"That is a ridiculous proposition!"

A voice came on from the speakerphone through the video call, as Eirlys and I suggested the idea of a rollback to the dev team, while some just nodded, contemplating, someone was vocal enough to dismiss the idea entirely.

"We never did that before for VR! Who knows if there will be consequences? Besides, players will know exactly how a quest went and cheat around it, that is not fair for anyone who isn't online when the dupnig happens."

"I agree," Someone else chimed in, "We should instead let the economy proceed just like this, war and blocked trade route will incentivise a harder and more realistic gaming experience. We'll tweak the AIs to slow down for players to better prepare if necessary."

No! I won't be fine! Is what I wanted to say, but I kept my mouth shut, letting them argue for now. Because my role in this meeting was merely just a random girl giving random insights at random intervals, yet I need to make sure it goes my way.

My throat felt tight, my palms gathering sweat even though all I had to do was sit here and pretend to be a perfectly normal assistant who definitely did not, at any point, illegally exploit the server architecture of the game we're currently trying to save.

"What are you talking about?" Someone else spoke up, voice calmer but no less firm. "A rollback is still one of the better options we have, three-hour rollback at the minimum since that was when the first sign of duping showed."

Three hours, he said?

No, that was not enough for me!

My character had died around 26~27 hours ago. If this team chose a rollback any less than three hours, I'd gain absolutely nothing but owing 3 god damn favors from Ann Murphray who will make sure to squeeze every last bit of value I had out of those three favors.

I swallowed and leaned forward slightly, and the most dumbfounded and unpredictable words left my mouth.

"Thirty hours," I said. The words came out more confidently than I expected, maybe because I was trying to bluff my own heart into slowing down. "We should roll back thirty hours."

Eirlys didn't speak. She simply angled her head toward me with a big frown, and a lot of other developers did the same.

"What??"

"Do you know what you're trying to do?"

"(to Eirlys) Your assistant is… Eccentric."

I tried my best to keep my face still and calm.

"Hear me out." I said, before taking in a deep, DEEP breath:

"Thirty hours would ensure the culprit didn't stockpile relics in some hidden stash before distributing them… And after rollback they'll just distribute them again, or worse; hold them in a storage somewhere and occasionally sell them without any traces. If I know anything about dupers, they um- They don't spread their illegal items immediately, they usually wait, sometimes a whole day or two. A short window like six hours, counting from when the first item were distributed won't guarantee anything. A long rollback gives us clean data, clean inventories, and minimal risk of leftover contraband."

I said, crossing my arms while keeping my head low, avoiding eye contact with 100 people, then another deep breath:

"I'd recommend 24 hours but that's usually what the duper wants you to think, and they'll start 25 hours after, so you need one hour ahead, but just to be extra safe, let us do 30 hours ahead."

"You don't know that," someone countered. "You're guessing."

"I'm… basing it on patterns from other games who had similar problems." I tried to sound informative, wise enough, not technical enough. "Um, but like, uhh… I'll assume that short rollbacks could, theoretically leave behind pockets of items you can't track. It becomes ten times harder to clean up later, thirty hours would be a perfect middle ground between long enough for the duper to not have anticipated, and short enough for the players to not feel like too much progress had been loss."

Inside my thought bubbled, I muttered to myself, saying that the rollback would also benefit me, specifically me, very specifically me, the great and elusive Cory Jay Smith, CJS69, world record holder of sending death threats.

"I guess…" Another voice added in, "If we rollback that long, we could give the player some compensation gold? Maybe a heavily discounted merchant selling good potions?"

"That works." Someone nodded, "But are we sure 30 hours is the right call? We'll be risking a lot of progress and the playerbase will not be happy."

"The other option's a 6 hour rollback, less problem but more risk of another incident happening, then we'll have to do a second rollback."

"Is rollback our best option?"

I recognize the voice that spoke up being the same guy that was adament they should just let the game flows like this, patch the bug and get on with your night.

"This is a hard decision." Eirlys spoke, "But I think we must do as Cory said and…"

Before Eirlys could finish her sentence, I gritted my teeth and pinched her on the wenis as I sat beside her. It didn't do any damage because the wenis is an indestructible skin, but it sure stopped her.

Eirlys turned to me, "What?"

"You." I spoke with my teeth still gritting, each words slowly flew through the crevices as I whispered, "Used. My. Real. Name.????? Now they know I'm Cory!"

"I don't see a problem, if anything, you can one day get a job here if you've established your reputation early. Do you know our hiring rate?"

"This is not about you!" I still whispered, more aggressively, before glacing back to the screen, "Please, just… I only have one favor, don't use my name near anyone associated with Darkmoon Adventure VR."

"..." Eirlys gave me a look, "Fine." She said.

Eirlys Sonder turned back to the screen, fixing up a loose strand of her smooth, long white hair.

"Like my assistant suggested, we must initiate a roll back."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.