This is a Beta Test?! - A Literally Broken System

As opposed to Port Khong, Port Decim looked more like a city port than the backwater that was the former. Cranes of various shapes and sizes littered the docks, massive metallic containers piled on top of one another making for a rather familiar sight than the village-like feel of the Imperial port. Turning towards the town proper, calling it that was more like an insult than any as a decent amount of skyrises dotted the skyline.

All in all, it felt more like an actual metropolitan city than a mystical place filled with weird magical technology.

"Woah... Those are tall..." Shen looked up in awe at the nearest building to the town. "How\'re they even standing with that much weight in them?"

"These are... But they\'re made of stone?" Shizu craned her neck up, her frown only furrowing further as she wondered. "They shouldn\'t... How?"

Guidance and I shared a knowing look. I guess it was up to us to explain basic building principles. "We\'ll explain after we get the time."

"You\'ve always said that, Moriya," Shade scoffed. "You still owe us an explanation or two, if I recall."

...

...

Oh right. "After the Portmaster then. We\'ll be walking around the place anyway. Might as well talk while we\'re at it."

Yikes. How could I forget about that? And after we had so much time just sailing our way here too. And it was even relevant to Marquee to boot!

"That\'s about the cutscenes you saw around a week ago, correct?" Guidance asked beside me as we walked.

"Yeah," I scratched my head with a slight chuckle. "One of them took place here. Well, maybe not here, but in Marquee itself. It was in some place called Centrax too."

Based on how the dev\'s eyes lit up in recognition of the name, I could only assume that she had a few ideas about what I saw.

"We\'ll talk about that later," she nodded. "For now, let\'s just get these things sorted."

⬛⬛⬛

The trek to the Postmaster\'s office had been a quiet affair, all things considered. Well, Shizu and Shen were still gawking and aweing at every new thing they saw along the way, but even their constant oohs and ahhs eventually petered out, replaced with a gaze of absolute wonder as their necks kept turning from side to side every other second.

As for the registration and all that, it almost felt like we were applying for visas with how the Portmaster stringently asked us about our intentions. Thankfully, Shade took care of that for us with his smooth talking. That, and his [Manifest] glowed every so often depending on how the conversation went.

Seriously... That was kind of terrifying to think about.

In the end though, we all got our papers sorted. We were now free to move about Marquee in a limited fashion as sellswords. We wouldn\'t be able to sail deeper into the City-State itself, but we did have access to the capital city of Centrax so long as we went through the roads.

That, unfortunately, meant that we had to leave the [Empire\'s Wrath] unattended for a significant amount of time. That was, unless one of us wanted to be left behind.

"That\'s highly dangerous," Guidance quickly vetoed the concept. "Leaving someone alone on the [Rig] would be just as bad as us leaving it alone."

"But what if some Marqueans come and steal it?" Shizu pouted. "I don\'t trust these people enough to just leave something as invaluable as the [Empire\'s Wrath] lying around here."

"We don\'t have much of a choice," I sighed. "We can\'t just leave someone there as we are now. And no, Maruki\'s coming with us. He\'s too valuable as a tank to just leave. It\'s either we leave it there alone while we explore this place, or we just leave."

The princess frowned as she tapped her foot in annoyance. We were currently just outside the Postmaster\'s Office, and while we were talking about some confidential stuff, the surrounding area was just noisy enough that our words were being drowned out before they left our group.

"I concur," Shade nodded. "If we\'re to investigate the presence of this weapon, we\'ll like have to go to Centrax. Besides, leaving the [Rig] wouldn\'t be a problem anyway. I\'d be more worried for the rent that we have to pay to keep in the docks."

As if on cue, all of them looked at me as if I had the answer to everything that was going on. Of course, two could play that game, and I stared at Guidance as she leveled her glance at me. That went on for about a second or so before the dev acquiesced with a sigh.

"You still have Kattleynan Leafs, right?" she asked.

"Yeah," I nodded. "I have a fair bit of them on me still."

"Then we just have to find some place to convert them to Marquean Chips," she shrugged. "Should be easy enough, assuming the currency exchange favors us."

"Currency exchange?" Shen curiously asked.

"All the three nations accept their own currency," Shade promptly explained. "As for Vestyge, their own version of money is in the form of Vestygian Obliques."

Huh... Some really weird names for these currencies.

"As for the exchange, it depends on the demand," Shade continued. "Last I heard, the highest value out of all the currencies is the Marquean Chip, followed by the Kattleynan Leaf, with the Vestygian Oblique trading at the lowest value out of all of them."

I let out a sigh at what I was hearing. Giving Guidance a look, I couldn\'t help but ask, "Did you seriously have to make a running real-time economy for your game?"

She shrugged. "Why not? It would add realism. And it wasn\'t like it was hard to implement anyway."

Letting out another sigh, I looked out towards the streets as I pondered on our next move. It was clear, of course, but after we got ourselves situated, should we just go to Centrax and snoop around? Maybe we should actually just fit out our [Rig] with a brand new engine while we\'re at it.

"So how many Leafs do you have?"

I was thrown out of my musings as Shizu fielded a question. "Let me check... [INV3]"

[INV1][INV2][INVENTORY 3]

[Kattleynan Leafs: 53055]

[Marquean Chips: 0]

[Vestygian Obliques: 0]

[INSIGHT: 6]

I blinked as my interface popped to life. Obviously, I was the only one who could see it, and maybe Shizu if she had her eyes turned on.

"About fifty thousand," I promptly answered. Also, I had even more [INSIGHT] than I had last time, I think. Still don\'t know where that would come in. But if I was getting more of it, then it was only a good thing, right?

With our financial status declared, I closed the window, only to be met by Shade looking at me like I had just given him another bomb of information.

I raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"You have that much money on you?" he incredulously asked.

"I know it\'s not much, but at least don\'t shame me about it," I sighed. "I think we can earn enough money through other means anyway."

"Why bother? You\'re filthy rich."

...

...

The sounds of passersby walking around us seemed to stretch on for longer as Shade\'s words slowly sank in. Almost immediately, I found myself staring at Guidance, the dev simply raising both hands as if she had nothing to do with what was happening.

As if. That look in her eyes clearly told me she thought otherwise.

"Huh?" I couldn\'t help but gawk.

"You have more than enough to pay for the [Rig]\'s dock rent," Shade explained. "Assuming the exchange rate hadn\'t tanked yet, we\'ll have a decent amount of money going to Centrax."

"I see..."

My eyes were still at Guidance, her face slowly turning red under my questioning gaze.

"D-Don\'t look at me like that," the dev protested. "I don\'t know enough about that stuff to really know what constitutes as rich here."

"You could\'ve at least told me not to skimp out," I sighed. "That way, I would\'ve been reminded to actually buy new stuff for myself. And speaking of new stuff, we might as well go do the resupply first as soon as we get some proper money."

"Agreed," Shade nodded. "We should at least have the [Rig] stocked in case we need to use it on short notice."

"Oh! Can we buy some new books too?!" Shen eagerly asked.

"We can put that on the list," I chuckled. "But for now, we stick to the essentials."

And with that, we now had a new self-made objective on our list. That was on top of all the other stuff we had to check and talk about, of course, but it was a start. I still had to confirm something that was on my mind about this place with Shizu and Guidance as well, seeing as everything still looked normal so far without all of the glitches we saw earlier.

Ah well... We had some time along the way for all of that stuff. Well, I said that, but I completely forgot to tell them about the cutscenes... Ugh... I should really start with that later before I completely forget again.

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛