An Urgent Maintenance

The cab dropped Arata off of his home, and he ran to the bathroom to shower. He got itchy with the rain and sea breeze doing a combo on his not so tough skin. He expected to have Attori around, and so he dressed rather good clothes even though he was staying indoors. Best case scenario, they would even leave his body soon enough.

However, what he heard next was a loud click coming from the door when he was changing. Even his windows suddenly locked, if those were the locks. Arata ran to the door and tried opening it, but it was of no use.

"Whoa, what's going on!?" The player screamed.

He saw his computer lit up, displaying another exclamation point. However, it was not red; the triangle was yellow with black text. He sat in front of it and closed the window. The front page of the forum displayed the problem.

[Greetings, legendary men! Player-kun Complex is going to have its urgent maintenance due to the following: identified third party applications that modify game data, failure to display notifications, and unauthorized access from a remote device. Please be advised that our systems will be live after six hours.]

[As to waste time while waiting, we encourage the players to log onto the forums for an open discussions with CM Hideki and CM Faust who are currently logged in to answer your questions and concerns. Please see pinned post: Urgent Maintenance for the discussions.]

Arata stared at the screen, only to take a deep breath. He entered the forums and saw the friend list grayed again. There was this GM message which only showed: we got MT, but you're gucci. It got deleted five seconds after he opened it. Arata shook his head at the power of this Dev Sayaka. If there was indeed a real god in the game, it would be her.

The forums were accessible due to the fact that it was connected to SNS accounts, aside from their game data. The only difference was that during maintenance, they would not be able to mention or send message to their friends. Even the holy green dots were unavailable. Arata was fine with it, but that would mean he should be wary of the lurkers.

Like usual the thread for the maintenance was receiving a lot of complaints and already asked questions. However, the reply count was bobbing up and down due to some of them being deleted.

CM Faust, who seemed to be new, kept on deleting empty complaints and duplicate questions. He posted with a huffing emoticon. "Please read the post first before you comment. We already explained why this maintenance is happening. All the FAQs are also mentioned in the entry post." He also followed it with sweats and crying emoticons.

CM Hideki, who was also pruning the replies, sent in a laugh. "Guys, let's welcome our new CM, CM Faust. It's his first day in the job. Please be patient with him. All empty complaints, insults, and duplicate questions will be pruned. Yes, I'm doing this for convenience."

Arata sent in a reply that made the complaints and other useless replies stop. Even he was surprised that everyone seemed to listen to him all of a sudden. Or to what the answer to his reply was, rather. He posted. "Which game data is being modified, Hideki? RNG?"

"Whaaa, Arata!" Hideki sent in a smiley, and it was too late to realize his mistake. He just posted an awkward emoticon before answering the reply. "Hi, Arata. We still have no confirmation which data was being modified or to what extent. But top players are affected so we had to check right away."

"Top players? Like me?" Arata sent a reply, feeling the glares through the screen.

"Top ten. Including you and Horsepower." Hideki seemed to nod. "But we're not saying you guys are cheating!"

"Aw." Arata could only post too little. The thread had gotten silent, and the amount of attention was starting to crush him.

"Hey, what about the notifs? No notif, no reward?" Botan, who was one of the king's dragons, butted in to take the piercing attention away from him. "I did three dates without notifs! Horrified screaming."

"Uh, no. Rewards and points are given. The notifications just broke." CM Faust answered him. "Encounters and Challenge can start without a player's consent so it has become quite an issue. The Dates are not affected because it has options. Some players have their games crash whenever a Date comes up, though."

"They confirmed crashing will only reset the Date since it's on autosave." Mumumu joined in. "I can't proceed for like three days."

"Hideki." Horsepower sent in a sweating emoticon. "Why am I banned? What did I do?"

The thread went silent. Horsepower gasped in real life, feeling the same crushing glares through the screen. Getting banned was a terrible thing to his reputation, but he started caring less about it ever since the comeback event.

"Unauthorized access from remote device." A person whose tag was Sayaka posted.

"Unauthorized access!?" Horsepower screamed both in-game and in real life. He would do it in all caps, but he did not want to look like he was losing cool. Even though he was being pushed to the brink of his wits.

"Whoa, what does that mean, Sayaka?" Arata sent in a reply with a squint. "I know Horsie won't even try to hack the game. He's too proud for that."

"I know, but his account was being used. Gotta ban it. Along with five more." Her answers were short, unlike how she answer as Usagi in Arata's electronic world.

"Isn't that really confidential, that one just now?" Faust replied.

"Yeah, but I have to protect our players. I just banned six accounts out of top ten. They will be wondering in silence. No email since it might be used by the baddie too." Sayaka replied in a flash.

"Ay, Sayaka. Get back to work though. We can handle this. Can't stall head dev over the forums." Hideki sent in two dismissive emoticons.

"I'm uploading codes. It'll take minutes." Sayaka sent in devil laughs.

"I can't delete Sayaka's posts! Hey, don't talk here about this! Angry." The guardian of the forum, CM Ruby posted using a level 5 account under her tag, same as what the other staff are using.

"Eep." Sayaka sent a smiley.

The players had gone silent. It was as if the gods of the game were chattering before them, and only Arata was courageous enough to send in one post to support Horsepower's stand. Soon, the same dragon from earlier came out once more.

"Not that I mind, but... who's Faust in-game?" Botan posted all of a sudden, realizing a small plot hole. He was thinking about how the staff could freely discussing game problems in front of their players; but he noticed one of them was not wearing a tag he could recognize.

"Ah, he'll be the new VP soon." Hideki answered. "He was foreshadowed in Ruby's route after all."

"What happened to the other?" Arata sent another squint.

"Spoilers though." Hideki sent a rolling smiley.

"Please refrain from talking among yourselves in here, Hideki, Sayaka, Faust." CM Ruby sent tears before logging out.

"Can you explain more about the unauthorized access?" Horsepower cried.

Arata stared at his computer screen. It felt like Horsepower changed a lot in a span of a week. The braggart he knew seemed to stop insulting people and had gotten weak.

The head dev posted yet again. "For now, it's called unauthorized access. I still have no idea what they were doing. But like Arata mentioned, they were hacking the database." She followed another reply which was pinned right after she posted. "Player-kun Complex is a paid game which has access to which credit card belongs to whom. We must be transparent to leaks to you people especially that the banned users are heavy spenders in the game. I'm sorry if this threatens you."

"Can a head dev really do such things? Like decide for the company like this?" One person posted.

"Yeah, I can." Sayaka simply answered. "I develop and own this game. Marketing deals with the papers, but it's still me calling the shots on how to build trust for this thing."

"Sayaka, ay, you're saying a lot. Come on now. Stick to the codes." Hideki sent a sweating emoticon.

"She's more powerful than I thought! The actual owner of the game? What, is she CEO!?" Arata screamed at his screen, grabbing it with both hands. A sharp gasp came out of his lips before taking in another deep breath. He then started posting. "Can you confirm if they are taking money?"

"I checked that first, but there are no traces of purchases from the unauthorized devices. Probably just looking at the data." She sent a rolling smiley. "They're going after player data, so it's nothing close to data-mining."

She then posted something out of shock, but it was deleted with an automated warning prompt replacing it. "Sayaka has been warned! Do not use bad words in the forum!"

The thread died, and everyone was left in suspense and confusion. Even the CMs were not posting anything. Arata's eyes could only wait as his time was stopped in-game.

"Sayaka has been warned! Do not use bad words in the forums!" There was another prompt.

"Ugh, why did I even put this in here?" She sent in sweat drops. "I'm lifting Horsepower's ban. I got what I need."

"What did you get?" Horsepower asked again. If he had to say those words himself, it would be in creaky voice. Like Arata, he had invested a lot in this game, and would probably be the biggest whale they had in it. Then again, he liked the game and its characters, and that was why he was terrified of hearing things like this from the head dev herself.

"...I would send a GM message, but nah. I reseted your stats and took everything out of your inventory."

It was served cold like water with ice. Horsepower smashed the keyboard with his fingers trying to show how much rage she instilled in him. However, it was never shown as intended because it was replaced by an automated response. "Horsepower has been warned! Do not use bad words in the forums!"

"Don't worry, I can give it back." Sayaka sent a rolling smiley, aware of what could have been happening on the other side of Horsepower's screen.

"Why would you do that?" Hideki sent in a sweat drop. "You almost killed him in shock."

"Nah, I did the same with Arata's account but with the rates, not stats. Gave me same results." There went the knife made of ice. This time, it was Arata who got hit.

"You reseted my rates!?" Arata screamed alongside his post.

"Geez, like I said, I can give it back." Sayaka responded before he could reply.

"Arata has been muted until lifted! Please adhere to the rules to avoid being sanctioned!"

"Botan has been warned! Do not use bad words in the forums!" Similar messages prompt bearing Mumumu and even Hideki's names. More followed.

The player hit his face against his desk. He was not ready to see her name again. Sayaka seemed to be showing her anger through tampering with his data. Even though it would be given back, she still deserved a head lock.

"What results?" Horsepower waited until the blocks of warning piled up. He squinted at the head dev.

"It's related to the first issue. Some people were modifying their game data." It was all she said.

"Huh? Make it dumber." Horsepower raged through his keyboard again if only someone could see it.

"Your game data is being copied by someone. Twenty other players had their stats reseted the same time I reset yours. More accounts reacted to Arata's account change." She sent another rolling smiley. "Don't worry, I'll be putting up walls to stop this from happening again. An estimated total of hundred players will be purged from the game at morning. Please sleep tight.

"Money is not being discussed or taken by the third party software, but I'm pretty sure these players are paying to pick whose game data they get." Sayaka sighed. "Those losers just said goodbye to their money and a month's worth of cheating."

The thread somewhat continued on, but Arata could only lean against his seat. Reading the messages was too much, now that they started complaining again about mispurging them. He closed his eyes and rested, but he felt no better. He got off the chair and went to his bed, waiting for time to move again.

He tried to sleep, but nothing was happening. The only thing moving in his sight was the black text flooding the thread. He turned away from it and frowned with his eyes closed.

Pinging sounds came from the computer, and he knew those were from the GM message. He stubbornly got up from the bed and sat on the chair again.

"I have to mute you. You might slip." It was from Sayaka.

"Of all things to reset." Arata sent a barrage of angry emoticons.

"Sorry. I have to know what they were interested in." She sent a pout. "And that's going to be troublesome if they detected the block of codes that moves altogether."

"What do you mean?"

"The application can see you." She sent a squint. "They can notice this large amount of data that is stored in your account, which had unnecessary codes. If they managed to hack you, you might die. So yes, idiot. I'm taking calculated risks here."

Arata grew silent. He stared at the screen and scratched his head before typing down a reply. "I'm sorry for yelling at you. I didn't know."

"Everything I do is to protect you, Arata. Just so you can stay here." She sent in some smileys. "This means you have to stay with me, too."