Haru sat at a small café table on the rooftop of the academy. She slowly drew cookies from a pack of Royal Choco Biscuits, the food item with the highest mana recovery rate in the game. She stared out at the avenue, the central row of trees swayed in the breeze. HomeRoom could not have gone worse. On top of that, a player was loading into her encounter. At least she had enough time to drown her sorrow in cocoa goodness before having to face down an adventurer.
Sitting on the table, across from her, Vernal watched intently every time she raised a cookie to her mouth and chomped down. These were the treats he made a fuss about earlier.
As the witch readied to scarf down the next morsel, she paused just before placing it in her mouth, sensing a pair of eyes burning a hole in her hand. Haru looked over to find a beggar’s expression on her companion’s face. They locked eyes in silence.
Vernal licked his lips. “I know you’re sad but…” he glanced at the cookie. “Can I have one?”
With a resigned sigh, she pulled the cookie away from her lips and brought it towards her companion’s.
“Ahhh.” Haru cooed, to get the cat to open his mouth.
Vernal complied, then chomped down on the treat. The cat’s eyes shot open, and he began to twirl in place on the table. “Woah, that’s good!”
The momentary outburst brought a touch of joy to Haru’s depressed mood. But despite the feline tornado dancing upon the tabletop, she found herself back down not long after. The thought of having to attack players herself troubled her the most. The consequences of being forced to do so bothered her by far more than the embarrassment in HomeRoom earlier.
“Oooh the mana-infused gold flakes on those are so good.” Vernal continued his twirling.
Leonora approached the table. She was now in her full pirate’s attire, a red and black corset with a matching short skirt and fishnets. Recoiling from the twisting kitty, she placed a hesitant hand on one of the empty chairs next to Haru. “Is…” She looked to be weighing her options, perhaps considering just standing, but psyched herself up. “Is this seat taken?”
Ignoring her tornadic companion, the witch shook her head then downed another cookie. A sigh followed the consumption, unable to swallow her distress with it.
Giving herself plenty of space away from the table, Leonora sat and readied to place her hands on the surface. But the swizzling feline forced a retreat and the pirate instead opted to place them clasped on her lap.
“Oh, and the delicate caramel crème!” Vernal continued to swoon over the treat.
Leonora looked out at the avenue, her face revealing contemplation. After a while of quiet between the two, the pirate took a chance. “I… have to admit I’m not sure how you feel. But maybe you could explain it to me?” She shifted in her seat, looking as if she’d blundered. “I—I mean I have fun challenging players. Don’t you think um—” Leonora looked like she was making herself uncomfortable trying to pick words and phrase things gently. “Wouldn’t you have fun like that too?”
Haru winced. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Nor.”
Concern washed over the pirate’s face. “But why? Help me understand.” She leaned closer to Haru while also trying to stay away from the kitty-whirlwind.
The mage relented. “Do you remember in the alpha—”
“Oh yeah, I was a world boss then.”
Haru nodded. “There were only three jobs, one of them was the Magus.”
“The mage.”
“Right, the mage job. My very first encounter ever was with a Magus.”
“Ooh, that must have been so exciting!” Leonora smiled brightly.
Pain etched across the witch’s face. “I wish it were so. Back then, my encounter design was simple. One phase, and the instructions were easy enough: go all-out. And I did.”
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“Let me guess, you beat up another mage. So what?” Leonora folded her arms.
“The feedback from that player was so bad that they pulled me from the game for the rest of the alpha.” Haru looked at her mostly eaten box of cookies, depressed from the memory.
“Bad luck. Sometimes the devs overreact.” Leonora placed a hand on the witch’s arm. “Don’t take it too personally.” Then the image of excited realization burst across the pirate’s face. “Besides, if that hadn’t happened, we would have never become good friends.”
Haru nodded, trying to not let the painful memories sour the good ones.
“Surely they patched out all of that power?” Leonora propped her chin with two fingers.
“They can’t.” Haru spoke with a deep sorrow on her voice.
Vernal slowed his spin, the glee of the treat wore off and he matched her mood, sitting and letting his head sag.
“…can’t?” Leonora spoke, confused.
“In the beta, they added me back in. That’s when I got Vernal and the design of my current encounter. But despite the new fight, I had to engage in the third phase. And nothing changed.” Haru took a bite of another cookie.
“M—maybe it was just a mix up?” The pirate stumbled over her words.
The witch shook her head. “No mix up. No mistakes. Patch after patch, it became clear that, for some reason, the devs couldn’t fix my power output.” She rested her head in her hand. “They weighed just removing me from the game.”
Leonora gasped. “That would mean…”
“Yes, I would be gone forever. It would be over for me, and Vernal.”
The cat looked distressed, staring at his feet.
Haru sat up. “That’s when Vernal and I came up with a plan to make it so that most players could beat the encounter.”
Realization washed across Leonora’s face.
“He would fight the players himself, and I would ham it up, make it seem like that was how the encounter was originally designed.” Haru stared at the cookies, ashamed. “And it worked for a while. Until the patch that rebalanced how damage is calculated was released. That was the first talking-to I received. The fight took far too long and not enough players succeeded.”
The pirate was enamored with this revelation. “So… how did you manage to fix that?”
“The only thing we have control over is battle tempo and miss rate. With those two variables, Vernal and I worked out a timing system for each job. A slower fight for the magical DPS and healers, faster for physical DPS and tanks.” Haru downed another cookie.
Leonora looked at the cat in amazement, then back to Haru. “Then what changed? It seems like you have everything down-pat.”
Haru folded her hands. “The last patch rebalanced defense modifiers. The mitigation ramp is now calculated based on modifiers like evade, block, and anticipation, rather than raw defense numbers. So that means if we speed up our performance even a little, way too many players will fail and that will cause the devs to scrutinize us once more. We will have to figure something else out to speed up the fight, but our options are limited.”
The pirate sat back, puzzled. “So, wait. How strong are we talking?”
Haru turned her attention to a small alley across the avenue from the academy. “Follow me.”
The three walked down a shadowy set of backstreets which led to a small courtyard filled with training dummies. Specifically, DPS-counting targets.
Haru summoned her staff. “This area is eventually going to become player housing, so they placed these here for convenience.” She motioned toward the level 20 dummy, which is the max level for Leonora’s encounter. “Show me what you can do.”
Without a hint of hesitation, the pirate drew her cutlass and charged the dummy down. Leaping, Leonora slashed and cut. Each strike sent numbers flying overhead. Then, she finished her assault with the quick draw of her blunderbuss pistol and launched herself back to her starting position.
The final average DPS was 120.
Leonora nodded with satisfaction. “That’s the value players have to beat in order to successfully complete my encounter. All bosses’ DPS counters are a damage check.”
“Right.” Haru gripped her staff with both hands.
“Well, let’s see what all the fuss is about.” The pirate rested her sword on her shoulder.
The witch un-targeted the level 20 dummy. Instead of turning toward the level 10 dummy, which is what her encounter requirement was, she turned to the raid boss target.
“Roo, that’s not the right—” The pirate started.
“Normal attack.” Haru interrupted. A beam of light ignited from within the blue sphere of her staff. After a short delay from the attack’s charge, a laser burst forth. The ray widened, engulfed the raid boss dummy, and vaporized it.
The final average DPS was 999999.
Leonora stared with mouth agape. She poked her index finger forward and pulled up her digital planner. Then she scoffed. “T—the current player DPS record is 6714. Astra’s DPS target is 7000. How could this be?”
The raid boss dummy respawned, still sizzling.
“I don’t have a good answer for you.” Haru spoke plainly. “I enjoy being a steward for new players. To think about all the friends and memories they’ll create, makes the hard work and worry worth it.”
“Roo…” Leonora spoke with worry. “We can figure something out, maybe—”
Then, the alert for Haru’s encounter rang out. It was time for her to go and fight the player that was about to load in.
Haru shook her head, resigned. “I should have said something sooner. But maybe it was fear that I would get found out. Or just simple pride, that I could handle it on my own. But the time for that has come and gone.” The witch dismissed her staff and turned to walk away.
A worried Vernal looked up at the pirate before following Haru.
“Goodbye, Leonora.”