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

Taking our first step into the dungeon, what was once the clean and bright hallways of the [Rig] suddenly looked straight out of a horror show as the blaring red lights of the alarms hauntingly illuminated the area. Maruki was doing a good job traversing the determined path in front of us, and I was only giving out the barest of directions as we slowly made our way down to the very depths of the [Rig].

"So this all ends in us being in the engine room, yeah?" Guidance asked behind me, her keyboard glowing faintly against the darkness. "I can only imagine what kind of boss we'll fight down there."

"So there is a boss then, huh," I chuckled.

"All of my dungeons follow the same structure of having three bosses with linear hallways connecting them together," Guidance explained herself. "Though, we should've come across some ads right about now. It's too quiet."

"Ads?"

I turned my attention to Shizu, her fists still partly raised even as the relative lull in action still persisted.

"Monsters or enemies that we have to defeat," I promptly explained. "They're called ads because they're just that. Additional garbage before we get to the real boss."

"Real... Boss?"

Oh, dear. "Well, a boss is-"

"CONTACT!"

My eyes widened at Maruki's bellowing alarm. Raising my pistols at the ready, I only then noticed that we were now in some sort of large room, almost the size of a hotel lobby that seemed to open out into some sort of arena. And of course, the ads were all clumped up within it, their spears and tentacles all undulating as their fish head gaped at us like we were the first sight of food they've had for years.

[Fishmen: Level 18]

[Fishmen: Level 18]

[Fishmen: Level 18]

[Fishmen Knight: Level 20]

[Fishmen Archer: Level 19]

[Fishmen Archer: Level 19]

Almost immediately, my HUD displayed what exactly we were fighting against. They were all a few levels below us, thankfully, but I just know that the level sync system had already kicked in and leveled us back down to a weaker level.

"There's so many..." Shizu whispered out.

"Huh, that's a sizeable pull number," Guidance whistled out in seeming appreciation. "That's gonna be a decent amount to test out my healing capabilities."

I could scoff at Guidance's utter lack of care. I guess she already regressed back into her raider style of thinking. Even now, she was already looking at us like we were idiots. I've played as a healer before, and I could already tell that she was already thinking of ways on how to leave us with as little [HP] as possible without us dying.

"Moriya! Orders!"

I almost let out a yelp when Maruki suddenly called out to me. Turning to him, the tin can had his sword and shield at the ready, his shied in particular somehow glowing with a dull sheen as he positioned himself in front of us.

"Uhm... Let me think..."

Looking around, we were currently at the mouth of the large room. We haven't pulled any aggro yet, so we had all the time in the world to think.

"Shouldn't we just go in and wreck stuff?" Shizu casually chimed in. "We'll just kill them before they can even do a thing."

"I don't think that's how it works, Shizu," I advised against her. "We're in a party of four for a reason, and Maruki's here to make sure that all of them is hitting him instead of us."

"Huh? But wouldn't that, well, not be good for him?"

"Moriya's right," Guidance quickly replied. "Besides, keeping him alive is my job."

"A general strategy then?!" Maruki suddenly yelled out from in front of us. "Kindly explain our plan of attack, Lady Guidance!"

The dev and I shared a look. I couldn't help but chuckle as Guidance sighed into her relegated role. Well, it was her game, so it should be her that's giving out exposition to those that needed it.

"Okay, here's the general gist on how we run any encounter as a party," she began, her fingers already flying across her keyboard as she made her holographic screen change shape. "A [Half Party] will always consist of four people; one Tank, one Healer, and two DP-err Damage Dealers. The Tank makes sure that all of the enemies are hitting him and only him, while the Healer makes sure that the Tank and the rest of the party stay relatively healthy. And of course, the Damage Dealers well, deal damage."

"Sounds straightforward enough, no?" I amusingly scoffed. "All we have to do is kill the enemies, Shizu. Maruki and Guidance will keep us alive."

"That doesn't mean you two don't have any responsibilities, you know," the dev quickly snorted. "You two should at least keep yourselves healthy by avoiding unnecessary damage. My time shouldn't be wasted on healing too much. If we take too long in clearing a dungeon, we might just time out."

My eyes widened, "Wait, time out? You mean you added a timer on dungeon clears?"

"It's to avoid people cheesing it, Moriya," Guidance explained with a haughty tone. "I want my players to suffer, and that's exactly how I'm going to do it."

Shizu and I blinked at Guidance before we shared a common look. I was pretty sure that we were both thinking of the same thing as I asked, "You want us to suffer?"

"Wha- No?" the dev shamelessly answered. "Well, maybe. I want my games to be hard, and there's no difficulty option either."

...

...

An awkward silence settled between us. The entire topic had gone so off the rails that Shizu was barely hanging on with all of her open-mindedness. I could only guess as to what Maruki was getting from this conversation, but I-

"Haha! I have no idea what you're all talking about!"

Well... I guess that answered that question.

"Look, can we just get on with it?" I sighed. "We can all talk about this stuff later once we're all not in mortal danger."

"Agreed," Guidance scoffed. "Let's just stick to the plan of Maruki charging in with us following behind him. I'll keep you all alive as long as you're all doing your jobs correctly."

I almost let out an aggravated sigh. Just what in the world did I do to deserve this?

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