"Just when the game was about to launch, a problem had occurred," The man with a kingly visage said in annoyance. He held out his arms and pointed at the air. It seems he was opening up a system that is only available, and visible to moderators.
'Crap! He's already here! What was the script for beggars again!?!' The newfound beggar was beginning to question his fate as the next few moments would decide it all.
"Oh? What do we have here?" My face fell down as he heard that voice above me. The moderator stared downwards with playful eyes as he had quickly figured out the problem.
'Dammit, I was found out! Nevertheless, I should just start playing dumb and hopefully never give away anything'
The man in the sky flew down like gentle but sparkling snowflake. His feet landed softly 2 inches above the ground. He was levitating like a jellyfish at sea.
With memories of my past life, this should be Mod Kim, a mysterious and rarely seen moderator in this gaming world, in fact, almost every moderators were rarely seen. They only show themselves when a bug occurs which is what he himself is identified as by the system.
Mod Kim was silently inching closer and closer like a lingering ghost towards me.
"Can you please spare a poor man some bread?" I said with a shaky voice, but I also didn't dare look into the eyes of the Mod for fear of being exterminated.
"Hmmpft, cut the crap, I read the manuscript, you were clearly speaking to the system about logging out, twice"
Alarms went ringing inside my head, it was as if someone had pulled the fire switch inside a burning building, somehow the feeling of being put out permanently was eating my heart. It was useless, everything that I had mentally prepared to do was already thrown out of the window.
My arms and leg were trembling because I didn't know how to respond to the moderator. All I wanted to hear from the mod was 'Aprils Fools!' or 'You got served!' but alas none of these words were spoken.
"Such thing has never happened before, perhaps someone made a mistake?" Mod Kim said in confusion, trying to figure out what to do with this beggar that was silently trembling in fear.
'Dammit, I need to think of something fast... Perhaps...'
"Are you god? Why was I created? I am so confused and hungry? Do you have spare food or not!" I suddenly cried out before shutting my mouth tight in fear.
The Mod stood there with a shocked face, not expecting this kind of rapid response.
"Is this perhaps an artificially intelligent NPC?" Mod Kim whispered while in deep thought.
"Who on earth turned this beggar into an Ai?" Mod Kim looked down upon the dirty, unclean and smelly man.
'Yes!' This is, of course, a normal response to an NPC that has gone off script. I was a feeling a glimpse of hope with where the direction of this problem will go.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
In the world of The Lost Promised Lands, there are basic NPC that follows a script. These are typically low-end creatures and monsters such as goblins, rats, chickens. There are also basic NPCs like the various beggars out there who can only do so much within the game because they were created to be simple, all they should do is just roam around like zombies or beg for food and coins, nothing less nothing more.
Next, there are artificially intelligent NPCs that differ into three grades. Soft, Hard and Advance. I had no idea what separates the three, but basically, it's similar to low, middle, top in regards to quality.
Apparently, all the really hard bosses, high-level NPCs and important in-game characters are usually sitting between Hard or Advance grade because they can think for themselves and react to any situation accordingly. This is why PvE is the most difficult in this game compared to others.
Soft NPCs are usually low tier bosses or characters that deal with players directly, like merchants, mildly important quest givers, or low leveled top figures in towns and cities.
This is the reason why this game became the most popular in its generation.
AI's in VR games was a new concept because it was so difficult to create, most games rely 100% on programming and scripts whereas The Lost Promised Lands has very lifelike NPCs and Monsters. It was realistic, but not entirely realistic that people forget they're playing a game.
"System Request Beggar Bob Program Sheet" Said Mod Kim.
< Pending moderators request 011... > [*Beggar Bob Program Sheet*] < Entity Beggar Bob found... >
< Request 011 accepted >
A holographic screen that only Moderator Kim could see popped up before him, this screen showed everything about Beggar Bob. Previously, Mod Kim could only see the bug report which generally only showed an outline of the incident. But now after opening up the Bobs program sheet, which is essentially their life and soul for game characters, his eyes grew wide. He was generally shocked by the content of this sheet!
"It says you were created ten minutes ago? Furthermore, you are an Advance Grade NPC? It seems you weren't created by any moderator, but by the very system itself?!?"
"Why?" Both of them thought about this inwardly.
This revelation was shocking to hear, this was especially to Kim because the system decided to make some last minute changes and added in a new character without any basis. But what was the point of making an advance grade beggar? And one with a blank slate, minimum stats, no skills, no items besides a worn out robe and why have it spawn inside the Beginners Village? This beggar would be the only advance grade NPC within a wide perimeter and was possibly the only one inside areas that are under lvl 30.
"What are you on about? I was created 10 minutes ago? What's an Advance Grade NPC or moderator?" I decided to strike while the oven was hot and went back to my previous strategy by acting dumb.
"Oh, you have nothing to worry about, in fact, you should rejoice at being lucky, I can only tell you to follow your own path and continue to grow, I have no idea why you were created, but I will send a report to make your existence known to the other moderators so that you don't run into troublesome things like this again, and also, I'll be disabling the logout function"
"What? Where are you going? At least leave me some bread!" I yelled as I saw the white figure ascending through the sky towards the wormhole.
"Heh, a true beggar at heart, farewell little fella, I hope you do interesting things inside this world, oh and remember, you only have one life!" Mod Kim treated Bob as a little kid cause he was just recently created. He abruptly left through the wormhole and it disappeared from sight, but not before he threw out something small and brown down towards the ground.
I caught it and found that It was a normal piece of bread.
+1 Normal Bread (Regenerate 1 HP per second over 12 seconds)
The bread disappeared from my hand and into a spacial bag, 'the inventory'.
I was unconsciously smiling wryly because I had made it through this stressful situation alive, but I was also depressed because of the last thing Mod Kim said.
'You only have one life'