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They can't give up, not yet.
These past events the developers of New World Online were focused on a single goal, making a real challenge for Maple that isn't impossible for the average player.
Difficulty levels personalized for Maple can't be done every event, so they have to come up with something to make the same event equally tough for every player.
And after so long, they might have figured out a way, it wasn't about the monsters or the terrain, it's the time.
More specifically changing the perception of time.
Perception of time is a factor they change constantly in several events, they make weeks be a couple of hours in real life thanks to the headset scanning the brain of the players.
So what if they crank that factor to the max? What if they give players the same level of time dilation they personally use for their development of new levels and areas?
What if they make it so a year in the virtual world is a minute in real life?
This is the only way they can model and program so many new 3D environments practically every month. And they have the perfect excuse this time because it's not just a romantic holiday like Christmas, it's THE romantic holiday, people are really busy on Valentine's Day.
They will put so many missions in the event you'll need around a month to clear it, 5 seconds in real life, the average player will be grateful to be able to go back quickly with their loved ones while getting a cute reward in the form of event items. The event will start at 4 pm, barely enough time for a high school student like Maple (they assume) to get home, eat and get online, every second she is late after 4:00 will give 6 days of advantage to anyone else that actually logged in punctually. Maple is too easy-going to be that precise, they know her, they have studied her for a long time now.
The window to finish the event will be 2 real life hours, of course no one will take that long, but this ensures that every player in the server will be able to clear the event no matter how late they get home from their schools or jobs.
So now let's see, can Maple win when her competition will be days ahead of her? The prize for the winner is an unique armor set given only to the person who dealt the final hit. Everyone else gets giftboxes. What Mapleisms can she pull to get ahead this time?
Well, as a matter of fact, she couldn't do much, she was 3 seconds late and couldn't make up for the 18 days gap. It was funny watching her fly around desperately with her Machine God trying to complete the event missions though. Sally even slowed down to help her, even if she logged in precisely at 4:00:00, she more than anyone else in the world didn't want Maple to be sad on Valentine's Day of all days.
This premise wasn't an issue for the people that were already online before 4 pm, basically anyone younger than a high school student, which means not even Payne could login before that time, he was even 2 seconds late because he has a tendency to sigh before putting on the headset.
The strongest players that were already there before the event began were of course the literally STRongest girls in the game Mai and Yui.
Iz was there too, she took the day off in her real life job so she could be there to help these cuties and with the buffs from speed potions and health potions, the sisters got way further ahead than everyone else.
It's been a month and they are fighting against the final boss in a cave dungeon. A giant red heart shaped monster.
The devs were so happy celebrating that Maple wasn't there, they didn't care who else won the unique armor.
Wait, the twins are fighting together the final boss? This isn't meant to be a team up event.
Uh-oh.
[Double Strike]
"We did it, Sis!"
"Yes! Let's see what we got..."
They read the pop-up screen. It was just a pretty simple description with some exotic buffs they had never seen before, plus extra defense.
"It's another armor with animal ears and tail, I got a cat set this time!" Proclaimed Yui.
"I got a bunny set again... but it gives higher defense this time, and it got some permanent buffs! Let's equip it."
They exited the dungeon and equipped their new armor in the middle of the forest, with no one around since only they knew the location of the final boss.
After an excited gasp at their new appearance. Immediately the permanent buffs activated.
"I love you so much, Yui!"
"No, I love you so much more, Sis!"
Wearing similar sets that consist of typical playboy bunnies leotards, but adapted to the colors of their respective original armors, Mai had bunny ears and a black tail with pantyhose and exposed shoulders. Yui had cat ears and a tail making a heart shape with a ribbon at the end, her legs were bare instead. They kept their hairstyle with their hair ribbons, but the most distinctive feature they now had were their new pink and green spiral eyes, respectively, which were basically explaining why they started french kissing while proclaiming their love for each other.
As coming in first place in the event, the twins got the powerful Valentine's armor, a unique armor that was only meant to be awarded to the player who dealt the final hit, since it makes the wearer fall permanently in love with anyone else wearing the same armor, the devs weren't expecting them to win at the same time while using their combo hammer attack.
It was only meant to be flavor text, so far no one else got duplicated unique armors, the original armor of these girls was crafted by Iz, it wasn't unique. So they thought it would be funny to make an effect that only works with more than one copy of an unique armor, it fits thematically for the day of love and it would never activate after all.
Never.
They are definitely getting sued for this, somehow by some miracle they didn't get sued when they deactivated the logouts in the ghost mansion, but they are definitely getting sued this time. They can't patch the armor in the middle of the event, and the players are running at the same speed as them, a year being a minute, so they can't just make code instantly. If anything they need to logout to apply the patch which would be years of in-game time. And explaining to the other players why the servers needed to restart would be worse.
After some extensive deliberation, they all came up with a solution together though, a new goal: every single wish the twins want, they'll fulfill it, anything they want as long as it isn't more equipment or skills, they can get it during this event, as long as they are online the devs will make the twins happy.
They'll probably just want a world of candy or something along those lines, right? Easy. Pretty simple to program and they'll be safe after the twins logout, right?
Right?
After a couple of months most of Maple Tree and the rest of the playerbase logged out to enjoy Valentine's Day, none of them saw the twins after they won for the rest of the event.
The twins were still there.
2 hours later.
Inside a typical residential house in the middle of Tokyo, 2 headsets came off in the respective rooms of the sisters, they didn't share the same room.
They'll probably have to fix that now.
Their doors opened and with a shared glance and nod they explored the unfamiliar house until they found the kitchen and grabbed some candy.
They were hungry.
"So this is what real food tastes like, huh..."
"...I honestly didn't remember" back to completing each other's sentences.
"It's a nice house, did we seriously live here?"
"Apparently." Mai confirmed.
After some nibbling, they were silent, a bit of an awkward silence because they knew they had to address the elephant in the room.
Yui talked first.
"So probably around half way I read what the buffs of the armor actually did."
"Me too, but at that point we had grandkids, and... you know?"
"Yeah, how did that even work anyway? We are both girls." Yui never stopped to consider it. She just accepted their magic fingers.
"No idea, it's like anything we wanted was given to us, so we had 10 kids, 5 each for us that somehow were all perfect twins of each other, and they are way smarter than the beast partners and average NPCs, it's almost like they were living human players."
"Maple Tree is gonna be so surprised when they see them."
"Yeah, hehehe."
"..."
"..."
More silence, they both knew what they were gonna say next.
This time Mai was first.
"Yui, I don't remember how we used to be before we put on the armor, even realizing the armor did it, it didn't change anything because we never unequipped it, it doesn't help that our avatars never changed in-game, only our kids grew up until they all looked like high schoolers and then stopped, so we looked the same all the time, memories of the last century are mixed in my brain and none of them contain the 'original' us."
"I don't have memories of back then either, Sis, I'm not even sure if I ate this type of candy before, I don't even recognize the brand." Yui said, holding up the chocolate bar. "I don't remember our wedding either."
"Can't blame you, that was 110 years ago." Mai said, wondering how they managed to put wedding dresses over their bunny leotards.
"Yeah..."
Their eyes met, and both gazed down slightly at the same time, wondering if their lips would taste different in the real world.
"Sis, are we still us?"
"I don't know, our old personalities and feelings are long gone, I think, and we don't talk like kids anymore..."
"...Our only memories are with us wearing the armor." Yui looked down, asking herself if a person's memory is replaced with new memories to the point the old memories are completely forgotten, while also having the new memories be created by a completely different personality, is that person still alive?
"Yes, but..." Mai stood up from the table and walked towards the most important person in her life, then she held up her chin with one hand. "I wouldn't change those memories for anything."
And they kissed.
Holding the moment as long as they could, Yui then talked.
"Let's go back for now, even with the time dilation gone, I miss our candy mansion, we can sleep over there tonight and then fix how we live in the real world tomorrow."
"Yeah, it'll be awkward to talk with our parents, but mentally we are way older than them now, we can easily navigate some adult talk and even prove ourselves by getting better jobs than they have."
"We need to look up what their names are first."
"Of course."
Holding hands they walked towards their respective rooms, and after another peck on the lips and Yui playfully groping Mai while giving some bedroom eyes when she turned back. They went back inside.
To their home, with their family.
