The beginning of everything: part 1

*** 5 years ago in Earth time, Headquarters of the Erghon Gaming Company, U.S.A ***

The 7 people waiting in the meeting room, ready to start, looked at each other silently and without enthusiasm.

A middle-aged man entered, greeted everyone with a slight nod of his head, and sat in the leader's seat left vacant for him. "So, friends… There is no need to waste time with unnecessary introductory explanations. Please tell me you now have a clue!"

Everyone in the room continued to stare in front of them silently as if to say no.

The expression on the middle-aged man's face became even more unhappy. "So… This is how it is! We generated a game and it somehow kills people! And we still did not find the reason…"

"But, John, Still no one realizes that these deaths are because of us."

"Then what? Do you imply that we are lucky, Zen? We have to find the cause somehow and stop these deaths, this is our urgent responsibility to society! No, to the players and their relatives who trusted us!" Realizing he was getting angry, the man took a deep breath and tried to speak calmly again. "Anyway… Then tell me that you generated software to slow it down… please…. Does anyone have something?"

While 5 software developers left this question unanswered, two of them moved.

"I have something, John." The only female software developer in the room turned the laptop in front of her towards them and showed the screen.

"What is this, Harlow?"

"I coded an invincible defense for the players. If you remember, we only knew in this corridor of unknowns that the thing that caused these deaths was not a player. This code I wrote is not something that works against players. It makes the person it protects against things other than the player, i.e. NPCs, immortal."

"So you wrote only a God Mode coding? Remember what I said the day we first entered this business, please. I do not want a God Mode in this game!"

"Ah no, this is not a God Mode. It is just a full defense against only software attacks. Many things changed since the first day of our game, John. Now our only priority is to protect our players and this is what we need!"

"Then what about the attack? Let's say that your code protected players. But won't this assailant we don't know its identity continue to exist? What happens when it attacks another player? Is it something that protects all players at the same time?"

"Well. Sorry, but it can protect only 1 player at the same time. But if you allow me to work on it a little more time…"

"Sorry, Harlow but we do not have any more time…" Annoyed, John dropped the subject and turned his head to look at the other person who wanted to talk. "Ok, Felix. What is your project?"

"Server Zero." A young American software developer named Felix operated the projection and showed a representative layout of the game's servers on a map. "Even though we have full authority on the player servers, we cannot determine what causes player deaths. Because we can make these analyses only by logging into those servers. And when we go in to examine a server, we lose connection with the codes of all other servers. Because we deliberately developed it this way."

"We? Aren't you the chief developer of this game Felix? Or should I name you as the mighty Hell!? Now are you trying to blame your own inexperience on us?"

"..." Felix remained silent to maintain his composure, then continued. "I would like to remind you that these deaths did not start when we launched the game, but a few months later when we released The Clones of God patch that you developed, Zen!"

"YOU, BAST.RD!"

"Both of you, please stop! If you're going to blame someone, it should be me, who founded this company even though I had no knowledge of game programming or similar stuff! So, please, continue, Felix…"

 "Ok… Server codes can only communicate with each other during Server Wars. And this limit of authority applies not only to players but also to GMs and even to us developers. If you remember, this is a decision we made jointly to prevent GMs and developers from making attempts to affect the balance of power in Wars. My theory is that this is what blocks us. Since we developed a game that does not have the option to switch between servers, we cannot do a comprehensive review. We also attempted during the Server War, but we could only conduct simultaneous inspection operations on a maximum of those two servers which were battling against each other. So, as a summary, Server Zero has full access to all servers simultaneously. Additionally, players do not have access to this server. In this way, only we, developers will be able to log in to this server and start our investigation from scratch and find out what caused all these terrible events!"

"So you tell that we need to work a few more weeks to stop this madness?"

"Sadly, yes, John."

"Ok, then…" Company owner John stood up, placed his hands firmly on the table, and continued. "As I just said, I am the one who started all this, my friends, by attempting a job I did not know about. But I won't make the same mistake when finishing it. So… As of today, I will send a letter to the ministry and declare our bankruptcy, and as of midnight tonight, I will pull the plug on this game forever!"

"WHAT!? JOHN, ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND!? WE WORKED SO FAR FOR THIS AND SUCCEDED SOMEHOW. YOU SEE, OUR GAME IS ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR!"

"Sorry, Zen but this thing is out of control now. And we do not have a few more weeks also."

"But John… We know that a few players are still in a comatose state. What if they die too?"

"I know that risk also, Felix. But more days mean more victims. Sorry, I can not endure the possibility of more victims… This is the end of our meeting... And our Erghon Project also!"