached out and took the rose. This wasn’t a system-generated item; it was a unique gift.

In the instant the girl accepted the rose, a game bug—or perhaps a miracle—occurred. The rose, imbued with the boy’s love, transported the girl past all the game’s obstacles directly to the Demon King’s palace. This meant she skipped all the preceding game stages and went straight to the final battle.

There was no need to worry about her facing the Demon King. The boy had already shared the Demon King’s weaknesses in past conversations. The girl was clever and knew how to use that information.

The girl successfully defeated the Demon King in record time, earning the top spot on the game’s speedrun leaderboard. For a dedicated player, this was a great honor. As the sky filled with her username and the system broadcast congratulations worldwide, the boy felt immense joy. But amid his happiness, a small worry crept in.

Would the girl, having completed the game, ever open it again and return to his little garden?

Days passed, and the boy continued tending to his garden, each flower a testament to his care and love. Every time he heard the familiar sound of the game loading, his heart would leap, hoping it was her.

Finally, one day, the familiar freckled face appeared in his garden. She smiled at him, and the boy’s heart soared. She hadn’t forgotten him. She walked around the garden, admiring the flowers, and then approached him.

“I missed this place,” she said, her eyes twinkling with joy.

The boy felt a wave of relief and happiness. He brought up a new dialogue box, one filled with stories, not just about the game but about his feelings and experiences. They spent hours talking, sharing laughter and memories.

In that moment, the boy realized that even though he was an NPC, bound by the constraints of the game, he had found something real and beautiful in their connection. And as long as the girl kept returning, he knew his garden would always be a place of magic and wonder.

04
The girl’s record-breaking game completion stirred excitement throughout the game world. News spread quickly that a secret to speedrunning was hidden in a certain NPC’s garden, and players flocked to the garden—not to admire its beauty, but to pick the flowers.

These players wanted to exploit the system bug, allowing them to reach the Demon King’s palace quickly and repeatedly break their completion records. Before picking flowers, they followed the guides, finding the hidden dialogue box deep in the garden and selecting the “Praise Garden” option, enabling them to proceed with the flower-picking.

What was once a peaceful garden was now overrun with countless players and praise, leaving the boy feeling conflicted. This scene was what he had hoped for, yet it wasn’t at all what he truly desired.