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

I wasn't a stranger to hardship. Sure, I lived a pretty normal life back in the old world with decent parents with a decent upbringing, but in terms of gaming, I was pretty hardcore in terms of how brutal I wanted my games to be. I've played shoot-em-ups where the screen was practically filled with bullets, and I've also played a few of those games where one needed to be pixel-perfect just to make it to the end. I didn't I'd enjoy such games, but I guess I was a glutton for punishment depending on how good the gameplay was.

"Or maybe I'm just stupid..."

I chuckled to myself as I walked forward. Deeper and deeper into the facility I went, and I still had no idea how deep this whole thing went. The further I got, the more the robots that I was facing began hitting harder now. Truthfully, I didn't think that I could keep this up if I didn't have any backup with me.

Still, this place was getting more and more dangerous by the second. I had to exercise caution, or else I'd probably end up dead. Also, I didn't even know if I was going to resurrect if I died here.

[Moriya: Level 36]

[EXP TO NEXT LEVEL: 293040/5,734,400

[HP: 335/335]

[MP: 276/276]

[6 STAT POINTS AVAILABLE FOR ALLOCATION]

[QUIRKS AVAILABLE]

[MOVE UNLOCKED]

Thankfully, the constant enemies trying to kill me made for some decent [EXP]. I've already leveled up thrice now, what with the boss rooms giving me a considerable amount of [EXP] every time I encountered one. I've also officially unlocked my [Hematopoiesis] passive, meaning that I didn't need to limit myself from firing out suppressive shots if I needed them.

[*BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!*]

My ears rang as the entire world around me kept blaring out the alarm it's been doing for the past few hours. In contrast to the monotone BGM, however, the entire facility itself seemed to be getting more and more advanced the deeper I got. The robots were shinier, and the hallways cleaner. The lights illuminating the facility actually did their job, showing off the sheen and splendor of the Marquean technology employed to build this facility from the ground up.

"Guidance? You there?"

Calling out once more, any semblance of stealth was gone from my system. What mattered most now was at least getting to the dev's side. The gnawing dread that I was feeling for her safety grew more and more as time went on, but still, I pressed on. It wasn't like I had any other choice in the matter.

[*BANG! BANG! BANG!*]

[+5000]

Getting rid of another robot, I let out a small breath as I watched the thing crumple into the ground. For hours, I've navigated this maze-like deep dungeon, and still, I haven't seen a sign of Guidance's presence. A part of me was starting to think that I must've just overreacted and that I just jumped into random hostile territory for no reason. Perhaps she was actually above ground, thinking that I'd disappeared on her after we got into that argument... Oh dear... Now that was an even worse thought to think about.

"No, she's here," I reminded myself with a shake of my head. "She's gotta be here..."

Renewing my resolve, I kept moving forward, my pistols aimed in front of me as I chose yet another path for me to take. So far, my usual strategy had been to take the skull rooms just for the [EXP]. That, end those rooms usually made my progress go by faster than if I went into the safer blank rooms.

"Welp, into another skull room I go..."

Nodding to myself, I walked. My eyes peeled, I expected more of the same, with some kind of massive robot barring my path. The skull rooms themselves were hard, but I was able to kite my way through them all the same. I had a feeling that this entire place was built to be soloable as some kind of challenge mode. Maybe it was even meant to be a grinding area of some kind, seeing as the amount of [EXP] I got from the enemies here seemed to grow larger and larger. God knows that if I could go back here, I'd try and farm just so I could actually match this place's supposed levels.

Reaching the room, I was more than ready to kill yet another robot. Only...

"Wait... What?"

I blinked at what I saw in front of me. Instead of a robot waiting for me to try and kill me, what I saw was the smoldering corpse of the robot that I was supposed to be killing.

That can't be right...

"What happened here?"

Looking around, I holstered my weapons in the meantime once I made sure that there were no enemies around. Observing the corpse of the robot, the lack of visible wounds or dents on it gave me a feeling that it died not from something trying to kill it, but rather, it was a virus of some kind?

"No, wait... Scorch marks?"

I blinked at the obvious black soot covering the robot's smoking back. It actually looked like some kind of blaster, well, blasted its way through it. Though it hadn't made a dent or even a hole, it clearly had the desired effect if it outright killed the thing.

"Hmm... So not an internal error or bug," I sighed in thought. "Wait, then... Didn't this mean that someone was just by here?"

Almost immediately, I looked towards the nearest exit, a bit of hope blooming inside me as Guidance sprang to mind. She must've been here then. She had an attack that looked something like this, right? [Ruin]?

"Guidance?!"

Screaming out, my hope swelled as I waited for a reply, only for reality to sink as nothing came back to me in turn.

"Well, I guess that was just wishful thinking..."

Letting out a sigh, I moved forward. She probably just didn't hear me. I should probably pick up the pace then, maybe even catch up to her before we went too far. Not that I even knew how we'd get out of here...

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GUIDANCE

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"Moriya?! Are you there?!"

Guidance worryingly called out as she made her way through the hallways of the facility. With her keyboard still glowing, her [MP] reserves were starting to run dry the deeper she went, and even as she tried her best to scour each floor, she still didn't find her nominal boyfriend.

Although, what she did find were numerous corpses of dead robots scattered about the floor. Add in the fact that they all had bullet holes in them, it gave her hope that she'd find Moriya also roaming about these pristine halls. She could only hope that he had jumped down after her and that he was also actively looking for her, and the downed enemies she had seen had made that hope grow even higher.

'That, and a bit of something else too,' she inwardly joked to herself.

Still, just because he was looking for her didn't mean that he would actually find her. She still had to do her part and try to meet up with him, if only to make this search go even faster.

"And the others might already be looking for us too," Guidance worriedly hummed to herself. "Shizu, most likely..."

God knows that the princess might already be running after them. Maybe she was already tearing up the capital in search of her and Moriya, though she might be having a bit more success than her by virtue of having [Code Watcher].

"I just wish that I can code ourselves out of here..."

Sighing, Guidance looked at her [Manifest], her lacking ability to code haunting her as she walked through these mysterious hallways. She couldn't code blindly here, especially since she had no idea what this place even had running in the background. She really didn't want to try and mess with unknown code, knowing full well that she already had trouble doing it with known code in the first place.

"[RUIN]!"

[*BOOM!*]

With her attack, yet another robot fell to her attack. She had taken another skull room, and like always, she had dispatched them without issue. Once more, another hatch opened, possibly going deeper than she thought possible.

"This world shouldn't even go this deep," Guidance frowned as she stared at the opening. "Where in the world did the Engine even get this much processing power?"

Grunting to herself, Guidance jumped in. If there was one place where she'd surely meet up with Moriya, it was by the end of this place. Even if she managed to somehow pass him in progress, then she would at least be waiting for him at a single waiting point.

"Just have to keep going," she told herself. "He'll find me in the end..."

If there was a boss by the end of this facility, then she'll need all the help she could get. Surely, Moriya would find her by then... And from there, she'll apologize.

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