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

Oookay? Something's clearly wrong now.

"W-what the... It didn't work?"

I could only blink as I watched Guidance hit her enter key again. And again. And again. Her keyboard's repeated clacking kept on going as her face contorted with each key press. Beside her, Shizu's look of concern grew ever so dimmer as the dev's own face of confusion and anger kept growing.

"W-Why isn't this working?!" Guidance screamed, her finger still depressed on the enter key. "The code's sound! And there sure as hell isn't anything stop me from overwriting the damn thing!"

"G-Guidance? I-It's-"

"Why?! Why?!" the dev yelled, tears starting to shimmer in her eyes as she kept on going. "I'm not letting this thing go!"

I let out my own grimace as I watched Guidance devolve back into her coding. Her eyes wide and shimmering, the frustration rolling off her was so thick that the rest of us had no choice but to awkwardly stand there and let her do her thing. Meanwhile, Shizu was saddled with the awkward role of having to help Guidance through all of this. The princess didn't even manage to complete her own thought as she returned to her meek position of uttering out code.

Still, this is painful to watch.

"Okay, let's try this again," Guidance almost panted out, a tired and desperate smile etched on her face as she stared at her [Manifest]. "I redid the whole thing. And if it still doesn't work, then I don't know what will."

We all kept our silence as the dev once more pressed her enter key. With a resounding clack, the echo of her keystroke was as epic as it was nerve-wracking.

...

....

And unfortunately, it didn't seem to work again.

"Dammit... DAMMIT!"

[*CLACK! CLACK!*]

Woah! "Easy, Guidance! You don't have to-"

"I can do whatever I damn well please right now, Moriya!" Guidance angrily yelled at me, both of her hands still busy smashing her [Keystroke] at the nearest wall. "Besides, [Manifests] are indestructible unless the [Somatic's] mental state regarding it is compromised! And I'm pretty sure I'm still good at coding!"

[*CLACK!*]

Beside her, Shizu flinched at each impact as she stood by helplessly, her arm hesitant to reach out and stop the dev from her gamer rage. Maruki was still quiet, but I could tell that he was also close to trying to set up an intervention. Thinking about it, I really should try and stop her now.

[*CLACK!]

...Or maybe later, actually. Maybe she'd run out of steam eventually.

[Clack! clack...*]

"Stupid keyboard..."

Thankfully, the dev did run out of energy as each hit became weaker than the last. In the end, Guidance was panting as she leaned on the nearest wall, tears running down her cheeks as she sighed.

"H-Heh... I guess I'm just useless for now..."

I winced at her words. She sounded so defeated...

"G-Guidance, I-I don't think it's your fault," Shizu weakly spoke up, her face still pale from witnessing Guidance's outburst.

"What is then?" the dev asked. "Cause I'm pretty sure I did everything right."

The princess took in a breath before she explained, "W-Well, I noticed that there's some kind of barrier keeping us in this dungeon. Your [Manifest] was trying to add the code, but it just couldn't manage to pierce through..."

I blinked at that piece of information. I really wish I was some kind of tech wiz to really get into the nitty-gritty of this. Damn... I feel like a bystander.

"Wait... you didn't tell me this earlier?" Guidance incredulously asked, her earlier depression replaced with... hope?

"I thought your [Manifest] can change it as well," Shizu meekly admitted. "I tried telling you after the first attempt, but you..."

​ "You blew up," I finished Shizu's sentence for her. Frankly, it kind of felt awkward trying to inject myself into the conversation, but... Oh well. What's done was done. "You didn't even give her a chance to speak up."

"Yeah, well that's because I was too busy mourning for my perfectly good code," Guidance humorlessly chuckled. "And here I thought I was losing my touch..."

"Don't think that. Stop thinking that you're not doing enough," I chided her, my eyes then roaming towards Shizu as her glowing black and green eyes stared at me. "And that goes to both of you. We don't blame ourselves for something we can't possibly anticipate or know, okay?"

"But I still should've known though," Shizu sighed, tilting her head down away from my gaze. "I knew that Guidance needed all the information she could get, but I-"

"Nonsense. You couldn't have known," Guidance scoffed, standing straight back up as she wiped away her tears. "Besides, we're not all perfect. There's no way we won't make a few mistakes here and there."

"We just learn," I smiled, giving the two an encouraging chuckle as their spirits visibly lifted themselves up. "If this barrier thing is keeping Guidance from making changes, then by beating the boss, that should be gone, seeing as we'd be out of the dungeon by then."

"That's a solid theory," Guidance nodded. "We're currently in an instance, and while I should still theoretically do some changes, the change I was trying to do involved more on the major side of things as opposed to the last few changes I made. I was trying to raise NPC restrictions, after all."

"I see," I hummed. "So right now, we're limited to trying to solve this boss fight with just me relaying to you three how far we got each run."

"It looks to be like that, yes," Guidance sighed, her eyes turning to the boss menacingly waiting for us to engage. "And by your own word, we still haven't even solved the first mechanic."

I heard Shizu silently turning off her [Code Watcher] before she turned me. Maruki also turned his gaze to face me, his expression one of anticipation and resolute duty as he waited. And of course, Guidance was now also looking at me expectantly.

Talk about pressure. I really was gonna be the only one trying to solve this, huh...

Guidance chuckled at my predicament with a smirk. "Well? What's the plan?"

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