Ch.74[Episode 74] Mos■ of Th■m ■■e Bugs

What am I exactly?

The slime that gained consciousness pondered.

This black slime, born in a sewer filled with dark sewage, wasn’t conscious from the beginning.

This weak monster, hastily created due to a shortage of monsters during development, remained as dummy data after the development direction changed.

If not for that bug, it might have remained just an Easter egg—such a fragile existence.

But when the concept changed, causing anti-aliasing issues and compatibility problems between library versions 9 and 11, the slime’s life transformed as it accidentally got caught in the gap.

A feeling of its core twisting and body disconnecting.

Though slimes lack pain receptors, in that moment, it felt something like pain.

If the twisted sprite hadn’t accidentally overlapped to form a brain-like shape.

If the twisted core hadn’t merged with the terrain, blurring the line between background and entity.

If it hadn’t accidentally realized the truth beyond truth.

What would have become of it?

The slime trembled with fear after discovering the truth.

It was an entity that could disappear with a single line of code.

In a corner of the sewer, beyond an invisible wall where no one could reach, the slime cowered in fear.

The slime’s fear, now one with the background, spread through the shadows.

…

“The resistance seems fiercer here in the military warehouse.”

Tsuki flicked blood off her blade after cutting down two guards in a single strike.

The developers must have been conscious of the rating system, as the blood was black and the wounds were pixelated.

However, such half-measures only stimulated the imagination.

The mosaic actually made the experience more disturbing, causing Tsuki to frown.

“I should offer some advice when we return.”

Thinking it would be better without the mosaic, Tsuki spotted a guard in the distance aiming a musket at her and raised her sword.

The bullet hit the slanted side of her blade and changed trajectory with a ping sound that tore through the air.

“Now it seems ranged mobs are appearing too.”

Dr. Phantom peeked out from behind the rubble of a collapsed wall.

For the physically weak Dr. Phantom, ranged attackers were nothing short of natural predators.

Tidying her disheveled hair after hurriedly taking cover, Dr. Phantom shouted to Zero.

“Zero! Switch to interception mode!”

“Confirmed. Switching to interception mode.”

The red jewel-like lens on Zero’s crescent-shaped body gleamed as it scanned the battlefield.

A cover-like panel opened on Zero’s body, releasing an enormous amount of steam.

Then, as electricity discharged from the panel, debris from the wall began to float into the air.

This was possible because the reinforced concrete debris still contained steel bars inside.

After continuously scanning the battlefield, Zero began launching the debris toward the direction of the gunfire.

“Difficult. Very difficult.”

Sir Dominic smiled as he watched building debris fly over his head.

The musket guard, after momentarily flinching from colliding with a large piece of debris, resumed firing.

In a normal situation, they would have been flattened and disappeared, but this was Gachaland.

Zero, originally designed as a combat support unit, wasn’t a full combat agent.

Created to respond adequately to any situation, the penalty was that all skill coefficients were set quite low.

While the attack looked impressive on the surface, what happened was merely the calculation of damage within the data.

Sir Dominic surveyed the battlefield, his borrowed skin’s coat tails fluttering.

Guards continued to be reinforced, and as time passed, the security level rose, bringing more and stronger opponents.

Though Sir Dominic’s defense was holding for now, his health was gradually decreasing without any means of recovery.

“The infiltration team needs to get in as quickly as possible.”

Sir Dominic muttered as he struck down a guard rushing at him with a baton.

[Error. The scenario is deviating. Searching for backup scenario library. No backup scenario found. Calling administrator.]

At that moment, a warning window appeared before Sir Dominic’s eyes.

This warning wasn’t just for Sir Dominic.

It appeared before everyone currently in this stage.

The guards froze in their attacking postures.

No, the world froze.

And from beneath Sir Dominic’s feet, something black began to writhe and rise.

Sir Dominic instinctively knew something had gone terribly wrong.

…

“Lady Dominica!”

Dr. Banshee shouted down into the manhole.

Something dark and sticky had swallowed Lady Dominica.

Lady Dominica saw bloodshot, broken eyes within it, but they were invisible to Dr. Banshee.

Banshee tried to jump into the manhole to save Lady Dominica, but the android Zero, prioritizing the doctor’s safety, held her back.

Hime, who had climbed up through the manhole cover, first surveyed the surroundings.

She judged that if the security level rose before they could rescue Lady Dominica, they too would be in danger.

From behind a large tree in the corner of the massive mansion, large enough to hide one or two people, Hime observed the mansion and realized something was wrong with the guards’ movements.

“What… is that?”

The guards moved along their programmed routes but jerked frame by frame or suddenly returned to positions from several steps earlier.

The most severe cases had upper bodies moving forward in jerky motions while lower bodies suddenly returned to positions from several steps back.

“Could this be…”

“A bug. And a serious one at that.”

“It would be fortunate if it just crashed, but this seems beyond that level,” Dr. Banshee muttered weakly.

Dr. Banshee lost all motivation as the space inside the manhole was completely corrupted.

“A serious error has occurred somewhere. Look there. The graphics are breaking.”

Hime turned her head in the direction Dr. Banshee pointed.

Part of the sky had turned white, revealing the raw polygons.

Having never experienced anything like this before, Hime was left speechless at the bizarre sight.

“The mission is pointless now. Look. Our target is disappearing.”

Dr. Banshee’s words were true.

The dictator’s mansion was being consumed by something black and sticky, beginning to collapse.

“What should we do?”

“We need to find the bug. Or wait for an administrator.”

Dr. Banshee sat down.

In the distance, a black liquid rose from the city background, forming a pillar that reached the sky.

All Hime could do before this overwhelming bug was stare blankly.

…

“Good heavens, what is—”

Sir Dominic tore away the amorphous black something crawling up his ankle.

But more blackness began to bind Sir Dominic faster than he could tear it away.

“Sir Dominic!”

Seeing this, Tsuki rushed over and precisely swung her sword to cut away the black substance, but like cutting water with a knife, it rejoined and completely bound Sir Dominic.

An unprecedented situation. The most serious bug Sir Dominic had ever seen.

Of course, this was only the second bug Sir Dominic had experienced, but he thought he would rarely see such a bug again.

“It’s a bug. And severely distorted! Hold on a little longer! I’ll try to do something!”

Dr. Phantom urgently began hacking the system.

Hacking the regular system to manipulate data was illegal, but Dr. Phantom had no time to think about legality.

Finally hacking into the console window, she quickly scanned the command prompt full of magical sentences, but the black substance swallowed Sir Dominic faster.

After consuming Sir Dominic, the black thing writhed and sank into the ground.

Then the black liquid surged back up, reaching the sky.

The sky was breaking.

The white background polygons were collapsing.

“At this point, we need to hold out until an administrator arrives! I wish Dr. Banshee were here—”

Dr. Phantom cried out in despair.

But her hands were still entering commands into the console window.

There was still hope if they could hold out.

After entering a line break and the last command she knew, the stage’s collapse slowed down.

Her emergency measures were complete.

All that remained was to hope the administrator would arrive quickly.

…

At that time.

“Let go!”

“You let go first!”

The coders were watching council members fighting, pulling each other’s hair.

One of the most entertaining contents in Gachaland was the 1:1 fights between supporters who barely did any damage.

“Fight! Fight!”

“I bet 50,000 Credits on the Healing Pride council member!”

“You have a gambling addiction.”

“Nonsense. I’ll bet 100,000 Credits that I don’t have a gambling addiction.”

The atmosphere grew increasingly heated.

The coders laughed until their sides hurt at the ridiculous sight.

“Ah, this is so entertaining.”

The Hatter Coder wiped away tears from laughing too hard.

Just then, the phones in their pockets vibrated fiercely with warning sounds.

It might have been drowned out by the crowd’s cheers, but fortunately, the Bunny Girl Coder noticed the vibration and took out her phone.

“Huh? Wait a minute…”

The coder who had taken out her phone to immediately silence the alarm suddenly became serious.

“What’s wrong?”

The Hatter Coder, seeing the suddenly frozen Bunny Girl Coder, took out his own phone.

Both turned to stone, then stiffly turned their necks to look at each other.

[Warning! A bug has appeared in the event stage causing errors. The stage is collapsing.]

After communicating with their eyes for a while, the coders jumped up from their seats without hesitation.

Something that should never have happened had occurred.