Trapped in a Game That Flopped

Chapter 6

Episode 6

GM Ari: Now our operations team will be monitoring Shari-nim in real-time and preparing countermeasures , so you don't have to go through the trouble of typing out chats one by one!

GM Ari: How is it? Can you feel our effort for Shari-nim?

"Effort...?"

As the horrendous suffering I'd been through flashed before my eyes like a panorama, my teeth ground together automatically.

If they wanted to talk about effort, they should have found a way to fix the bug quickly instead of wasting time integrating the chat.

But seeing as they were talking so confidently about preparing countermeasures, it must mean they still hadn't found a solution.

"Cut the bullshit and let me out."

I said murderously, glaring at the chat window floating in the air.

Then, along with the word '(Typing...)', the newcomers who had appeared started spouting even more bullshit than Ari.

GM Sera: Ahem. We are your heavenly sunbaes, how dare your manner of speech be so insolent...!

GM Jinu: Personality is trash grade. Admit it? Yeah, admit it (Admit it? Yeah, admit it)

"Sunbae my ass. I quit last week, so if I get out, just look forward to my 'trash grade personality' review!"

GM Jinu: You didn't submit your resignation, did you? You're still our gofer, right?

A childish chat message flew over.

"I want to kill them..."

At their incredibly childish words and actions, even my fighting spirit to screw over the developers fizzled out, and I trembled with anger.

GM Ari: Jinu-nim, please stop! Shari-nim, you need to calm down first, too. T_T

Maybe because I was so twisted up, even the 'T_T' vowel he'd been tacking onto the end of his sentences since last time felt like he was mocking me.

"If you were me, would you be calm... Ha, forget it."

I stopped being angry, shook my head, and turned my back on the chat window.

"I'm going to find a connected mountain or a sea or whatever and go die, so watch me or don't."

It was a waste of mental energy to be angry at those incompetent bastards anymore.

Even at this moment, my real body was probably clutching its starving stomach, dying.

GM Ari: Shari-nim, I fully understand that you are very flustered and angry about the current situation!

GM Ari: Unfortunately, as Jinu-nim said, you are an NPC character, so there is no way for you to die. T_T

GM Ari: But! After our passionate meeting, we found a way for Shari-nim to log out within forty-eight hours!

It was then. As if it were a living organism, the chat window reappeared in front of me, rapidly filling with text.

I froze, stopped pulling out the teleport scroll, and my eyes went wide.

"I-Is that... really true?"

An affirmative answer came back immediately.

As if I'd completely forgotten I'd just been cursing them out as incompetent bastards, I desperately pleaded into the chat window.

"What is it? Then please log me out right now! Okay? Please!"

GM Ari: That method is, I'm sorry to have to say it, but...

GM Ari: (Typing...)

As if intending to make me keel over, the word '(Typing...)' appeared and disappeared several times.

'If you found a way, just log me out. What are you typing so much for?'

Just typing in the chat seemed to take a full minute.

With not even a scrap of patience left, I pounded my chest and shouted.

"Ah, what is it? Why are you being so frustrating, not telling me and dragging it out! What, are you going to reveal it in 60 seconds?"

GM Ari: (Typing...)

GM Jinu: Aish. We will be chatting all day at this rate. I'll just say it. For once, I agreed with the elementary schooler.

'Right, go ahead and spout it!'

Just as I was staring at the chat window, feeling generous for a change.

GM Jinu: You just have to beat the ending super fast within forty-eight hours. OK?

"...What?"

My thoughts stopped for a moment at that 'method'.

'Do what? You want me to do what?'

But no matter how many times I reread it, the chat in the window was the same.

I suddenly thought that the people who made this game weren't just your average lunatics.

"Are you kidding me?"

GM Jinu: Kidding two.

GM Sera: This one is kidding three... no, that's not it.

GM Sera: As you also know, the game's system automatically logs you out when you reach the ending.

"Do I look like I'm asking because I don't know that?"

At their wordplay, I let out a lion's roar that seemed to shake the mountaintop.

"How am I supposed to beat something that even the people who lived and breathed this game couldn't beat!"

It was true.

I didn't know the details, but I heard the initial beta version was distributed to world-famous pro-gamers and streamers.

They all played it with gusto, ecstatic about the 4D implementation that was the epitome of new technology, and not one of them.

Not a single one of them beat the ending.

It was partly due to bugs, but the quests, which changed rapidly without any set pattern due to the AIs, were truly an absurd, hell-level difficulty.

As people who had been re-gaming several times left one by one, leaving cursing reviews, the developers distributed the game to even more people.

And even after repeating that, and repeating it again...

No one had beaten the ending to this day.

The game that had just been upgrading its version all this time in that state was this very shitty, flopped game.

I, who had heard this notoriety well, had only dabbled in the beginning to understand my job, and hadn't even dared to try playing it seriously.

"And how am I supposed to play the game with an NPC character! Just delete the character for me, stop with the bullshit!"

GM Ari: We can't just delete a character that's currently logged in, Shari-nim. T_T

GM Ari: But don't worry too much about getting to the ending! Unlike other users, Shari-nim has us!

GM Sera: Indeed. We, your sunbaes, will help our lowly Hoobae. Besides, you are the ★Immortal NPC☆

GM Jinu: You're an Operator too, so don't you kinda know the scenario and quest strategies? Might be pretty easy.

The chat window was hit by a storm of irresponsible remarks.

I suddenly suspected if these crazy bastards had even beaten the ending themselves to be saying such things.

I asked quietly.

"...Have you guys even seen the ending?"

GM Ari: (Typing...)

GM Sera: (Typing...)

GM Jinu: (Typing...)

Just as I thought.

It was just like the crazy group that had done 308 version upgrades due to bugs.

"Forget it. I was a fool to expect anything..."

As expected, the only answer was to find a region where I could die.

I didn't know the entire world map, but it wasn't like there weren't a few regions that came to mind.

The problem was the time and method of travel to get to those regions.

But fortunately, I had a decent amount of game money.

'And no matter how far it is, it'll be faster than four years.'

Just as I took a teleport scroll from my pocket, intending to hurry back to the apothecary, look at a map, and make a plan.

GM Jinu: Are you really thinking of dying? Didn't you see me say you can't die anyway because of the NPC settings?

The elementary schooler's chat came up, as if he had read my thoughts.

At those words, a sudden anxiety welled up: what if I couldn't die even after going through all the trouble to find a place?

But, filled with distrust for the developer bastards who hadn't even seen the ending, I ignored his words.

'The only way to know is to try it myself.'

It was the moment I was about to finish tearing the scroll I'd taken out.

GM Jinu: And you're out of options now. You have to either live trapped in the game for four years and die, or beat the ending quickly. Gotta choose one.

"Just go ahead and curse me."

'What does he mean, out of options?'

At those words, which were no different from a curse wishing I'd live like that, I finally stared at the chat window with an annoyed face, as if to tear it to death.

I shouldn't have.

As if my looking back was a signal, the next chat came up quickly.

GM Jinu: It's true. Because you started the tutorial.

It was more chilling than the curse to live trapped in the game for four years and die.

"What are you talking about? I never did that."

Having already thrown away my intention to ignore him, I denied it with a straight face.

GM Jinu: ?

GM Jinu: Looking at your progress log, you cleared the first quest a while ago, right? You wrecked one hundred mid-grade monsters, right?

Of course, it was true that I killed one hundred mid-grade Lizard monsters.

But that incident was clearly unrelated to the game.

"That's a quest that starts in Count Hailey's estate. Dover Village doesn't have a quest like that..."

I, who was about to say confidently that it didn't exist, stopped mid-sentence.

A chilling memory flashed through my left and right brain and lodged itself in my frontal lobe.

As if thinking the same thing as me, the chat window flashed.

GM Sera: Let's see... Didn't you submit a proposal to add a hidden quest to the tutorial about three months ago?

There was a time when I had that kind of passion left in me.

The time when I had just created my NPC character and was crazy about illicitly accumulating wealth.

Dover Village was a small, humble region, so much so that it just flashed by during the tutorial's progress video.

But in any case, it was the point where users who logged in started the game for the very first time.

The very first starting point.

In other words, it was the perfect time to run a scam.

The tutorial starts with the user waking up in a corner of an alley and watching a procession transporting a prisoner across the village.

That prisoner is none other than the game's biggest villain, the one who endlessly creates quests until you reach the final quest to subjugate the Ancient Dragon.

The Lord of Nightmares

Just as his title implies, he has all sorts of nightmares when he falls asleep, and the problem is that those nightmares are reproduced exactly in reality.

Hero, you must stop the Lord of Nightmares from falling asleep.

Therefore, the user must disguise themselves as a soldier transporting the prisoner and use a weapon like a spear or sword to stop the villain from falling asleep until they reach Count Hailey's estate.

If they don't, a horde of monsters will swarm, and it's game over.

Since it was forced progress for the tutorial, it was an easy action, hardly even a quest.

But I felt it was too much of a waste to let Dover Village just rot.

'It's the place where all users wake up...!'

Besides, some users, knowing that AI characters don't die during the tutorial, would indiscriminately slash at the Lord of Nightmares.

And then they'd capture the bleeding character and display it in the community as if it were a trophy.

'Ugh, that's so cruel!'

As it was so well-implemented in 4D, some of the wounds were so terrible they made you frown.

Enough to make you feel sympathy for the AI, even if he was the villain.

It just so happened to be the time when they were accepting opinions from the operations helpers ahead of the new version upgrade, so I quickly submitted a quest proposal.

A.k.a.

Hidden Quest: Increase Humanity

Find the nearby apothecary and obtain the special healing potion! If you throw the bottle of potion, you can wake the prisoner in a more humanitarian way and transport him.

That potion was none other than, 'Dover Village Apothecary Shari's Special Healing Potion★!'

It wasn't that it was especially effective, as its name suggested; it was just the same as a regular potion.

It just gave about fifteen of them for free, just enough to barely pass the transport mission, but...

The ripple effect on users starting the new upgraded version was enormous.

'Where do I get the potion from the hidden quest in the tutorial?'

'Is it better if I buy potions from Shari?'

'Where is Shari in Dover Village???'

The community exploded after the version upgrade.

Although there was an apothecary NPC in Count Hailey's estate, which was the real start of the game, many users went out of their way to find the Dover Village Apothecary, wondering if there was something better.

Of course, I sold them potions at a higher price than other regions.

And I became coin-rich.

'Proposing this hidden quest wasn't just to illicitly accumulate wealth.'

Really.

I had proposed the idea for the humanitarian hidden quest to uphold the game's standards, after a fashion, and to lessen the shock users might receive later.

My proposal was ultimately reflected because the higher-ups understood this.

Besides, after adding the hidden quest, the number of users who did nasty things to the Lord of Nightmares decreased significantly.

That was quite a fortunate thing.

Because, no matter how much of a villain he was...

GM Jinu: Throwing a glass bottle to wake him up is humanitarian? So cruel.

GM Sera: Is this the place where the human who suffered karmic retribution for their greed is? Making a holy pilgrimage.

The Lord of Nightmares was the main Male Lead of this game.