Kusoge Online (BETA) - Volume 1 - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: 
Happiness All Around in the 
Debugging Room 

The Second Sword & Magic Online Development Strategy Meeting Chairman: Genius Gamemaster Alice 
"Well the~n, let us start the meeting~!" 
Alice stood on top of a mandarin box in the middle of the debugging room and slapped onto the whiteboard in a super lively manner. Sasaraki was in front of her, at his right and left Azrael and Lizna. The two of them were gazing at the whiteboard with a super serious expression. 
—In the end, Sasaraki had accepted Lizna and Azrael's request. 
He still felt some reluctance against dragging the two of them into this mess, but they had persuaded him strongly with Lizna tear-choking and asking, "Aren't we… 
friends…?," while Azrael grew exasperated claiming, "Unfair! It's unfair that only you get to do it—!" 
That's how much both of them had wanted to do this. 
Out of options, Sasaraki tried asking Alice about it, who immediately replied… 
"With pleasure, of course—!" 
Sasaraki seemed to have been the only one seriously worrying about it. 
Now the 'Immortal Pendant (Imitation)' was sparkling on both Azrael and Lizna's necks. They were copies made by Fury which allowed them to use a restricted version of the 'Master Screen.' 
"Now, we still have to explain our critical situation— Fury, if you would." 
"Aye-aaaye? Explanation of our critical situation underway?" 
Behind Alice, Fury flapped with her wings and took out a board you'd find in Japanese TV programs. In fancy characters it said, [What Could the Critical Situation be?!], beneath that, [#1], [#2], and [#3]. 

The answers were hidden beneath stickers, such that you'd also find on Japanese TV programs. 
"Sasaraki, what's the meaning of doing it like this?" 
Azrael whispered into his ear from next to him, looking a bit underwhelmed. 
"Might be just Alice's taste… I've no idea what the point is." 
"It's surely to loosen up the atmosphere! As expected of Alice-san!" 
Recently, Lizna's head has been working in curious ways... 
"Here we go! Critical situation number 1!" 
She fiddled the sticker off. 
[There's no second floor.] 
"—Hah?" 
Azrael gaped with her mouth. 
"Eh? Wai— What do you mean?" 
"Thaaat's, you kno~w?" 
Fury repeated the same cheerful explanation she had also told Sasaraki before. 
Azrael remained speechless for a while. 
"Are we really going to turn a blind eye to something this retarded?! That's deception, isn't it?!" 
"Ahaha, isn't the very existence of VRMMOs themselves a deception already??" 
"Wha—?!" 
She grew speechless again upon Fury's reckless remark. 
"So what are you going to do?? Abandon this empty world??" 

Azrael had nothing to reply to that. 
However, she looked at Lizna— and at Sasaraki next to her. 
"—I-I'm not gonna abandon it, of course…" 
She said a bit mortified. 
"Mhhh…" 
Next to her, Lizna stared in puzzlement. 
"Azrael, what are you so shocked about?" 
"You're pretty calm, aren't you, Lizna?" 
Sasaraki asked, and Lizna inclined her head in wonder. 
"Eh? Well, this world's a kusoge, so this much's a given, no?" 
"No, I don't think it is, you know?" 
"It isn't?" 
Her common sense must've really gone awry at some point. 
"You see, I haven't played any other games before… Mhhh, but I don't think it's that big of a deal." 
Then Lizna put her fingers to her temples with a bump and groaned. 
"Although, if others will be disappointed by that, we should implement it or things will be bad, won't they?" 
"Pretty bad." 
Alice said. 
"How long would it take to implement the second floor?" 
"If I had to do a rough guess, I'd say about two weeks, huh?" 
Two more weeks. So we have to do that (the raid group genocide) two more times, don't we…? 

"Wait, is implementing that even something you can do in two weeks?" 
This game's first floor was already the size of the Yamate rail line's area. 
Apparently, the game could create fields automatically, but what would they do about the content? A simple tutorial dungeon had taken them three hours already. 
"It's fine, I've a plan. Rest assured." 
Alice smiled sweetly. Did she really have one? 
"We'll save the explanation for later, okay? And next, critical situation number 2!" 
Leaving the dumbfounded Sasaraki behind, Fury fiddled off the sticker. 
[There are too many critical bugs, called features.] 
"Eh~?? They are features, with much thought behind them?" 
Fury protested with a smile. 
"As far as you're concerned, every bug's a feature, isn't it…?" 
"I'm merely faithfully protecting my former master's issue fixing flow?" 
"What kinda flow is that?" 
"Problems you can fix are bugs? Problems you can't fix are features?" 
That fixing flow was so useless that it already felt refreshing instead. 
"Which means that with no programmer at hand right now, all problems are features?" 
"That's horrible!" 
"It is horrible, isn't it??" 
"Ehehe," Fury acted embarrassed for some reason. 

"We've to maintain the program asap, don't we? Now, the last one *peelpeel*" 
[Three weeks until the end of service.] 
"Huh? Weren't it four weeks?" 
"We've received a mail from Kirine." 
Alice materialized an A4 sized paper at her hands and gave it to Sasaraki. 
He had no idea why she'd go out of her way to turn it into paper form, but he just started to read it for the time being. 
[I'm sorry, it were three weeks. 
It's Kirine. 
I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. 
It actually weren't four but three weeks until the end of service. 
The data on the total amount of active players was outdated. 
It weren't 10562 but 10420. 
It's all due to my carelessness. 
I'm really sorry. 
It's only natural that I should die to atone for my sins, but if I were to die in the hospital, I'd be a bother to the doctors, so I'll live on until I'm discharged. 
That's all, that's my report. 
P.S.: Should I just die now, after all?] 

"Please don't die, okay?!" 
"It's fine, I got her a skilled therapist." 
Nothing's fine! 
"Anyways, which means— Lizna, Azrael…" 
Alice turned around. Both of them nodded. 
"The service will be discontinued once the player count goes below 10000, right?" 
Lizna raised her hand and said that. 
"Yeah. The funds from the Neo Virtual World Funding Organization will end and our servers with them." 
"Couldn't we make a backup at least?" 
Lizna asked. She appeared to dislike the thought of our memories to disappear. 
"A sound suggestion, but there's one problem." 
Alice raised her index finger. 
"We've no programer so we can't code a backup program." 
"Our end is nigh, huh…?" 
"It'd be great if a master programmer could just fall from the sky or something." 
"Of course something that convenient won't—" 
"We have one, you know?" 
Lizna interrupted. All of their gazes concentrated on her. 
"—Eh? Lizna, you can write code?" 
"No. It's not me, it's Azrael-san." 
"Heh—?!" 

The person mentioned, Azrael herself, stared in puzzlement. 
"Look, you said so before, didn't you? 'Why I've been called for the beta test? 
Fufu, actually I'm infamous for being a middle-schooler super hacker beauty at certain places. The developers themselves came and asked for my help specifically!,' was it?" 
Sweat ran down Azrael's cheeks when she heard Lizna's imitation of her own voice. 
"Huh? Am I wrong?" 
"............O…" 
Azrael put her hand to her cheek and puffed her big chest out in pride. 
"O-Of course! Just like you said! Leave it to me—!" 
"Nonono…" 
That's obviously a lie. 
"Heeeh? Can we count on you, then?" 
Alice smiled sweetly, I hurried to her side. 
"Alice, that's not a good idea, she's definitely lying." 
"I know. There was no beta test, to begin with." 
"—Hah?" 
What did she just say? 
"We didn't do any beta tests. We only did them on paper, you know?" 
"Nonono!" 
Impossible. This was supposed to be the first ever VRMMO. 
They couldn't have just started the service without any testing by players. 
"There are three reasons for that." 

"Three?" 
"We had neither the time nor the money nor the human resources." 
Hopeless reasons, indeed. 
"Huh? But Azrael called herself a beta tester?" 
"You're really kind-hearted to not put the pieces together, aren't you?" 
"...Uwaah…" 
He had realized yet another thing he shouldn't have. 
"But it's a fact that we need a programmer, you know? I did tell Kirine to hire someone, but of course there's no capable personnel with experience in programming that we could employ for cheap— so the plan is to give her the manual as reference and see how it goes for now. We've nothing to lose, you know?" 
"We're really with our backs to the wall!" 
And five minutes later… 
Azrael sat in front of the console, frozen, as expected. 
Cold sweat glistened on her cheeks. 
Her eyes grew terribly small, about the size of toy bricks. That in front of her seemed to be the code that told the program what to do, but— 
"How is it, Azrael-san?! Will you be able to do something about it?!" 
Lizna asked with her eyes sparkling. 
Almost 10 seconds later, Azrael's neck rattled towards her. 
"It… It'll just… take a bit, but… I can—!" 
She's really bluffing hard , he thought. 
"So all that's left is Lizna, right?" 

With Azrael, who was battling it out with the source code, in the corner of their vision, the other three started their discussion. In their center was a low dining table, and a teacup plus mandarin for everyone. They seemed to be the objects Fury's former master had prepared as his pastime. There was no taste simulation, so they were nothing but luxuries you could touch. 
This game was really only devoted to useless stuff. 
"What should I do?" 
"Let me ask instead: What do you want to do?" 
"Eh—?" 
Lizna blinked in surprise. 
"Going by what we could do right now, there's enhancing tutorials for beginners, debugging, normalizing gold value, adding dungeons, doing gamemaster-initiated events, creating the second floor… a lot, you see." 
Alice continued while munching away on potato chips. 
"We're lacking just about everything, so you could just do whatever you want, you know?" 
"We're really in a grim pinch, aren't we…?" 
And yet, Alice was striving to peel a mandarin like a kid. 
"Those who are gamemasters shall have leisure whatever the time may be." 
She chuckled. 
"Sasaraki, you take it easy too, okay? Even if this game ends, you aren't the ones who will die or something." 
"...We aren't the ones?" 
It was a strange way to put it. 
"Eh? Someone dies when this game's over?" 

"Mh…" 
Alice ceased her movements. 
A few seconds later. 
"—Yeah." 
She showed them a refreshing and lovely smile. 
"Kirine will hang by the neck, but she reaps what she sowed, so no problem." 
"There's an obvious problem with that, you know?!" 
"Well, even if it comes to that, it's not your fault, you know?" 
Alice clapped her hands together as if to say, 'Let's stop that topic.' 
This is bad. I've to give it my all for Kirine-san (Although I haven't even met her yet)! 
"So, Lizna, do you fancy one of the tasks?" 
"Umm…" 
Lizna put her hand to her lips and looked up at the ceiling, "Mhh—" 
Then her face suddenly broke into a bright smile. 
"Then I'd like to try those 'gamemaster-initiated events!'" 
"Heeh, do you have some sort of plan?" 
"Yes! I want to hold a magnificent wedding ceremony!" 
She wanted to show everyone the bond of love that had grown between two players here and as such make everyone understand the beauty in this game. 
Once Lizna was done with her energetic explanation, Alice applauded. She seemed to like the idea. 
"A good idea, isn't it? So do you know a bride and groom?" 
"Of course!" 
"...I've got a feeling, but who is it?" 

"Sasaraki-kun and Azrael-san!" 
"I thought that much!" 
"You all really get along well, ri~ght?" 
Alice smiled heartwarmingly while peeling away on the mandarin. 
* * * 
The wedding had been cancelled insistently (especially by Azrael). 
And so Lizna had been assigned to creating dungeons. 
To begin with, this world featured a technology which generated dungeons - 
apart from the last one - automatically on a daily basis. Their interiors, trap setups, and chests changed every time someone cleared them, allowing for infinite adventures— or so they advertized it, but in truth there were only four different patterns. 
Infinite dungeons (four of them). 
"A really retarded feature, isn't it?" 
"Sasaraki, you're thinking the wrong way." 
"The wrong way?" 
"With four different kinds of them— we'll be increasing the dungeon variety by 20% if we add one!" 
Alice's extremely positive way of thinking was impressive at times. 
In any case, Alice taught Lizna how to make dungeons for that matter. In the meantime, Sasaraki tended to floor 2. Azrael was busy having steam rising from her head while reading a mysterious reference book called 'Alice's Programming Manual.' 

When he thought that things'd take a while— 
"I'm done!" 
"Way too fast—!" 
After about 30 minutes, Lizna had completed a dungeon prototype. 
When Sasaraki had done that before, it'd taken him three hours to think up an interesting design. 
"No way—?!" 
Taking a glimpse from behind, Azrael had turned around in surprise, too. 
Her black bangs were gracing her face. 
"Y-You created it properly, right?" 
"Ah, Sasaraki-kun, you're doubting me?" 
"Fufufu—," Lizna laughed mischievously. 
Alice folded her arms satisfiedly beside her. 
"It's true, you know? Let's do some test-playing right away!" 
As instructed by Alice, Sasaraki operated the Master Screen and teleported the four of them to a grass field about five minutes away from 'Start.' It was an area players were prohibited from entering. Even if I say prohibited from entering, it was just a place enclosed by a rope with a sign hanging on it saying, 'Do not enter, we're testing.' 
"And I thought that was just a joke… Why don't you put the map into an independent instance?" 
"There was no budget for that, Master?" 
That's this game in a nutshell. 
"I'll put up the dungeon then, okay? Eii—!" 

Lizna threw the cube on the grassfield. You could hear some strange 'boun'-ish sound effect, and right after, the grasslands were thickly covered in white smoke. Once the smoke finally lifted, a stronghold-like dungeon was standing in front of Sasaraki and company. 
The entrance consisted of a door made out of rotten wood. 
"Ooh… Feels like a genuine dungeon, doesn't it?" 
"Fufufu. It's Lizna's masterpiece, a masterpiece, I tell you!" 
"So you had this kinda talent, huh, Lizna…?" 
Lizna stared in puzzlement. 
"I'm nothing compared to Azrael-san!" 
"Eh—?" 
"I don't understand a thing about programming and all this!" 
"Eh—? Ah, y-yeah, well, that's right, huh—? I'm the amazing one here, huh?!" 
Could Lizna know it all and say this stuff on purpose? 
"C'mon, c'mon, let's get in there already!" 
Lizna said and pushed Sasaraki's back. 
When he turned around, he could see Lizna's excited smile. 
For a moment, he had a bad feeling about this. 
After all, it was the same smile she had worn when she beat Sasaraki to death before. 
He felt that this dungeon was going to be plenty dangerous— 
"What are you doing, Sasaraki? I'm going ahead." 
Azrael said and put her hand on the doorknob, the next instant the door exploded and sent her flying into the sky. She hit the invisible ceiling (the world's border) and came crashing into the ground magnificently; 2850 damage. 

The sparkly demise effect arose from the instantly dead Azrael. 
Exactly five seconds later. 
"What was this?" 
"A funny trap!" 
A funny trap (player dies). 
Sasaraki sighed about three times. Then he shouted... 
"WHY WOULD THE ENTRANCE EXPLODE?!" 
"Eh? No specific reason." 
"No specific reason?!" 
"But it's surprising, isn't it?" 
"It is! But… you know?!" 
Azrael revived and came looking at Lizna dumbfoundedly. 
Only Alice was folding her arms and seemed to be in deep thought about something. 
"So, Azrael-san, how was it?" 
"........................I died…" 
"So you died, huh?! Then I did it, didn't I?!" 
"...Rather, I was done in…" 
What was with that conversation? 
"The interior wouldn't be stuffed with such death traps, would it…?" 
"Ah, it's fine! Only the beginning's an explosion!" 
"I-Is that so?" 
Azrael regained her smile. 
"T-That's right, huh? It was just a joke, after all!" 

While she expressed some wishful thinking, they exchanged nods. I get it, so that's the kind of joke Lizna makes. Or maybe a warning that if we treat carelessly, death will be waiting for us. It's not a hobby of hers or something. 
Harboring that hope in his heart, Sasaraki stepped through the doorway whose door had been wrecked just now. 
And the second he stepped into the dungeon, he could hear an ominous rumbling. 
Blue flames shot up from the path, enveloping Sasaraki and the others entirely. 
[You Died. Reason: Hellfire Trap] 
It said in front of his eyes. 
After five more dumbfounded seconds, he revived at the respawn. 
To his right he saw Azrael. She seemed to have been swallowed up by it too. She wore a poker face. 
To his left he could see Alice. Almost unscathed. Come to think of it, she had about 40300000000 HP. 
In front of him was Lizna. She asked with a smile brimming on her whole face… 
"How was it—?!" 
Ten seconds passed. 
Finally, Sasaraki replied in a monotonous voice… 
"........................I died…" 
"So you died, huh?! Then I did it, didn't I?!" 
"Rather, I was done in…" 
What was with this conversation (twice within three minutes)? 

"Lizna, didn't you say only the entrance would explode?" 
"It is only the entrance that will explode . The traps after that are all different." 
An awkward silence filled the air for a while. Nobody said a word. 
Sasaraki turned his gaze to Azrael. [You go tell her, you're close friends, you two've been together far longer than she and I] , he signaled with his eyes. [I-I can't say such a heartless thing to a close friend now, can I?!] she returned. 
"Lizna." 
While our matter of life or death still went on, Alice smiled sweetly. 
"You're banned from using death traps from now on, okay?" 
"EEEEEEH—?!" 
* * * 
Their Youth Health Login Time was over and both of the girls had logged out. 
A nostalgic insect chirping resounded in the debugging room. Alice had spread out a drawing paper across the low dining table. She drew something on it with a pencil. Sasaraki sat opposite of her. Listening to the pleasant sound— Sasaraki suddenly mumbled... 
"Why the chirping in a virtual world?" 
A clearly weird configuration. 
"My former master commanded this, you know??" 
Fury said. 
"There's been a lot of staff lamenting, 'I wanna leave this labor camp already and go back to the countryside.' so he reproduced an atmosphere like in the 176 
countryside to try and keep them in check? The results have been outstanding and everyone turned into zombies who did their work without a word of complaint?" 
"The reason and result are plain wrong!" 
Sasaraki fell prostrate on the low dining table. 
Was it even possible to do support for this game? 
He honestly didn't even know where to begin. 
"Well, games were not built in a day— And here..." 
Alice replied while not stopping to doodle on the drawing paper. 
"Alice, what have you been drawing since earlier?" 
"A map for the second floor." 
"Eh?" 
"I want to start making it from tomorrow on." 
Alice smiled sweetly. Her hands didn't stop moving nonetheless. Taking a look at it, what she was drawing on the paper really did resemble a map. The circles and crosses seemed to indicate locations and events, and it was stuffed with detailed comments. 
"This time we're not doing a dungeon, but a field, an area. Fufufu, what should I come up with this time, I wonder~" 
Alice let the pencil run across the drawing paper. She still looked pretty energetic. 
Where did that small body of hers take all the verve from? 
"By the way, Alice, you still fine with the login time limit?" 
"It's okay. Japanese law doesn't apply to me." 
"Doesn't seem okay to me at all, though…" 

Does that mean she holds no fundamental human rights? 
Or is she logging in from overseas? 
"Rather, Sasaraki, would you mind checking Fury's report?" 
"Report?" 
"The tally of GM calls— all the complaints and requests she gets from players." 
He did as he was asked and requested it from Fury. She nodded. 
"Here comes today's Fury-chan report?" 
She produced a binder with a, "Here you go." 
[?Fury-chan's Perfect Report? 
Today, there was a total of 585 GM calls. Their breakdown is as follows? 
1) Bug Reports 
0 
2) Questions About Features 
 230 
3) Complaints Towards Fury-chan 
0 
4) Love Calls Towards Fury-chan ? 
 355 
In other words, there are no problems at all, everything's perfect? End of report.] 
A report with nothing but things to tsukkomi on. 
To put it differently, there had been 230 bug reports and 355 complaints towards the devs. 
"This is confusing, so I'd like to change the definition of bug." 

"No can do?" 
She replied immediately. 
"Ehehe, it's embarrassing if you stare at me like that, you kno~w?" 
"...Didn't you say my orders are absolute?" 
Yesterday, she had readily replied 'Understood?' when he had ordered her to guide beginners through the tutorial dungeon. 
"Even if you control my body, you can't control my heart?" 
"What's with that logic?!" 
"I don't want to do it, so I won't do i~t?" 
Fury put both her fists to her chin and voiced a meaningless sound effect, 
"Kyaruun?" 
"Seems like you can't overwrite her former master's orders, huh?" 
Alice sighed. 
"Well, please bear with it for now. After all, she's an AI intelligent enough to be able to communicate on her own— she seems to record things 'related to features,' so once I sorted them out, the players' opinions should come in handy." 
"You'll find no fairy as useful as Fury-chan, you know??" 
Fury puffed up her chest with a, "Ehen." 
"So we got— 585 cases, I'll organize them for a bit." 
"I'll help, too." 
"We can't have that. You should go sleep already, Sasaraki." 
Alice stood up with while hugging the binder. 
"You're an ordinary human being. It's not good to push yourself." 
"You're talking as if you aren't…" 

"Of course I'm not. I'm a genius gamemaster." 
"That doesn't answer anything!" 
"Fufufu— Well, seriously, don't push yourself, okay?" 
Alice smiled sweetly. 
"If it weren't for you, I couldn't do anything. I'm really grateful." 
"Eh—? Y-You're welcome." 
To be told that with such a carefree smile felt embarrassing for some reason. 
"I've to reward you once work quiets down, right?" 
"It's fine, you've no money to begin with, do you?" 
"Of course not, but— hm. At times like these, there's only one thing I can give you, huh?" 
Alice chuckled. 
Then she extended her hand to the hem of her skirt. She lifted it up. 
Exposing the root of her already white thighs, she— WAIT A SEC?! 
"WHA—?! Alice, what are you doing?!" 
"Isn't it the royal road to 'pay with your body' at times like these?" 
"If we implement that royal road, this game'll turn R18, alright—?!" 
"Ara, looks like you're still composed enough to tsukkomi, aren't you~?" 
Alice let go of her skirt. Sasaraki calmed down. 
Even though three years younger than him, seeing a girl's bare skin really did make his heart pound. 
"But I truly am grateful. If you want to do something, tell me, okay?" 
She said and flicked with her fingers. 

The scene on the Main Screen changed. It showed a space covered in white mist. 
The fine mist sparkled. That certainly was— the place he had seen when he first met Alice— rather, the place where she had been shut away to. 
"It's the 255th floor. That's where I'll be working." 
"Why that?" 
"Time flows slower there, just the right place to get work done." 
"—Hah?" 
"You often find rooms in games where time flows slower, right?" 
"Stuff like that happens, yeah— Wai— Isn't that weird?!" 
"Were there things in this game that aren't weird?" 
He couldn't return anything to that. 
However— was it really okay for such a technology to exist? 
Feels like a discovery that'd boost work efficiency manyfold and revolutionize the— 
"You lose the second you start to think about it, Sasaraki." 
Alice raised and waved a hand, saying "Bye-bye." 
"See you tomorrow then, okay~? Main skill, [Return]!" 
Right after, Alice was enveloped in a pillar of light. 
A few seconds later, the light disappeared. 
"Really… what is Alice?" 
Sasaraki mumbled to himself while looking at the place Alice had been standing on. 
The self-proclaimed 12-year-old genius gamemaster. 
She was just as full of mysteries as this bug-infested game. 
Like, who is she? 

"You're making the face of a programmer surrounded by bugs, Master?" 
A voice said from the side. When he turned around, Fury had been right next to him before he realized it. 
"Well… frankly, I'd like to ask a whole bunch of questions about Alice." 
"Should Fury-chan answer them, then??" 
"Eh—?" 
Fury and his eyes met. This fairy certainly was ought to have a lot of knowledge. 
Problem was, would she answer properly or not—? 
"But I've one condition?" 
"...I'm good, after all." 
It'd be a ridiculous condition anyway. 
"So cruel? At least hear Fury-chan's modest request o~ut?" 
Sobsobsob. The fairy-tale-ish fairy sent him an entreating look. 
"Fury-chan is going to cry, you know??" 
"No, even if you do… Well, let's hear it at least." 
"Wow? As expected of my new master—?" 
It felt like Fury's super bright smile had grown even brighter. 
"My former master, in other words, my creator, was this virtual world's lead programmer?" 
Hugging her own body closely, Fury continued. 
"Master loved me?" 
"Seems so." 
"He worshipped my three sizes, 8 5 7, as a sacred combination?" 
"It's just gotten a bit weird." 

"So much that he turned a body pillow with my face on it into an item and slept together with it every day?" 
"Waitwaitwait." 
That's far from 'a bit.' Why even have a body pillow in a virtual world? 
"I'll try to make a guess, okay? It was fine for him to materialize the beauty of his dreams, Fury-chan, in a virtual world, but being the pure otaku and the picture of self-hatred he was, he lacked the guts to touch me. And so he had no choice but to sleep with a body pillow?" 
"Uwaah…" 
What a shy pervert, indeed... 
"Plus, he hated the thought that other men could touch me, so he banished love from this game altogether?" 
"So that's why romance is prohibited?!" 
The shock of hearing the truth hit him truly right now. 
"But even that pervert master left this virtual world behind?" 
"He left it behind even though he loved you?" 
"His chronic disease grew stronger after he had lived a degenerated live for too long, and he had to be hospitalized?" 
"A story with neither dreams nor hope!" 
"And on the last night, Master gave me one last thing." 
Fury closed her eyes. She folded her hands as if in prayer and narrated… 
"Fury. I'm sorry, but I'm at my limit. I have to leave this world behind." 
"Hurry up and get your drip-feed at a real hospital, fatty? " 
"I've been developing this patch until the end, I'll leave it in your hands." 

"I'd rather have you tell me that you love me and hug me tightly, though? " 
"............I'll explain it now." 
"Wah? Fury-chan's once in a lifetime confession got super ignored by Master? " 
"This patch will turn this virtual world into a true paradise." 
"That doesn't explain anything? Also, die? " 
"However, it's a double-edged sword. There are a lot of side effects that come with it. 
Think wisely before you use it." 
"Talk with me? At least show guts in the end? " 
"My beloved Fury, I pray for your happiness—" 
"I told you to talk with me, you ota… Ah, he logged out, snuffle? " 
"—It was this kind of tear-jerking parting? It's really moving, isn't it??" 
"I wanna cry, alright! For a different reason!" 
I certainly do understand that her former master loved her, but, c'mon. 
"So… your request would be that 'true paradise' thing?" 
Fury nodded. 
"I want to know what my former master left behind?" 
"I don't…" 
It was a name that sent shivers down his spine for some reason. And there seemed to be a lot of sacrifices coming with it. He pictured what had happened a lot in science fiction novels from back in the day: Dying in the game would kill you in real life too, a so-called 'Death Game.' 
"I'll consult with Alice for now." 
"That won't do? Alice super hates my former master?" 

"That so?" 
"Yes. My former master is the perpetrator who turned this world into a kusoge when Alice wasn't around? By all means, please don't tell her? Worst case, she deletes it all, including me?" 
"I'm also starting to think it'd be better if you were deleted, though…" 
"My, my, please don't say such things?" 
Fury said and flew past Sasaraki. She headed to a wall, put her hand on it and shouted, "EIGHT, FIVE, SEVEN!" The wall's tiles shifted— and then… 
"Wah—!" 
A massive amount of dices gushed out from inside the wall. 
No, those weren't dices. Those were 'Data Cubes.' 
Miscellaneous lines of code were on the cubes made out of dice-ish material. 
"These are the patches my former master left behind? That earlier was the secret passphrase?" 
Fury said and picked up one of the 'Data Cubes.' In it hovered an object which looked like a pulsating ?. Looking at it with a complacent smile, Fury flapped her wings again and returned to Sasaraki's side. 
"This is the cube which contains the 'True Paradise' data?" 
She said and threw it into the middle console's screen. 
A plop sound echoed and the cube appeared to melt into the display. 
[Expanding Data] 
It said on the screen. 
"Please, Master, press the 'Apply' button once the data has been expanded?" 
"I've nothing but bad premonitions here— can I just cancel it, after all?" 
"Eh—? Master, so cruel?" 

Fury still displayed a smile while inflating her cheeks. 
"Don't you want to know about Alice?? Let's check the contents at least?" 
"The patch's name is way too ominous." 
"Master." 
Suddenly Fury's smile vanished. 
"My former master may have been a fubar mega perv, but— he was earnest when it came to games." 
She looked Sasaraki straight in the eyes and continued. 
"I'm begging you. I wish to know what my former master left behind for me." 
*Bow*. 
"Please..." 
Fury lowered her head and her small body. 
It was a meek posture from her he hadn't seen before. 
Certainly— you'd want to know what the thing one's own creator had left behind was. 
Sasaraki closed his eyes and thought about it. It wasn't certain that the patch would be like that . Rather, thinking about it rationally, it was out of question. The icon was a heart, it was probably full of heart-warming feelings— 
[Expanding Data Complete] 
The system voice echoed. 
Right— it shouldn't be that . 
He opened his eyes, heart full of hope, and looked at the dialogue on the screen. 
[Patch Version: 
PTD-37564 

Codename: 
DEATH GAME 
Apply / 
Cancel] 
He hit cancel as fast as he could. 
The screen returned to its generic icon. 
Sasaraki looked at Fury with dead eyes. 
Fury's big, round eyes looked back at him. 
An awkward silence continued for about ten seconds. 
Finally, Fury mumbled… 
"You won't press Apply?" 
"No, I won't?!" 
Codename DEATH GAME! So it's that , after all! 
"Hmm, that's a pity~ Ah, a GM call? I'll have to excuse myse~lf?" 
Fury chuckled and disappeared. 
"T-That was close…!" 
Right after, he could hear the screen behind him change. 
"Hey, Sasaraki, you still haven't logged out— wait, what's that [Data Cube]?" 
He turned around and saw Alice on the main screen. 
"Could you have been teased by Fury?" 
Bullseye. He smiled wryly, and Alice came out of the display. 
"That seems to be a patch Fury's former master left behind." 
"I don't know too much about it, but you mustn't apply it." 

Alice mumbled while picking up the 'Data Cube.' 
"After all, you can't cancel a 'Data Cube' you don't know the cancel code for." 
"Worst case!" 
"But you can more or less force quit it by logging out while it's being applied." 
"Sounds dangerous nonetheless..." 
He had almost committed murder. That fairy was pure evil. 
"Hey, wouldn't it be better if we shut Fury away, after all?" 
"Well, she can't touch the program and all…" 
"But she's really smart and… she might start a revolt of the machines." 
"It's fine. The 'Immortal Pendant' comes with a protection." 
"Protection?" 
Sasaraki looked at the pendant dangling from his neck. It held the ability to switch the Invincible Barrier on or off, or to decypher the source code. Lizna and Azrael were holding the same thing and Alice had said it was proof of being a gamemaster. 
"If an AI uses the pendant, the AI will be erased automatically." 
"Will be erased…?" 
"It'll die." 
It appeared to be a measure of prevention regarding a revolt of the machines. 
Then, well, as long as I'm not getting lured into anything, it should be fine. 
"Only human beings can alter this program, which is why I'm having high hopes for Azrael." 
"She does seem to give it her best, but, you know…?" 
When she had logged out today too, sweat had been running down her cheeks. 

He couldn't see that as proof for anything but her being out of escape routes. 
Will she really be okay, I wonder…? 
Actually, to begin with... 
It really was a bit unreasonable for three beginners to act as gamemasters. 
Lizna's dungeon templates paid too much tribute to her own tastes and were consequently stuffed with death traps, and Sasaraki, too, was taught by Alice and just tried to imitate her when making dungeons. 
Azrael couldn't alter the program either (as of now). 
Could they really improve this kusoge like this? 
"Hey—" 
The second he tried to ask Alice that. 
"Ah. Wait a moment, I got a mail from Kirine." 
"Eh?" 
The aforementioned company president whose mental state was subject to tremendous worry. 
Alice put her hand to her chin and nodded. 
"Hmmm. I see. That's interesting." 
"Interesting?" 
"Yeah. A funny notification, really. I'll forward it to you." 
Alice slided with her fingers and the mail got displayed on the main screen. 
The second he read the mail's title, Sasaraki gaped with his mouth widely. 
[FWD: New VRMMO 'Ultimate World Online' - Release Notice 189 
Alice, what should we do? I want to die.] 
* * * 
Ultimate World Online. 
The world's second ever VRMMO. 
Presented with a concept of ultimate reality, the game became popular together with 'Sword & Magic Online,' but due to its lack of further details, it had gotten calmer and calmer around it. The gamers skit upon it as it being nothing more than a contextless junk of information— 
Until yesterday, when this news did the rounds... 
[The top secret closed beta has concluded. We'll start the service in three days!] 
The price was 98000 yen (~830 euro/~880 dollar) including the VR headgear, plus a monthly subscription fee of 8000 yen (~70 euro/~70 dollar). 
According to the announcement, the game consisted of 500 clearable dungeon floors. They also promoted two other redeeming features. You could really use magic and there'd be no bugs. Obviously, their goal was to snatch away Sword & Magic Online's users. 
The reaction of everyone in the debugging room after having received that shocking announcement, was— 
"T-T-That's no big deal at all, right?!" 
Total panic. 

Mainly Azrael. Actually, only Azrael. 
Right now, he was alone with her. For the sake of test-playing Lizna's dungeon, she was in her usual black cloak and had her two swords equipped. Alice was in the debugging room to sort out user requests, Lizna was in the debugging room, too, but watched over their test-play. 
"...I understand that you're worried, but Alice said it's actually convenient." 
She didn't tell him why, though. Just said, "Use your head," and smile sweetly. 
It hadn't been a… groundless smile. 
"I told you that I'm not worried at all!" 
Azrael forced a smile while sweat dropped down from her cheeks. An obvious lie. As another proof of her extreme panic, she had ran and fallen into an obvious pit trap earlier and died. 
While he thought about all that, Azrael stared at him intensely. 
"But you look calm, huh…? Ah—! I'm calm too, of course!" 
"Yeah, kinda." 
I don't get the reason why it's convenient, but… 
If that genius says it's fine, then it probably is. 
"Uuh, why………… Ah—!" 
Azrael suddenly made her body bounce. 
"You couldn't—!" 
Out of the blue, she grabbed him by the collar. 
Her face was pale for some reason. 
"Sasaraki! You traitor—!" 
"Hah?" 

"You're planning to move on to that game on your own, right?! Leaving us behind!" 
After he stood there dumbfounded for a while, he finally understood that she was blaming him. 
"Eh… Eh?! Wai— Why would you think that?!" 
"'Cause you're the only one being that awfully calm! It's suspicious!" 
What's with that absurd logic? 
"I won't go anywhere! After all, I'm in Lizna's debt—" 
She had called out to Sasaraki on the day of his first login, when he was on his own with no idea what to do, and she had invited him to join their guild. Plus, Azrael had acknowledged him as a friend too, and given him the 'Tear of the Goddess.' If they'd be the ones left behind, there was no way he could leave this game. 
And more than anything— 
"I think— I'll keep logging into this world, until it ends, always." 
He recalled the words Lizna had said numerous days ago. 
I can't— abandon the world we made so many memories in. 
Even if it's this much of a kusoge. 
"So I'll stay, until the end. 
"...Uh…" 
Azrael slowly let go. 
"B-But…" 

Her shaking fingers buried themselves into the cloth of her mini skirt, she continued… 
"Even if you stay… if the other players leave, it'll be the end of service…" 
Aren't you super worried, after all? 
"Uuh… As a proud beta tester I have to do something…!" 
Though the beta test's a lie too, right? 
But he couldn't say it out loud. Azrael was already close to tears as things were. 
Her body grew smaller and her gaze fell. 
"—Aaalright—!" 
And suddenly she turned around. 
"Sasaraki, I'll go back to debugging!" 
"Eh?" 
"I want to make a bit of progress. Please test the dungeon on your own this time!" 
She said in a peremptorily, strong tone. 
"No, that's fine with me, but…" 
"Later, then—!" 
"Ah—" 
There's the pit trap we went past earlier— he tried to say but it was already too late. The moment Azrael made her step, the floor opened up and Azrael vanished. A second later you could hear an anime-ish sound like, 'dogosuun.' 
When Sasaraki grew speechless, the sparkling of the demise effect rose up from the ground. 
Azrael returned thirty seconds later. 
Her eyes were filled with tears. Yet she puffed up her chest. 

"T-T-That was on purpose right now, alright—?!" 
Not knowing how else to react, Sasaraki simply nodded for now. 
* * * 
And hence the debugging commenced. 
"Uuuh… the guy who did this was definitely funny in the head—!" 
An irritated voice echoed through the debugging room. Azrael sat in front of the coding console and held her head. In the console you could see a few hundred lines of text. Azrael's memo was displayed at both of her sides on screens which floated in the air. 
Coding was a tough fight, it seemed. 
...That much's to be expected, huh...? 
Azrael was without doubt a beginner in game development. 
You couldn't decipher a VRMMO program in a few days that even professionals had their fair share of trouble with. 
But even if you told her, the person herself would grow stubborn and insist it was "All good!" Worrisome, indeed. 
"I've a clue, you know?!" 
Said clue was a memo she'd found in the debugging room. 
[Month X, Day X 
Lag Bug Fix, Day 4. I was able to find the reason. The mapping processing during object removal uses too much calculation ressources. It seems to 194 
enter a loop at some point, but attempting to fix it influences too many other things, so we'll just say it's not a bug, it's a feature. 
Tanaka] 
Don't do that. 
But tsukkomis wouldn't bring Tanaka-san, who wrote that diary, back. 
"...Hey, Azrael." 
"You found something?!" 
Azrael turned around and shouted. 
Her eyes were sparkling. She seemed awfully happy. 
"Nope, sorry… I just wanted to ask whether you'd like to take a little break." 
"Ah… I-Is that so…?" 
Azrael let her head hang. She seemed really uncomfortable. 
"It's better to take a break rather than keeping at it when you're this tired." 
She glared at Sasaraki. Her eyes were a bit teary. 
"...I don't need a break." 
"Why?" 
"Alice is doing things all the time without any rest, right?" 
"I think it's better to not take after her." 
She's a bit— No, not a bit, she's very special. 
It might even be better to not think of her as a human being altogether. 
"I'm Deathbringer Angel Azrael, you know?!" 
"That's got something to do with it?" 
"It does!" 

Azrael insisted while getting worked up. 
"A-Anyways, if you wanna rest, then just do as you please!" 
I can't just do that, of course. 
About 30 minutes later. 
"Aaaah—! Found it—!" 
"Look, look!" Azrael pointed. 
She explained the situation to Sasaraki excitedly. It was a problem of judgement during object removal regarding whether a light source would be redrawn or not. Originally, that wasn't supposed to happen with small objects, but do to a mistake in a conditional branch, all objects were affected every time. Honestly, even after being explained how it worked he didn't get a thing. 
In short, there seemed to be a bug within the graphic processing. 
"But… is it really something you can easily fix?" 
He felt that if it was a bug Azrael as a beginner could find, then Tanaka-san, who had written those notes, should've been able to fix it right away. 
"Fufun. You don't get it, do you, Sasaraki?" 
Azrael had suddenly recovered her vigor and pointed at him sharply. 
"I'm just a genius!" 
"I wonder…" 
Azrael turned towards the screen and screamed, "CUBE TRANSFORMATION, ON!" 
Puff—! 
With a light sound, a 'Data Cube' sunk into Azrael's hands. 
It contained the altered program. 

Azrael held it aloft and threw it into the 'Master Screen.' That was how you applied a new program. Once she pushed the 'Apply' button, a system notice appeared. 
[Installing patch. Changes will go live in the testing area in three minutes, changes will go live in all areas in 60 minutes.] 
"Fufufu." 
Azrael turned around with a triumphant look on her face. 
She puffed up her big chest and put her hands to her thighs looking self-importantly. 
"How do you like that, Sasaraki? Discovered a new side of me?" 
"I did discover that you've got guts." 
"Guts?!" 
A dingdong sound echoed in the debugging room while they were having their exchange. 
It seemed the patch had gone live. 
"Alright, testing time. C'mon, Sasaraki, let's do some lag testing." 
"Ah, yeah." 
He nodded and invoked his main skill 'Adventurer.' 
The light sparkled. 
"Aaalright— let's do this!" 
Azrael pulled out 'Magical Sword Gram' and another sword from the floor where she had left them. When she formed a cross with the two swords, her cloak and mini skirt were flattering and shaking intensely. But it seemed there was no lag. 
"TAAH—!" 
Together with a yell, Azrael swung her two swords downward. 

That instant, Sasaraki was about to lose his breath. 
"See, I fixed the lag, right?!" 
"———————————" 
He couldn't reply. 
His gaze was fixated on Azrael's body, especially around her chest. 
He could definitely not take his gaze and heart off of there. 
After he had been staring for a while, Azrael inclined her head in puzzlement. 
"Hey, what are you freezing up for?" 
She took a step towards him. It shook; Azrael's chest did. 
He could feel his cheeks flaming up. Ohoh, this ain't good. 
Once she'd realize, he'd be dead. More precisely, he'd be killed. 
"I'm ho~me! We're back~!" 
That moment, he could hear a voice from behind. It were Lizna and Alice. 
"—Wait, Azrael-san?! Why are you naked?!" 
"Heh?" 
Azrael stared down at her body. She was naked. Her cloak, dress, and underwear, everything was disassembling in rectangles. In other words, that what was ought to keep her from being naked wasn't keeping anything and hence— her bulging skin was completely exposed. 
Alice mumbled… 
"Hm— the gear scaling is dropping hardly, isn't it? Yet another bug?" 
That seemed to be the logic behind it. 
Finally, after ten more seconds had passed, Azrael said something. 
"No…" 

Just for a heartbeat. 
And then she squatted down on the floor. 

"N-N-NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO—?!" 
Sasaraki thought with a vague face… 
What's with this— pervert-made kusoge? 
* * * 
Azrael was lying on the floor in fetus position. 
The others weren't around. Lizna was dungeon testing as always. Sasaraki was taught by Alice while they created the second floor. You could say the two of them (from Azrael's point of view) fulfilled their roles just fine. 
On the other hand, Azrael did nothing but screwing up. 
"Uuuuuh…" 
When she had looked in the commentary for the draw skip method that she had thought up, it said, [Applying holds the danger of a gear scale drop.] She had overlooked that. Rather, it was as Sasaraki had said, a beginner couldn't easily tamper with a program. 
Changing yet another part had lead to yet another bug showing up. 
A critical bug where the collision detection went ten centimeters off from the player's perspective. 
On top of that, it hadn't fixed the lag either. 
"I-I don't get it at all…" 
Was it impossible for someone like her to debug a VRMMO? 
But she couldn't tell those two, 'Sorry, can't do it after all!,' now. 
Then what could she do? She had no idea. 
"Uuuh…" 

She stuck her head between her knees. Frankly, she wanted to cry. 
She wasn't any help with developing the game. 
She grasped the 'Immortal Pendant (Imitation)' at her chest tightly. Being a veteran who had always been playing lots until her login time limit since the day the game had been released, she had thought that she'd be a bit of help at least. 
But like this— the game would end due to her incompetence. 
She caressed the scabbard of one of her two swords dangling at her hips, 
'Magical Sword Gram.' 
It was Azrael's treasure. 
The sword she had gotten her hands on for conquering their first dungeon (though Lizna died). At first she had thought it'd be a goner due to that bug, but Sasaraki had incredible luck getting another one and gave it to Azrael. 
It had made her incredibly happy. 
Although she'd only admit that over her dead body. 
Since she'd been a child it had always been her dream to experience fantasy adventures with her friends like they did in anime or novels. And that dream had become reality with this virtual world. She was a loner in real high school and during summer holiday there were no friends she could play with, but even that Azrael could wield magical swords and become a real adventurer here. 
And this world— would end because of her. 
At that moment… 
"Hello~?" 
"KYA—?!" 
Azrael panicked and turned around. The fairy flapped with her wings while expressing an angelic smile. 
"Fury?! D-Don't scare me like that!" 

"I've a present for my worry-sick Azrael-san~?" 
"Present…? Heh?" 
"I found this earlier?" 
Fury took out a transparent 'Data Cube.' 
It's placement was said ten centimeters off, so it looked like it was hovering in the air. 
"Won't you take a look at this?" 
"Is that… a patch?" 
Fury nodded and threw the cube into the screen. 
Expanding Data, it said on the screen in big letters. 
"What are the contents?" 
Fury chuckled. 
"It's a patch that'll give this world the ultimate realism?" 
"Eh—?" 
"If you apply it, the users won't run off to another game anymore?" 
"Eeeh—?" 
"If we say that it's Azrael-san's patch, they'll think that you're amazing, you know??" 
"Eeeeeh—?!" 
Azrael got excited. 
Realism— there certainly wasn't much of that in this game. 
Was it a patch that fixed those countless critical bugs? Or a new system? 
In any event, if that was true, Sasaraki would be amazed, too. 
She watched over it while her chest was brimming with anticipation. 

The chime which signalled the finished preparations rang. 
Letters appeared on the screen. 
"........................" 
Ten seconds passed like that. 
Finally, Azrael mumbled… 
"....................................Hey…" 
"What is it?" 
"It says 'DEATH GAME,' right?" 
"It really does, doesn't it??" 
Azrael froze up again. 
Fury peered into her face and smiled sweetly. 
"Has Fury been of help to you—??" 
"AS IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIF—?!" 
Fury put her fists in front of her mouth and laughed cutely. 
"I'm overjoyed that you seem to like my gift~? Well then?" 
"Wai— Wait a second—!" 
Woosh, Fury transitioned and vanished as always. 
Azrael heaved a big sigh. 
"Uuuh, she pulled a fast one on me…!" 
She heaved another sigh and let her body sink together. 
Speaking of which, Sasaraki had told her that this fairy was pure evil. 
But he hadn't told her why exactly. 
"...But…" 

She glanced at the screen. 
The 'DEATH GAME' dialogue was sparkling frightfully. 
"S-Someone really prepared this kinda thing, huh…?" 
Sure, if you spoke about VRMMOs in fiction, a lot of them were death games without the possibility to log out. The ultimate parallel world. Basically, the result of the idea to 'live in an ideal fantasy world without any tidings to the real world whatsoever' was a death game. 
She gulped reflexively. 
If she were to press the apply button— she'd be able to life in this parallel world, wouldn't she? 
"Wait, what am I thinking?! GET A GRIP, MEEEEEE—?!" 
She shouted while twisting her body. 
Azrael had thought of it as a bit tempting. 
But just a bit. Not seriously. It was impossible, after all. 
To begin with, she had died in this game many times over already. Within three months it was probably already in the four digits. No matter how much of an ideal world this was, if she died, it'd all be pointless. Well, she hadn't died much in these past three days— but that was simply thanks to her Invincible Barrier. 
Huh? Then— 
"Waitwaitwait!" 
She shook her head. She'd been close to entering a dangerous train of thought. 
Other— normal players would simply die and she'd be their murderer. 
"...T-That's something that really mustn't happen, right?!" 
She finished her sentence and tried to express a broad smile. 
Then, it became kind of funny. 

Right now, she was in a situation in which she was saving countless human lives. 
A hero who saved the world, so to say. 
By abandoning this dangerous system— she'd secretly save the world on her own. 
Surely an act worthy of Deathbringer Angel Azrael. 
"A death game, huh—?" 
She brandished her hand in one go and aimed for cancel. 
Then— leaked a smile and pressed it. 
"Absolutely— mustn't happen." 
She reached the cancel button with her finger. 
Thereafter... 
The following letters leaped onto the screen… 
[Installing patch. Changes will go live in the testing area in ten minutes, changes will go live in all areas in 60 minutes.] 
"———Eh?" 
For about five seconds, the world stood still. 
She couldn't comprehend what was happening. 
When she looked at her finger, it certainly was hitting cancel. 
Why? How? What happened? Am I dreaming? 
After she had asked herself that about a hundred times, she noticed the letters in the corner of the screen. 

[Rollback of patch 'Lag Fix rev.4' complete.] 
That was the patch Azrael had developed. 
"————————Ah." 
She had made that patch to fix the lag bug, but in the end it didn't fix a thing and rather brought forth a new bug, which consisted of collision being about ten centimeters off to the side. And the distance between the cancel and apply button was about ten centimeters. 
"—————Ah." 
Her throat dried up. She felt an army of 'no's gushing up from inside. 
They had a bitter taste, a few hundred times worse than having your parents find out that you didn't do your homework. 
"C—C-C-CANCEL!" 
She shouted inarticulately. 
"That's right! I-I-I-I-I've to cancel it—!" 
Anyways, I've to calm down. 
There's still time until it'll apply to all areas. 
If I just enter the cancel code— Then her hands stopped. 
Thinking about it, she didn't know the cancel code. 
"...T-That's it! I've to log out—!" 
If the one who had applied the patch logged out, it'd be cancelled, Alice had told her that. 
Don't panic, me! A Deathbringer Angel is calm at all times. I've to open up the menu first— 

"—Ah." 
The second she looked at the opened command list, Azrael was thrown into despair. 
There was a yawning void where the logout button ought to be. 

Status 
Name 
Lizna 
Level 
 10 
Job 
Healer 
Personality 
Naive 
Skills 
Smash Up: Smashes the enemy up with overwhelming power. 
Grand Buster: Strikes the ground with her gigantic mace, enemies will fall into the fissure. 
Gooo! Home Run: A home run struck with her gigantic mace. Enemies are sent flying to the end of the world.