This is a Beta Test?! - A Literally Broken System

Chapter 224 42.3 Hub City?

SHIZU

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Even as she strode towards the reception desk, Shizu still felt her brain spinning at all the weird and blasphemous wonders that she was seeing out of this foreign nation. The lack of trees, the missing feeling of soft earth impacting the bottom of her feet, the entire city felt highly unnatural, an affront to the very order of things the Eldritch had given them to live off of.

But then, she remembered that Lady Guidance had been the one to make all of this a reality.

Still, that didn't mean that- wait... Yes, it did! The Gods were indeed real! Then again, Lady Guidance had already stated that it was her and her alone that shaped them all into reality, making all the other gods irrelevant... but...

"Shizu?"

A sudden call for her attention shook her out of her thoughts. "Y-Yes?"

"You just froze midstep," Moriya worriedly asked. "Is there something wrong?"

Shizu didn't know how to respond. Bearing through her thoughts, the princess reacted in the only way she knew how. "I'm fine~" she beamed out, placing a knuckled on her head in a gesture of willful carelessness. "Just had a thought, is all."

"A thought, huh," Moriya hummed. "Well, we'll have a lot to talk about once we're done with our business here for the day then."

The princess couldn't help but blink at the Eld God that smiled at her. Even now, her body still yearned for her Gods' embrace; for their touch to once more grace her with the pleasures that she never even knew existed. Her mind constantly replayed that night to her every time she went to sleep, her nether regions tingling with need in a way that she could never seem to satisfy on her own.

Shizu inwardly gritted her teeth. Once again, she felt her thighs become slick with her own fluids. And at such an inconvenient time too.

"Shizu?"

"L-Let's just get this done!" she forced herself to declare out loud, her volume hopefully masking the awkwardness that seeped into her very being. "I wanna buy more stuff!"

Ignoring all common sense, Shizu began her strut towards the desk once more, hoping that the wetness in between her thighs wouldn't completely hinder her movements enough to make her too obvious. And with the frequency of these accidents starting to ramp up, she knew that really needed some more time with her God and Goddess.

She could only hope that they'd stop ignoring her calls for her to join them.

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I could only blink as Shizu visibly shimmied her way to the desk, her awkward gait making me curious as to what in the world just happened to her. Then again, haven't I seen her doing this exact same thing a few days ago?

"Ah well. I'll know soon enough."

With a shrug, I followed the princess to the reception desk, the lady standing behind the counter quickly moving to accommodate our presence.

"Ah, you all must be the sellswords Academic Marc recommended," the nice lady smiled at us, her typewriter lulling into silence as she addressed us.

"That would be us, yes," Shade nodded, taking his place beside me as he took on his usual role. "We'd like to assume that there are jobs for us to take here?"

"That would be correct, sir," the lady nodded, taking out a bunch of papers from underneath her to present to us. "As you all are new to Marquee, most of these requests would only give out the minimum payment per completion at around two Chips per job."

I raised an eyebrow at the prospective reward. Two Chips were pretty solid, all things considered.

"Two Chips, huh," Guidance muttered from my right side. "Yeah... that sounds like the standard fare."

"Don't worry, miss," the lady beamed, having seemingly heard Guidance's thoughts. "The standard payment goes up once you accumulate credit with the City Government. So long as you keep completing jobs in the appropriate time and manner, you will be given higher-paying requests as a reward for your service."

"Ooh, so it's a trust thing then," Shizu sagely nodded from her side of the conversation. "I don't think Kattleyna does things like that though."

"Indeed," the reception lady smugly smirked. "Unlike the other Great Nations, Marquee values hard work and skill above anything else. It doesn't matter if you were born poor or if you're a peasant. So long as you're qualified to do your job, you will rise above your current station."

As if like clockwork, the resident Kattleynan's all flinched in mild anger. Shizu flashed her usual smile, one filled more with annoyance than anything, while Maruki audibly grumbled behind us, his armor clinking as he shifted his weight around. Well, so long as they weren't making a scene, it's going to be just fine.

"Let's see what we've got then," I nodded.

[chime!]

[MARQUEAN CONTRACTS UNLOCKED]

Uh... What the hell is this now?

[CONTRACTS AVAILABLE: 3]

Huh... How do I work this then...

"Moriya?"

I blinked at the sudden call for attention, my gaze turning to Shade as he looked at me like something wrong was happening. "Yes?"

"What're you doing?"

Blinking once more, I turned back down to the papers in front of me. To my surprise, they were all projecting some kind of window interface, one that I knew wasn't visible to the rest of my party members.

[FETCH: 3 Wood]

[REWARD: 1 Chip]

[ESCORT: A Family of Three]

[REWARD: 2 Chips]

[DEFEAT: 1 Vermes]

[REWARD: 1 Chip]

Somehow, despite seeing that there were a lot more words written on these papers, the window was only giving me one-note lines about these so-called [Contracts]. I guess this was some kind of sidequest thing? But then, what else were all the quests I used to get before everything just broke?

"Guidance?"

"Yes, Moriya?"

"What are [Contracts]?" I couldn't help but ask. "I'm getting something here that's clearly meant for, well, farming stuff. Maybe even [EXP] even if none of them are saying much."

"Oh, that? Yeah, they're meant to do exactly that," Guidance pensively replied. "Although, I distinctly remember scrapping the idea in favor of just implementing a more robust sidequest system."

"A system that has stopped working," I pointed out with a sigh.

"Well, yes," she pouted. "I guess the Engine just hates what I made for some reason."

Turning back to the reception lady, she had this weird kind of smile that just oozed with fake cheer now. Unlike earlier, it was clear that her patience was wearing thin, what with us talking in front of her like she doesn't even exist. Then again, based on what few papers I could see haphazardly tossed aside on her desk, she might just have better things to do than to give out work to foreigners.

"What'll it be, Moriya?" Shade asked.

"We'll take them all," I replied, nodding to the reception lady as she visibly let out a sigh of relief at my decision. "How is this going to work, by the way?"

"An excellent question, sir. For the fetch [Contracts], you need simply to return here with the materials required," the lady dutifully explained as she began to sort through the contracts. "As for the escort ones, the contract giver would confirm to the City Government whether or not the request had been fulfilled. Likewise, defeat contracts are confirmed by bringing back a piece or body part of the target."

"Sounds straightforward enough."

[CONTRACTS ACCEPTED]

Ignoring the small fanfare that played out after I took the newly-organized papers, I turned around towards my party as they all looked at me knowingly. With three contracts to complete, it meant that we all had to split up just so we'd be able to properly complete them all. Sure, we could just do it together as a group, but that would just mean more time wasted for little gain. Besides, we still had to find information about this prospective weapon of mass destruction being developed in these lands.

"I'm going to assume that we'll be splitting up into three groups," Guidance casually pointed out with her arms crossed. "Of course, unless you have other things in mind?"

"Nah, that's exactly what we're going to do," I chuckled. "We have a fetch, escort, and defeat quest respectively."

"Oh! Can I get that defeat one then?" Shizu quickly chimed up.

"Calm down," I shook my head in amusement. "We'll all split up in an orderly manner. And since there are six of us here, we'll all end up in pairs as we get these things done. That'll also maximize our coverage of the city, which is exactly what we need to do anyway."

At my words, the group all shared a nod of understanding. We were here to investigate, after all, not to sightsee.

"So we get ta choose what we wanna do, right?" Shen asked. "And our partners?"

And just like that, the whole group all looked at me expectantly. Guidance especially gave me a look that just told me to pick her as my partner or else...

"I think we all have our respective partners picked out already," I quickly pointed out. "Let's just go with that and distribute the [Contracts] that way."

Well, I say that, but I was pretty sure I'll get saddled with the most boring of these three. Hopefully, the information we'll get while we're split off.

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