I Became the Younger Sister of the Death Game Creator

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#Chapter 19 Work Progress 5%

Know your enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.

If you know your enemy and know yourself, you can’t help but win.

“That original is probably ‘Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will never lose.’ It’s not about winning; it’s about not being defeated.”

Good point, pet older brother. This unworthy younger sister cannot help but admire your knowledge.

But the student has completely derailed the point of my philosophical question. What’s important right now is not that. Sadly, your grade is a D-.

“Do you want to be a noble lady or do you want to be a professor?”

Well, if things go well, I might live a life just like a real noble, but if things don’t, I could end up rolling around as a slave called a graduate student.

Either way, it’s not a matter of immediate importance.

To get back on track, whether it’s knowing your enemy or not, the important thing is that you need to understand your opponent well. If you don’t know, you can’t devise a plan.

In that regard, our side’s position in Earth’s civilization is quite unfavorable.

The perpetrators are projecting mysterious holograms over major cities around the world, distributing unidentified red and blue pills, and making people disappear into thin air, yet we don’t even know their methods or identities.

Of course, there may very well be some national agencies or secret societies conducting rescue operations somewhere unknown to me, but placing our entire reliance on that while being excessively entangled with these criminals isn’t very prudent.

Even if we shout that we are victims whose works were stolen and forcefully exploited, the people who have lost family and friends will happily find us and attempt a witch hunt.

That’s why we need accomplishments. It’s not about some hero popping up out of nowhere to resolve the situation, but rather we need evidence that we proactively solved the case. If we can secure some real force to back it up, that would be the best.

Moreover, there’s an aspect that gives us an edge that others don’t have, a feature I wish to deny is an advantage, but it serves us well for the time being.

That is, the game the perpetrators are utilizing, Beyond Elysion, and its operating system Nebula were originally our works. And, the older brother guy has been reborn as a D○mon.

“I’m part of the Pokémon faction.”

Ha, so my older brother has ended up riding on the coattails of a massive intellectual property. Once he gains some popularity, he might abandon the music he initially wanted to pursue and jump on the bandwagon like some nameless band.

“You’re the one who forced popular elements into my work!!”

Let’s use the term normalization. Although I’m a bit confused about whether it’s a good term or not.

Anyhow, as the original creators, we know the game data inside and out, and thanks to my older brother’s special attributes, we can interact with Nebula.

And the shocking fact my older brother discovered.

– Nebula is continuously interpreting the ‘unknown power’ that currently governs the game according to commands given by my older brother in the past.

– The culprits are only semi-utilizing Nebula at best; they haven’t fully analyzed or secured control over that super AI, which is almost an OOPArts. Consequently, Nebula enjoys a degree of neutrality.

– Using the advantage of being an electronic lifeform, my older brother can secretly share information with Nebula without the criminals noticing.

This means we can obtain the information that Nebula analyzes, allowing us to stand on equal footing with those guys.

So, what’s the current progress of that work?

“It’s about 5%. Considering it’s right after the game starts, it’s not an insignificant amount, but… it’s still too little for anything substantial yet. We need at least 30% to pass it to Kainix for an interpretation attempt.”

Yeah. This is the biggest problem in this plan.

For my older brother to share information with Nebula, he needs to be logged into the game as a player’s pet, meaning if I get knocked out of the game, he would lose that opportunity right then and there.

No, by then, I wouldn’t even have the luxury to consider operations. It would simply mean my life’s at stake.

So, I must endure and survive in this game for as long as I can.

Whether I clear the ten trials they mentioned doesn’t matter; if I can just hang on long enough, I win.

If this were the original Beyond Elysion, it would be an easy task aside from the absolute limitation of playtime, but it’s quite challenging to continue while mingling with guys who’d have the motivation to openly conduct a death game.

Can’t you see that with each trial, people are going to drop like flies? But we have to proceed regardless.

“So, what are you going to do now? With your level high enough, can’t you get some help from Aurelia for further growth?”

That’s a bad idea.

In the context of the entire game, my current level 34 is already exceedingly high for a player just out of rookie territory.

The time limit they set for the ‘first trial’ is ten days. If my predictions are correct, an appropriately ‘well-groomed player’ level would be somewhere around 15-20. The difficulty of the trial should match that level.

It’s fine as long as I can survive the trial, but if my level’s too high and I render the trial meaningless, I’d stick out like a sore thumb.

It’s more stable to maintain the experience cheat from having NPCs support me just slightly above the average level.

“Isn’t that a bit too low of a standard? Beyond Elysion has been in service for about a month, so players with that experience should be able to aim for mid-20s.”

That might hold true for an ordinary game.

But this is a death game. A game defined by its unreasonable nature, where once you die, you’re out.

In a situation where you could easily die with a misstep, how many players could possibly operate with mechanical optimal efficiency?

Even those who are still having fun with it or those who willingly joined have somewhat better circumstances, but I doubt how well those dragged into this will fare with hunting.

“Is there a guarantee that they’ll honestly deliver trials corresponding to the expected levels? Considering they’re the sort to pull off these ludicrous acts, they could send out enemies at unreasonable levels for a massacre, right?”

No, that won’t happen.

“Do you trust them?”

I do. Ironically, it’s because they’re the type to engage in such acts that I can trust them even more.

Have you ever seen a cat playing with a mouse that swiftly snaps its neck to end the game?

Those guys never desire a ‘trivial’ scenario of instantly wiping everyone out.

If killing humans were their goal, then this setup wouldn’t need to exist from the get-go.

What they truly want is a show. They want to drive people to the brink of death and enjoy the spectacle of them struggling to survive.

So, I need to walk the tightrope while staying within that boundary.

“Then, what’s next? Isn’t your level enough now? Are you going to get some equipment?”

That’s not a bad idea, but I finally have a bit of downtime. I need to use it wisely.

“What are you going to do?”

Well, of course, as a former GM, I should help others, right?

“…You’re smiling with a really bad face.”

That’s impossible. It’s just that the avatar modification worked out well.

*

How did things turn out like this?

Yerin. The character named Nadia sat listlessly in a corner of the starting plaza, staring blankly ahead.

She was a VTuber. Not a giant well-known company in the industry… but rather a struggling small business barely getting by day by day.

Of course, she hadn’t always been like this from the beginning.

When she first started as a VTuber, she had her share of expectations and confidence, and things started off fairly well.

Her concept as a high school girl with bunny ears had its roots in a horror FPS game she played in her early broadcasts, where she had made every sort of blunder, leading to her military status (laughs). However, at least her sense in FPS games was genuine, earning her some recognition.

However, that did not translate into significant popularity.

There could be several reasons for that.

Since she didn’t debut under a corporate contract but started as an indie business, perhaps there was a lack of advertising, or maybe her wit and sense of humor weren’t particularly good. Or perhaps she simply lacked that elusive star quality.

Although she rode the wave of popularity when the virtual reality FPS game “Hungry Shadows” gained attention, she didn’t crash completely, but she also didn’t achieve remarkable heights—something of a delicate standing.

Perhaps this was why.

[If you can shout “I’m joining the game with my hands up,” it’ll be 500,000!]

She was tempted by that playful yet subtly malicious super chat.

‘There’s no way that’s real,’ she thought lazily. Although it wasn’t a massive sum, it was a tempting offer for a super chat.

Seeing those chat messages warning her not to engage in something so dangerous made her feel unnerved, unsure if they were discouraging or mocking her.

All those factors tangled together, and now Nadia found herself inside Beyond Elysion.

“…If I had known this would happen, I should have played it beforehand.”

A long sigh escaped her lips.

In fact, she had been considering whether to play Beyond Elysion for quite some time.

With everyone shouting about it being a blockbuster game, it would have been strange for a VTuber not to be intrigued by it.

However, many of her fans coming to watch were loyal viewers of Hungry Shadows, harboring some subtle hostility toward Beyond Elysion, which had overtaken it to become the industry leader.

Of course, there were fans who didn’t care about that, but given her currently precarious position, she hesitated to jump into a gamble, fearing she could be branded a traitor and see her viewer count plummet if it backfired.

When Beyond Elysion was embroiled in controversy and temporarily suspended service, she thought it was the right decision, but looking back now, she should have boldly thrown down the challenge of a new game then.

Then she wouldn’t have faced the current ruin just by choosing the Hunter class because it allowed her to use guns she was familiar with in a fantasy game.

– Hunters are incredibly weak. Even in a party, they’re a liability.

– Their firepower isn’t bad, but since the player must shoot and hit, the accuracy is terrible. Meanwhile, mages have area attacks and guided features on their skills, making it easier to hit.

– Also, while mages regenerate their magic over time, hunters must craft their bullets using materials, which is a hassle. There seems to be a merchant selling bullets, but buying them is a terrible waste of resources.

– It’s not entirely useless, but overall, it’s an inferior version of the mage class. Unlike Warriors, whose tech tree might be somewhat limited, they’re a direct upgrade.

– It seems to be below the previously weakest Bard? Bards can at least provide buffs and deal some minor damage.

The time taken for players to make assessments like the above was merely three hours.

The first hour was wasted trying to figure out if there was any way to log out, the second hour was spent looking things up in the player directory, and the last hour was wasted flailing around in the hunting grounds, trying to solo and getting drop-kicked by a rabbit that dodged her bullets in vain.

And that was the end of it.

Even when trying to gather a party to fight, no one was willing to take Nadia, whose Hunter class had already established a bad reputation, plus the dwindling bullets.

She should have ignored that super chat.

She shouldn’t have picked the Hunter class without knowing anything.

Even if she chose the Hunter class, she should have joined a party and fought instead of wasting bullets solo from the beginning.

No, she shouldn’t have chosen VTuber as a profession in the first place.

Regret clawed at her relentlessly, and no matter how hard she tried to entertain some positive thoughts, countless negative thoughts weighed it down, casting a nightmare-like situation.

Then it happened.

“Hey, are you looking for a party?”

Perhaps they noticed the party waiting indicator above her head.

A player approached Nadia.

Nadia reflexively raised her head, which she had been bowing, and her eyes widened.

‘That avatar is pretty….’

Overall, it evoked a villainous noble lady style or perhaps had an alluring charm.

If it were in reality, it would have caused quite a stir; however, seeing such effort put into an avatar in a life-or-death game made her think that perhaps this person wasn’t quite all there either.

After all, it wasn’t something she could say herself, considering she had just crammed bunny ears onto her own avatar due to a pathological obsession with the features of VTuber ‘Nadia Craft’.

“Oh, yes. I’m looking for a party. But, I’m a Hunter… is that okay?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I was actually curious about the performance of the newly introduced class.”

“You seem to be an original player. But, um, the feedback circulating about it isn’t great. I’m regretting it too.”

“Huh?”

The red-haired player blinked in surprise at Nadia’s words.

Nadia sighed inwardly at that unexpected response. Maybe she should have just kept quiet and asked to join the party.

But what if they got upset and accused her of deceiving them?

The player, who seemed to ponder something from Nadia’s words, smiled gently.

It was a smile that inadvertently captivated attention despite being aware of its nature as an avatar.

“You’re quite honest. Plus, you’re dedicated.”

“Uh? Oh, yes. Thank you.”

“But it’s all right. I prefer to judge from my own experience rather than relying on someone else’s opinion.”

The player extended a hand.

“Black Knight class. I’m Erin. Nice to meet you, Nadia.”