13th Project: Substitute Coder

Year-End Special Chapter: Debugging the Remnants of Revelation

The rabbit girl stuttered between our argument, puzzled from what I had told her.

"Well, you see-"

I was about to explain when I heard something fall from the sky that shook the ground.

Wait.

Isn't the Malware above us?

"Seijuro, it's active."

"Yeah, I know."

"What's going on?! Can someone elaborate, please?" 

With a sigh from my lips after hearing her plead, I disabled her restraints, making her fall face first onto the dirt.

"Just imagine that you're in a video game. You move, you attack, you protect. You get the idea."

"That's a good explanation, I guess."

She stood up and wiped the dirt off her clothes, only to freeze again just like earlier after seeing the view of the sky above us.

"What is that?!"

"That? Imagine it's a neutral objective from a competitive online game. You kill it and get bonus attributes that can help you win the match."

"What does it do?"

"Uhh... Destroy your world?"

"What?!"

"Yeah. That's why it's an important fight to win. You in or you out. You decide. I'm not forcing you."

She only stood in silence, thinking of whether to join us or not. Well, that's not an issue for us, cuz I already know what her answer is.

"I'm in. I wanna try out my strength against this one. An actual battle to test my abilities!"

"That's the spirit!" I cheered out loud that I forgot we have to deal with something.

"Activate Developer Mode!"

The battlefield got encased by a black barrier after Keith used a voice input. He really likes to show off sometimes.

I typed a command on my screen and a wall launched me in the air, giving me a clearer view of the Malware. 

From a distance, it looked like a black cloud but as time went by, appendages started appearing from its side, acting like legs for it to move and a headlike feature appeared in front of the cloud.

That's a huge spider. Totally different from Bugs. Malwares work similarly to Bugs, but unlike Malwares, Bugs are non-threatening and attack on a smaller scale.

Before I landed, I edited the ground to be as soft as a pillow, descending in a comfortable fashion before editing it back to its original form.

"Keith, you should damage its legs. Restraining its movement is our first step on this one. Usada-san. Go for a walk and distract this guy while I try to figure out his weak point."

"Roger that, Seijuro. Can't believe I'm listening to someone below me in rankings," Keith murmured before dashing towards the Malware's legs.

"Guess a good leader should start as a good listener, peko."

In a split second, the rabbit girl flashed onto Malware's head and swirled her sword towards it, yelling her chant with it, probably? Her attacks won't do anything except distraction. This would give me time to position and try to nuke each part of the Malware like trial and error.

Pressing my screen, a bunch of swords appeared above me and another tap on the screen made them lunge onto the Malware's head. It did take heavy damage but its head regenerated at a rapid pace.