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

Darkness. That was the first thing that came to mind after we got blown up by that boss. Guidance didn't even manage to finish her sentence before we all got sent to the afterlife. Well, I was guessing that this was the afterlife. There was nothing else here other than pitch black nothingness.

"Damn..."

...

.....

Huh. I would've expected that I'd be sadder than this, actually. I was dead along with the rest of my friends, and we didn't even manage to say goodbye to one another.

"What am I supposed to do now?"

Looking around, it was still blacker than black as I tried to feel for my own body. Well, try was the keyword, seeing as I couldn't feel a damn thing no matter how much I tried. The only thing I could hear was my own voice, and it felt like I was just, well, floating across the ether of nothingness.

Still, if I was still thinking like this, then surely I wasn't completely dead. I should've already blinked out of existence if that was the case, after all. If so, then was this some kind of mechanic or something?

"Hello? Is there anyone there?"

Calling out into the void, my voice echoed out towards the proverbial distance as I waited for a response.

...

...

Nothing.

"Heh, what did I even expect with that..."

Letting out a sigh, I mentally crossed my arms as I thought about my next move. If this was indeed some kind of mechanic, then surely there was a way out of it. Was it some kind of puzzle then?

[loading...]

Oh? Another loading prompt?

Just as quickly as the blackness came in, so did it pop back out as I was suddenly thrust back into reality. Finding myself back in the engine room, we were just outside the boss room with Guidance giving out her usual advice again.

Wait.. Did I just go back in time somehow?

"It was probably just introducing you to the boss," the dev quickly supplied beside me, repeating the same words she told me just a few minutes earlier.. "That's gonna always be the thing whenever we first encounter a notable boss. And speaking off..."

"The enemy! It finally appeared!"

I could only gape and gawk as I heard Maruki shout out his astonishment again. Sure enough, the boss was standing right in front of us, looking no worse for wear in the same way as we were.

This was.... This was weird...

"Moriya?"

I blinked as I turned to Shizu, a questioning look adorning her face as she stared at me.

"Is there something wrong?"

"I-It's nothing," I quickly replied, shaking off the weird occurrence that I just went through. "It must be the cutscene still putting me off balance."

"Well, you better get yourself together, Moriya," Guidance lightly chuckled. "I'd think that you'd be the one eager to get this thing over with."

"Y-Yeah," I weakly scoffed. "I guess it was just more disorienting than last time."

What the hell was this... I guess I really was in the past? Nobody seemed to remember what just happened. This also meant that we actually died just now, didn't it?

Fuck.

"Shall I, Lady Guidance?!" Maruki shouted out, his shield already glowing in anticipation.

"Go ahead."

At the dev's signal, our Tank walked towards the boss, his movements flowing in exactly the same way as last time as he taunted and kept all the attention to himself. Shizu and Guidance then promptly went to their respective positions, while I was still moving in slow motion like an idiot.

"Moriya, what're you doing?"

W-Wha? "O-Oh, sorry about that."

With nothing better to do, I assumed my usual position and started blasting the damn thing. As I expected, the same thing as last time happened, with the boss not doing much of anything while the four of us just kept pumping the damage up.

"So far so good," Guidance muttered to herself, her [Keystroke] glowing with each attack. "There's no raid-wide just yet, and its attention is focused solely on the tank."

"I know," I grimaced. "There's got to be more to this."

"Maybe it has some kind of hidden mechanic to it," Guidance pondered to herself. "I know I have a knack for doing tricky stuff like that to throw players off guard."

"Like what?"

"For one, I've made something that could-"

[SELF DESTRUCT!: 14%]

My eyes widened. "This again?!"

"Wha- It's going so fast!" Guidance managed to finish her words this time. "And what do you mean agai-"

[*BOOOOOMMMM!!!!*]

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Darkness... again.

"Dammit..."

Well, at least I now knew that being in this unrelenting void meant that we all died to something. Still, if the exact same thing was going to happen every time we respawned back, it was going to be a pain to adjust and compensate.

Especially if I was going to be the only guy to remember that we all died in the first place.

"How in the hell do we solve this thing..."

And wasn't that yet another thing that would be a pain to go through alone... I was pretty much alone in trying to solve how this thing worked, and if I wanted to do a brainstorming session, I'd have to repeatedly tell the guys what exactly happened in the fight based on my perspective alone.

And wasn't that just a pain...

[loading...]

Once again, after some time had passed, I was thrust back into the mouth of the boss room. We were all in our usual positions, and everyone was saying the exact same thing they just told me earlier.

"It was probably just introducing you to the boss. That's gonna always be the thing whenever we first encounter a notable boss. And speaking off..."

"The enemy! It finally appeared!"

I let out the biggest sigh I've ever had in a while as I stared at the boss. I guess this really was my life now, huh...

"Moriya?"

And of course, Shizu was the first one to notice my plight. Then again, what was stopping me from just sharing what I knew and telling Guidance to give themselves the power to let their memories persist through death? Wouldn't that just be the right thing to do here?

"Shizu, can you use [Code Watcher] for a second?"

"Uhm, why?"

"Just humor me."

Or better yet, why not just cheat?

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