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

"Okay."

With crossed arms, I waited for Shizu to activate her ability. Watching her take a deep breath, the princess went through her usual motions before she opened her special eyes.

"[Code Watcher]..."

"What're you up to, Moriya?"

Hearing Guidance suddenly chime in, I gave her a passing glance before I shrugged. "There's something I want to confirm before we go in."

"With Shizu's sight?" she raised an eyebrow in suspicion. "One would think that you'd confirm it with me before we both default to Shizu."

"Well, this is something different, okay?" I let out a hollow chuckle. "Contrary to popular belief, I'm not one to shoulder my burdens alone if I know I can't handle it."

Turning my gaze back to Shizu, the princess was looking out into the distance with a pensive look on her face. I just knew that she was seeing something weird happening right now, and I could only hope that-

"W-what am I looking at?"

Bingo.

"Shizu?" Guidance promptly turned her attention to our resident princess. "What is it?"

"W-Well... the numbers... They're... repeating?" Shizu hesitantly reported out. "I mean, they always repeated, but not like this."

"What? That can't be right..." the dev mumbled out in worry, her hands already setting up her keyboard "Can you tell me what you're seeing?"

Shizu quickly nodded. "Of course."

I could only watch as the two then fell into their usual routine of sharing information with one another. Maruki and I were relegated to the sidelines, the tank clearly curious as to what was happening while I myself really didn't give a damn as I leaned on the nearest wall.

"Are they about to make yet another change to the world, Sir Moriya?!"

"Probably not," I chuckled. "And will you stop shouting already?"

"Ah! But that is simply my nature!" Maruki unapologetically apologized. "While I am sorry for my loudness, my duty demands that I complete every task with utmost gusto!"

I scoffed at the rare word selection the guy just used. Gusto was a word so rarely used that I've only heard of it in movies. I don't even see it in books that often.

"Still, can you at least try to-"

"W-what the hell.... That's impossible..."

I promptly shut the hell up as I heard Guidance mumble something intelligible to the common masses under her breath. Her fingers had been flying through her [Manifest] nonstop ever since they began, but now they were clearly shaking, her hands clamming up as she repeatedly flexed them.

"Why? W-What's wrong?" Shizu nervously asked, her eyes still glowing black and green with her power. "Are... Are we stuck here?"

Instead of answering the poor princess, Guidance turned her attention to me, her eyes glaring daggers as she squinted. "You... Why didn't you say anything?"

"I just did," I let off a small chuckle. "Why do you think I asked Shizu to check it out?"

"You still should've told us that we've already died!" Guidance accused. "Twice!"

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....

The silence that followed was both awkward and tense. Shizu was shaken by the revelation, and while Maruki didn't show anything, the way his shield glowed brighter was the best indication that the news also affected him.

"I-We're already dead?" Shizu fearfully asked, her voice starting to break as tears began welling up in her eyes. "W-What're we-"

"We're not dead, Shizu," Guidance quickly corrected, her eyes still accusing me of our current predicament. "The fact that we're still here means that we're far from being in the grave."

"T-That is correct!" Maruki declared, his own tone slightly wavering as he laughed. "We still have an enemy to vanquish right in front of us! Meaning, we are still alive!"

"Still, why the hell didn't you say anything?" the dev asked me once again, clearly trying to pin the fact that Shizu was crying onto me. "We could've at least told us how we all died so we can prevent it."

All eyes were on me now as they all waited for an answer. Letting out a sigh, I hung my head down as I crossed my arms over my chest again. "Look, even if I told you all, it wouldn't have made a difference. We all died trying to fight that thing. Twice, I might add."

"Yes, and how did we die?"

I gave Guidance a look as I replied, "The damn thing exploded while we're hitting it. It was something called [Self Destruct!], and I still don't know how to stop it."

"I-I see," Guidance shrank back down, her accusing tone evaporating in favor of an inquisitive one. "And if what Shizu's seeing is true, the world just reset itself to back before we entered the boss room."

"That's right," I nodded. "And with all of you not remembering a thing too."

The flurry of emotions that ran through Guidance's face as she went through the current problem was one for the ages. The confusion, followed by the seething anger and rage as her fingers went back to her keyboard was something that was more than fitting to describe as nerd rage.

"Well, I'm fixing that right now!" the dev angrily declared. "The system is clearly working as intended if it respawns us back to before the fight, but us losing our memories of the damn thing just defeats the purpose of it!"

"I completely agree," I sagely nodded. "Solving mechanics on my own sucks. And I can't do it without a topdown perspective of the whole fight anyway."

"Shizu, I'm going to do this really fast," Guidance turned to Shizu with a determined smirk. "Think you can keep up?"

"I'll do my best," Shizu nodded.

Once more, the sound of her keyboard clacking against the background filled the air as we all waited for Guidance to finish her fix. Taking a glance back at the boss, the way it just stood there kind of made for a ridiculous contrast as it just waited for us to engage it. It looked fine in games, but being down here for real kind of showed just how ridiculous it was for the enemy to wait for the heroes to attack him even if they were literally just a few feet away from them.

"Okay, I think I got it."

Hearing Guidance's announcement, I stood up straight as I waited for the inevitable nausea that was about to happen. "Let's hit it then."

The dev nodded at my words. Looking at Shizu, she asked, "Ready?"

I took a glance at the princess, her eyes still glowing black and green as she visibly braced herself for impact. "Ready."

"Okay. I'm hitting enter... now."

....

.....

"Did the world change yet?!"

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