Chapter 10
If audio player doesn't work, press Stop then Play button again
Like what was said by the notification, there were new items in the shop. However, most of them are for raising collected points for a stat raise in a routed playthrough. There were items specifically for Encounter mode and Challenge Mode, one Arata had not yet unlocked. There were also new clothes in the shop as well as new hairstyles. Arata almost spent the entire night browsing the magazines to pick a new style. Then again, he needed to see the most important of them all: the patch notes.
He almost tore his room apart with the things being thrown all over the floor like he was a raging hurricane. He then sat in front of the computer, thinking about any other possible places to look for it. Arata then rested his gaze on the forum site which was the default screen of his computer... only to find several notifications. He remembered not being able to check the forum for almost two days.
Most of them were from tags to answer questions built for veterans to shred their answers so newbies would understand. Then again, some others had answered on his stead so he was not worried about it a lot. Then again, there were direct messages from Devin.
"Hey, Arata. Are you okay? I never saw you offline. You're always online, even at 3 AM. Are you not sleeping anymore?" The first of his messages went. "Arata, you're not responding to my tags. Where are you?"
His tone began to sound sulking. "Always online, but not talking. Are you trying to finish the game in a week's time?"
"I can see you're still on Sept 4. If you weren't breezing through the game, then why are you online all the time?"
"How long are you planning to ignore me?"
Arata squinted at the messages one more time before responding again. "Yeah, I don't close the game anymore. What of it? Why are you messaging me?"
After a few seconds, the 'typing' sign appeared next to Devin's avatar photo of Ruby. He replied soon enough. "Just checking up on you, man. It's not normal. I remember rejoicing when you're not online during an event."
The king gasped as he mentioned 'event.' He proceeded with care, but he kept on erasing every word. Finally, he managed to get one out. "Oh, haha." Nailed it.
"You don't have a score yet though. Not participating? It's a chance to collect their summer avatars." Devin replied again, as if waiting for him to reply before sending it.
"Yeah, kinda. Got something better." The king delivered it with three crown emoticons.
"What's better than getting an Attori in micro-bikini?"
"Riding her using my own body." The king chuckled in front of the screen. He sobbed at the idea of not getting the avatar because he had no knowledge that there was an event, and at the fact that he would not be able to access the event since it was outside the campaign mode where he was stuck. He could only grunt in bitterness after. "Bed sheet Attori." He sent a separate crying-laughing emoticon after his reply.
Devin answered with a barrage of laughing emoticons and all caps. "YOU DIDN'T KNOW THERE WAS AN EVENT, DID YOU!?" He sent more laughing faces.
"Shut up. I'm busy loving my girls." There went some fuming emoticons.
"You should join, man. Some fvcker aside from Pantsu was reigning the charts, and trashtalking about you because your name isn't in the Top 50." Devin sent another laughing emoticon.
Arata stared at the screen before replying. "Actually, I can't see the patch notes. I have no idea what is happening in the game aside from the things I bump into in my playthrough." Sweat emoticon barrage. "Can you give me a gist?"
"Why can't you see it? It's like dancing in the game lobby."
The king took a deep breath before responding. "My game. I think it's malfunctioning. It goes straight to campaign screen. I thought it was just how things are now."
"Aw, that's bad. Reported it yet?"
"I can't close the game." Crying-laughing emoticons. He tried to hide his genuine sobbing as he lied to one of his closest in-game friends. "Can't report. Can't even use my phone for something else."
Devin stopped replying at this point. Arata gasped at his silence. He covered his mouth and waited until another notification came to him. It was a message from the game, usually tagged as Usagi's message. He was afraid to open it because of the subject: Game problem: Can't access Lobby. He then gulped and opened the message nonetheless.
"Hi, this is CM Hideki. Someone reported about your problem. Can you confirm that you cannot access the lobby?"
"Devin, you rat." Arata cried as he was faced with a weird problem.
A CM, or community manager, is part of the game team who addressed the concerns of the players. This one in particular is CM Hideki, the most popular of the CMs as he had hosted lives before, showing the ropes of the minigames and new whatnots to the newbies and even some veterans through videos. He was also the one who tackled technical issues with the players such as button malfunction and other light issues. He was like a champion to the community, being quite the middleman between the mere humans called players and the gods they called devs among other names that are normally derisive.
Also, Hideki was the name of the males' Basketball Team's captain. Since CMs are asked to adapt game characters for their names, he chose Hideki despite the lack of 'brute' written on his image as a CM. Probably just because Hideki was MVP.
Anyway, the weird problem was that Arata refused to divulge his real state to the devs. What if he gets accused of hacking or using a mod? The king gulped down the forming lump in his throat again before reading the message one more time.
"Hi, Hideki. Yeah, I'm stuck in the Campaign screen. Phone isn't responding to any other buttons to exit the screen or the game." He chose his words carefully.
"I might have to forward this to our development team. Can I ask you for a few things about your phone?"
His heart was beating loud as if played the game of fibs with the CM. He could remember all the information he needed to say. Then again, he felt the strongest urge to claim. "Hideki, I'm not using a mod, I swear. Don't suspend me."
"Relax, as long as your game data comes clean, you'll be fine." Hideki sent a smiley.
"What do you mean 'comes clean?'"
"No irregular codes to increase points or currency gained. Things like that." Followed by another smiley. "I'll be making the report now. Anything else you want to ask me, Arata-san?"
The king felt his fingers die. There was a lot he wanted to say, but he could not figure out how to phrase them as innocent as he could. He was talking to the eyes an ears of the devs. One wrong move, he might get his account banned- in short, deleted. He needed to move and type something down.
"Arata-san, can you tell me how you can access the forums if you're stuck in the campaign mode?" There came the suspicions.
He took a deep breath and almost held it. "I'm using the computer in the room. It goes straight to the forum."
"I see. If that's the case, then the lobby seemed to be the only function locked." Hideki sent a thinking emoticon. "There should be an arcade in town. It will let you play the minigames without quitting your campaign. The social club can connect you to the Multiplayer mode as well.
"You don't have to be so scared, Arata-san. Lobby is just a shortcut page. Everything else can be accessed from the campaign mode. It was designed like that since the lobby was only added after the beta version. And to lift the action time penalty." He sent thumbs-up emoticons. "But we're still going to investigate this. I haven't received a similar report of the lobby locking."
"What about the event?" The king managed to let out his breath, fearing less.
"That one I can't help you with. The events are completely played outside the Campaign mode." Hideki replied with sad, flopping emoticons. "You might have to sit this one out."
"Thanks, Hideki." Arata sent some crying emoticons.
The CM responded with bowing emoticons. "No problem, Arata-san. I will keep you posted about this problem. Also, I would like to ask for your permission to let me message you from time to time if we find anything worthy to ask."
"Like?"
"Log in duration time and in-game purchases. Last beta test, we found some players buying third party products that affected their games."
"Sure. I'll work with you to fix this." Arata lied.
"Once again, thank you for your cooperation, Arata-san."
Silence. Arata felt so drained after feeling his own body pale up in the presence of a CM. His heart was still racing, and his lungs were pumping air faster than it ever had before. He then crashed in front of the computer, not bothering to sleep on his bed for the night.
It was Friday, and Arata had become out of it for a while. It was a normal happening to him in his previous life, and it was hard to break a habit. He only gave the report to Ruby who noticed his paleness that day; she would insist to stay with him, but she advised him to go home. Yukari and Attori noticed as well, only that Yukari could not pass up the club that day. His wife took him home and nursed him until she had to go home for the 6 PM action time.
The pale king read through the forum again. He spotted familiar threads and a lot more replies on the two threads that he started. However, he had no energy to respond. He was so drained he could barely remembering typing if he wanted his thoughts to be heard.
Then another notification came in. It was a private message from Botan.
"Dude, wtf. A mod?" It was all he sent.
"What mod?" Arata forced himself to communicate. Of course he had to take care of his reputation.
"Horsepower said you were using a mod, therefore, suspended."
"Do I look like suspended to you right now?"
"No, you won't be able to access your account if it was." He sent a barrage of laughing emoticons.
Arata only hummed with a small smile and tried to get into the conversation. "I'm just feeling sick. I don't want to entertain his bull."
"That horse-brain really." Botan sent another barrage of laughing emoticon. However, he sent another message. "Why are you lying to me, though?"
"I'm not lying. I would roast him today, but I'm sick enough not to." The king sighed. Of course, Devin sang to his favorite tune of gossips. "I told Devin about my technical issue if this is about not being able to do the event. Even talked to Hideki about it."
"Whoa, with Hideki? Wow."
"That sounded sarcastic." Arata squinted at the reply. "I really did."
"Dude, Hideki's suspended at the moment." Botan replied faster than he normally does. "CM Attori took over his post for now until he gets unsuspended."
His fingers froze again. Arata's eyes were never this wide before, and now he just realized he gave his information to someone else. Dang that man. Then again, he was able to send a message through a GM tag. He made an ugly sound, next to snorting and whining. "Don't play with me, Botan. Please, I went as far as giving him my game ID."
Then came a barrage of laughing devils. "You were so scared! Hahaha!"
"You ****!" Arata groaned as he just sent a reply with a censored word. "You CVNT!" He sent it again.
"Whoa, chill, pal!" Botan sent a barrage of tongue-out emoticon. "He's more like not asked to come for work. The last time he had a live, he was sniffing and sneezing a lot. It's been pouring everywhere, so he went down with some kind of violent flu." He sent a rolling smiley. "CM Attori is still taking over."
The one who almost killed Arata continued. "Then again, he must be very hardworking to still work despite that condition. Nodding emoticons. Very reliable."
The king just sighed; he felt rather bad for lying towards someone very dedicated to his job. He slumped in front of the computer again, pressing a back to the list of direct messages and hovering at CM Hideki's thread. He pressed on it and stared at the message he last sent.
"I'm so guilty," Arata murmured as he pressed on the dialogue box and typed down a reply. "I don't know if this will reach CM Hideki, but I just heard about his flu. Get well soon, Hideki."
None happened after.
"This is stupid." He leaned against the chair and stared at the 6 PM clock. He looked outside his window and started thinking about his plans. He should at least go around tonight to collect his revenue.
A reply then came from the GM thread. "Hello there, Arata-san. Thank you. Sick emoticons. I didn't mean to make you worry. The weather's become unfriendly lately."
"Huh?" Arata stared at the message, not replying at all.
"Anyway, I hope you're doing fine unlike me. Thumbs up." Hideki noticed the silence and just sent a message.
"Haha, your flu is making you talk weird. Hang in there." Arata just responded, along with a line of crying-laughing emoticons.
Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!
Like what was said by the notification, there were new items in the shop. However, most of them are for raising collected points for a stat raise in a routed playthrough. There were items specifically for Encounter mode and Challenge Mode, one Arata had not yet unlocked. There were also new clothes in the shop as well as new hairstyles. Arata almost spent the entire night browsing the magazines to pick a new style. Then again, he needed to see the most important of them all: the patch notes.
He almost tore his room apart with the things being thrown all over the floor like he was a raging hurricane. He then sat in front of the computer, thinking about any other possible places to look for it. Arata then rested his gaze on the forum site which was the default screen of his computer... only to find several notifications. He remembered not being able to check the forum for almost two days.
Most of them were from tags to answer questions built for veterans to shred their answers so newbies would understand. Then again, some others had answered on his stead so he was not worried about it a lot. Then again, there were direct messages from Devin.
"Hey, Arata. Are you okay? I never saw you offline. You're always online, even at 3 AM. Are you not sleeping anymore?" The first of his messages went. "Arata, you're not responding to my tags. Where are you?"
His tone began to sound sulking. "Always online, but not talking. Are you trying to finish the game in a week's time?"
"I can see you're still on Sept 4. If you weren't breezing through the game, then why are you online all the time?"
"How long are you planning to ignore me?"
Arata squinted at the messages one more time before responding again. "Yeah, I don't close the game anymore. What of it? Why are you messaging me?"
After a few seconds, the 'typing' sign appeared next to Devin's avatar photo of Ruby. He replied soon enough. "Just checking up on you, man. It's not normal. I remember rejoicing when you're not online during an event."
The king gasped as he mentioned 'event.' He proceeded with care, but he kept on erasing every word. Finally, he managed to get one out. "Oh, haha." Nailed it.
"You don't have a score yet though. Not participating? It's a chance to collect their summer avatars." Devin replied again, as if waiting for him to reply before sending it.
"Yeah, kinda. Got something better." The king delivered it with three crown emoticons.
"What's better than getting an Attori in micro-bikini?"
"Riding her using my own body." The king chuckled in front of the screen. He sobbed at the idea of not getting the avatar because he had no knowledge that there was an event, and at the fact that he would not be able to access the event since it was outside the campaign mode where he was stuck. He could only grunt in bitterness after. "Bed sheet Attori." He sent a separate crying-laughing emoticon after his reply.
Devin answered with a barrage of laughing emoticons and all caps. "YOU DIDN'T KNOW THERE WAS AN EVENT, DID YOU!?" He sent more laughing faces.
"Shut up. I'm busy loving my girls." There went some fuming emoticons.
"You should join, man. Some fvcker aside from Pantsu was reigning the charts, and trashtalking about you because your name isn't in the Top 50." Devin sent another laughing emoticon.
Arata stared at the screen before replying. "Actually, I can't see the patch notes. I have no idea what is happening in the game aside from the things I bump into in my playthrough." Sweat emoticon barrage. "Can you give me a gist?"
"Why can't you see it? It's like dancing in the game lobby."
The king took a deep breath before responding. "My game. I think it's malfunctioning. It goes straight to campaign screen. I thought it was just how things are now."
"Aw, that's bad. Reported it yet?"
"I can't close the game." Crying-laughing emoticons. He tried to hide his genuine sobbing as he lied to one of his closest in-game friends. "Can't report. Can't even use my phone for something else."
Devin stopped replying at this point. Arata gasped at his silence. He covered his mouth and waited until another notification came to him. It was a message from the game, usually tagged as Usagi's message. He was afraid to open it because of the subject: Game problem: Can't access Lobby. He then gulped and opened the message nonetheless.
"Hi, this is CM Hideki. Someone reported about your problem. Can you confirm that you cannot access the lobby?"
"Devin, you rat." Arata cried as he was faced with a weird problem.
A CM, or community manager, is part of the game team who addressed the concerns of the players. This one in particular is CM Hideki, the most popular of the CMs as he had hosted lives before, showing the ropes of the minigames and new whatnots to the newbies and even some veterans through videos. He was also the one who tackled technical issues with the players such as button malfunction and other light issues. He was like a champion to the community, being quite the middleman between the mere humans called players and the gods they called devs among other names that are normally derisive.
Also, Hideki was the name of the males' Basketball Team's captain. Since CMs are asked to adapt game characters for their names, he chose Hideki despite the lack of 'brute' written on his image as a CM. Probably just because Hideki was MVP.
Anyway, the weird problem was that Arata refused to divulge his real state to the devs. What if he gets accused of hacking or using a mod? The king gulped down the forming lump in his throat again before reading the message one more time.
"Hi, Hideki. Yeah, I'm stuck in the Campaign screen. Phone isn't responding to any other buttons to exit the screen or the game." He chose his words carefully.
"I might have to forward this to our development team. Can I ask you for a few things about your phone?"
His heart was beating loud as if played the game of fibs with the CM. He could remember all the information he needed to say. Then again, he felt the strongest urge to claim. "Hideki, I'm not using a mod, I swear. Don't suspend me."
"Relax, as long as your game data comes clean, you'll be fine." Hideki sent a smiley.
"What do you mean 'comes clean?'"
"No irregular codes to increase points or currency gained. Things like that." Followed by another smiley. "I'll be making the report now. Anything else you want to ask me, Arata-san?"
The king felt his fingers die. There was a lot he wanted to say, but he could not figure out how to phrase them as innocent as he could. He was talking to the eyes an ears of the devs. One wrong move, he might get his account banned- in short, deleted. He needed to move and type something down.
"Arata-san, can you tell me how you can access the forums if you're stuck in the campaign mode?" There came the suspicions.
He took a deep breath and almost held it. "I'm using the computer in the room. It goes straight to the forum."
"I see. If that's the case, then the lobby seemed to be the only function locked." Hideki sent a thinking emoticon. "There should be an arcade in town. It will let you play the minigames without quitting your campaign. The social club can connect you to the Multiplayer mode as well.
"You don't have to be so scared, Arata-san. Lobby is just a shortcut page. Everything else can be accessed from the campaign mode. It was designed like that since the lobby was only added after the beta version. And to lift the action time penalty." He sent thumbs-up emoticons. "But we're still going to investigate this. I haven't received a similar report of the lobby locking."
"What about the event?" The king managed to let out his breath, fearing less.
"That one I can't help you with. The events are completely played outside the Campaign mode." Hideki replied with sad, flopping emoticons. "You might have to sit this one out."
"Thanks, Hideki." Arata sent some crying emoticons.
The CM responded with bowing emoticons. "No problem, Arata-san. I will keep you posted about this problem. Also, I would like to ask for your permission to let me message you from time to time if we find anything worthy to ask."
"Like?"
"Log in duration time and in-game purchases. Last beta test, we found some players buying third party products that affected their games."
"Sure. I'll work with you to fix this." Arata lied.
"Once again, thank you for your cooperation, Arata-san."
Silence. Arata felt so drained after feeling his own body pale up in the presence of a CM. His heart was still racing, and his lungs were pumping air faster than it ever had before. He then crashed in front of the computer, not bothering to sleep on his bed for the night.
It was Friday, and Arata had become out of it for a while. It was a normal happening to him in his previous life, and it was hard to break a habit. He only gave the report to Ruby who noticed his paleness that day; she would insist to stay with him, but she advised him to go home. Yukari and Attori noticed as well, only that Yukari could not pass up the club that day. His wife took him home and nursed him until she had to go home for the 6 PM action time.
The pale king read through the forum again. He spotted familiar threads and a lot more replies on the two threads that he started. However, he had no energy to respond. He was so drained he could barely remembering typing if he wanted his thoughts to be heard.
Then another notification came in. It was a private message from Botan.
"Dude, wtf. A mod?" It was all he sent.
"What mod?" Arata forced himself to communicate. Of course he had to take care of his reputation.
"Horsepower said you were using a mod, therefore, suspended."
"Do I look like suspended to you right now?"
"No, you won't be able to access your account if it was." He sent a barrage of laughing emoticons.
Arata only hummed with a small smile and tried to get into the conversation. "I'm just feeling sick. I don't want to entertain his bull."
"That horse-brain really." Botan sent another barrage of laughing emoticon. However, he sent another message. "Why are you lying to me, though?"
"I'm not lying. I would roast him today, but I'm sick enough not to." The king sighed. Of course, Devin sang to his favorite tune of gossips. "I told Devin about my technical issue if this is about not being able to do the event. Even talked to Hideki about it."
"Whoa, with Hideki? Wow."
"That sounded sarcastic." Arata squinted at the reply. "I really did."
"Dude, Hideki's suspended at the moment." Botan replied faster than he normally does. "CM Attori took over his post for now until he gets unsuspended."
His fingers froze again. Arata's eyes were never this wide before, and now he just realized he gave his information to someone else. Dang that man. Then again, he was able to send a message through a GM tag. He made an ugly sound, next to snorting and whining. "Don't play with me, Botan. Please, I went as far as giving him my game ID."
Then came a barrage of laughing devils. "You were so scared! Hahaha!"
"You ****!" Arata groaned as he just sent a reply with a censored word. "You CVNT!" He sent it again.
"Whoa, chill, pal!" Botan sent a barrage of tongue-out emoticon. "He's more like not asked to come for work. The last time he had a live, he was sniffing and sneezing a lot. It's been pouring everywhere, so he went down with some kind of violent flu." He sent a rolling smiley. "CM Attori is still taking over."
The one who almost killed Arata continued. "Then again, he must be very hardworking to still work despite that condition. Nodding emoticons. Very reliable."
The king just sighed; he felt rather bad for lying towards someone very dedicated to his job. He slumped in front of the computer again, pressing a back to the list of direct messages and hovering at CM Hideki's thread. He pressed on it and stared at the message he last sent.
"I'm so guilty," Arata murmured as he pressed on the dialogue box and typed down a reply. "I don't know if this will reach CM Hideki, but I just heard about his flu. Get well soon, Hideki."
None happened after.
"This is stupid." He leaned against the chair and stared at the 6 PM clock. He looked outside his window and started thinking about his plans. He should at least go around tonight to collect his revenue.
A reply then came from the GM thread. "Hello there, Arata-san. Thank you. Sick emoticons. I didn't mean to make you worry. The weather's become unfriendly lately."
"Huh?" Arata stared at the message, not replying at all.
"Anyway, I hope you're doing fine unlike me. Thumbs up." Hideki noticed the silence and just sent a message.
"Haha, your flu is making you talk weird. Hang in there." Arata just responded, along with a line of crying-laughing emoticons.
Like what was said by the notification, there were new items in the shop. However, most of them are for raising collected points for a stat raise in a routed playthrough. There were items specifically for Encounter mode and Challenge Mode, one Arata had not yet unlocked. There were also new clothes in the shop as well as new hairstyles. Arata almost spent the entire night browsing the magazines to pick a new style. Then again, he needed to see the most important of them all: the patch notes.He almost tore his room apart with the things being thrown all over the floor like he was a raging hurricane. He then sat in front of the computer, thinking about any other possible places to look for it. Arata then rested his gaze on the forum site which was the default screen of his computer... only to find several notifications. He remembered not being able to check the forum for almost two days.Most of them were from tags to answer questions built for veterans to shred their answers so newbies would understand. Then again, some others had answered on his stead so he was not worried about it a lot. Then again, there were direct messages from Devin."Hey, Arata. Are you okay? I never saw you offline. You're always online, even at 3 AM. Are you not sleeping anymore?" The first of his messages went. "Arata, you're not responding to my tags. Where are you?"His tone began to sound sulking. "Always online, but not talking. Are you trying to finish the game in a week's time?""I can see you're still on Sept 4. If you weren't breezing through the game, then why are you online all the time?""How long are you planning to ignore me?"Arata squinted at the messages one more time before responding again. "Yeah, I don't close the game anymore. What of it? Why are you messaging me?"After a few seconds, the 'typing' sign appeared next to Devin's avatar photo of Ruby. He replied soon enough. "Just checking up on you, man. It's not normal. I remember rejoicing when you're not online during an event."The king gasped as he mentioned 'event.' He proceeded with care, but he kept on erasing every word. Finally, he managed to get one out. "Oh, haha." Nailed it."You don't have a score yet though. Not participating? It's a chance to collect their summer avatars." Devin replied again, as if waiting for him to reply before sending it."Yeah, kinda. Got something better." The king delivered it with three crown emoticons."What's better than getting an Attori in micro-bikini?""Riding her using my own body." The king chuckled in front of the screen. He sobbed at the idea of not getting the avatar because he had no knowledge that there was an event, and at the fact that he would not be able to access the event since it was outside the campaign mode where he was stuck. He could only grunt in bitterness after. "Bed sheet Attori." He sent a separate crying-laughing emoticon after his reply.Devin answered with a barrage of laughing emoticons and all caps. "YOU DIDN'T KNOW THERE WAS AN EVENT, DID YOU!?" He sent more laughing faces."Shut up. I'm busy loving my girls." There went some fuming emoticons."You should join, man. Some fvcker aside from Pantsu was reigning the charts, and trashtalking about you because your name isn't in the Top 50." Devin sent another laughing emoticon.Arata stared at the screen before replying. "Actually, I can't see the patch notes. I have no idea what is happening in the game aside from the things I bump into in my playthrough." Sweat emoticon barrage. "Can you give me a gist?""Why can't you see it? It's like dancing in the game lobby."The king took a deep breath before responding. "My game. I think it's malfunctioning. It goes straight to campaign screen. I thought it was just how things are now.""Aw, that's bad. Reported it yet?""I can't close the game." Crying-laughing emoticons. He tried to hide his genuine sobbing as he lied to one of his closest in-game friends. "Can't report. Can't even use my phone for something else."Devin stopped replying at this point. Arata gasped at his silence. He covered his mouth and waited until another notification came to him. It was a message from the game, usually tagged as Usagi's message. He was afraid to open it because of the subject: Game problem: Can't access Lobby. He then gulped and opened the message nonetheless."Hi, this is CM Hideki. Someone reported about your problem. Can you confirm that you cannot access the lobby?""Devin, you rat." Arata cried as he was faced with a weird problem.A CM, or community manager, is part of the game team who addressed the concerns of the players. This one in particular is CM Hideki, the most popular of the CMs as he had hosted lives before, showing the ropes of the minigames and new whatnots to the newbies and even some veterans through videos. He was also the one who tackled technical issues with the players such as button malfunction and other light issues. He was like a champion to the community, being quite the middleman between the mere humans called players and the gods they called devs among other names that are normally derisive.Also, Hideki was the name of the males' Basketball Team's captain. Since CMs are asked to adapt game characters for their names, he chose Hideki despite the lack of 'brute' written on his image as a CM. Probably just because Hideki was MVP.Anyway, the weird problem was that Arata refused to divulge his real state to the devs. What if he gets accused of hacking or using a mod? The king gulped down the forming lump in his throat again before reading the message one more time."Hi, Hideki. Yeah, I'm stuck in the Campaign screen. Phone isn't responding to any other buttons to exit the screen or the game." He chose his words carefully."I might have to forward this to our development team. Can I ask you for a few things about your phone?"His heart was beating loud as if played the game of fibs with the CM. He could remember all the information he needed to say. Then again, he felt the strongest urge to claim. "Hideki, I'm not using a mod, I swear. Don't suspend me.""Relax, as long as your game data comes clean, you'll be fine." Hideki sent a smiley."What do you mean 'comes clean?'""No irregular codes to increase points or currency gained. Things like that." Followed by another smiley. "I'll be making the report now. Anything else you want to ask me, Arata-san?"The king felt his fingers die. There was a lot he wanted to say, but he could not figure out how to phrase them as innocent as he could. He was talking to the eyes an ears of the devs. One wrong move, he might get his account banned- in short, deleted. He needed to move and type something down."Arata-san, can you tell me how you can access the forums if you're stuck in the campaign mode?" There came the suspicions.He took a deep breath and almost held it. "I'm using the computer in the room. It goes straight to the forum.""I see. If that's the case, then the lobby seemed to be the only function locked." Hideki sent a thinking emoticon. "There should be an arcade in town. It will let you play the minigames without quitting your campaign. The social club can connect you to the Multiplayer mode as well."You don't have to be so scared, Arata-san. Lobby is just a shortcut page. Everything else can be accessed from the campaign mode. It was designed like that since the lobby was only added after the beta version. And to lift the action time penalty." He sent thumbs-up emoticons. "But we're still going to investigate this. I haven't received a similar report of the lobby locking.""What about the event?" The king managed to let out his breath, fearing less."That one I can't help you with. The events are completely played outside the Campaign mode." Hideki replied with sad, flopping emoticons. "You might have to sit this one out.""Thanks, Hideki." Arata sent some crying emoticons.The CM responded with bowing emoticons. "No problem, Arata-san. I will keep you posted about this problem. Also, I would like to ask for your permission to let me message you from time to time if we find anything worthy to ask.""Like?""Log in duration time and in-game purchases. Last beta test, we found some players buying third party products that affected their games.""Sure. I'll work with you to fix this." Arata lied."Once again, thank you for your cooperation, Arata-san."Silence. Arata felt so drained after feeling his own body pale up in the presence of a CM. His heart was still racing, and his lungs were pumping air faster than it ever had before. He then crashed in front of the computer, not bothering to sleep on his bed for the night.It was Friday, and Arata had become out of it for a while. It was a normal happening to him in his previous life, and it was hard to break a habit. He only gave the report to Ruby who noticed his paleness that day; she would insist to stay with him, but she advised him to go home. Yukari and Attori noticed as well, only that Yukari could not pass up the club that day. His wife took him home and nursed him until she had to go home for the 6 PM action time.The pale king read through the forum again. He spotted familiar threads and a lot more replies on the two threads that he started. However, he had no energy to respond. He was so drained he could barely remembering typing if he wanted his thoughts to be heard.Then another notification came in. It was a private message from Botan."Dude, wtf. A mod?" It was all he sent."What mod?" Arata forced himself to communicate. Of course he had to take care of his reputation."Horsepower said you were using a mod, therefore, suspended.""Do I look like suspended to you right now?""No, you won't be able to access your account if it was." He sent a barrage of laughing emoticons.Arata only hummed with a small smile and tried to get into the conversation. "I'm just feeling sick. I don't want to entertain his bull.""That horse-brain really." Botan sent another barrage of laughing emoticon. However, he sent another message. "Why are you lying to me, though?""I'm not lying. I would roast him today, but I'm sick enough not to." The king sighed. Of course, Devin sang to his favorite tune of gossips. "I told Devin about my technical issue if this is about not being able to do the event. Even talked to Hideki about it.""Whoa, with Hideki? Wow.""That sounded sarcastic." Arata squinted at the reply. "I really did.""Dude, Hideki's suspended at the moment." Botan replied faster than he normally does. "CM Attori took over his post for now until he gets unsuspended."His fingers froze again. Arata's eyes were never this wide before, and now he just realized he gave his information to someone else. Dang that man. Then again, he was able to send a message through a GM tag. He made an ugly sound, next to snorting and whining. "Don't play with me, Botan. Please, I went as far as giving him my game ID."Then came a barrage of laughing devils. "You were so scared! Hahaha!""You ****!" Arata groaned as he just sent a reply with a censored word. "You CVNT!" He sent it again."Whoa, chill, pal!" Botan sent a barrage of tongue-out emoticon. "He's more like not asked to come for work. The last time he had a live, he was sniffing and sneezing a lot. It's been pouring everywhere, so he went down with some kind of violent flu." He sent a rolling smiley. "CM Attori is still taking over."The one who almost killed Arata continued. "Then again, he must be very hardworking to still work despite that condition. Nodding emoticons. Very reliable."The king just sighed; he felt rather bad for lying towards someone very dedicated to his job. He slumped in front of the computer again, pressing a back to the list of direct messages and hovering at CM Hideki's thread. He pressed on it and stared at the message he last sent."I'm so guilty," Arata murmured as he pressed on the dialogue box and typed down a reply. "I don't know if this will reach CM Hideki, but I just heard about his flu. Get well soon, Hideki."None happened after."This is stupid." He leaned against the chair and stared at the 6 PM clock. He looked outside his window and started thinking about his plans. He should at least go around tonight to collect his revenue.A reply then came from the GM thread. "Hello there, Arata-san. Thank you. Sick emoticons. I didn't mean to make you worry. The weather's become unfriendly lately.""Huh?" Arata stared at the message, not replying at all."Anyway, I hope you're doing fine unlike me. Thumbs up." Hideki noticed the silence and just sent a message."Haha, your flu is making you talk weird. Hang in there." Arata just responded, along with a line of crying-laughing emoticons.
