World Keeper

Chapter 1183: Market Research

Within the Admin Room, Ryone hummed thoughtfully to herself, reviewing the different systems on the market. It had been a while since she really browsed like this, since there weren’t many things that she could immediately think of to improve either Spica or Earth’s systems. However, since Dale had asked her to search like this, she decided to take it seriously. Especially since she had a rather personal grudge against Sanction’s forces from their last encounter.

“He said to focus on the Comprehensive Skill Tree system, since that’s the one that we know the name of, but…” Ryone let out a long sigh, shaking her head. Sanction’s experience as a veteran Keeper was already starting to show.

There were dozens of systems listed as needing that one as a requirement, many of them submitted by Sanction himself. However, Ryone wasn’t foolish enough to believe that Sanction purchased all of them. Many of the system add-ons that she found were contradictory, either countering one another or having effects that overlapped with another add-on.

He made a bunch of extras as a smokescreen, once he realized that his information had been sold. It’s not a bad move, since it doesn’t cost anything to just submit an item to the market. She thought to herself, dragging one window after another off to the side of her vision. I’ll need to review the summary of each system, as well as any other systems listed as add-ons to try and determine which one is the most likely.

“Maybe we can test various combinations out with the Beta Reality system?” Ryone thought to herself, before shaking her head. The idea might have been feasible, but she knew that Dale wouldn’t approve of it, since the test wouldn’t work unless they simulated real lives and souls, as programmed NPCs wouldn’t be able to provide the same results. And, she knew that Dale would not agree to such a simulation that created and disposed of such lives as if they were meaningless.

As she was thinking about that, another entry in the market caught her eye, and she glanced over at it. When she saw the listing, her eyes widened slightly. “That’s not a bad strategy, either…” She muttered to herself.

Dale, I’ve got some results for you to take a look at. Would you mind coming to the Admin Room? Ryone’s voice called out to me as I was reviewing documents in my office. Blinking, I nodded my head and called out to Tsubaki to let her know that I would be back in a little while.

A moment later, I felt myself appearing in the familiar, cozy home that was the Admin Room. A small smile crept over my lips as I enjoyed the more normal appearance of a house, as opposed to the large, technological structure of Olympus. As I was enjoying being back, a voice called out to me. “Welcome home~.” She said, and I turned to see Ryone and Terra sitting together in the living room.

“Thanks. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too much.” I said, moving over to sit between them. As soon as I sat down, Terra leaned over, nuzzling up against my shoulder. Without thinking, I brought a hand up to scratch along her feline ears. Given that I didn’t often return to the Admin Room, I didn’t spend as much time with Terra or Irena as I would like. “Where’s Irena, by the way?”

“I think she’s helping Ashley with testing out a new game mechanic across the street. They’re working on a customized respawn system or something.” Ryone answered with a light shrug. “Anyways, I managed to find some systems that I think Sanction is using. Taking into account his status as a veteran, hostile Keeper that has ascended to the fourth rank at least twice, I took some liberties assuming his budget.”

After she said that, she snapped her fingers, causing several system windows to appear in front of the three of us. “Like you said, he made a lot of red herrings to cover his tracks, and it was hard to settle for sure on which ones I thought he would have purchased. However, even if I’m not entirely accurate, I don’t think the results would be much different from this. Though, there was one thing that surprised me.”

“What’s that?” I asked, looking through the systems that Ryone had brought up. These were… quite expensive systems, admittedly. Several of them were priced at nearly a million points, even if they were only add-ons. For instance, there was a system that allowed ‘sub-voids’ to be created, for dungeons with multiple universes in one.

“Most of these systems were not submitted by Sanction himself.” Ryone said, causing me to look over at her in surprise. “While there were a lot of add-ons for Sanction’s skill tree system that he did submit, I found a few submitted by other Keepers as well. This made me think, what would stop him from contacting his friends, and asking them to submit a system on his behalf?”

I couldn’t help but blink at that, thinking it over. “I mean… it’s possible?” I mused, looking at the listed systems. “That would mean that his friends would have information that they could use against him, though. So, it would need to be someone from the same guild.”

“Exactly. Additionally, whoever he asked to submit the system on his behalf would be able to earn a hefty sum from the royalties. In total, he might have ended up paying about a million points more than he would have if he submitted everything himself, but this tactic comes with an extra layer of security. Even from each of these other Keepers, there were at least five systems submitted that could serve as decoys.” Ryone explained, leaning against me and looking at the windows.

“I see… that would make sense, though it relies on him having an excessive amount of points to burn.” I muttered, but then again, for a veteran Keeper, that wasn’t impossible. Especially one that regularly attacked other Keepers to gain their points. “How confident are you that this list is accurate?”

“For each system, I’d say there’s about an eighty-percent certainty.” Ryone answered with a shrug. “I tried to look at them from the perspective of a Keeper building a powerful world with a game theme. At the same time, I eliminated systems that overlapped too heavily, or contradicted more obvious selections. In the end, I came up with three lists, each with a different dungeon creation system serving as a secondary requirement. When I looked over the three, this was the one that I felt fit Sanction the most.”

I gave a small nod of my head, listening to her explanation. In essence, this was still high-level guesswork, but it was the best that we could do at the moment. “We have to assume that the attacking force this time will be substantially greater than what we faced before, even disregarding the rank difference.”

Terra nodded her head, letting out a low purr. “From the information we obtained at the time, the guild that attacked us wasn’t particularly powerful within Sanction’s world. However, you got around his information block with your illusions, so he’s probably pretty pissed at you. Especially if he set up so many dummy systems to prevent another information leak.”

Ryone grimaced, clenching one fist. “In other words, we should expect a high-class guild this time, maybe multiple guilds. And, if that’s the case…” She flicked a finger, bringing one of the systems to the forefront. “We’ll need to be prepared for this.”

The system that she highlighted was a Universe Defense Battle. When a universe within the void was attacked, it would not immediately cause damage to the universe barrier. Instead, it would trigger a raid alert to the ‘owners’ of that universe, and initiate a defensive battle. Powerful entities could be selected to serve as combat forces to defend the universe as ‘champions’, and the universe would only be destroyed when all champions were either slain or defeated.

This one system alone cost three hundred thousand points, and required four other systems in order to buy it. “You mean that he’ll probably send entire universes after us?” I asked, my brow raised.

“That’s right.” Ryone nodded her head, before pursing her lips thoughtfully. “That makes this difficult for us. Most Keepers wouldn’t care about something like that, but we have the karma system. If we destroy even one universe, our karma will be tainted beyond reasonable repair, due to all of the innocent lives that would be lost in the process.”

I closed my eyes, letting out a long sigh and leaning back against the couch. “That… would certainly be bad, yes. So, our top priority for the next month would be to come up with a way to get around the karma system, or get rid of it completely?” I asked, and the two looked at me and nodded their heads.

“In the early days, there were admittedly benefits of the karma system.” Terra spoke up, her tail wrapping around my wrist. “It allowed Irena to more easily manage the afterlife while the worlds were still young. However, the system has started to become more of a shackle as time passes.”

“Let’s take Chelsea’s research team as an example. When they are conducting their world creation and fusion experiments, they have to hide in a specially prepared region where systems such as karma can’t reach them. Then, they have to stay in those regions for at least a week to avoid any lingering backlash.”

“According to the standard definition of karma, people like Chelsea or James would be the most heinous sinners to ever walk the land. Their very existence would invite disaster wherever they went. This is because karma, while a useful tool, is completely unbiased. It looks at the results, but not the reasons. Thus, destroying a universe teeming with life is counted as killing every single individual within that universe, regardless of circumstances.”

Hearing Terra’s explanation, I let out a small sigh. In truth, karma hasn’t been all that impactful in a positive way lately, unless you were talking about Elisae. As things stood, Elisae’s karma was one of the things that held the entire human empire together. If we were to get rid of the karma system, the human empire might fall into chaos.

Seeming to understand my thoughts, Terra gave me a playful smile. “There’s a way to get the best of both worlds.” She said, making me look over at her curiously. “All you need to do is give Elisae a special blessing, like the one that you gave Tsubaki and the others. The primary effect of karma is a background modifier on the Luck and Charm stats. It wouldn’t be hard to create a blessing for Elisae that mirrored her karma.”

That could work… My eyes widened slightly as I processed the information. “Alright… let Ashley know about our plans. She’ll need to prepare an announcement. I’ll delete the karma system. Just make sure that Irena has plenty of time to get the Underworld ready. I don’t want this to cause a major problem with their operations. In the meantime, are there any other major systems that we should watch out for?” I asked, looking at Ryone.

Ryone hesitated for a moment, before nodding her head. “There is one. This is an Origin-level system that I found, called the Dungeon Master’s Rule. It doesn’t make it any easier to create an Origin, but it does add an additional power to what Origins are capable of. According to the system summary, Origins with this system will be able to freely create new ‘dungeons’ in the form of worlds of Rank Four or below, albeit with a cooldown dependent on the strength of the world. Additionally, Origins can interfere with the world laws of other worlds to activate certain system effects, though the summary isn’t specific enough to say what those effects are.”

My brow twitched when I heard that, and I let out a sigh of resignation. “If he’s buying systems specifically for Origins, we can expect at least one of them to be sent with this invasion.” I speculated, bringing a hand up to massage my forehead. 

“That’s probably right.” Ryone said, before glancing up at me curiously. “Are you sure you want to delete the karma system outright, though? I thought you were trying to avoid things like using your Keeper powers to delete stuff like that.”

I gave a small chuckle at that, shaking my head. “Only when it comes to worlds. As for systems, this won’t even be the first system that I’ve gotten rid of. Way back in the early days, I got a broken quest system that turned every verbal agreement into a binding quest. I didn’t hesitate to get rid of that system in favor of the quest system we have now.”

Ryone blinked, but nodded her head in understanding. “That makes sense. Since you’ve already gotten rid of a system like that once before, there would be no harm in doing so to other systems that become problematic in the future.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om