Ch.83It’s a Trap! (1)

About a week later.

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<Quest>

<Fleet Annihilation Request>

<Reports of Xenovia Empire fleet sightings near your base have been coming in recently.>

<Though you haven’t reported this yourself, the neural network attached to your base.>

<Has been relaying such information to the Monster Princess in real-time.>

<Oxianor wants you to annihilate the nearby Xenovia Empire fleet to ensure future safety.>

<Objective: Annihilate Xenovia Detachment>

<Reward: 30 Event Points>

<Complete>

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‘Hmm, nice point reward.’

I’ve been diligently completing various quests and daily missions from Oxianor.

Over the past few days, I’ve been steadily accumulating event points.

Naturally, I hadn’t even glanced at the “Event Shop” yet.

I deliberately avoided checking my points or trust level, thinking it might be irritating, but…

‘I think a week of stockpiling is enough.’

Feeling I’d waited long enough, I sat in my dedicated command seat in the command center.

I casually opened the status menu.

‘Let’s see… where’s the trust level status window?’

I decided to check my trust level after letting it accumulate for a week, but…

‘Huh? What’s going on?’

As soon as I checked my trust level, I realized something strange.

“Jessica, Jessica, I just realized something new.”

“What is it, Commander?”

Ignis was handling a Xenovia Empire reconnaissance team that had infiltrated the satellite base, supposedly a quest from Oxianor.

Jessica, who was intently watching the communication screen to support Ignis, turned toward me with slight annoyance.

‘Fierce-looking.’

Well, Jessica’s usual expression wasn’t exactly fierce.

Her sharp eyes, combined with the rabbit ears covered in fur on top of her head,

And the short, stubby rabbit tail protruding from her tailbone area,

Made her look cute despite her obvious irritation.

Of course, if I continued admiring her like this,

I’d face Jessica’s genuine fierce anger rather than just describing it.

So I pushed aside my idle thoughts.

And addressed Jessica, who was looking at me while her round rabbit tail trembled.

“Well, it seems like the trust level isn’t increasing as much as I expected.”

“You mean faction trust level?”

“Yeah, take a look.”

After saying that, I showed Jessica the “Trust Level Check Window” that I opened after clearing three quests today, and continued.

—————————————-

<Your trust with Space Monsters has increased by 2 points!>

<Current trust relationship with ‘Space Monsters’: +17>

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Looking at this status window, Jessica frowned and said with confusion.

“Something’s strange. Three quests and one event completed, but only 2 points… no, compared to when we started, it’s only increased by 3 points total.”

“Right?”

Honestly, it was a very strange situation.

Previously, just completing one quest or handling a “favor” in the form of an event would automatically increase trust by at least +1.

And if things went well, it would increase by +5.

But now, what’s this mess?

Including the three I cleared today, I’ve completed over 10 quests and events in the past few days.

Yet the trust level seemed to be increasing not by single digits, but by decimal points.

‘Is this what they call getting screwed over?’

Feeling frustrated by this confusing situation, I first told Jessica to continue supporting Ignis.

Then I leaned back in my command seat and opened the gallery window to see how other users were doing.

Honestly… maybe only the Monster faction was getting screwed like this.

Other factions might be gaining trust levels smoothly.

Of course, if the developers had properly updated the game, such suspicions wouldn’t be necessary.

But given their track record of already pulling out all four legendary swords (demon swords?), their reliability had gone to the dogs.

So I opened the gallery window with a nervous heart to figure out what the problem was.

And naturally, I also opened our buddy chat window right next to it.

But as soon as I opened the gallery and chat window…

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… … … … … …

-[Guys, is trust level not increasing normally?]

-[Is this trust increase rate for real? My heart is pounding]

-[Why! Won’t! Trust level! Increase!!!]

-[Something’s wrong with faction trust? It’s barely increasing]

-[It definitely gave at least +1 until recently? Why is this happening]

… … … … … …

—————————————-

Just like me, the chat window was filled with people freaking out about trust levels not increasing.

The gallery was also on fire with dozens of posts about faction trust level problems.

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-[Trust level is increasing at about 0.01 per action now](6,165)

-[Is this for real? Completing a quest doesn’t move the trust level at all](893)

-[You too?](611)

-[Could this be another bug? Like they messed up the trust level calculation](1,135)

-[From now on, Manchester takes over this place](3,569)

-[The gallery is burning](957)

-[Wow, today’s activity is killing it](2,358)

-[MUST READ) Explaining what’s wrong with the current trust level increase](98,176)

… … … … … …

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Even veteran players who used to write tip posts were heavily involved.

I was starting to think this might really be a bug, but…

‘What’s that?’

There was a post with “MUST READ” in the title.

Some user, either a regular or a veteran, had written a new post claiming to explain the cause of this issue.

Curious about this, I decided to click on the post to see what it was about.

After reading the content, I realized it made sense why I didn’t know about this.

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Title: MUST READ) Explaining what’s wrong with the current trust level increase

Author: John Doe

Content: [Trust Level Increase Curve Graph]

I’m explaining this because even returning players probably don’t know about it

Right now, tens of thousands of users in each faction are simultaneously grinding for trust, right?

When “tens of thousands” of users are frantically trying to increase trust levels,

The system applies an automatic adjustment

To put it bluntly, if they gave trust at the original rate of 1, 5, 10, etc., users would fill it up too quickly

So the more users trying to gain trust, the more the trust given to each user gets divided by N

So what should have been 1 trust point per person

Is now about 0.01 or 0.001 level?

Well, it probably doesn’t get cut that drastically, but anyway

Basically, if all faction users desperately try to increase trust levels,

A trust increase debuff is applied to all faction users

Oh, and as I mentioned above, it’s natural that some veterans don’t know this

This system was implemented just a few months ago before we possessed our characters

So those “veterans” who don’t know about this are probably all returnees who abandoned the game and came back

Comments:

-[Casually exposing people’s backgrounds while writing tips lol]

-[Smooth veteran hunting, upvoted]

-[GOAT tip post]

-[Wah newbie wants tip posts wah]

-[So we should hunt down the veterans who claimed not to know about this?]

-˪[These bastards are looking for hunting opportunities even in tip posts smh]

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‘Ah, I see.’

Thinking what a useless system this was, I nodded while feeling irritated.