A soft yawn escaped soft pink lips. Shara lifted her dive-tiara from her head then twisted from side to side. She pretended that she was a little sore after that lengthy stay on Earth, and with good reason. The night had been long and filled with sirens. The monsters vanished with the dawn, thankfully, but they would come again. Even the occasional one-off attacks that happened before last night rarely occurred during the day. However, soon even the rays of the sun would not be enough to keep them from spawning due to the coming convergence of the system and Earth.

“Ashton is in the hospital, sedated and recovering. No idea what Scott is doing at the moment; which is a little concerning,” she said lightly to herself.

She tilted her head to the side then tapped her lower lip. Her eyes drifted toward the ceiling for a moment and she struck a thoughtful pose. A moment later she smiled lightly then sighed. “I suppose that’s enough expositional monologuing for one day. It’s not like there is anyone around to hear it, anyway.”

The red-haired goddess of ninjas and night-time cuddling stood up. It had been quite some time since she had spoken with her family at any great length. Yes, she had a reprieve now and then once her first twenty years on Earth had ended. There was so much to do as both a hero, and a part of the world staff, that it was difficult to balance everything. A few brief conversations were not exactly fulfilling interaction.

Her twenty year stay on Earth had come to an end roughly one Earth year ago, just before the time axis had shifted to a modest four-to-one ratio that ran opposite to the ratio that Earth Humans dealt with when entering into their so-called Dream World. Since that time, she had spent her remaining twenty hours of community service each week in the performance of minor maintenance to the world and in providing help during the test phase when it came to various skill sets on Earth.

After Earth became connected with the open license version of ARS used by Indie game development companies, she had been evaluated on her performance. The project leaders were impressed with her dedication toward helping to solve the problems inherent with a forced update of a long-standing Earth reality. Of course, they were even more impressed by the fact that she was a member of the family that ran the Origin Entertainment Empire. She had been granted elevated status and given a role as a goddess. A variation of her voice was even used when people who tread a dark path achieved a status, skill, or level update.

Shara had been given extra duties because of that, but that was fine. It had allowed her to play with her childhood friend a little, even if he did not realize who she was. Shara had been able to make overtures and offers that he could refuse but had ultimately accepted. He was well on his way to becoming a powerful figure in the world. She was happy for him, even if it still burned her up more than a little inside that he had dealt with such a horrible childhood after they had parted.

She looked at her screen for a moment then checked a few things. Shara shook her head. Things were escalating and they would soon go from bad to worse.

“I still can’t believe those idiots screwed up that Earth so badly.” It took a special sort of idiot to perform a world update directly on a long-term planetary cultivation project instead of creating a copy of the current world. That was how most companies made a new world project as copies were far easier to make than it was to craft a world from scratch. These asset-flipped realities would then be populated with any number of contracted souls in order to maintain a realistic atmosphere without destroying the native culture of the source world.

While she looked over her latest data packet, and her new update she cringed. “How can they do that?”

It was even worse than she had thought. She read through the information presented to her then shook her head.

Update Notice >>>

You recently requested information on the status of monster spawn locations on Earth-1123-Beta-0.

The world engineering branch of our project has been unable to change much of the source code of the monster generation program due to errors in the system. We regret to inform you that monster spawn occurrences inside of private homes and well-traveled roadways will still be in effect. There may even be undesirable translocation effects that cause monsters to appear partially inside of walls or stuck against other objects due to the transference sequence and peculiar quirks of quantum entanglement. The open source version of ARS does not line up completely with this Earth’s geometry, and the world engineering team has had to improvise.

We have managed to curtail some of the damage by getting into the code that focuses on monster power and levels. High level monsters, or low-level monsters of high-threat level, will not appear inside of towns or private houses near a town. At present, level forty for any monster is considered the maximum level for one that might appear directly in a populated area. Monsters of a certain difficulty rating that spawn in a populated area may cause Civil Defense Services to contact a local resident in order to assess the state of emergency. Yes, at least that system is in effect, pursuant to the World-Server Crises Services and Support Act.

However, in regards to the type, number, and location of monster spawns; there is little else that can be done if the building owners and town leadership do not enact sanctuary areas to prevent monster spawn. The engineers have determined that further attempts to tinker with that aspect of the code will have to be minor, any major overhaul of the system will break adjacent systems that we will not be able to fix given our staff members and their qualifications.

Time until the first true monster spawn event is slightly over eight Earth days. There should be no further waves of incoming monster spawns until that day. However, we do caution you. Pursuant to the Non-disclosure Agreement that we signed, none of us can give out details to the people of Earth outside of their duly appointed legal representatives. The various governments have been informed. What they choose to disseminate to their people is their concern. Ours is the concern of fixing the mess that we have caused to the best of our abilities.

Shara hissed at the message screen then sighed. At least her Scott had been smart enough to enact a sanctuary zone. Hopefully everyone else who owned a house or business had been smart enough to understand what was about to happen. The project leaders and various alpha testers tried warning people and governments over a year ago, but most of the leadership on Earth had proven to be incredibly short-sighted. Now the people would suffer for their stupidity.

Soon, even the project leaders would not be able to control what was to come. They could regulate systems but the chaos that would occur on Earth would be quite beyond any simulation’s capability to predict.

She opened another message screen then sighed. “Of course, you won’t be able to roll out the update that allows the general populace to enact sanctuary areas until next month…”

Shara growled angrily then shut her message screens down. Regular monster spawns would have occurred once a week by that point. Add the changes to world-wide geometry that were coming, and it looked more and more like the idiots who ran those systems wanted people to suffer.