The Secret Corpo

China, Shanghai, AI-ART Offices.

It was a moderate-sized building at the centre of Shanghai, an isolated location for an isolated mind. There were many reasons as to why Jonah Arcueid had decided to place his main office in here.

It was right to the AI-ART data clusters? No.

The financial centre of the great red country, the world's top economy? No.

...

The man, clad in lab coat with big glasses and a serious expression, sat in the middle of dozens of screens, each showing a different display... statistics, graphics and important data relevant to the 'Arbitron Project: Evanescence'.

Somebody knocked on his door, interrupting his important 'mission'. An individual entered after not having received a response in a while; he brought a stack of relevant papers alongside him. Once he noticed his boss deep in the screen of his phone, his countenance fell.

"Sir, as expected there is an anomaly in the system" He started, but his words met no receptor.

'Do you love me, Onii-Chan? Which panties do you prefer, these or these?~'

"Of course I do, huehue~ let me see, those bear ones would look cute on you!"

He was drooling.

"Boss!"

!!!

"Oh shi-*cough*!"

He fixed his hair, his glasses, his lab coat... put the phone aside and is countenance switched completely, resembling that of a cold manipulator and tyrant... sadly, his reputation in the company was already gone.

Jonah Arcueid decided to move the direction's main headquarters to Shanghai... because he loved Manga, Manhua and Manhwa... a triangular location, the best of Japan, China and South Korea. This was his paradise.

...

"About Valeria, correct? It is a little unfair that one of the aspirants -a top model- would just fall like that to her death, don't you think, Marco?" The gentleman leaned down on his desk with a particular expression, resting his head on his palm, trying to look interesting.

'Why do you ask me, pervert?!'

"Yes, sir".

Marco remained nonchalant, he didn't want to get fired... his passion for this project could overthrow any pride.

"The fall in the forest of lamentation to the north of Bellemere has more than ten thousand feet in height (3km) and leads to a secret dungeon beneath the illusory river. Unless there is flight skill in the arsenal, anyone that falls there should automatically die without exceptions. [Arbitron] hasn't taken that loophole into consideration and Valeria doesn't possess a flight skill... her roaming around the map and hunting a player has led to this conclusion, according to the registries sent to OrcgameCO, she even released her true boss status for a while".

Marco reported the information contained in one of the sheets of paper while Jonah tapped the top of his desk, deep in thought.

"Top models shouldn't have been programmed to reveal their true natures so soon, how did this happen?"

"Models are allowed to roam freely and experiments their experiences with players and other NPCs. Their limitations indicate that they're allowed to reveal this true nature when they feel threatened" Marco explained. A 'top model' wasn't just any NPC.

"This has to change, the game has only been running for three months there shouldn't be any players that have enough level to fight a boss like Valeria. Is there a way to fix it? we should get that player banned, he has cheated..."

"Well, he didn't use any malicious software, if anything he just exploited an in-game bug, that in itself is not deserving of a ban, this is what Mr Yusuf wrote in his report about the incident".

Yusuf Wagner was the chief director of the developer team in OrcgameCO in charge of Evanescence, one of the three heads of the project together with Jonah Arcueid, the delegate from AI-ART and Cecilia Aragon the chief scientist from Neural-labs.

Of the three delegates, Jonah Arcueid had the greatest decision power.

"Arbitron is requesting to re-establish Valeria's model… to resuscitate her. Should we allow it? Mr Yusuf has already given the green light".

"Allow it. Her level is way above the current cap, she's not supposed to die this early but at least now we know that Human interference is going to bring unprecedented changes to the models Arbitron so painstakingly created".

"I shall make the request, Mr Jonah".

With the matter settled Marco turned around to leave the office, but his boss delivered a last order before his departure.

"Make a letter to Yusuf with a proposition: give instructions to Arbitron that all demon models like Valeria are not to leave the demon continent until the player cap reaches the average. Otherwise, we're going to have the same issue again... it is going to limit the learning capacity of the models, but we can't do anything else... overwriting events like this is going to create more flaws and bugs in Evanescence in the long-term as Arbitron is not yet able to recalculate the history timelines properly... it must have already written a sequence of events after Valeria's death".

"Sir, Valeria's conduct was completely different to the other models in the footage we looked at... could it be because of her learning experiences...? wouldn't it be better to allow her to resuscitate and return to the Empire instead of sending her back to the demon continent?".

"Valeria is an active model, unlike the rest of the NPC. Her neuronal network has already gone through more than ten thousand cycles. We shouldn't go further or hence, she may grow self-awareness. Do you recall how many active models we have in evanescence?"

"More than a thousand… and more are being created as we speak" Marco's gaze redirected to the distance where the main data clusters in Shanghai were located. Arbitron's 'home' which soon enough would need to be expanded again.

"Wonderful for this whole game to have been developed by an AI, don't you think?~" Jonah placed his legs on the table lazily, conveying pride and confidence on this project.

"But sir, how is this even possible?"

"How? This is Arbitron's hundredth story… there were 99 failures before such a perfect world like Evanescence was created in the last three years. The computing power required for this has been astronomical... if not for Blackrock this project would be impossible with how ambitions it is. But it was all worth it... the only thing we can do now is produce results, Marco, for those above us. It doesn't matter how revolutionary this is... if it can't produce a single penny".

Jonah sighed and scratched his head with a lot of stress... stress he could only relieve one way, picking up his tablet and playing his favourite eroge of the month.

"OrcgameCO reported that there are a total of twenty thousand active players daily in evanescence. It could be more if the cost of the hardware wasn't so high".

"It is good that Cecilia and Neural-labs are perceiving some profit. It is time for Yusuf and me to do the same, It doesn't matter if the hardware is unaffordable for now… soon Evanescence will be more of a business than a game ecosystem~"

After a brief chat, Marco departed the office, leaving Jonah who was looking at his phone, however... he wasn't looking at his beloved 'imoutou' now. Instead, he watched a footage.

The footage of Valeria's death at the hands of two 'amateur' players.

"Jumping and hanging on a branch… I'm sure it wasn't intended to be done that way, he improvised it. Now now this is getting interesting~ this mysterious Banks and also Miyagi-sensei from the Black Cats. I wonder if he's a new member of their clan. Experimented players that do nothing but look for loopholes and bugs in any game they play".

On another screen, he pressed a few keys and switched it to yet another footage of Evanescence. He looked at the image of a certain bunch. Five of them fought against a crowd of harpies in what resembled a haunted mansion filled with cold clouds, bats and haunting ghosts.

Those five switches massacred anything that crossed their path, eventually making their way to the boss's lair.

"Hopefully Oppenheimer, Holmes and Wyssembach will get their Synapse soon. Let's see how those cute undercover Japanese girls from Black Cat fare against the European Globbersnatch~"