I got forced into a 24 hour beta test by my co worker where I promptly died and I got stuck in the game I was making. How irresponsible can she be?!

I woke up groggily, staring up at the morning sky. Immediately I noticed something was wrong because that was very clearly not the ceiling of my 3 room apartment in the middle of the underdeveloped town that I called my home. Also the air was crisper and the wind caused more noise than I was used to as it shook the tall grass that relentlessly poked at my eyes. I sat up and the small clearing that I was lying in came into view. No part of my town was nearly this overgrown and the closest location that could conceivably resemble this place was a two hour drive away. As I briefly considered the possibility that I had been kidnapped and dumped somewhere, I looked down at my hands and upon seeing the sturdy leather gauntlets and steel breastplate I was in, I realized where I was.

"Hello?" I called out.

"Oh shoot." A voice came out of the sky along with the popping of a mike being prepared, "Hold on! Uh...testing...testing...senpai, can you hear me?"

"Mikamina? Is that you?"

"Yep! Good morning, senpai!"

"What am I doing in the game?"

"Well after the programming team pulled a full 48 hour crunch time coding before we had to present the vertical slice to our producers, I figured we could let them take a well deserved break while we did the bug testing for them!"

"I was part of the programming team too!" I objected.

"Yeah but senpai, you only made minigames so that hardly counts."

"Excuse you, I had to do just as much work looking over other people's codes as well!"

"Yeah but did you actually do any fixing?"

"I got other people coffee and stuff too!"

"That's what people with not enough work do."

"I'm not having this conversation with you! I'm logging out!" I waved my hand and the menu dropped into view.

"Oh about that, senpai. I removed the ability for you to log out."

"WHY THE HELL DID YOU ADD A DANGEROUS FEATURE LIKE THAT?!"

"Well you know, I thought it might come in handy. It's really amazing what you can get the programming team to make for you when they're already more exhausted than the dead at 5 A.M and running on black coffee that's only a little bit more bitter than their tears."

That was my colleague, Mashiro Mikamina. We worked together at an independent gaming studio called Starscale Studios. We were a small team, barely twenty people who had gathered together to make a new virtual reality MMO called Samsara of Dreams. I was one of the programmers on the team who pulled two all nighters to deliver our prototype though admittedly I wasn't nearly as exhausted as everyone else by the end of it. Mashiro was one of the lead designers in charge of developing the story though she helps on the business side when she's not coming up with the next crazy idea for us to program in.

"Oh senpai, just call me Mika!"

"How did you even sneak me into the game to begin with? Did you kidnap me?"

"Senpai is a very heavy sleeper." Mika replied cheerfully, "I'm surprised your own snoring doesn't wake you up."

"I don't snore!"

"Oh so I guess no one told you huh?"

"I...I don't snore!" I gulped, "How did you get into my house anyway?!"

"I told your landlord you were sick and I was just here to pay you a visit."

"And she believed that?!"

"She even gave me some porridge. You can come eat some with me once we're done! Though we'll have to heat it up."

"Whatever." I sighed, "So? You're going to let me out once I finish bug testing for you right?"

"Of course! Scout's honor!"

"Uh huh."

I had never spoken to Mika directly but she was always energetic and willing to help despite not knowing anything about the creation process. We usually used her for errands though she was mainly absent during our double all nighter so I had to do that for her.

"So where am I?" I said as I got up, "This doesn't look like the starting area."

"This is the Windy Grasslands! I set your location here because we have to test the balancing on the starting enemies."

"Uh huh." I looked down at my hip, at the common iron sword that every new account started with, "By the way, didn't I have better equipment than this? This is my admin account right?"

"Oh, I got rid of that! We can't have you running around with endgame equipment in the beginner's area!"

"What the hell, I liked my level 99 greatsword!"

"Yeah but you got that through admin commands so it's not like you earned it."

"Nobody has earned anything yet! We haven't even started the public beta test yet!"

"Exactly! That's why we're going to start from a fresh, new account. To test everything from a new player's perspective!"

"This isn't exactly an unbiased test you know."

"It's okay! With your expertise in minigames we'll get through the tedious stuff in no time!"

"Don't call my minigames tedious!" I took a deep breath to calm myself down again, "Okay. What's the first thing on the dock?"

"Well since we're just starting out, we'll have to get you leveled up a bit first by fighting some enemies. That means..."

"Slimes right?" I looked around, "They don't spawn here though."

"A bit to the left, senpai! There should be a few slimes there!"

"Got it, got it." I sighed as I began to walk off.

Beyond a few trees was an earthen road, worn by the passage of many travelers and merchants and the like. Lingering along the sides of the road was a small collection of blue slimes that just wandered aimlessly in the small area that we had set for them. The sentient drops of water bounced up and down in a vaguely cute way The modeler did a good job making them look and act cute despite being the first things most players will kill at the start of the game.

"Okay senpai, time to test the combat."

"Not that there's a lot to test." I said as I drew my sword, "Beginners only start with one skill by default."

"Yep. 'Critical Strike' right? An attack that always results in a critical hit!"

"Let's test it out now then. Critical Strike."

My body felt lighter and I could feel strength flow into my arm as I brought the sword down on one of the slimes, killing it instantly. And immediately, I leveled up from Level 1 to 2, gaining one Live Point.

"Of course, the first level up is a freebie." Mika chirped, "What are you going to spend it on, senpai?"

"Well I don't have a class so I can't get any new skills." I explained as I opened up my menu, "And my Critical Strike is on cooldown right now so I'll just use it on my stats."

"Which one?"

"Attack." I replied as I used my point to increase my attack stat, "First few levels are mostly just a grind so I want to just get this over with as quickly as possible."

"I see. Well, we confirmed the skills are working. Now to test the general combat."

"It seems to be working fine but alright, I'll kill some more slimes."

"And I'll be here to keep you company, senpai!"

"I would be in trouble if you leave so I should hope you stay." I said as I started a battle with another slime, "Since I can't log out and all."

"If you ever get into any trouble, I'll use my admin commands to bail you out!" Mika said cheerfully, "Hehe. It's like I'm a god in this world."

"An evil god maybe." I muttered, "Are you sure you even know how to use the admin commands?"

"I got a few notes pulled up on another screen right here. I can handle it senpai, don't worry!" Mika said confidently, "I'll be a great god! You know, my name even has the word for God in it."

"If only that mattered."

After slaying a good number of slimes, I wiped the sweat from my brow and pulled up the menu to check the time, "Hey, Mika, it's been thirty minutes. I think we've tested the combat well enough for now. What's next on the list?"

"That so?" Mika replied, "Mmmm...I don't suppose anything dropped from the slimes?"

"Just some slime blobs." I shrugged, "Why?"

"It says here on the change log that someone added a new item to the slime drops."

"Oh really?"

"Yep. It has a 1% drop rate."

"One percent?!"

"Yep! So, senpai, if you could just kill a couple more slimes until this drops..."

"It has a 1% drop rate! I could be here all day and it wouldn't drop! Just add it to my inventory with admin commands!"

"That's not the point senpai! We have to make sure it's dropping properly!"

"It's a ONE PERCENT drop rate though!"

"You should be used to these kinds of odds, senpai. You play all those gatcha games after all."

"Don't liken this to my gatcha games! This is nothing like them!"

"I dunno senpai, you don't even need to pay money for this item...besides your luck seems pretty good. You have at least five SSRs on your account."

"You got into my phone?!"

"Yep."

"How?!"

"You shouldn't make your passcode your birthday, senpai."

"Get off my phone!"

"But my phone is charging right now!"

"That doesn't mean you can snoop through my phone!"

"Don't worry senpai! I've already found the doujins under your bed so there isn't anything that could possibly surprise me as much as those!"

"YOU SNOOPED THROUGH MY ROOM?!"

"Only for a minute, senpai."

I curled up into a small ball in the middle of the slimes, "Just kill me..."

"Come on senpai! Just a few more slimes! We just need to make sure this item is dropping! You've got 5 SSRs so this should be easy for you!"

"Don't remind me..." I moaned as my body began to cringe, "I spent so much money on that game and I only have 5 SSRs..."

"How much money?"

"..."

"That much money huh?" Mika's soft laughter was full of pity, "Why do you still play this game, senpai?"

"The story is really good."

"The story huh?"

"Also, for Thellur."

"Thellur?"

"She's a really sweet girl!" I nodded, "She used to be this orphan that was abandoned by her parents and then-"

"Thellur...Thellur...I don't see her on your list of units senpai."

"DON'T REMIND ME!" I writhed on the ground in agony, "I dropped nearly two of my paychecks on her banner but I still couldn't get her!"

"Ehehe...l-let's shelve that for now senpai. For now, let's just kill some more slimes. Just think of them as your bad luck and blow them away."

"...Okay..." I sniffed as I picked up my sword.

"I'll up the slime spawn rate so you don't need to worry about waiting for them to respawn! Do your best! You can do it, senpai!"

"By the way, while I'm doing this..."

"Yes, senpai?"

"Can you do my dailies?"

"You still want to play this game huh?"

After almost three hours of killing slimes, I finally picked a small rock out of the remains of a slime.

"Is..." I gasped exhaustively, "Is this it?"

"Yep! That's the Slimestone that was added!"

"I was expecting a weapon or something." I said as I studied the peculiar rock, "What does it do?"

"Nothing at the moment."

"Then why did you make me grind for it?!"

"To make sure it was dropping properly! And now we know it is!"

"Ugh. Well? What's next then?" I sighed as I pocketed the rare rock.

"Well so far we've been in the beginner's area so we didn't have to worry about dying. But we should probably set an anchor for you to respawn at. Normally you start at the city so normal players don't have to worry about that but you started out in the forest."

"Thanks to you." I scoffed, "And I don't have an anchor huh? What happens if I die then?"

"I don't know but the game would probably freeze for you."

"That sounds scary. Let's avoid that."

"The closest town with an anchor point is to the north, senpai! Just follow the road and soon you'll reach Veiluria."

"Veiluria huh?" I chuckled, "To think I would be going to that place so soon. I can't wait."

"Senpai, you're acting creepy." Mika said as I continued to chuckle softly to myself.

"Welcome to Veiluria, traveler!"

"Geeeeeeerdaaaa!" I cried as I hugged the female NPC in front of me, "Ahhh, finally we meet!"

"Oh yeah." Mika said, "Gerda was an NPC you designed right senpai? Or rather, one you asked the design team to make for you."

"Ahhhh...I've always wanted to see you like this at least once! But work just wouldn't let up."

"Welcome to Veiluria, traveler!" Gerda responded in the same way as before.

"Hmmm but this really reveals what your preferences is like, senpai." Mika said, "Her breasts are quite big don't you think?"

"Of course!" I cried, "She is my waifu!"

"So it's like that, senpai..." Mika said awkwardly.

"In any case." I coughed as I pushed myself off of Gerda, "She actually has bigger breasts than I designed. That modeler, Jun, decided to make it bigger on his own."

"Oh. Is that a problem?"

"Not at all!" I grinned while I gave a thumbs up to no one in particular.

"Uh huh..."

"Don't worry, Mika!"

"Hm?"

"Your breasts may not be as big as Gerda's but they are wonderfully big as well!"

"...Senpai...this is sexual harassment you know."

"Says the woman who kidnapped me and forced me into this video game."

"Fair point. At any rate, we just need to reach the anchor gate and-"

"Gerda! Can I live at your house?!"

"Okay."

"Hey! Are you listening?!"

After setting my respawn location, Mika directed me all over the place. I was forced to travel all over the map to check the stability of newly added areas and interact with new NPCs. It was simple enough work until Mika began dragging me over to dungeons. In particular to the variety of class selection dungeons. In Samsara, the process to choose your initial class involves a quest where the player has to delve into specific dungeons to draw a Sword of Selection in order to decide their class. Each class has their own sword placed in their own dungeon and I had to go to all of them in order to test the process and specific new adjustments to the older classes and their skills. Not helping was Mika who would refuse to just teleport me anywhere, insisting I had to do everything "legally" and reset my class back to nothing after every dungeon because "I have to test the beginner's content as a beginner in order to judge balancing" so I never got to really delve into the deeper aspects of our game's combat. It took nearly the whole day to trek all over the map for each thing on Mika's list. Despite that, I was never given the opportunity to log out for any lunch though Mika seemed comfortable ordering some ramen while I was left to eat the digital provisions in the game. The buttered bread and cup of water I had was tasteful enough, but I knew it would only trick my body into thinking I was full. I would be starving as soon as I left the game. Still, I continued with the testing and eventually the end was nearly in sight.

"What are we doing here?" I asked as I entered the dank and eerie darkness of the cavern.

"So we're here to test the latest class that's been added to the game, Contractor!"

"We're making houses now?"

"No no, as in making contracts! Let's see...mainly with monsters it seems."

"So I get to make monsters fight for me?"

"No, but you do get to borrow a bit of their powers."

"That sounds pretty complex."

"It's still in development since most of the monsters can't be contracted with. And the effects aren't that extensive."

"Doesn't sound like it's worth it just yet."

"Yeah but we have to check the coronation effects. Make sure none of the models or textures are glitching or overlapping."

"Right right. I got it."

I continued through the cave where an assortment of low level monsters would appear from the darkness to attack me. Thankfully grinding on slimes for three hours has gotten me to Level 8 so my strength was high enough to deal with anything that jumped out of the dark at me. Mika refused to help navigate the cave for me so I had to explore the entire cave system on my own. I wasn't one to do a lot of trekking or hiking so I had to take a fair bit of breaks to catch my breath. Meanwhile, Mika continued to struggle her way through the dailies on my phone. At one point, when I stopped to rest my leg for a bit, I could hear the splattering and flowing of a heavy amount of water. Despite that, the cavern only dripped the occasional droplets and there was no indication of any flowing source of water within the cave either.

"Hey." I called out to Mika, "Is it raining?"

"Hm? The weather in the game's been locked to sunny for now."

"No, I mean outside."

"Oh! Oh yeah, it is. I'm surprised you can hear it, senpai."

"Sounds pretty heavy."

"I think I see some lightning though I don't hear any thunder."

"Hm."

"Anyway, senpai."

"What?"

"Can I roll on your account?"

"...Sure."

"Really?!"

"Let's see, the current banner is for Molyb right? She's not a character I particularly care about but I can't imagine you getting her in one roll."

"Alright. I'll make one roll now."

"I swear to god, if you get it in one..." I grumbled.

"Hey, Senpai."

"Yeah? What did you get?"

"Is Selenia good?"

"Selenia?! You got Selenia?!"

"Yeah. She's a SSR right? She's pretty cute."

"Selenia is super good, are you kidding me?!"

"Oh. Well congratulations, I guess?"

"Unbelievable! Are you just super lucky?! What did you eat to have luck like that?!"

"Umm...well I had some curry ramen for lunch a few hours ago. Come to think of it, I'm a bit hungry now."

"How long have we been at this?"

"Nearly 22 hours, senpai."

"So another all nighter for me then..."

"Hey, I'm here too senpai. I'm tired as well."

"You didn't have to do three all nighters in a row."

"W-Well you can take a day off tomorrow. Just like most of the coding team are doing today."

"I could have been doing that instead of this today."

"C...Come on, senpai! I'll come hang out with you tomorrow! No work at all!"

"I thought I was supposed to be relaxing..." I grumbled.

Before the conversation could continue, the cave tunnel opened up into the final chamber. The walls opened up into a giant cavern with a pool of water circling the edges. The ceiling hung high above my head with stalactites covering the roof. A small ray of light shone through a hole in the ceiling, highlighting the Sword of Selection that was set in a stone platform in the far side of the cavern.

"A bit dramatic." I chuckled, "But at least it has flair."

"Hey, the other locations weren't subtle either." Mika said, "Remember the one in the church?"

"Well that makes sense for the priest class."

I made my way to the sword until a giant bear burst out of the water and landed in front of me, blocking me from the sword.

"Why was a bear underwater?!" I cried as I drew my sword.

"That does seem like an oversight." Mika agreed, "I'll make sure to mention that to the devs."

The bear roared and swung a claw at me. I dodge to the side and gripped my sword in both my hands.

"Critical Strike!"

I swung as my skill took effect and landed a large gash across the bear's body, pushing the animal back in pain. His health displayed in front of my eyes, showing me just how much more damage I would need to deal in order to kill it.

"This is pretty tanky compared to the other bosses." I said as I took a cautionary step back.

"And you've spent all your points on strength too. You're a real glass cannon, senpai."

"Well, even then, I should survive a hit or two from it."

The bear roared and lunged at me. I stepped to the side, letting the bear graze past me and I sunk the tip of my sword across the bear's back, slashing some fur off the bear's coat but dealing no damage.

"No damage?" I frowned, "Am I supposed to have gotten a better weapon by now? Mika can you send me a new weapon?"

"Come on senpai, give it a bit more of a try before you give up."

"I don't know what you expect me to do!" I cried as I parried the bear's next attack, "I dumped all my points in strength and I couldn't damage it! That seems like a bit of an oversight if the player can't deal any consistent damage!"

"Maybe...still, you haven't died yet."

"I would like to keep it that way, if you don't mind! Dying is scary!"

"Dying is part of the game! We need to test that as well!"

"Why don't you come in and die then?!"

I kept pushing back with my sword, trying to stop the bear from toppling me over but it quickly shifted its claws to the side and threw me off to the side. I skid across the ground a short distance, taking a small hit to my health but I quickly got back up before the bear could trample over me. The bear snarled and roared at me as it approached me warily. As my character wasn't built to take hits or fight in prolonged battles just yet, I knew I had to go on the offensive. I stepped forward and made a few jabs and slashes with the tip of my blade, swinging at the bear's face to keep it disoriented and unable to fight back but my attacks continued to deal no damage. The bear snapped its teeth at my sword but I continued to keep it from being caught by its mouth only for the bear to grow tired of my pokes and reared up on it's back legs, towering over me. I yelped and brought my sword up to defend me but it didn't help as the bear slammed down on me with the full weight of it's body.

"MIKA!" I called out desperately as pushed my sword against the bear's mouth, trying to keep it from biting into me, "Mika, I am overleveled and I still can't do anything to this thing! It's clearly bugged! Please, just kill it!"

"O-Okay senpai! I'll-kyah!"

Mika's voice was interrupted the roar of what sounded like a very loud thunder before the mike cut off, leaving me alone.

"Mika?!" I called out nervously until the bear broke my sword in half with its bite and quickly sunk its teeth into my neck.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

The pain didn't last long before the death system in the game kicked in. I was left floating in a black void before a menu popped up in front of me. "You have died. Would you like to distribute your points?" it said. This was the leveling system of my-our game, Samsara of Dreams. It was made as a sort of fusion between souls-like games and mmos. Leveling one only granted one Live Point to spend on your stats and skills immediately but you also gained proper stat and skill points, 3 stat points and 1 skill point per level. However, you weren't able to access these points until your died. You could access these stats from the terminal at every anchor point too if you were a casual player but the limited growth system was meant to mimic the feeling of those extremely hard games in order to attract a more hardcore crowd of players. The intention being to challenge players to beat the game without dying and using those extra stat and skill points. It wasn't just the level system, the patterns and behavior of enemies and bosses were modeled after the souls-like games as well. It wasn't a perfect system just yet but we were working on it.

Personally I was a more casual player so I've gotten through this beta testing by overleveling, dumping all my points in strength and using my developer's knowledge to simplify fights but that bear clearly wasn't balanced well. Still, at level 13, I had 18 strength, 39 stat points and 13 skill points. That quest was meant for level 5s. I was going to have to have some strong words with whoever designed that fight. As I have no desire to die again, I went ahead and distributed all my points, this time, add a little more defense and health. I tried speaking out to Mika but the connection still seemed to be out. With nothing else I could do, I finished leveling up and respawned back at Veiluria. Thankfully, a teleport to my death point function had been hard coded into the anchor points to help developers so I could jump right back in without needing Mika to teleport me back. Speaking of, Mika still hasn't come back so I was feeling a bit lonely when I returned to fight the bear. The bear was pacing the cave but its health was back completely so I had to start all over. Thankfully, I felt much more ready with my astronomically larger stats.

"Hey." I greeted the bear who just roared at me, "I'm here for revenge. What are you here for?"

The bear just charged and rose up on its hind legs, swinging one claw down at me. I blocked it with one arm.

"Critical Strike."

I slashed across the bear's body, inflicting a deep gash into the bear's body and dropping his health down to nearly 10% of it's health.

"Still not dead?" I whistled, "You are tough. Way too tough. I'll have to take you down for the sake of the people and players."

The bear roared again and swung his claws at me but I easily blocked all of his attacks until my skill came off cooldown again.

"Critical Strike!"

I swung my sword and decapitated the bear, its head flying through the air and dropping into the waters around the edge of the cave, its body dropping to the ground and disappearing. I pumped my fist into the air, "My revenge is now complete. Now the people can live in peace once again."

Senpai, that's kinda cringe.

"Shut up, Mika!"

My voice echoed around the empty cavern but Mika was still gone. I sighed and quietly walked up to the Sword of Selection. I grasped the stone sword by the handle and drew it from the ground. The sword cracked and broke apart as light leaked out from inside. The stone burst apart and the light shifted and shrunk into a small card in my hand.

"What's this?" I frowned.

"S-S-Se-Senpai!"

"Ah, Mika." I looked up as Mika's voice finally returned, "I managed to beat the bear. Had to die though. We really need to adjust the parameters on that bear. And don't forget about how it came out of the water, that needs a change too."

"Se-senpai..." Mika sounded scared and nervous, "Listen...the office got struck by lightning."

"I'm in the office?" I blinked, "You moved me from my house to the office?"

"Y-Yes..."

"Well I suppose there isn't really a way to play the game outside of our office so that makes sense."

"L-Listen, so...I carried you back to the office...and hooked you up to the VR helmet thing..."

"The Mnemosyne." I nodded.

"Right but I could only find an older model. But it worked so I went ahead with it...and then it started raining and then there was lightning..."

"Right." I nodded, noting how panicked Mika's voice and breathing became, "And what happened? Did the power go out?"

"Th...the...p-please! Don't be mad with me, senpai!"

"What happened?" I asked, a sense of grim foreboding creeping into my skin.

"Senpai, please promise you won't be mad at me!"

"Mika, what happened?!"

"...Th-the lightning hit the office...and the electronics overloaded and...th-the helmet fried your brain."

"..."

"Y-You're dead."

…

"MIIIIIIIKKKKKAAAAAAAA-"