Millenia ago, in the world of Velidara, the ancient wizards who had mastered several magics have disappeared, taking with them great storehouses of magical lore and learning. The ultimate cause for their leaving was due to a failed war against an egotistical, unwise individual who ascended to godhood in the Velidaran pantheon. The upstart deity even overthrew the senior deities that existed before him, and tinkered with magics that he should not have touched. Slavery bound by a magic force brought sorrow to countless millions. Since that day, the descendants of all races have been troubled with the pointless perversions of once-honorable magics.

Never fear; those ancient wizards had left behind hints for future heroes to take up the tasks they could not. But the time required for such a hero to understand how to fix a broken system may cost a high price.

In the modern times, nearly all of the world is remaining at a mid-Medieval-era level of civilization, with various subcultures not too far from that average. This world has had its share of problems, great and small. For one, a rather pervasive use of an enslavement magic by the human cultures upon the inhuman cultures and the beastkins and various species, means that humans are dominant. For another, one whole continent, the largest continent upon this world that is larger than our own Asia, is left as a desert with an ancient magic creating those conditions, and thus since then made into a "dumping ground" of sorts, for the unwanted, by those nations in power.

But one of the largest problems that those Velidarans today do not know of, that their ancestors have forgotten about, is one false deity, an imposter human ascended to the realm of gods who was the initial implementor of such enslavement magics. Millenia ago he was locked into a pocket realm and through a heroic action, drained of his power, so that he could only regenerate over many, many centuries and millenia.

But, as he awakes and looks for a means to get access once more to the mortal realm of Velidara ― for reasons, of course ― will anyone in Velidara really have the ability to stand against his tyrannical means?

Into this stage, in the modern day on Earth, one senior in high school, an orphan since shortly after birth, is gearing up to graduate and move out into the world. But through a task he has taken upon himself, he finds he might have access to another world ― and that he can go there and back to Earth again. Suddenly faced with some very game-like abilities and heroic qualities, he looks into this new world before him, and wonders if he can make a better world somehow.

Still, as a high school student who has a job at a small-town grocery store, he is branching out to try other jobs ― getting a start in the field of programming, he has taken on a commissioned work of editing another man's game project. Something about that game project is unusual, though. Nevermind that much of it just looks like three separate game projects thrown together and has been attempted to be united for good measure; nevermind that much of the codebase and art assets for this project are missing from the copy this young student programmer has received, so that he cannot properly debug the thing; nevermind that other problems surround this studen who is an orphan, and the other orphans along with him ― once he finally convinces the guy to give him access to the full codebase, funny things start happening when he begins to compile and build the game project. Like, seeing status screens, and opening a portal to another world, for example.

It is this young hero's first steps into another world ... with hints that maybe he is more connected to that other world than he originally knew. This heroic journey is not just his alone; other orphans living in the orphanage ― his pseudo brothers and sisters ― and others about town, might also be brought along for the adventure.

See here for the Royal Road promotional thread/more conversation. I have also recently made a subreddit for this and other of my stories and story ideas. If you are on reddit and feel like checking there, please do so.