There Must Be Something Wrong With This Game!

It was now the fourth day since Duan Fei and the Lone Ranger had entered the instance.

The time was 10:26:31 AM.

For the employees of Eternal Future, it was a perfectly ordinary morning, but this minute would be one they would never forget.

The Moral Code possessed immense big data analytical capabilities. Coupled with the fact that every person was connected to it from birth, Eternal Future could monitor everyone’s preferences. Through this data, they could predict what people would like, identify upcoming trends, and anticipate future shifts, allowing them to strategize in advance.

As one of the Big Four, Eternal Future was the only company that could directly access everyone’s personal terminal information. Although it could only be used for entertainment, that alone was terrifying enough.

Everyone living in this era was directly or indirectly manipulated by Eternal Entertainment. When they wanted to promote a certain product, they would deliver ads with pinpoint Precision to potential customers, tempting them into making a purchase.

Whenever a major incident needed to be covered up, they never banned reports on the matter—that wouldn’t be moral, after all.

Instead, they would package such news with content viewers were most interested in. This ensured the audience’s attention was diverted, minimizing the incident’s impact.

After all, the best way to cover up an incident isn’t to erase it, but to drown it in a sea of information.

The professionals at Eternal Future were masters of media psychology. Every one of them was a full citizen who had clawed their way out of the Hell of university competition. They had all mastered the art of data analysis, capable of glancing at a heap of redundant data and instantly knowing whether Dragon would be topping Carriage or vice versa in the next popular fanfic.

They were prodigiously learned. Their pens were as sharp as swords. Their prose could be exquisitely beautiful or unbelievably crude.

They were masters of the written word, geniuses at handling any and all public opinion crises.

But no one had ever told them what to do when the data center lost power.

A sudden short circuit rippled across the world. For one-thousandth of a second, the entire planet’s power grid went down before slowly coming back online.

Power was prioritized for hospitals, the military, and government agencies. Next came important institutions like schools and factories. Last on the list was the one sector the Moral Code deemed least important: the entertainment industry.

As a result, while the planet-wide blackout lasted only a thousandth of a second, Eternal Future was offline for a full minute before it could reboot.

This one-minute reboot caused a single, not-so-serious problem.

The video feeds had been cut.

The big data system in charge of monitoring easily analyzed the feedback and determined the situation: a power outage.

The solution was simple: just resume the video feed.

This problem should have been easy to solve, but then they were hit by the microwave’s second attack.

That’s right. The power went out a second time.

This outage lasted longer. After all, the planet’s electrical systems were all interconnected into a single, massive grid.

The energy companies had done this to save on administrative costs. The grid was now so advanced, after all, that a blackout of this nature hadn’t happened in decades.

But they never could have imagined that a single microwave oven, all on its own, could take down the entire power grid.

The two consecutive outages forced the grid to initiate a self-diagnostic to locate the source of the problem.

But before they could find it, a third short circuit struck.

Even after three system failures, the energy company couldn’t find the root cause. The idea that a microwave in some remote city had crashed the entire grid was simply too bizarre to even consider.

They did, however, have a solution.

Their solution was to temporarily shed non-essential functions, thereby increasing the grid’s fault tolerance to handle a potential cascade of short circuits.

So, what was the least essential part of the entire power grid when it came to survival?

The subjective entertainment provided by Eternal Future, of course!

The decision was quickly approved by the Moral Code. Before Eternal Future could even react, part of its power supply was cut. All of its associated services—games, movies, Mewtwo, and more—were suspended.

And just like that, hit by what amounted to a dimensional-reduction strike, all of Eternal Future’s functions were suspended.

When the president of Eternal Future finally reacted and tried to request an auxiliary power supply, he was shocked to discover that the Moral Code had blocked all of the company’s power requests. Not even money could fix this.

After all, the Moral Code was the arbiter of morality itself. How could it be swayed by something as base as money?

The company’s stock price began to plummet. The president could only sit in his powerless office building, and he even had to leech power from next door just to watch the stock market crash!

At this point, the president was speechless, capable of uttering nothing but profanities.

Outside, the three unexplained blackouts had stirred up a massive storm. Conspiracy theories and stories of alien intervention were running rampant. Meanwhile, the culprit—the microwave oven—let out a contented burp.

"I can’t... I can’t eat another bite," the microwave said.

Duan Fei checked the web and saw that Eternal Future’s associated businesses had all been shut down. He couldn’t help but remark, "I knew you were hardcore, but this is on another level."

"I didn’t think it would be so easy," the microwave said, satisfied. "Once Eternal Future gets back on its feet, we’ll hit them again."

In addition to entertainment, Eternal Future was also responsible for news and other services.

With Eternal Entertainment out of the picture, smaller news companies began to expand like wildfire.

In the Cyber World, the temporary absence of a major corporation always created a scene akin to a whale fall. Countless smaller companies would seize the opportunity, rising up in the power vacuum and using every trick in the book to attract users.

Duan Fei didn’t even have to make another move. During Eternal Future’s absence, they would rapidly gobble up its market share, grinding the giant down.

As he browsed the web, Duan Fei noticed that a new news company was being registered every few seconds.

They weren’t massive like Eternal Future. A single private generator was all they needed to get up and running. Then they could start grabbing market share, viciously carving chunks of flesh from Eternal Future’s hide.

Watching this unfold with satisfaction, Duan Fei knew that Eternal Future would be forced to lie low for a while.

This destabilizing element of the future had finally been uprooted.

’So, who’s next?’

’Hospitals, prisons, or satellites?’

Just as Duan Fei was pondering who to target next, the president of Luminous Heavy Industry finally arrived.

A small sphere was brought over by the captain of the Puppet Legion. The president of Luminous emerged from within and, the moment he appeared, asked gravely, "Was the incident with Eternal Future your doing?"

"That’s right. We did it," Duan Fei nodded. "What about it? Are you here to arrest us?"

The president stared intently at Duan Fei, then clapped his hands.

Immediately, Nemo was brought forward, bound tightly in tortoise-shell bondage.

Looking at the humiliated Nemo, Duan Fei felt an idea spark for her sequel.

’Demon-Resisting Ninja!’