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

[COMBAT COMMENCED]

[LEVEL SYNCED]

Welp, I guess that's the part where we start fighting. Thankfully for both me and Guidance, it would seem that the only person we'll be fighting right now was the head honcho herself.

[Vesper Mica: Level 59]

[Head Intellect of Marquee]

"Well, that's certainly a level far beyond my own," I chuckled, taking a glance at my pitiful level of around 36. "And here I thought that level sync was supposed to even the playing field."

"Haha, Moriya," Guidance exasperatedly joked aloud. "No, the level sync is for the benefit of the stage and combat design. It's there to make sure that nobody would be able to steamroll through dungeons and enemies, while also making sure that everything would remain relevant even if the player had massively out leveled the content."

I let out a sigh as I placed a hand on my hip. With us being stuck inside an instance again, there was no harm in delaying things again, especially since, once again, there was no timer telling us that we had to hurry up and finish the boss.

Turning to Guidance, she was currently poised at the ready, her keyboard already glowing with her power as she clearly analyzed the boss. having seemingly noticed my gaze, she looked at me funny before letting out an awkward frown. "What is it now, Moriya?"

I blinked before turning around and shrugging. "I don't really know. Just wanted to look at you all of a sudden."

"W-Wha- We don't have the time to flirt right now, Moriya," she stammered behind me, making me turn back around again just to see that cute blush on her face. "I don't know what this character does, let alone remember when I even designed her in the first place."

"Meaning we're going in blind again," I chuckled, going back into a more serious state as I took my pistols out. "Seeing as it's still just us, I suppose that we'll just be repeating what we did with Lewis?"

"As if we have any other choice," she scoffed. "Until we learn new information, we'll just stick to the usual strategy of hitting it until it stops moving."

Shrugging at the oh-so-helpful assessment, I trained my weapons at the unmoving Head Intellect. Vesper was her name... Kind of manly-sounding, but I suppose it fits her clear no-nonsense attitude and scowl.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Pull it."

"You're the boss..."

[*BANG! BANG! BANG!*]

Going with my usual opener in the form of [Blood Shot], [Iron Spread], and [Hemolysis], the fight officially began. Immediately, the woman... slowly walked towards me and wielded her cane like it was some kind of sword. Seeing how slowly she was walking, I decided to go ahead and move away, casually kiting the woman who hasn't even landed a hit on me yet.

[ENEMY HP: 98%]

"This is kind of weird," I pointed out at Guidance as we both pelted the slow woman with our attacks. "She's not even trying to chase me."

"That just means she's got a lot of gimmicks up her sleeve," Guidance quickly replied just as she put a regen on me. "She hasn't done any of her mechanics, right?"

With my fingers still pulling on the triggers, I kept a sharp eye on my HUD as I waited for the boss to do something... anything, really...

"Yeah, she hasn't done anything yet," I replied to Guidance's prior question. "She's just taking our attacks like they're nothing though." And considering the fact that I remember seeing this lady hack out a lung just about an hour ago, I had a feeling that this current state of battle was going to change drastically in the next minute or so.

[ENEMY HP: 95%]

Looking at the enemy [HP] again, the fact that it was going down far more slowly than Lewis did kind of already told me that we were gonna be in here for the long haul. Also, we've already shaved off five percent of her health, and she still hasn't done anything yet. Just what in the world was this woman waiting for before she started-

[*COUGH! COUGH! COUGH!*]

I almost flinched when I thought Vesper was going to launch an attack. Instead, I paused as I watched her cough her lungs out, smoke erupting from her mouth as her cigarette landed on the ground beneath her.

"Uh.. What is she doing?" Guidance asked.

"How should I know?" I quickly pointed out. "Nothing showed up on my end yet."

It was kind of disconcerting how a whole lot of nothing had happened yet. Here we were shooting at a boss that has done nothing except walk towards me with a menacing swagger, taking literally no damage while the boss herself was taking hits like they were nothing.

"Well, she's got to do something eventually," Guidance whined, her tone almost coming off as impatient. "Clearly, I didn't design this fight. If I did, she should've done something already."

"Isn't this a good thing though?" I awkwardly chuckled. "If she's doing nothing, then why are we-"

"Get into formation!"

[PROTECT THE HEAD INTELLECT: 44%]

I blinked as something new popped up in my HUD. The boss herself was still in the middle of the arena coughing up a storm, but the glowing orange indicators on the ground showed that something was up. That, and the fact that there were now people marching around the edges of the arena kind of clued me in on what was going to happen.

"Moriya?"

"Something's happening," I quickly called out. "Go to the side opposite of me. There's gonna be an attack coming across the arena in a cross pattern."

"Got it."

Moving into position, both Guidance and I watched as the edges of the arena suddenly became a hive of activity.

"FIRE!"

By the time the cast bar was filled up, there were people by the end of each of the orange indicators' area, all of them aiming some kind of weapon that then fired out in the cross formation that we just avoided. To my surprise, they then quickly disappeared, vanishing as if they were literally ghosts that had just done their job.

"Well, that's new," I couldn't help but comment on the mechanic.

"That was... They were Ads, but they weren't?" Guidance thought aloud.

"What? What are these Ads now-"

"Moriya!"

[DIE: 99%]

What the-

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"Well then... That was an attack and a half..."

I stewed in the darkness of the void as I waited for the fight to reset. I was careless in the fact that I just stood still like an idiot while talking to Guidance, letting the boss slowly walk up to me and cast that one-shot attack on me without even so much as a warning. I could still see how it happened; with her cane raised up high and her face turning into one large snarl before she then brought the thing down on my head like a disappointed parent.

Still, at least we now knew that there was a reason why she was that slow. If she could one-shot us the moment she got close, then her being that slow was a deliberate balance choice to make sure that the fight remained fair. And that one mechanic that she bothered to show... That could imply that her other mechanics would also revolve around outside help while the boss herself would just be a walking apocalypse that could kill people in one hit.

"Still, this is kind of taking too long..."

Crossing my arms in the void, I couldn't help but hum in wait as the, well, wait for me to respawn was starting to take longer than a few minutes. Then again, that would also mean that Guidance was somehow holding her own against the Head Intellect. For the dev to last this long against the boss all on her own meant a lot of things, but that also meant that this fight was more intuitive than we thought it would be.

"When are you gonna die, Guidance?"

I chuckled at my own sentence after a few minutes. For me to wish death on Guidance just for us to finally respawn back into the fight together was kind of telling as to what kind of world we were now in.

...

...

Any time now...

"Okay, this is actually taking a while..."

What in the world was Guidance doing that was making her last this long anyway? Could she even see the indicators on the ground that would help her survive? Or was she just healing through the damage and trying to make herself last that way? Either way, this has gone on for so long that I was actually starting to get bored.

Then again, why would I even be mad about this arrangement? If she was capable of soloing the boss all on her own, then why shouldn't I just let her? She clearly had it all under control... Wait...

If that happens, do I even get [EXP] for it?

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