The week passed much faster than expected.
Waking up early each day to hit the gym, I found my body growing increasingly stiff with every passing morning.
My muscles were screaming at me each time that I woke up.
It really made my life more difficult. Even bending over to pick up a piece of paper felt like the most difficult task in the world.
Today was no different.
“Ukh…”
Groaning as I struggled to sit down on my seat, I felt my legs nearly buckle beneath me as I almost rolled back onto my seat.
’…D-damned leg day.’
Taking several deep breaths, I tried to calm myself down.
Today was the deadline that I had given to the programmers for the game. The four of us had been working together on developing the game, and while I had left most of the stuff to them, I had also been doing some stuff myself.
I didn’t just sit idly and wait for them to finish.
I had been adding more pieces around the game to give it even more tension.
I’ve also been thinking of perhaps adding extra features to the game. I did have an extra 100,000 SP in my balance. There were quite a few software programs that I could purchase as a result.
However, I held myself back in the end.
“…I think it might be possible, but I’m not sure to what extent.”
The main thing that I wanted to do was add a hypnosis-type feature. One that felt similar to Mr. Jingles.
I had done my basic research and was aware of what type of decree Mr. Jingles belonged to.
He belonged to the Illusionist Decree.
It was one of the many Decrees that existed. In essence, for those in the illusionist Decrees, there existed a thing called ’anchors’.
They were essentially small place holders that were used to slowly hypnotize one’s mind.
In Mr. Jingle’s case, it was his clothing.
They served as essential placeholders, gradually allowing access into the target’s mind. The deeper the infiltration, the more effective the hypnosis became.
This explained a lot of things.
In particular,
[Matthias: 75%]
[Do you wish to send Mr. Jingles?]
▶ [Yes] ▷ [No]
’If I activate the skill now, I think the hypnosis will work.’
Ideally, I wanted the degree to be at 100%. However, from what I managed to read, anything above 50% was good.
The main downside of those in the Illusionist Decree was that it took a while to set up anchors.
But of course, hypnosis wasn’t their only skill.
“That being said…”
Taking out the book about Orders and Decrees, I flipped over the pages to look at all of the Decrees. I had been studying all of them for quite a bit, and the thing that troubled me the most was one thing.
Shepherd Decree…
It wasn’t in the list of any of the Decrees mentioned.
In fact, it wasn’t even mentioned at all.
It was almost as though it didn’t exist at all.
’How weird.’
I tapped on the book while pondering over the matter.
“I should try to probe Kyle about it. He might know something.”
But then again, I was soon going to be joining a team within the Guild. Perhaps I might learn more about the different Decrees and whatnot later.
I had an inkling, though.
An inkling that the Shepherd Decree wasn’t something that existed.
This thought only grew louder with the passing of time.
But then—
Ding!
I received a sudden notification on my laptop as I looked at the screen in front of me, before smiling.
[GameDemo.exe]
“Looks like they’re done.”
My new and improved game was finally done.
Opening up the file and looking through it, I froze.
“This…”
This was beyond anything that I had expected.
Not only had the graphics improved drastically, but I could feel that the movements were a lot smoother.
“Wait, hold on…”
To make matters even more impressive, as I moved the mouse, I could see the old lady tracing my movements with my eyes.
—Hehehe. Is something the matter, officer?
Even her chuckle felt more vivid and lifelike.
’I guess it really was a good idea to hire a proper voice actress for this.’
I had previously used AI for her voice.
Now, the interactions with her were smoother, and she felt even more real. As I moved around the game, I also realized that she was a lot more involved in the game. With the addition of the voice actress, there were a lot more interactions with her.
But there was a problem…
’Would the software work even with her voice?’
I bit my lip and placed the file in the Game Developer System.
I then loaded the software.
─────
[Whispering Fog]
Type/Software
Description: A visual effect — fog that appears in certain areas and carries whispering voices that mention the player’s previous actions or thoughts.
Effect: Implies the game is observing the player. The whispers could escalate over time, repeating things the player shouldn’t have said out loud.
Rating :★⯪ [1.5]
Price : 19,000 SP
─────
This was the same software that I used in order to get the old lady to interact with the players.
The way that I used it was rather simple.
What I did was reduce the visual effect of the fog at all times and log each thought into the system.
Whenever a specific phrase or thought surfaced, and it matched the preconfigured script that I had set up in advance, it would trigger the old lady to speak, giving the illusion that she could hear them.
It worked out great so far, but there was now an issue.
’…I previously used AI for the voice, so it wasn’t much of a problem, but now that I’m no longer using AI, how will the responses come out?’
“Hmm.”
I paused for a moment.
A certain thought occurred to me.
“Actually, this might not be bad.”
There was simply not enough time to get the same voice actress to recite the prescripted lines for the ’mind reading’ part. But it wasn’t necessary.
Rather…
It was best to use AI.
“If her delivery has that robotic, AI-like quality, especially when reading lines meant to stay buried in the mind, it could make her voice feel more forced… more unsettling. That might actually make the game even scarier.”
The voice didn’t even have to be robotic.
Lower perhaps.
’No, it just has to be different.’
…I had to highlight the fact that her voice was different in those moments. So that it truly gave the impression that she was listening.
“Yes, this is definitely an upgrade.”
The coding and adjustment for this part didn’t actually take much time.
In fact, it was rather easy since it was already something that I had coded beforehand.
Seeing the first software work, I nodded my head. This was the only software I had to tweak. The others were already in place.
This process took no longer than ten minutes, and I was soon finished with it.
“….”
I should’ve been happy, and yet…
“Something is missing.”
I couldn’t quite put it into words.
The game was better in almost every single aspect. The graphics had improved. Some of the storyline had been refined. The lag had been reduced, and everything in general was better.
But—
“It’s not enough.”
I felt like there was still more that I could add to this game.
But what exactly could I add?
What could I…
“….”
My eyes fell on the app once again as I put the developer system to the side.
I looked through my stats window.
And then, my gaze fell on a certain anomaly.
[Mr. Jingles]
“….”
My mind raced.
And then—
“Can that work?”