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

"That, I know," I chuckled. "I'll try using [Blood Screen] next time."

"And by next time, you mean this pull, right?"

"Of course, I do," I scoffed. "What? You think I wouldn't try this now after wiping to this guy dozens of times?"

Guidance let out an actual laugh as she smiled at me. "I was just making sure, Moriya. No need to get angry."

"You haven't even seen me really angry yet," I chuckled. "Trust me. I can be a hell of a lot worse when I'm truly angry."

Well, technically, I've already shown how bad I could be whenever I got angry. It just so happened that while I was quick to anger, I was also quick to simmer down and regret whatever it was that I might've done in the heat of the moment. It was just the way I was wired, and I really hope that nobody would see me in a prolonged state of anger and rage.

I could get pretty creative whenever I was feeling vindictive. Petty pranks were the least that anybody should expect from me if I ever got angry at them.

"So I suppose we should try again, huh," Guidance called out, moving the conversation back to what was important. "We've wasted enough time as it is."

"Yep," I nodded in agreement. "Also, I'm glad that I managed to pull you out of that rant of yours."

"You just baited me into teaching you about stuff you already knew, didn't you..."

"And it worked, right?" I chuckled. "Also, I wasn't lying when I told you that I didn't know the terms you were using. I was just using context clues this whole time."

"Doesn't that mean that you still didn't need to ask me about all of that?" she accused as she drew her keyboard at the ready.

"Hey, intuition can only get you so far," I humorously replied as I drew my own pistols. "A lot of people had died due to false assumptions, after all."

"Don't you use that saying to me," she scoffed. "Shouldn't you be pulling the boss right about now?"

I couldn't help but chuckle. "Let me do the honors then."

Preparing myself for another round of fighting, I started off the whole shebang by casting [Blood Screen] on myself. Sure, it dropped my health down by a hundred, but Guidance quickly corrected that by giving me a [Medica] as soon as I was done.

"Oh yeah, just tell me whenever you're going to use that [Move], okay?" Guidance reminded me. "[Medica] will only work for whenever I'm conserving time and [MP]. During the fight, we'd want you always topped up, so I'll use [Cure] on you instead."

"Copy that," I nodded. "Ready?"

"Ready."

With one last nod, I aimed my pistols at Lewis and began my opening salvo.

"[Blood Shot] [Iron Spread] [Hemolysis]"

[*BANG! BANG! BANG!*]

And with that, the fight began. Guidance and I assumed our usual positions, and we began the dance that we've been doing for probably hours now. This time, of course, I interspersed my constant attacks with a timely buff of [Blood Screen] to lessen my attack's health costs.

"[Blood Screen]"

"[Cure]"

Seamlessly incorporating the [Move] into my rotation, I actually saw a significant increase in my uptime due to no longer needing to space out my shots to let my natural regen keep me topped up. With Guidance's [Medica] on top [Hematopoiesis] and [Blood Screen], I was effectively no longer doing damage to myself despite consistently unloading what was possible three times of my max health pool onto him in the span of ten seconds.

[ENEMY HP: 44%]

[CODIFY: 2%]

"Alright, here we go," I called out, my guns still firing nonstop as I inched my way closer to Guidance. "He's at 44% when he started casting."

"That's a new best, right?" she rhetorically asked, a grin showing itself on her face as she continued attacking. "We're doing better after you started using your entire arsenal."

"Well, that's because I haven't really needed it until now," I chuckled. "Would you blame me for not using something that was more detrimental than useful except for whenever we're in a specific circumstance that such a thing would be useful?"

"I won't, but at least make an effort to remember that your other [Moves] exist," she jokingly chided. "Then again, I guess that's partly my fault for designing the core gameplay like this."

I shrugged as I returned my attention to keeping my attacks up, constantly using the same four [Moves] over and over again in an attempt to properly deal damage without losing too much uptime. To the surprise of no one, Lewis's health was dropping faster than anticipated, with his health already as low as thirty percent despite his Enrage still being at around fifty.

[ENEMY HP: 32%]

[CODIFY: 53%]

"I think we've already won," I couldn't help but laugh as I saw the number values, my trigger fingers firing nonstop in both joy and excitement. "There's no way we won't get his health down to zero with this much time left on his cast."

"How low is he?"

"Around twenty-seven now," I updated her, taking another look at his dwindling health bar. "At this rate, we won't even need to pump so hard. We're kind of ahead of schedule."

"Don't jinx us just yet," she scoffed. "So long as he isn't dead, he isn't dead. So stop talking and keep shooting."

"Yes, boss."

Letting out another chuckle, I turned my focus back on the poor old man being riddled with blood bullets and magical attacks. He didn't look like he was taking damage from all of our attacks, but his health bar said otherwise as it now hovered over the single digits.

[ENEMY HP: 6%]

[CODIFY: 87%]

This was it. We were finally going to be free from this man's constant papercuts and stamps. We were finally going to go and save our friends...

We were actually going to be free from this ridiculous loop of constant deaths due to something that was... honestly just infuriating to think about.

"To think that we even had this much trouble beating him is kind of anger-inducing," I chuckled, my eyes still trained on Lewis's health, which was now only at around three percent. "This was laughably easy."

"I know, right?" Guidance heartily agreed. "This wasn't one of my own designs, so the Engine must've thought that just slapping together random mechanics and calling it a day was going to be enough to beat us."

I shook my head at the thought of that Engine giving us a fight this ridiculously easy. And with one last shot, Lewis's health dropped to zero, his [CODIFY] interrupted at 94% as he kneeled down on the ground in pain.

"You... You two..." he coughed out, his beard stained with blood as he spat his words out. "This... This isn't justice...."

With those last words, Lewis fell to the ground with an unceremonious thud, his large body kicking up enough dust up in the air that it formed a small cloud that somehow formed a small rainbow inside it from how the light hit it.

"It's over..." I breathed out. "It's finally over..."

[+200000 EXP]

My eyes widened as I saw the amount of [EXP] that I just got. It wasn't much, but it was a whole lot better than getting nothing like the rest of the other instances we've done.

Guidance scoffed at me as she gave me a mocking stare, her keyboard slung over her shoulder as she smirked at me. "Now, wasn't that easy?"

"Yeah, yeah..." I waved her off, ignoring the fact that we just killed a guy for doing his job. "Let's just get to our friends."

"Right," she nodded, her smile quickly removing itself from view as she took on a more serious tone. "Go and get Shizu. I'll keep a lookout in the meantime."

Nodding, I holstered my pistols and quickly made my way back to the spot where we last left Shizu. Somehow, a part of me expected the princess to be missing, that she would already be up and about without even telling us where she was going. And thankfully, that wasn't the case.

"M-Moriya?"

"Yeah, it's me," I quickly replied as I kneeled down to look her over. "You okay?"

Shizu weakly nodded. It was clear that she had just woken up. The dazed look in her golden eyes made it look like she was still dreaming in her head though, and her next words only cemented that fact.

"...G-God... You're handsome...."

Yep, she was clearly still delirious. "Can you stand?"

At my question, Shizu tried to stand on her own two feet, only for her knees to give out on her as I quickly moved to catch her. She giggled on my back, her dreamy voice echoing against my ears.

"H-Heh... Everything looks weird..."

"Just hang on, okay?" I told her as I adjusted her position on my back. "We're getting our friends back."

"Where are the numbers..."

Ignoring what was obviously her still daydreaming, I shook my head and made my way back to where I left Guidance. We still had a bit of ground to cover, and the chaos that was happening around us didn't seem like it was going to stop itself any time soon.

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