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

Shade's straight bluntness stood as a stark contrast to his usual save tone as he dropped the bombshell that these Vermes things were responsible as to why the Deep was so perilous to navigate in the first place. It was, well, inevitable that Guidance will have to face the wrath of this world's denizens for her design decisions, but the constant whammy of one bombshell after another was starting to make it all blend together in a soup of noncaring shrugs.

In short, I was running out of damns to give again.

"W-Well... I..."

"The will of the Goddess cannot be questioned, Shade!" Maruki yelled out in his usual tone. "If the world has to suffer from these Elden abominations, then it shall be done!"

"That wasn't what you were yelling when we had to dispatch of one months ago," the rose-wielding Somatic scoffed. "If I recall, you even called them heathen scum."

That promptly shut Maruki up, though it was clear that our tank was far from conceding his point. In the meantime, he retreated back to the nearest wall, standing in his usual vigil as he fumed.

Yet another round of silence settled between the rest of us. It was actually becoming a common enough of an occurrence that I was starting to get used to the awkwardness that followed such things. Then again, I really should be intervening before Guidance went into another nervous breakdown.

"Can you stop that, Shade? We promised that we'll give you all our explanations, and here we are producing them," I chastised him, the man simply grumbling as he stayed silent. "At the very least, we should give Guidance the benefit of the doubt. She loves this world as much as you all do."

"Hah! Love?"

Everybody flinched at Shade's sarcastic guffaw. That wasn't good...

"This entire world is a mess. The three Great Nations are at war with one another, the Deep itself is a monster-infested deathtrap, and we're living in a world almost entirely devoid of light," Shade bitterly enumerated. "Hell, the [Stars] above can barely illuminate the world around us, let alone that monstrosity of an artificial sun that Marquee's trying to get going. Whatever that is."

"W-what? An artificial sun?"

Before I could even question what was even happening, Guidance was already gawking out in confusion at what we just heard. I could only assume that this artificial sun was yet another one of her scrapped ideas.

"I'm assuming you know of what it is the Marqueans are playing with then?" Shade asked.

"T-That shouldn't be in the game... I haven't even fleshed out exactly how it works...."

Oh dear...

"But you know of it," Shade pressed on, crossing his arms in wait as he added. "The damn thing's constantly being uttered around back when I came close to landing in Marquee during my travels. Is it a weapon of mass destruction like most people say it is?"

Shizu's alarmingly perked up upon hearing that term. I didn't blame her. I'd probably look just as alarmed as she was if I heard that one of my homeland's major enemies had a potential nuke aimed right at us.

"Y-Yes? Wai- No... I mean, it could be?" Guidance weakly answered, seemingly unsure of what to even say. "Like I said, I haven't even finished working out how to implement the damn thing... It shouldn't be here, let alone being worked on by Marquee."

The conversation died out slowly after that. Instead, we were all staring at the holographic chart in front of us as the possibility of a WMD hung over our necks. Even I was pretty cautious about the damn thing, I was pretty sure that it was far from complete if it wasn't being waved around like a deterrent stick by its owners.

"S-So all this time, those Marqueans were building a weapon to wipe us all out," Shizu breathed out, her tone shakily escaping her lips as her eyes narrowed. "Forget Vestyge. Wouldn't this be the more important target? This is too big to simply ignore!"

"But the quest though..." Guidance mumbled aloud. "If we deviate even further, who knows what will-"

"Would it even matter?"

All eyes went to me as I said my piece. Letting out a sigh, I stared at the chart as I explained myself. "First of all, the quest system isn't even working anymore. Even completing that dungeon earlier barely gave me enough [EXP]."

"[EXP]?" Shade incredulously asked. "Some kind of resource?"

"In a sense, yes," I nodded. "It allows me to grow stronger and add more [Moves] to my [Manifest], along with improving it the more I grew in strength."

"I see... So you've also been lying to us about the true extent of your [Manifest]," he hummed in deliberation. "And seeing as the Emperor himself told of your potential... I can see why he chose you despite only seemingly having a weak power."

Okay? That was kind of offensive, but I'll take the compliment.

"In a sense, I'm supposed to get stronger the more objectives or opponents I solve or beat," I continued. "Unfortunately, the world itself seems to be against it as it continues to break the further I try to get into it."

"You mean..." Shade trailed off, clearly wanting me to continue.

"He means that the very fabric of this world is fraying at the seams," Guidance meekly replied, putting herself into the conversation once more. "And it's all my fault..."

"Ah..."

Shizu's sudden gasp caught everyone's attention as we all looked at her. Instead of explaining herself, however, she simply looked pensive as she waved us off. "I-It's nothing..."

Not like it would work with how everything was happening right now. "I don't think that's less than nothing, Shizu."

"Well, it's just that earlier accident that happened to me earlier back in the engine room," Shizu recounted. "For some reason, it felt like I was forgetting something..."

Ugh.... As if we didn't need any more problems. "So you mean to tell us that you've been keeping it to yourself?"

"It didn't look too important at the time," the princess explained herself with a frown. "But Guidance's words kind of gave me an inkling of an idea..."

I sighed. "Let's hear it then."

There was no other time better than now for this. At least we'll all be on the same page after all this.

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