>

The viewer count had risen dramatically so fast, it was almost frightening. It looks as if the outside world has caught wind of us as well. The count kept on increasing at a drastic rate and it shows no sign of slowing. Well, Ayako… it looks you’re streaming for the whole world to see. What are you going to say now?

“So I’m going to do something about it. Me, Sora… and a few others. We’re raiding the boss and we’re going to try and beat it. I don’t expect everyone watching this to join us, and that’s okay. You have a future to think about, lives to live and that’s fine. Won’t hold it against you.”

She took one step forward. To the side, Jin watched in silence with his sullen eyes, all this time as tensed as I.

“But to those of you who think enough is enough, to those of you irritated and pissed off, to those of you wanting to fight and make a difference, I say - welcome to the guild, our ‘Carpe Diem’ - glad you chose us. Now we only just formed this guild, so we haven’t really had an official recruiting session, so if you’d like to attend it, feel free to come. The venue is being held at 8 am in front of the boss entrance. Right now it’s about 3 in the morning so I suggest you make haste.”

A small moment to breathe, “Don’t disappoint, everyone. Don’t disappoint yourselves. If we ever get the chance to show the asshole who trapped us here who’s boss, it’s now. Show him what you’re made of. Show yourself what you’re made of.”

Then like a total inverse reflection to the way she began, she formed a genuine smile on her face. Not force, not strained.

“This probably sucked ass, didn’t it?” She gave a small chuckle. “Ah well, there goes my career in politics. I hate speeches. Regardless, everyone, I hope to see you there. Goodbye.”

That was my cue. With another tap of a button, we’ve ceased transmission. Away with it went the extra displays - the bright blinking dot, viewer count, chat - all of it gone without a trace.

Yet before it was gone for good, I had a nice long look at the turnout we had for this spur-of-the-moment idea.

“How’d I do?” Ayako asked, smiling, her face looking more exhausted than when we first started.

I returned the smile, “Well, we won't be winning any accolades but it's something. Anyway, are you ready to turn your words into actions?”

“How about after I take a moment for myself, here? Geez, I nearly fainted back there, shit. We’re even now, Sora, got it? You’re never gonna get me to do that again.”

“Ah… well, stranger things have happened.”

“What do you mean?”

My lips stayed sealed. I decided it best to not divulge to her our viewership number… for her sake. She might actually faint if I do. Not even her most-viewed live streams have ever come close to the numbers we’ve gained.

“That reminds me,” She said, grunting as she stretched her arms, “Anybody else watching besides that friend of yours? There’s gotta be at least some right?”

“You got 11.”

3.4 million, actually.

“Ah,” She nodded, walking away to rest at a corner. “More than I was expecting actually.”

Oh, you have no idea.

It felt good. Seeing plans come into fruition. I won’t lie, I started feeling a bit more confident in our chances again. But I’m no fool. I won’t start hip-hip-hurraying until the moment of truth has come to pass. For all I know, no one would be coming, yet it feels to me that it’s less likely that that is the case here.

At least a good many… that’s all we needed.

“Sora?”

Ayako stopped dead in her tracks. Just a second’s glance at her was enough of a tell for me to realize that something wasn’t right here, something wasn’t right with her.

“What’s up?” I asked, feeling an ominous sort of dread beginning to surface.

“N-nothing, I just…” In the smallest of movements, she was swaying unevenly, her words too, spoken without a sense of weight to them. “My… is it… is it my imagination?”

I took a step towards her, my concern growing at an exponential pace, “What is?”

“It’s just, I didn’t think I was this tired… I don’t -”

Halfway towards her, before she suddenly collapsed, instantly falling face forward with a resounding thud without any warning whatsoever. I let the torch in my hand fall, clattering to the ground as I raced towards her, feeling a squeeze in my lungs that made all that much harder to breathe.

“God - one thing after a-fucking-nother!” I shook her body with my hands anxiously, turning her upright to face me. “Ayako, oi, Ayako!”

Her eyes shut tight, her body limp and loose and totally unresponsive, it all just exacerbated the panic that was flooding my system.

At a complete loss, I set my sights to the only other person within vicinity, desperately I tried calling out to him, but the dimly-lit view before me provided by the last dying light of the torch left me nothing but speechless.

Jin laid sprawled on the ground, his head drooping to the side, unconscious. I felt my stomach give an impulsive lurch.

I stood back up, my legs tingling in a state of worry, more and more feeling the situation slip away from my grasp. I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t know what on earth could have caused this.

Then, looming in the darkness of the recently snuffed torch, came roaring a deafening rumble of sound, vibrating the walls as it settled in volume.

My eyes looked to the darkness and heard a voice.

“Somehow Sora, it is always you. To tell the truth, I’m actually quite as baffled as you are about it.”

Without form, without source, the voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere at once. Nothing emerged from the dark to greet me, but there was just no mistaking the mellowness of that voice.

I swallowed my fright, “Sukuinote?”

The voice spoke again, “Mr.Jin must have messed with your settings too much for it to have initiated for you. Fiddling too much with the developer window isn’t something I’d recommend, tell him it isn’t a toy for him to mess around with, so make sure he doesn’t, alright?”

Fronting my eyes to another empty space, I spoke, “You did this?”

“But it’s no trouble. Just a simple process, a little bit of manual labor, no matter. A few lines of code here… and there we go.”

All of a sudden, without me making any inputs, my menu screen chimed open, displaying small text in a luminous silver border. I read the words and immediately felt a sense of deja-vu.

>

“Another one?!” I exclaimed, my jaw dropping in shock.

“Of course another one. Still many things to remedy, bugs to fix… a GM’s job is never done now, is it? Broken is as broken does and I intend to rectify that as much as I am able. Got some nice things in this update, look forward to it.”

I couldn’t even muster a response anymore, I felt my consciousness quickly slip away… by the eighth second, I was on my knees… by the sixth, my eyelids started to droop.

Somewhere between falling and sitting upright, I managed to mumble weakly to him, “God, you’re annoying.”

Before the fourth second happened, as sleep began to overwhelm my senses, he spoke again.

“Not God. Just annoying,” he chuckled, “yet for what it's worth though, Sora, I’m cheering for you. You’re doing more than I thought you would. When you next wake, I can’t wait to see what you’ll do next.”

>

Patch 1.2.0 (7/4/2026)

>

-Added into the Overworld.

-Added in the Skill Tree Menu. (Skill proficiency increases with continuous usage)

-Added various QOL changes into the Overworld, including new environments, textures, landscapes, trees, flowers, mobs, and lighting overhaul

-Added crossbows and whips

-Increased spawn rates of hostile mobs in the Overworld.

-Increased XP gained from quests, combat encounters, and minibosses.

-Increased friendly fire damage by 50%

-Increased damage dealt by hostile mobs by 30%

-Decreased maximum damage output for all weapons by 15%

-Decreased critical hit chance to hostile mobs by 33%

-Removed multiple out-of-bounds locations

-Removed streaming feature entirely

>

-Fixed bug with weapon collision resulting in weapons getting stuck in objects

-Fixed enemy A.I pathfinding issue

-Fixed recruiting non-recruitable NPCs exploit

-Fixed texture pop-in issue

-Fixed issue regarding Usernames being unable to be seen in certain areas of the map

>

-A class-action lawsuit filed against Cyberware Game Studios for dangerous malpractice and unauthorized experimentation in Artificial Intelligence

-Victims of the have all been moved to designated areas according to states and are to be monitored under close supervision by a government division led by government official Reiki Kawaru

-7 more deaths resulted by unauthorized removal of the headgear

-All ongoing developments for all virtual reality software and hardware to be put on hold indefinitely

-A surprise Livestream broadcasted at 2:54 A.M JST by first priority victim, Sora Tatsuya featuring the popular streamer, Ayako Rei, made headlines around the world. Marking the first-ever occurrence of player activity within the game

-Still a 100 floors to go, everyone.

-A long way to go before you’ve earned your freedom.

-I do look forward to the future we’ll have together.

-May it last for a long, long time.

-I’ll try to make it as fun as possible for everyone.

-So until we inevitably part ways…

-Let’s just keep enjoying ourselves, okay?