This is a Beta Test?! - A Literally Broken System

"Seriously. Just tell me what to say," I sighed at my oh so helpful guide as she continued to laugh at my misfortune.

*O-okay! Okay... Calm down....* Guidance finally managed to calm herself down. In fact, I'm pretty sure she was talking more to herself than to me at this point. *Now, the stats screen and other windows should be located in a single system I coded in. If I recall....*

I simmered with my hands on my hips as the cacophony of clacking keys and sounds echoed from the void that Guidance was speaking from. Trailing off into incoherent mumblings and half-thoughts, I let the solo dev do her thing as I just stared at the city in the distance. I was pretty sure that it was gonna be my next destination. Unless there was some sort of random NPC here to guide me or something, it was the next best thing to do as opposed to grinding aimlessly in a jungle that didn't even seem to have any monsters besides the one that Guidance coded in.

All in all, something random and logical in place of a natural goal at this point. I didn't even know if I could get back to the real world after all of this. Assuming that I get sick enough of this world to even want to go back.

*Oookay...* Guidance drawled as her fingers finally stopped with the constant typing. *This is gonna be harder than I thought...*

I raised an eyebrow, "What?"

I crossed my arms over my chest as I eyed the star-filled void incredulously. How in the hell was it supposed to be harder than she thought? I was just asking for the name of the damn window to open, not for her to code in brand new additions to her game. Surely it wasn't that bad of a hiccup.

*I... might have inadvertently lost my code for the system.* I almost did a double-take at such a claim. *As it stands, I'll have to go through the game code itself to retrieve it...*

I couldn't believe what this woman was saying to me. How in the world could a developer lose their own source code?!

"You mean I can't even access my stats or inventory beyond what's already on me?!" I almost yelled towards the sky as I spread my arms out in irritation. "How the hell am I supposed to survive now?!"

*I don't know. Improvise.*

W-what?! What's with the cold shoulder all of a sudden?!

The sound of a clacking keyboard returned with an unrestrained fury as I heard her fingers move at the speed of light while she typed. I could only guess that she's parsing through her own game's files to retrieve her code from there. Not that I truly blamed her in a logical sense. I'd be pissed and focused too if I lost my main backup for stuff. At least she had a copy of her game to extract it from.

"Still, can't you at least try and find out?" I asked calmly, her own keyboard still echoing loudly from the void.

*What do you think I'm doing?* she seethed, her fingers clattering nonstop as she spoke. *Now stop distracting me and do something productive.*

Sheesh. Talk about a complete one-eighty in terms of character and personality. "Guess I'll go to this [Kotosa] city..."

Not even getting a response back, I shrugged in resignation as I scaled the cliff back down towards somewhere that resembled a decent trail. With the forest still flanking me from all sides with limited light, I trodded carefully as to avoid sudden attacks from any sort of creature or monster I might encounter. Not that I was really expecting one to appear at this point. It was just that quiet in terms of being a forest. I mean, the only things I could even remotely hear beyond the incessant key clacking were the faint breeze in the wind and the few insects and small animal rustlings that were present in the background. No large animals, no predators, and certainly no human life as far as I was concerned.

"It's kind of eerie, now that I thought about it..."

For a forest this lush and full of life despite the poor lighting, I expected at least one or so large animal to bar my way at some point. Hell, maybe even something that wasn't supposed to be killed like a casual prop tiger would have me regale at the world's lifelike ecosystem. Then again, this wasn't really earth, so why was I trying to compare it to that? Maybe the lack of a sun would prevent large animals from evolving here. And yet... somehow permit human life to survive and even thrive to create such a massive metropolis?

Wait.. Why am I even thinking this? "Different world, dumbass. Fantasy setting and all that..."

Why should I hold a game world to the standards of the real world? Didn't I just see a massive terrestrial moon floating just a few kilometers over another equally massive metropolis located in the middle of a gigantic cave? Wasn't I just talking to the one person that designed this whole thing in the first place earlier? Hell, I was just shooting a giant tentacle monster to death not even over an hour ago!

Shaking my head at my own stupid thoughts, I found myself in the middle of some kind of clearing a ways away from the cliff I found myself from earlier. The gigantic moon from before now loomed over me like some kind of doomsday rock. One that had lights and buildings studded all over it, but a massive doomrock nonetheless. Checking my HUD, nothing had changed whatsoever, and the light my halo was emitting was unironically helping with the traversal aspect of my current journey.

Meanwhile, Guidance was still typing furiously in the background.

Seriously, how long did it even take for someone to take a dive into the game files and copy the source code out of it? "Guidance?"

I leaned on the nearest tree as I stared at the starry void above, waiting for a single response from the usually shy and stuttering developer. From the sound of it, she was still busy working out whatever problem she had on her end. Not that I really cared with how much time had passed since then, but surely she had made some progress in my predicament.

I was already just asking for a name already.

The clattering of keys stopped for a brief moment before continuing, Guidance's voice filtering out in a tired manner that actually made me feel bad, *What is it?*

Yikes, "Have any luck getting your source code back?"

The solo dev audibly clicked her tongue as she replied, *Do you honestly think I have it when I haven't even contacted you yet?*

Ouch. That was pretty vitriolic of her to say. "Sorry for disturbing you then."

*Good.* The clattering of her keys returned in full force. *I'll tell you when I got it, okay? Be patient.*Visit no(v)eLb(i)n.𝘤𝑜𝓂 for the best novel reading experience

And with that, I was once again left to my lonesome as the faint sound of keyboard presses filled the atmosphere yet again.

"Still, it's getting kind of boring just walking around the forest..."

For a game world that's supposed to cater to dopamine-hunting gamers, the level of satisfaction I was getting from this place was practically nil. Beyond the occasional ooh-ing and ahh-ing earlier, the environments were generally lacking in terms of interactibility. I couldn't even grind out some [EXP] to get another level up while I was waiting for Guidance to finish her job. Sighing into the air as I looked up at the massive city-moon again, I found myself thinking about what the hell I was even supposed to do in this place. With no end-goal in sight, I was just practically winging it until I get to a single NPC that might give me an inkling of what to do.

And wasn't that a thought I kind of rue to think about...

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