By the time the two arrived at the academy, Haru had to hold onto a fainted Leonora with both hands while riding her staff. The witch herself fought to stay conscious, her strength waning with each passing server tick.
The courtyard was nearly empty, and only one armored guard stood watch at the open gate.
Haru slid to a stop, then tumbled to the ground along with her friend. “Someone help!”
The lone guard, without a word, dashed inside.
Leonora’s unconscious body fell upon the witch and pinned her to the ground. Feeble from the infection, Haru couldn’t muster the strength to slide free. All she could do was fruitlessly wiggle in a bid to dislodge herself.
“Please, anyone, Nor’s—” Haru called out to the empty courtyard.
Suddenly a sphere of mana encapsulated Leonora and lifted her to waist-height off the ground. With quivering arms, Haru rolled herself to her stomach and then pushed with all her might to get herself upright.
Professor Min stood over the witch with his hand out. A strand of mana led from his palm to the sphere which contained the comatose Leonora.
“Let’s get her to medical.” Min adjusted his glasses, a worried look on his face. “Come with me.”
Haru reached for her staff and used it as a means to stand straight. With great effort, the staff was the only way she could hold herself up. She pushed forward, the gap between the professor and her opened as her weakness grew worse. Finally, they reached medical room 102. Haru was struggling to remain standing.
Inside, Min placed Leonora on a hospital bed. A medical team was already standing by and wasted no time in tending to her.
Min then turned to Haru and beckoned her over to an examination table on the far room. “Come.”
Haru stumbled and a nurse swept herself under Haru’s free arm. They hobbled over to the table and the witch was placed down with care. She laid down, relieved to be off her feet.
Professor Min pulled up his planner and began going through her chart. All her basic mob stats were on display. But on the line ‘status’, red text stood out. What followed the category was marked as ‘unclassified infection, critical’.
“Yes,” Min adjusted his glasses and nodded with a concerned look on his face. “It seems that you have the same issue as Leonora and a few other mobs we’ve quarantined.”
Haru grew nervous. Her basic stats didn’t display her latent ability. But if he ran a full trace diagnostic, what she was truly capable of would be revealed. She was calmed by the fact that Leonora was safe now.
The professor sighed and started an extended debug diagnostic. “We still don’t entirely know the nature of this infection or how to fix it.”
On the screen, her boss encounter stats were shown after a moment of being calculated, all the way back to the start of the current game patch. Then ratings out of 100 were displayed next to them, showing most of her fight encounter were indeed far below par. At the very bottom, additional lines showed more about what the infection was doing to her. It caused stat reduction, damage reduction, slowness, and damage type weaknesses across the board.
Min cradled his chin, contemplating. “This is an odd debuff. Strange indeed.” His hand hovered over the ‘trace’ button. “But something I can’t quite figure out.” He stopped and looked at Haru.
“Y-yes?” The witch couldn’t hold back from shivering in fear. Her eyes glanced at his still-suspended digit.
“Leonora’s by far of a higher level than you. But somehow you’re still standing. And…” His face turned to surprise, his brows raising to hide behind his curly bangs. “Still at 100% health.” His finger retreated from the ‘trace’ button and flicked to pull up Leonora’s stats.
Haru relaxed, seeing the panel switch away.
“Your friend is pinned to 1% health. Even full restoration is not resolving the issue.” Min’s surprise faded and he poured over Leonora’s stats. “In fact, her status is less severe than yours, but she is in a far worse state despite the negligible infection status.”
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The witch wanted to protest, given that she was currently pinned to the examination table by the overwhelming weakness coursing throughout her body but decided against it, if for no other reason but to not argue.
The professor shook his head, a perplexed look on his face. Without another word he swiped back to Haru’s chart and pressed the ‘trace’ button. Every bit of information the game had on Haru slowly revealed themselves as the server scanned her current status and prior history. Everything she’d ever done all the way back to the first alpha build. She cowered and looked away.
The professor remained silent as the scan continued. He dragged his finger along the diagnostic readout and hummed with curiosity. “Though only having 1 hit point is concerning, there’s nothing else I can see here that wo—” Min stopped and choked back a gasp.
She winced in fear.
“Haru,” Min sputtered out. “How long has your damage output been like this?”
The witch thought to Leonora lying in bed not far away, near death. Knowing that the witch’s silence before caused her friend to almost die, she fought against the fear to be quiet and pushed herself to speak. “Since the first alpha build.”
Sudden realization swept across the professor’s face, and he beckoned a nurse over, then whispered something into her ear. The nurse nodded and rushed off. Then Min swiped over to Leonora’s chart and started a full trace on her as well.
Every moment the scan took was a worse agony than the withering hurt within Haru’s body. Not knowing what was going to happen next was pure torture.
After the calculations completed, Min hovered over the pirate’s raw damage stats, they all showed red zeroes, signifying the damage types both physical and elemental had a reduction debuff. He swiped back to Haru’s chart. All of hers were black zeros. There was nothing to reduce, and damage couldn’t be reduced below nothing. But on an unlabeled line, a lone number signifying an unknown damage type, remained black and at 999999.
The professor shook his head and hummed with an air of disappointment. “You’ve been bugged this whole time, haven’t you?”
Haru curled up in a ball. “The devs took me out of the game the first time they found out.” She tucked her chin in, as if readying to be struck. “Then they couldn’t fix me. I didn’t want to be permanently removed. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.” She squeezed her eyes, awaiting judgement.
The nurse Min whispered to returned to the room holding a syringe. “Professor, synthesis completed.”
With a hand held out in expectation, he motioned toward the item.
The nurse hesitated, glancing to Haru. “Please be advised,” she looked back to the professor, “alterations in production are explicitly prohibited.”
Min looked to Leonora, then flared his nostrils. “I’ll accept responsibility.” He snatched the syringe from the nurse then turned to Haru and loomed over the cowering witch.
Haru tensed as much as she could, despite the overwhelming feebleness from the infection. This was it—permanent removal.
“Now,” the professor started, “this won’t hurt a bit.” He used the medical item on Haru.
Haru felt woozy for a moment. The room started to spin. Despite her eyes being closed, her sight was flooded with light. Then, as the intense luminosity faded ever so slightly, she could see a walled city bathed in gold. The image was only for but a moment before the light returned and overwhelmed her sight once more.
Through the brightness, her planner pulled up, and the Mark of Patientia she acquired on the burning beach was highlighted in her inventory. Then the planner disappeared and the brightness in her vision faded. She opened her eyes. Relief came to her, coupled with a slow return of her strength. Haru hadn’t been deleted.
“Ah, you’re finally awake.” The professor’s voice oozed curiosity. “Do you feel any better?”
Hesitantly, Haru uncurled and pushed herself upright. “Yes, a little.” She still felt a little weakness, but it was nowhere near as bad. “What did you do?”
Min poured over her chart, nodding with satisfaction. “For a moment, I boosted your damage stats to match the bugged value.” He pointed to her damage values. They were all red zeroes, except for the unknown value, which remained at its absurd level.
“Now I’m even worse?” Haru couldn’t hold back the dismay in her voice.
The professor laughed. “No, it was only for one tick. Just long enough to take measurements.” He cleared his throat. “But my hunch was right. However this infection works, it signals based on damage values. It will ramp up based on its own DPS calculation to scale the rest of the effect.”
Haru was confused. Her power gave her an immense damage output, but it wasn’t affected by this infection.
“You see though,” Min continued. “This bugged value also caused the infection to go haywire on you.” He pointed at her mystery damage value. “It seems to have surged. But the devs nerfed you to zero already. This likely caused an undefined state where you received the worst category of the infection but got the lightest effect.”
A tinge of hope sparked in Haru’s heart. “Will this help Nor?”
The professor looked at the pirate who was still unconscious. “I hope so. This experiment has given us much more information than we could have ever hoped for.”
Haru slid down from the examination table, a wave of relief lifted her spirits. “That’s a good thing. I’d like to go see how Ver—”
With a palm displayed toward her, Min shook his head. “Please sit back on the examination table.”
With freshly instilled dread, the witch complied.
“I’m afraid there’s no other choice but to remove you from the game until further notice.” The professor spoke with remorse.
Panicked, Haru wanted to run away. “C—can I at least go home? I want to go home.” She shifted in place, anxiety spurring her to start moving, to hide somewhere.
Min sighed. “You can’t do that either. Considering you’re infected and one of the most powerful mobs on record, you are as much a danger to the game as the hacker.”
A pair of armored guards entered the room.
The professor motioned towards the door, as to usher the witch toward them. “Please do not resist.”