As she went deeper into the forest, Lyrhea felt herself dissociating from the world around her. No, she wasn’t losing her mind, and she wasn’t in a bad place, she just was falling into that point that most people have every once and a while when their body and mind enter a kind of ‘autopilot’ and the conscious mind just kinda stops noticing or caring about what is going on.

This was the same experience one would have from driving down a road that they’ve been down hundreds of times to a destination they’ve been to just as many times. Nothing was wrong or bad about it, as the mind and body had a habit of deactivating this ‘autopilot’ whenever anything even remotely different was in the way or was around the person in that state, so unless something sprung out faster than she could react to, Lyrhea was fine.

And she was fine, as nothing was going on. For the first time in what to any who had lived in that area since the Apocalypse/ Fog Fall would say was roughly 5 years, the forest was essentially the same as any other natural forest would have been and should have been before the Apocalypse/ Fog Fall. With no supernatural master to govern the forest, the normal atmosphere had returned, though the native flora and fauna were, of course, radically different to what they were before.

But, once again, Lyrhea really didn’t notice any of that, and only snapped out of her current state when the dumbass bastard most beneficent System-sama gave her a message.

System-Wide Update

It has come to our attention that several aspects of the System were acting improperly and caused many issues over the previous cycles. These aspects are being audited, and several have already been punished for their actions. If you or another associate of the System have any issues in the future, please do not send these issues to your Patron(s) and instead use the newly-added Customer Service tab in your menu. Please note that any associates within the System that fail to use this feature when applicable do so at their and their world's own peril. Please assist the Upper Management with making these worlds that are created as positive an experience as possible.

Please note that ANY Patron(s) that fail to report any issues sent to them instead of through the new Menu Option will be punished accordingly based on the severity of the issue in question.

Reward(s)

‘Customer Service Hotline’ Menu Option

Lyrhea looked at the new message for a bit and tried to connect it and its radically different method of talking to her to the way that it had done so up till now. She ultimately came to the conclusion that her Patron God, as weak as she was, had done something, and that had helped change something inside the System itself.

Or maybe she was just being a hopeless optimist.

She dismissed the message and tried to reorient herself. Her dissociation had taken her deep into the forest, but in which direction she had headed in was something she was utterly unsure of.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

She looked around to try and find any landmarks but to no avail. It was just trees, trees, trees, and more trees…. Grumbling some more, she closed her eyes and began to slowly spin around in a circle.

She was not rotating fast enough to get dizzy, but her movement would, hopefully, help her in the long run. Nothing quite like a bit of randomness to spice up one’s travel, eh?

She stopped after a solid minute of slow-spinning and opened her eyes and was blinded by what she saw. It was a vacant, empty, infinite space filled with nothing but the purest, most florescent white one could possibly imagine.

Hell, it was like she had been teleported into an infinitely massive box with a pure white interior that had ambient lighting that came from every possible ad impossible direction at once, fully lighting the space and providing such a massive eyesore that it would boggle the mind.

She hurriedly closed her eyes again and heard a voice that came from… everywhere. She had read enough fiction and encountered enough Gods to know that opening her eyes at this point would be a suicidal endeavor, to say nothing of trying to rationalize why the voice was coming from every direction and place at the same time.

[“So, it’s you.”]

Lyrhea kept her mouth shut and stayed silent, not even bothering to risk her life with a witty quip or a spoken jab.

[“I must say, had it not been for you so massively pissing off that manchild of a God, we would not have been alerted to the issues that were present in a timely manner.”]

She couldn’t help herself when the voice called the edgelord Harvest God a manchild and let out a slight and short snort of a laugh.

[“Edgelord? Well, that certainly is a new word, and based on what your mind is telling me, it is pretty accurate.”]

Oh, shit. It could read minds!

[“Relax.”] the voice said calmly. [“There is nothing in your head that is something that I haven’t seen about a million times over by now. Do you honestly think that those kinks are some of the most bizarre that I’ve had the mixed bag of pleasure and displeasure of seeing? But that’s beside the point.”]

Lyrhea felt as if someone had their fingers sifting through what she assumed was her mind, but the feeling only lasted a full second before ceasing.

[“Holy shit, that’s a lot of bullshit thrown your way.”] the voice said with a hint of mild concern. [“Looks like we’ll need to put most punishments on the schedule And, no, not for you or your Patron. If Quality Control is that bad, we’ll need to do a bit more cleaning to get rid of all the rust and corruption.”]

There was a pause, but then the voice spoke one last time.

[“Okay, I believe that covers everything. I’ll be sending you back now, and please be aware that while we are unable to give you more Levels or Ascension Rate percentage, we can give you a bit of a hand in regards to not being alone forever. Does that sound nice?”]

Lyrhea had one thought cross her mind before she fell from where she was around a half-inch onto a soft, vegetation-covered piece of land. She cautiously opened her eyes and discovered, to her delight, that she wasn’t in that weird White Room anymore, instead surrounded by the wrecks of fallen and crumbling skyscrapers.

She was both delighted and horrified by the next System Message that popped up, as it was, to put it mildly, a mixed bag at best.