Trapped in a Game That Flopped

Chapter 25

Episode 25

"......"

Silence fell in Serina's room.

Adam was silent for a while, his expression unreadable at my words.

I was the only one whose insides were burning up over it.

After all, I'd need his permission, the master of this estate, to move freely.

"...What meaning is there in betting on a gamble that's obviously going to lose?"

After a long silence, Adam finally spoke.

I retorted immediately.

"For you, Count, it doesn't matter if you lose, and it doesn't matter if you don't, does it?"

"..."

"You don't trust me that much, do you?"

It must have been true, as he had no answer.

I gritted my teeth and added in a sweet voice.

"If I succeed in catching the leader by some miracle, that's great. And if I fail, you have no expectations, so you can just kick me out as planned."

"..."

"You must know very well that at worst, you'll just break even."

In my haste, a tone that seemed to provoke Adam slipped out.

"I'm well aware. I don't trust you at all."

Fortunately, he didn't seem too displeased and nodded.

If it weren't for the situation of him disparaging me, I would have praised him as a good lord.

"Eh... well, I know that better than anyone."

"When you say such things while your face is completely covered, it doesn't inspire even a spark of expectation, let alone trust."

"Yes, yes. You are absolutely right."

When I replied insincerely to his continued devaluation, a line formed between Adam's brows.

That was a little satisfying.

"...But you have a point. At worst, I'll just break even."

Abandoning his indifferent attitude from just a moment ago, he stared at me with a rather serious expression.

"If you fail, you will deeply regret not taking the money and leaving just now."

"..."

"And a second chance will not be given."

"I know."

"And you still don't mind?"

I stared at Adam.

I wasn't the one who needed to be asked if I really minded.

Though his lips said he had no expectations, his eyes had been shaking helplessly with a single ray of hope for a while now.

Facing the desperation seeping into his bright blue irises, that feeling of grasping at straws, that urgency.

I felt it all. Even though he was just a game character.

"Yes."

I replied without hesitation.

It didn't matter even if he didn't give his permission.

To escape this game, I'd use those developer bastards, my NPC authority.

I intended to see the ending, even if it meant using every last thing I could.

Adam didn't utter any words of permission.

However.

Adam Hailey holds a spark of expectation for you.

Adam Hailey feels a slight trust in you.

"Then I'll assume the betting is over. Will you permit me to go out to do the job I promised?"

After checking the system window, I quickly wrapped up the situation.

Because time was of the essence.

Then, at Adam's stare, I thought, oops, and hurriedly added.

"Ah, I've already distributed a sufficient amount of potions to the Prisoner, so please don't worry."

"You..."

I said it because I thought he'd start doubting my abilities or saying I was untrustworthy again.

But for some reason, Adam's brow furrowed slightly.

"...I just can't figure out your identity."

He said, rubbing his temple with one hand.

'If you knew my identity, you wouldn't be an AI, you'd be human.'

I thought so, but I just gave a deep bow.

⚜ ⚜ ⚜

After leaving Adam's office, I stopped in the 2nd-floor sub-hall where the central staircase was.

And unlike the first day, when I'd just glanced at it, I carefully observed the large chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

Lv.25 Old Chandelier That Lost Its Light and Fell Asleep

Still the same impossibly tiny font.

And thinking of the one developer who must have been giggling as he planned it, I suddenly felt absurd.

'No wonder it was level 25.'

After staring blankly at the chandelier for a while, I headed to my room without delay.

The room had already been thoroughly ransacked, but I couldn't just stand in the hallway and openly turn on the chat window.

"Oh."

Thankfully, while I was confronting Adam, the room had been cleaned up, neat as it was at first.

'I wonder what happened to those bastards.'

The servants who were searching my room.

I'd beaten them more than enough to just "knock them out," so I was a little worried, but Adam hadn't mentioned it, so I put it out of my mind.

Click. I locked the door, immediately opened the chat window, and fired off an angry message.

Me: Why didn't you tell me Adam had a sister?

Me: ----

GM Ari: Shari-nim! I thought my fingers were going to fall off waiting.

GM Ari: ㅠ

GM Sera: She has finally appeared, ☆ The Runaway Ib-beol-gu! ★

GM Jinu: Wow. I was kinda scared this time, thought you'd really get kicked out.

GM Jinu: Admit it?

I snorted indifferently at the expected reactions.

Me: I wasn't scared.

GM Jinu: Acting tough, much?

Me: Argh, whatever! When I asked yesterday, why did no one give me a heads-up?

Me: You said he had his circumstances!

Me: That guy has a sister, that guy's sister has a Darkness-Eating Centipede, why didn't you say so!

GM Ari: Shari-nim, please calm down.

GM Ari: ㅠ Maybe everyone else should calm down too and we can discuss it.

Me: @GM Ari

Ari's evasion, acting as if he'd done no such thing, was so hateful that I nailed him with a direct ping.

A ping has been sent to GM Ari.

'Oh. This function works?'

It was a function used occasionally for one-on-one questions to a specific operator.

When pinged, the operator would get a 'Ding-dong!' notification, but some malicious users would terrorize with it, so it was limited to once every 30 minutes.

'Of course, operators have no such restrictions!'

Me: GM Ari GM Sera @GM Jinu @GM Ari @GM Sera @GM Jinu @GM Ari @GM Sera @GM Jinu...

A ping has been sent to GM Ari.

A ping has been sent to GM Sera.

A ping has been sent to GM Jinu.

I smiled, pleased, and enjoyed my petty revenge on them.

At that.

GM Ari: Shari-nim, please calm down. ㅠ

GM Sera: Enough, enough! Hoobae, do you have no sense of hierarchy?

GM Jinu: sry. We didn't know either until we watched with you today.

Only then did I stop pinging, and I narrowed my eyes and asked.

Me: Fine. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you didn't know.

Me: But a new character appeared out of nowhere, how could you not know?!

Me: This is a total bug!!

GM Jinu: nope. Adam's sister is on the character relationship chart.

GM Jinu: Didn't you look?

Me: (...Typing)

GM Jinu: so dumb, right?

The character relationship chart could be checked through the Temple NPC.

It was true I hadn't looked, so I was speechless for a moment.

GM Sera: Hoobae, as I said yesterday, it's not like we can grasp every variable.

GM Sera: Random distribution, that is the promise.

Me: But Adam's sister almost never appears.

Me: What kind of random chance is this?!

Why on earth would a Darkness-Eating Centipede possess a sick kid who can't even open her eyes properly?

But even as I said it, as an operator of this game, I understood why Serina's appearance rate was low.

The game already had so many issues.

If the Serina route appeared often, there would have been a flood of criticism about it being too cruel to a child, or lacking ethics.

But.

'Why am I the only one getting the random chance that all those other users avoided...!'

Me: Because of that, the situation has become so X-ed up and XXX-ed up.

Me: ㅠㅠ

Me: What do I do? Compensate me.

I was now saying things only a user would.

It was true the situation was shit, but it wasn't like there was no solution.

So it was less about extorting real compensation and more of a rebuke for not helping me in time.

GM Sera: It seems so. We were planning to help, of course, especially since we couldn't give you a heads-up.

But for once, those developer bastards gave a normal answer.

Normally, from an operational standpoint, they're always stingy about compensation.

While puzzled by the ready response, my face brightened, and I asked.

Me: Oh! What kind of help?

GM Sera: Once you catch Serina's Darkness-Eating Centipede with a potion, how about we quickly erase her from the relationship chart and process her as having died long ago!

GM Jinu: Then you catch the Centipede, and you don't have to worry about Adam darkening. Two birds, one stone.

GM Jinu: Admit it?

Me: No thanks! Absolutely do not do that, ever!

I shuddered and refused quickly.

'Do these guys not have a shred of compassion for anyone other than Kassel?'

They must have seen Adam's desperate state, barely clinging to a single ray of hope.

It was a truly merciless way of handling things.

If they did that, Adam wouldn't remember Serina's death, of course, but I would likely be left with a lingering, strange guilt.

That's why the help those developer bastards offered was ridiculous.

'I was crazy... To think, even for a moment, that these guys were normal.'

To top it off, even Ari, who had been quiet, chimed in.

GM Ari: We felt bad for not being able to help right away, so we've prepared a special reward just for you, Shari-nim, if you succeed in eliminating the leader!

Me: For some reason, I'm not looking forward to it at all.

Me: I don't need rewards, so just answer my questions on time.

GM Ari: ㅠ

GM Jinu: question gogo

Me: For light-attribute weapons, the light doesn't have to be sunlight, right?

GM Jinu: Right. But if you're using a potion, it has to be sunlight.

Still, I got a pretty satisfactory answer this time.

As an Apothecary NPC, I knew better than anyone that sunlight was the only thing that could be put into a potion.

Me: Not a potion. I'm going to try using that chandelier you made, Sera-nim.

GM Sera: Ooh! Finally, my masterpiece strike...!

GM Sera has granted 5,000 Coins as a reward.

Current Coins : 4,062,900 C

Sera suddenly gave me something, as if he was genuinely moved that I was using the weapon no one else had discovered.

'Ha. The reward is 5,000 Coins?'

I snorted as I looked at the system window that had popped up out of nowhere.

If you're going to give something, give a lot, you stingy people.

Me: That's an AOE weapon, right?

Me: Tell me how it works.

GM Sera: That's right. That item is a secret weapon designed by an ancestor of the Hailey family 500-some years ago, to eliminate the lingering dark energy all at once...

Me: Three-line summary, please.

Only after a long, lengthy text filled the chat window did I finally learn the operating method I wanted.