Matan’s Shooter

It was because, as he roamed around during his free time, he recalled the ‘all sorts of things’ they did to curry favor with the NPCs, causing his face to flush.

“Yes. Although there are some special NPCs like the king and Ulrek, most of them were our staff. That’s why the policy of ‘Saur Land does not interfere externally’ was set. Oh, did you like the coffee at that cafe? I’m really fond of it too.”

Leeha, Kidd, and Fernand exchanged glances.

The dinosaurs sipping coffee, reading newspapers, and chatting at the cafe. Dinosaurs discussing stocks and stock prices.

It wasn’t that the dinosaurs were mimicking modern civilized society.

Those dinosaurs were real humans, and rather than mimicking modern civilized society, they were literally engaging in work and rest simultaneously.

‘It wasn’t just a bonus stage—it was the real thing.’

A place protected by a barrier, isolated from the story and inaccessible to anyone.

It was true that it was isolated from the story. Judging by the current flow, Saur Land was a place that could either exist or not—it hardly mattered.

Except for one single entity perfectly linked to the current story.

“Oh, ah! What about Toon? What would have happened if Toon had made it here safely?”

Leeha asked urgently.

Toon was a dinosaur from Saur Land.

Wasn’t he the connecting link between Saur Land and the outside world? So, fundamentally, it couldn’t be entirely irrelevant?

“Haaa…”

The GM, who had stopped in front of a door titled “Stairway to Heaven”, looked at Leeha.

The cheerful face that had been laughing a moment ago was gone.

“… That’s why I had to reveal my identity.”

“What?”

“The storyline… is progressing too fast. The balance has been severely disrupted.”

It was the face of a team member, agonizing over being unable to control the main stream that determined the game’s success.

* * *

The GM was staring openly at the users.

A face filled with dissatisfaction, he soon released the tension with a deep sigh.

“Phew—! Ha Leeha-ssi, the Three Musketeers here, and Fernand-ssi the Pioneer were our key monitoring targets. Because you all poked around so much.”

“Did… did I do something wrong?”

Luger asked nervously, but the GM nodded without changing his expression.

“You did, Luger-ssi. You got greedy, and Le awakened too quickly. Although, thankfully, it wasn’t too different from our predictions. But compared to what I am about to say next—” ɽＡꞐՕ𝐁Ę𝙨

The GM then turned to Leeha.

“Chiyou… her position is a big headache. We had data predicting the number and strength of users who would join the Demon King’s army, led by figures like the Necromancer Faust and combat-centric users such as Igor, warlocks, and Sorcerers. It was supposed to go that way. Even after thousands of simulations, the result was the same.”

The GM sighed again.

Everyone present knew how off the GM’s ‘predictions’ were from reality.

Because of Chiyou, members of groups unrelated to the hidden faction like Shinobigumi and Yamato were lingering in a third territory, with one foot on both sides. Even heroes’ descendants like Pyro had switched sides.

And the one responsible for this was Chiyou.

“The biggest problem is Chiyou herself. It would be better if she stayed under Bluebeard’s command, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Even top-grade AIs can’t handle her.”

“Isn’t that a good thing? Originally, Middle Earth is a game without the admins’ interference. Isn’t it a world created by the users themselves?”

Kidd asked while listening to the complaints about Chiyou.

The GM nodded subtly.

“To some extent, yes… but as you know, there are limits to that too. Even so, the world setting needs to be maintained, right? To prevent users from leaving, it’s crucial to maintain a balance between new and old users while keeping a stable and moderate tension. From the company’s perspective, it’s the industry leader, but it also has to manage market share. And we must consider the user perspective, company revenue, and broader factors like stock prices. Influential shareholders also have considerable sway.”

“That’s quite a realistic answer.”

Watching the GM mention even the stock prices of Gupul, the company that created Middle Earth, Leeha realized anew.

It was indeed a game made by the users’ hands.

However, what if due to users’ intervention, the Demon King’s army wins, causing all the kingdoms of the Lope continent to fall into ruin?

‘Users would leave, and the game might collapse.’

The downfall of the game “Middle Earth” was directly related to the stock price plummet of the company Goople. As an employee of that company, it was a position where they had to protect the company.

Conversely, it meant that the GM did not want the Demon King’s army to win.

“It’s a bit difficult to say this… but you can impose sanctions or apply a balance patch on the Demon King’s Fragments, can’t you?”

Fernand asked cautiously, but the GM shook his head.

“We can’t impose sanctions on individuals. It’s against company policy, and more importantly, it would negatively impact the entirety of Middle Earth.”

“Well, that’s true.”

Sanctioning Chiyou could create the impression that any user could be penalized just for playing well.

That would surely leave a greater shock on Middle Earth than even losing the Gude continent to the Demon King’s army.

“We can’t apply balance patches to the Demon King’s Fragments either.”

The GM quickly shifted topics while waving a hand.

But from that brief statement, Leeha could tell how deeply Goople had investigated Chiyou.

“You know that Middle Earth is a game run by AI, right? The reason we’ve never had regular maintenance is precisely because of that. Even our development team can’t make mid-term corrections to in-game data. The moment we input modification codes, the entire game would stop. There would be chaos.”

“… What?”

“They praised the genius developer too much. It’s because the game runs purely by users’ hands… it’s much harder than it sounds. From the operations team’s perspective, it’s a nightmare. Ah, this is just my personal gripe.”

The GM laughed awkwardly, seemingly embarrassed by his own words.

‘The father of all virtual reality games. That person.’

Leeha had heard rumors about the chief developer of Middle Earth as well.

He was someone who had more interviews than even the CEO of Goople.

‘He made it inherently impossible to modify the game, having such a personality. So stealth patches or secret updates, as mentioned in the community, are entirely out of the question.’

It meant that instead of arbitrary interventions, the AI of Middle Earth would autonomously judge and apply patches.

The chief developer, fearing that human greed or self-interest would ruin the game, took extreme measures that ended up causing difficulties for Goople’s operations team.

“In any case… it’s not your fault, but—now that it’s come to this, you must win.”

“Of course, it’s not our fault! Ah, triggering Bluebeard too early was indeed an issue.”

Listening to Leeha’s words, Luger glared at Leeha. Luger felt pricked momentarily, but the GM did not look at him.

The individual who primarily received the GM’s attention from the beginning was only one.

“No. If we have to point out someone, it’s Ha Leeha’s fault.”

It was a blatant accusation.

* * *

“… What? Me? Why me?”

“The first reason is that you killed Toon. No, to be precise, it wasn’t the killing itself that was the problem. Toon should not have left for Saur Land at that point, according to our planned flow.”

Did this mean that causing Toon to move was a more significant issue than killing him?

“Was that… because of me?”

Leeha knew that Toon had left to seek help from Saur Land, but he hadn’t realized the cause.

Why did Toon move?

“After placing the ‘Divine Staff’, the Sanctification should not have happened so quickly. Because it happened too easily… in fact, from that point, a war of attrition was supposed to raise the overall level of users.”

“Ah!?”

The battle to activate the Divine Staff.

The total war, including the fight against Lark, hurried Toon and Bluebeard. To give Toon a meaning of punishment for repeated failures, Bluebeard sent Toon away.

Far too early.

Of course, what made it possible was Leeha’s incredible sniping.

“Tsk, it started to shake from back then, but the second reason is more crucial.”

“The second reason? Did I do something else wrong?”

“It’s not a wrongdoing. ‘Shimo’ and sniper duels… we didn’t expect a user to win so quickly.”

“…’The White Reaper’.”

Listening to Leeha’s sigh-laden words, the GM nodded sympathetically.

* * *

“The current storyline, according to our data, was set up to be clearable only when there were at least 500 users with a second job advancement. Originally, Kaztor should have moved around that time. However, the discovery of Peklo City and the clear of ‘the White Reaper’ sped everything up too quickly.”

Leeha’s second job advancement as the White Reaper.

By clearing it, the locked terrain of Shazrashian opened, revealing the hidden Peklo City within it. Considering how much trouble this caused, one could understand the GM’s sigh.

“The trigger for the third Demon King’s Fragment and the actions of NPCs related to 《Arcane Sniper》 was ‘the White Reaper’. Clearing that… I thought it would take at least a year even if done quickly. But in-game time, it’s only been 5 years, 5 years! I never expected to witness such a crazy sniper battle—well, this is also part of the game, but…”

The GM shrugged their shoulders with a regretful face.

Both Kidd and Luger were looking at Leeha. They quickly grasped the subtle nuances mixed in the GM’s words.

“You mean it was a different kind of second job advancement compared to Desperado and Cannoneer.”

“And… it was related to that damn Arcane Sniper? Ha Leeha, did you have other information? Was that ‘laser’ thing a skill related to Arcane Sniper?”

Kidd and Luger’s questions were sharp, but Leeha pouted his lips and did not answer.

“Since it’s brought up! What exactly is Arcane Sniper? No matter how much I think about it, what role does it have in the game Middle Earth—”

“As a GM, I can’t tell you that. I’m here to raise your awareness based on internal opinions. To be honest, I didn’t want to appear like this. I was hoping to just wander around and return to Saur Land.”

Looking at his face, Leeha had other thoughts.

The GM’s words seemed to admit that the world of Middle Earth was in serious crisis.

Why did he need to say such things?

What were the biggest factors that made him move, even though he didn’t want to reveal his identity?

It was not because of Leeha. Not because of Luger. Not because of Fernand either.

“… Was it because of what happened to 《Arcane Sniper》 before reaching Laputa?”

At Kidd’s words, the GM’s expression grew somber.

They hadn’t secured Arcane Sniper.

“That’s correct. And the fact that Chiyou took him is the biggest issue.”

His words implied that he already knew what Chiyou was going to do, causing Leeha to feel uneasy.

But before Leeha could speak, the GM reached out his arm first.

“You have to open it. As soon as possible. This alone is a huge problem, but… I couldn’t think of any other way.”

He pointed to a doorway named 《Stairway to Heaven》.

The users swallowed their dry saliva and looked at the door as if enchanted.

Seeing the users, the GM gave a faint smile.

“Just as you showed us gameplay beyond our expectations, make our current worries a mere illusion. Make the predictive data of our operation team become worthless scraps.”

Make the predictive data become worthless scraps.

This indicated that, according to current data, the defeat probability of the ‘Sacred Alliance’ was higher.

Leeha understood the implication and had to ask.

“Can we… do it?”

Listening to the careful question, the GM thought for a moment.

The first thing that came to his mind was, ‘It’s impossible.’ He had always predicted and controlled the flow based on data. But then a different kind of data came to mind—operation team-wide astonishment caused by a user’s gameplay.

“As a level 5 user, you took down a Black Angus in one shot—we all thought it was impossible.”

“Uh, what?”

“I’ve been watching since then. You can do it.”

He was the ‘assigned GM’ who had been monitoring Leeha since his level was barely 10.

Leeha, hit by this revelation, couldn’t respond at all.

“Then, I’ll leave it to you, everyone. ‘Middle Earth’ is watching over you.”

After reciting a phrase from a major achievement, the GM disappeared. Right after the dinosaur disappeared, Alexander logged in.

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