"Welcome to Lobotomy Corporation."
As soon as Shirogane Miyuki entered the game, he saw a white-haired woman in a white coat welcoming him.
"I am your secretary, Angela. Although I am just an AI, I am happy to answer any questions you may have."
When Shirogane Miyuki heard her welcome, his heart immediately calmed down. With his experience in Red Alert, he felt that the person in front of him was similar to a tutorial mentor. It was always right to listen to the tutorial mentor.
The AI in front of him introduced itself as part of Seraph, and his job was to handle the reports from Angela and command employees to communicate with, oppress, and observe certain special entities to generate energy.
His task was very simple: recruit combat employees, have them communicate with and observe the special entities, and collect the substances they produce as energy using the Corporation's special devices.
Through these special entities, equipment called EGO can be made. This equipment includes weapons, clothing, and accessories, each with different effects—some granting powerful attributes, while others driving people to madness.
Shirogane Miyuki's main job is to command combatants and conduct research on these entities to obtain energy and create equipment. In this process, combatants will gradually improve their various attributes and eventually become qualified employees.
"It's... not difficult? Is this how normal companies work?"
Shirogane Miyuki had never been to a large Corporation, so he naturally didn't know how they operated. In this game, his role as a supervisor was so simple that it made him a little incredulous.
"Supervisor, are you wondering why the job is so simple?"
Angela sat on the stool with her legs crossed and said gently, "This is because you have just joined the Corporation and are not yet familiar with the work here. As you become more accustomed to the Corporation, you will have more and more responsibilities."
In the game setting of Lobotomy Corporation, Angela had been experiencing a loop for five hundred years. However, in this moment, she hadn't yet undergone that process and was just a fully capable AI.
As for how she might develop later? That depends entirely on how this test player progresses.
Although Angela's setting is a bit different, there aren't many changes in the other department members and civilian staff.
At the same time, this game is quite brutal, especially in realism difficulty, where players can witness all the harsh realities of Lobotomy Corporation.
In this Corporation, ordinary employees are divided into two categories: clerks, who are disposable, and agents, who are elite disposables. Few employees survive for fifty days in this Corporation. Even those as powerful as gods may die suddenly due to some unforeseen accident.
In realism mode, the bloody battle scenes and some terrifying entities can definitely cause a player's sanity to plummet.
For this reason, the game needs someone to test it.
The system must set a minimum threshold based on the tolerance level of ordinary players to ensure that those seeking an exciting experience can enjoy it without being overwhelmed and affecting their reality.
The ratio of game time to real time is one day to one hour, meaning one hour in reality equals one day in the game. The first day's work was very simple, primarily involving familiarizing himself with the intelligent AI Angela and the head of the Control Department, Ilya.
She was a young woman with brown hair and a headband. She greeted Shirogane Miyuki with a notebook in her hand.
"Hello, I'm Ilya..." After a brief introduction, she instructed Shirogane Miyuki on how to work.
One Sin and a Hundred Good Deeds, recommended by Angela is a skull with thorns floating in the air for starters.
In the remaining less than eight hours, Shirogane Miyuki experienced seven days in the game. He felt that the game was quite interesting. He chose an anomaly each day and recruited an employee to work with it. Different employees were assigned based on their attributes and the attributes of the entities, and all employees were mobilized to complete a task.
This really made him feel like a senior executive. The anomalies he chose were also very cute: a bird, a group of fairies, and a floating bracelet. They were all charming little things.
When working, Shirogane Miyuki adhered to the principle of having an employee work in one position consistently, not transferring positions unless necessary. However, on the sixth day of this job, he learned a lesson.
There is Stats in employee training. The so-called Stats in realism difficulty is Angela's way of digitizing an employee's abilities.
Improvements in Stats help employees do their work better.
After understanding this setting, Shirogane Miyuki thought about having employees with different stats work with other entities to improve their stats.
But when he transferred the employee working with the Fairy Festival to pray at One Sin and One Hundred Good Deeds, an accident happened.
The employee was eaten by a fairy that suddenly appeared.
With the help of surveillance, he saw the entire process of the employee's death. It was just intercepted by the cognitive filter. The process didn't look bloody or violent; it was depicted like a flat painting. However, the sound of the death was retained, though the volume was slightly more harmonious.
But when he saw the word "Death" on the command interface, he felt a chill. The sensory realism provided by the realism mode was so intense that he had begun to regard this place as the real world.
And because of his own mistake... an employee named Basil died?
Just as he was in a daze, a reminder about the closing of the internet café appeared in his consciousness.
He hurriedly adjusted his mood, saved the game, and exited. But he was still in a daze after exiting the game.
He had played Red Alert before, but his approach was to restart endlessly, constantly receiving instructions from Yuri and mastering various knowledge to improve himself.
However, in Lobotomy Corporation, employees died because of his decisions. Moreover, the cries for help as they died, along with the sudden smell of blood in the Corporation, all rattled his nerves.
"Sir, the store is about to close!"
Liu Yuan's voice brought Shirogane Miyuki back to reality. He nervously asked, "Excuse me, boss, is this game...really just a game?"
"It's up to you. Whatever you think is true."
"Then, boss, the death of these people..."
"It's fake in essence, but again, it depends on what you want it to be. This is just a game where you can let go of yourself infinitely. You can ignore life and let all NPCs die. Or you can cherish life and ensure that each of them survives until the end, so they can go home and meet their loved ones. In the final analysis, it's up to you what you want to do."
"But..."
Liu Yuan patted him on the shoulder: "Do you know? Players are creatures called natural disasters in certain games. You can do whatever you want. Employees who die in realism mode cannot be resurrected, but you can protect more employees. You are the protagonist of the game, the supervisor; you can think about how to play the game and how to achieve a truly happy ending."