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

Bug out on us? That didn't sound good at all!

"La- Guidance? What do you mean?" Shizu hesitantly asked, the dev's anxiety starting to seep through. "Is this place also affected by the [Eld]?"

Silence reigned, the sound of our nervous footsteps filling the air as we kept on walking. A few seconds had already passed before the dev finally spoke.

"This road... We're kind of on our way to a new area," Guidance tensely explained. "Not everything can be fit into a single zone, and since we're on our way to the wider world of the [Deep], I made sure to section it away from Kattleyna."

"Okay? That's understandable," I nodded. "But you didn't exactly answer the question."

Guidance clearly didn't like my words at all as she did her best to avoid eye contact. This time, her [Keystroke] actually sprang to life as she started typing something out.

"Fine then. I meant for this road to act as a loading area in-between zones," the dev finally admitted, a bead of sweat running down her cheek as she answered. "It's nothing too fancy. I just wanted my game to be seamless in terms of gameplay."

"So you just put a road in between Kattleyna and the port just so you can give the world some time to load in," I nodded in understanding. "Sounds simple enough."

"No, it wasn't," Guidance almost snapped. "Do you have any idea how much of a headache implementing this thing was? I almost gave up before I managed to make it work."

"So... it works then?" Shizu meekly chimed in. "If so, then why are you so nervous?"

My fellow [Somatic] let out a sigh as she gestured for Shizu to walk up to her. The princess then silently did as she was asked, a curious smile still adorning her face as she flashed the dev an inquisitive look.

I shook my head, "Are you seriously just gonna try and fix this mess before even telling us what's wrong?"

"Hey, it doesn't always go wrong, so it'll be fine," Guidance nervously chuckled. "I won't bother unless it actually happens. At that point, then we can start panicking."

Oh my lord... Seriously? I mean, it was a decent way of tackling things, but this wasn't something that we could just ignore, right? Just what the hell was wrong with this road?

"Hmm... I'm guessing you want my [Code Watcher] on the ready in case it does happen?" Shizu cheerfully asked.

"Exactly," the dev nodded, her fingers pausing even as the small holographic screen in front of her kept on moving. "I highly doubt we'll need it, but it's better to be safe than sorry."

I blinked at the two sharing a chuckle with one another. Meanwhile, I was stuck walking a few paces behind them, mulling over what exactly was wrong with this place. Just because Guidance didn't want to tell us anything doesn't mean that I won't stop trying to find out what the problem was. For one, I didn't want us to get into another set of troubles before we even got on with our journey, and second, if I didn't do it, then nobody will, seeing as Shizu clearly just wanted to follow our lead.

Well, that, and I was bored of seeing the exact same stuff over and over again.

Placing a hand on my chin, I fired up my brain as I gave more of my energy into looking for something that could constitute a bug regarding this place. The road seemed fine for now... and the trees flanking our path from either side also didn't seem suspicious... Quite frankly, the only things I could really observe were the fact that it was a relatively busy road, and that we were the only ones not riding a carriage or a horse... Which was weird, seeing as we had the honest-to-god princess with us.

"Stop thinking too hard on it, Moriya." Huh?

Looking up, I was taken out of my thoughts as Guidance flashed me a smile. Her earlier anxiety was mostly gone, replaced with a resigned acceptance as she shrugged at me.

"Well, I want to," I returned her shrug in kind. "Not like there's anything better to do."

"We can always walk faster," Shizu oh so helpfully suggested with her usual cheer. "I'm pretty sure this road never had any sort of [Eld] influence on it before. In fact, this is the first time I've ever heard of such a thing existing in this place."

"See?" Guidance smirked. "Even the local among us think there's nothing to worry about."

I scoffed at the weak argument presented to me. Really? Clinging onto the words of the local that just realized that they were just a video game character?

"You're the one that made this world in the first place, remember?" I sarcastically fired back. "And besides, I think I'm starting to piece together just what exactly's wrong with this road."

"O-Oh? Do tell then..."

Ignoring Guidance's hesitant tone, I focused more on Shizu's curious look as I began my hypothesis. "You said that this road was meant as a loading screen... Since then, I've tried my best in observing what exactly you just meant. For one, this road stretched on for as far as the eye could see. And even though we should've made decent progress, I still feel like we could easily go back to the capital if we just turned around."

It was trippy, but looking out into the distance made me feel like I was looking at a mirror. Well, not an exact mirror, but it still felt as if it was just a copy of the exact same place we were walking on. It wasn't strike one, seeing as most loading screens of this nature were built like that anyway. No, the more damning evidence that something was wrong was so obvious that I was kicking myself for not noticing it sooner.

"Yeah, and?"

I smirked at Guidance's confident look. Why the hell was she acting like this when we both knew that her game was broken?

Oh well. If she needed a reality check, then I'll be more than happy to administer it. "And we've been passing the exact same people for the past two hours now."

Shizu's eyes widened at my revelation. Guidance stopped walking, as did Shizu and I as they both stared at me.

"Admit it, Guidance. We're in a loading loop."

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