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Lea watched as the robot mice quickly moved about the room, deciding which one her first target should be. Although Carla said to go wild, so does it really matter? It was about damn time she got a bit of practice on a moving target anyway.
A ball forming in her hand, she took aim. There was a strangely familiar kind of muscle memory, while she was taking the shot, but she shrugged off the thought.
She threw the ball as hard as she could at her target, the robot mouse exploding on impact, and a high damage number appeared above it for a few seconds before fading out of existence. Was that supposed to happen?
“W-what?!” Carla yelled out, her jaw agape.
Judging by that and Sergey's expression of surprise, as he exclaimed, “Hold on! W-what is this damage?!”, no it's not.
… it felt good though, seeing big numbers and explosions. So she kept doing it.
“That's what I wanna ask! That's not normal, right?!” Carla asked.
Realization struck Sergey, the programmer remembering what he did before initializing Lea. “No way! Did I forget to remove that code fragment?!” His hands immediately flew over to his mouse and keyboard, frantically checking on Lea’s code.
“What the heck did ya do?!” Carla shouted at him.
“I-It was just a little experiment!” Sergey explained himself. “Seeing if I could somehow tamper with the damage output in a secure way.” You never knew, at least in his eyes, when you'd need to do that. He always preferred to be prepared, even if the chances of needing to tamper with the damage output were very unlikely.
Upon finding that piece of code that he was hoping wasn't there, Sergey facepalmed. “And I forgot to comment out that part.”
“Sergeeeeey!!” He could hear Carla scold.
Lea was having way more fun than she should be having, to be honest. But something about seeing things explode instantly upon getting hit by a ball felt satisfying.
Sergey was more focused on the code at the moment though. Looking through it, panic formed as he realized, if he removed it now, he might break something. The last thing he needed to do was break the code of his only lead. “Oh… oh no… I do not think I can undo this…”
Opposite of Sergey's panic, Lea was ecstatic upon hearing this might be permanent. The power to beat anything with a single throw of a ball? Now why would she ever pass that up?
Sergey doesn't like Lea’s reaction to this at all.
“Congratulations, sir.” Carla deadpanned. “You've created a monster.”
While Lea violently exterminated the robot mice, Sergey watched on with clashing thoughts. On one hand this could be a benefit, making Lea’s task and by extension his task easier. He immediately squashed that thought. No, this is definitely going to get them caught. Unless there are no other players around, this is going to get Lea reported.
After this he tried to calm down. Maybe he can just see what happens. And hope Lea doesn't acquire a taste for blood. Which is definitely what seems to be happening. “Thankfully there is no actual blood in the Crossworlds…” Sergey thought to himself.
—
Well, he was right to some extent. That damage issue came in handy when an odd avatar forced Lea to fight a giant robot crab, as she quickly dealt with it when she got the chance.
But now that they were in the Playground, they needed to be careful about that damage issue. He needed her to pass as a regular player, and Lea having all of those items and equipment all of the sudden did not help in the slightest.
Oh. And she has all her elements unlocked too. Great. He certainly doesn’t remember putting THAT in her code at all.
“This is not supposed to happen! Seriously, this game has been out for quite some time already. Why do these weird issues keep coming up?!” Sergey ranted.
Lea simply shrugged it off. The way she sees it, more power for her.
Sergey, on the other hand, hopes the stress of these issues doesn’t kill him before this journey is over.