Chapter 83 16.4 Loading Screen?

The silence that settled between us was deafening. Poor Shizu absently looked on, obviously not getting what exactly I was getting at. Meanwhile, Guidance was getting jittery again, her false bravado fading away as it was replaced with a weird mixture of panic and annoyance.

"Well?" I asked once more. "Can you deny that we're not making progress anymore?"

The dev visibly flinched at my words, her [Keystroke] coming to life once more as she took a glance at what little code was visible to her. She took in a defeated gasp as she replied, "No..."

Hearing Guidance's weak reply, Shizu's casual demeanor took a hit. The princess slowly turned towards the dev, a look of apprehension on her face as she finally accepted that something was wrong. "W-what?"

I crossed my arms in wait as I watched the scene unfold. Guidance didn't bother with a reply. Or, well, she was too embarrassed to reply at all as she simply let her fingers fly all over her keyboard again. Meanwhile, poor Shizu was left dumbfounded as her eyes flitted back and forth between me and the dev.

Clearly, she was getting out of her depth again.

"W-What's wrong?" the princess worriedly asked. "What's broken this time?"

I shook my head in commiseration, placing a hand on Shizu's bare shoulder as I tried to reassure her. "We're not gonna die if that's what you're worried about. We're just stuck in a loading loop; something that should be easily fixed assuming that Guidance here knows how to do it."

"And I do know how to do that, thank you very much," Guidance pouted. "Besides, we haven't even given it enough time to fully load in. It's a big world out there, you know."

"Loading loop?" Shizu asked once more. "And we have to wait for the world to 'load in?'"

Oh boy...

Looking at Guidance, it was clear that she didn't want to waste her breath explaining this thing to our friend here. That, and she was already trying to fix the bug that she didn't want to acknowledge existed.

Taking on a teaching tone, I nodded at Shizu as I explained, "Err... We're currently in a place in-between places, if you get my meaning."

"Okay?" Shizu tilted her head.

"In any case, this road we're on will stretch on for as long as it's needed for our destination to finally appear. We'll get there, of course, but it shouldn't take too long for us to notice that we're walking forever," I continued, doing my best to explain things in layman's terms. "Unfortunately, that's the problem we have right now. We're taking too long to reach our destination, and we're currently stuck on this road until Guidance here rectifies this problem."

"Of which, I'm currently close to fixing," Guidance chimed in again, her voice clearly one of frustration. "Look, it isn't even much of a problem. I told you time and again to be patient. But no, we have to get there right now."

"But, isn't that the best outcome?" Shizu weakly responded to Guidance's sass. "We have a mission to defeat [Vestyge], and Stra- Moriya still needs time to get stronger."

"Time that he's getting right now!"

...

...

Shizu and I both looked at each other with wide eyes. The princess was shaking at the dev's furious tone, while I was just surprised that she actually just yelled at us. We weren't even giving her too much grief... Why so irritable?

"...S-Sorry," Guidance awkwardly broke the silence, the blush on her face still visible despite her best attempts at facing away from us. "I'm just... Shizu, can you just use your [Code Watcher] for me real quick?"

Predictably, the poor princess flinched before she finally gathered herself. "S-Sure!"

Letting out a sigh, I gave Guidance a questioning eye even as she did her best to avoid the inevitable confrontation. There was something more to this, I'm sure. And even as I watched her and Shizu coordinate with their respective powers to fix this situation, I could only imagine what exactly set the dev off.

"[Code Watcher]!"

Once more, Shizu's eyes turned black and green as she muttered out incomprehensible gibberish to Guidance's ear. Of course, the dev's fingers began flying as she got her influx of information, most likely already prepping another hotfix that'll make our heads spin and make Shizu vomit all over the road.

"Ready?"

[BZZZTT!]

Before I could even respond, Guidance's finger was already on the proverbial 'enter' key. Once more, the world around us twisted and turned, the road becoming somewhat more used and worn beneath us as the change took place. It was only for the briefest moment, but there was actually some sort of village at the end of the horizon now.

Of course, that didn't spare me from the migraine threatening to consume me again.

"T-There..." Guidance stuttered out, her knees wobbling as she clutched her head in pain. "I forced us out of the loading sequence..."

"T-Thanks..." I gave out a weak nod of appreciation. "And sorry for needling you too much..."

"I-It's fine..." Guidance gave me an apologetic smile, her composure slowly being pieced together as she recovered. "I was... kind of inflammatory today, and for that-"

"BLLEEUGHHHU!!"

We shared a look as we heard Shizu puke her guts out yet again. Giving each other a nod of understanding, we quickly moved to soothe the poor girl's suffering as she knelt down on the ground.

"I-I'm glad that I- BLEUGHH- I got to help again..." Shizu weakly smiled at us in between her bouts of extreme patch-induced nausea. "A-And... Guidance... A-Apology accept-BLEUUGH!!!"

I almost flinched as Shizu unloaded all over the road again. It was a pitiful sight, one that was starting to garner a few looks as the passing merchants gave her a decently wide berth. Guidance and I kept close, however, with me putting a hand on her shoulder while the former rubbed her back and held her hair up.

Well, I kind of already expected this seeing as it's our only way of influencing the world. But surely, there was a way for Shizu to not have her insides turn into mush every time we had to fix something.

"Are you sure you can't make it easier for her?" I asked Guidance.

"If I could, I already would've," the dev sighed. "We can only hope that she adapts."

I let out another sigh. Looking over to the distant village, I guess I could only support Shizu every time she got like this. In the meantime, we still had a port to go to.

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