Ding— Player [Idly Skimming the Rain] used [Immobility] on [Treasure Imp]. Duration: three minutes.
Ding— Player [Idly Skimming the Rain] used [Immobility] on [Treasure Imp]. Duration: three minutes.
Ding— Player [Idly Skimming the Rain] used [Immobility] on [Treasure Imp]. Duration: three minutes.
...
A string of beeps fell past Nana Toki’s ear like cold rain; she’d just lifted a foot to bolt, and that foot froze midair like a crane on one leg.
Damn, the Protagonist Lord is rich.
She watched the timer above her head bloom like vines, each digit stacking in neat, merciless rhythm, and her face twisted into a firework of expressions.
Immobility was a cash-shop item in this game—ten coins a pop, straight money.
It did exactly what the name promised: lock a target in place for three minutes; after a hit, the release delayed ten more seconds; the duration stacked; it didn’t work on boss mobs.
Most folks used it for ambushes and PK in the wild, not on monsters; value was king, and you didn’t toss gold at mobs unless a mob could one-shot you.
Nana Toki hadn’t expected her hate value with the Protagonist Lord to be this sky-high; he slammed an hour on her, no warning, no courtesy, like a blade dropped from a cold cloud.
Who could survive that?
[World] Mulberry by the Path: Hahaha, the god plays like a god. Cash items flying like confetti.
[World] Rolling Bead Curtain: Looks like he’s deadlocking the Treasure Imp! A full hour of Immobility? Oh my. Planning a long, slow whipping?
[World] Face Like Jade: Go, god! Burst that Treasure Imp!
Nana Toki: ...
Yo, they’re awfully loud for bystanders; I didn’t even poke them.
So joy really blooms on the soil of someone else’s pain?
Nana Toki’s mood was a knot of reeds in a crosswind.
[Nearby] Treasure Imp: Let me go. I’ll give you items, fair trade?
Held in place, Nana Toki couldn’t speak; her words rose as text bubbles, drifting up like paper lanterns.
Waiting it out wasn’t an option; a ring of players circled her with wolf-bright eyes, and the Protagonist Lord was calling in guild mages like stormclouds.
Once they piled enough magic damage, they could ride that ten-second delay and pop her like a soap bubble.
“You dropped my level, and now you wave cheap items to buy me off?”
Idly Skimming the Rain looked down, icy as a winter blade, at the Treasure Imp who stood nearly a head shorter, and spoke each word like a nail: “In. Your. Dreams.”
Those two lost levels were grindable, sure, but everyone had seen him get killed by the Treasure Imp; face lay shattered on the ground, and not picking it back up was not very Protagonist.
So.
Idly Skimming the Rain had zero intention of letting Nana Toki go.
...
Damn, this Protagonist Lord’s heart is a stone in a cold river.
She’d begged low and soft, and he still wouldn’t bite.
System: ... I mean, weren’t you the one who started the taunting?
Anyway.
Soft didn’t work; hard couldn’t move with her legs nailed by Immobility; so Nana Toki kept the taunts flowing, hoping to make the Protagonist Lord swing early and crack the cage.
Break the spell, break the chain.
System: ...
[Nearby] Treasure Imp: Don’t tell me you’re a creep. Into locking up little girls and “training” them?
A text bubble popped over her head like a scandalous sparkler.
The crowd that had gathered to watch the Protagonist Lord insta-kill the Treasure Imp all blinked.
Wait—locking up little girls?
What?
They eyed the petite sprite frozen by [Immobility] before Idly Skimming the Rain; some of the self-styled gentlemen sniffed a whiff of a car taking off without brakes.
Yeah...
A ring of men packed tight around a 1.5-meter loli, with an hour-long hold slapped on her...
Paint it that way, and it does drift toward “imprisonment play.”
And also...
Nana Toki’s current face was dangerously cute—the sort that drew instant goodwill like sunlight on dew.
With her saying that out loud, a weird, sticky mood seeped through the crowd like fog.
[Nearby] Egg Shaved Ice: Is this Treasure Imp going NSFW? (confused face)
[Nearby] Rolling Bead Curtain: Ahhh, god, look at me too, I also like being tied up and trained!
[Nearby] Stale Wine: Bro upstairs, your kink’s wild.
...
[Nearby] Never Say Quit: Damn, this Treasure Imp’s hardcore; she even typed “imprison lolis.” Not afraid of getting reported?
Eyes went wide all around as the melon-eaters stared.
This Treasure Imp is toxic.
[Nearby] Cool Eleven: She’s an NPC, not a player. Reports won’t do a thing.
[Nearby] Never Say Quit: ...
Right, he’d almost forgotten the Treasure Imp was an NPC.
[Nearby] Treasure Imp: Don’t go silent and pretend to be cool. Did I nail your dirty little thoughts, loli-con hentai?
[Nearby] Treasure Imp: You immobilized me for what? Gonna call a bunch of stick-wielders to strip my clothes?
[Nearby] Treasure Imp: Such a perv...
Text bubbles erupted over Nana Toki’s head one after another like a flock of birds, crowding the newbie village sky so thick they blotted out faces; Idly Skimming the Rain’s expression went darker with every line, like ink poured into water.
You’re the loli-con!
Your whole family’s loli-cons!
I just want your loot!
Who the hell wants your body!
Psycho!
[Nearby] Wind Soughs: This Treasure Imp types too fast. My screen’s pure bubbles; I can’t even see people.
[Nearby] Bubble Tea with Extra Pearls: Same here. It’s all bubbles. Her typing speed is inhuman.
[Nearby] Three-Coin Cola: This NPC’s too fun. It’s like chatting with a real person.
Voices rose like sparrows, marveling at the loli NPC’s blistering words-per-minute.
“Man, the more I look, the more this Treasure Imp feels alive. Zero NPC stiffness, right?”
Squeezed in the crowd, Never Say Quit threw out his take—and the reply was a blanket of silence.
“Huh? What’s up?”
He glanced around at the suddenly frozen scene, and his mind snagged.
“Why’d you all go quiet?”
Wait, did I disconnect?
...
It wasn’t just Never Say Quit; every player across the game got kicked.
Too many bodies had swarmed the Starter Village for the Treasure Imp show; the commotion rolled up to the official forums like a wave, and the on-duty planners went slack-jawed at the report forms piling up.
A Treasure Imp with over five thousand attack, tossing out slick, dirty banter?
Which genius designed that?
Is this live trolling?
No time to ponder. They pinged the relevant team and hard-stopped the servers for maintenance, and they sent a couple staffers to check on that five-thousand-attack Treasure Imp.
Left alone in the emptied Starter Village, Nana Toki watched the forcibly disconnected players burst into white light and vanish like shooting stars.
She’d guessed her ruckus would draw the planners’ eyes; she just didn’t expect it this fast.
She sighed, and while she hung there under Immobility, two avatars with [GM1] and [GM2] over their heads walked toward her like hall monitors in a quiet hall.
They muttered as they came.
“Man, where do all these bugs come from in this busted game? Players online have too much time. Instead of playing, they go bug-hunting. Gives me a headache,” GM1 said, pulling out a device and scanning Nana Toki’s still form with a soft hum.
Pinned in place, Nana Toki couldn’t move; she accepted the scan like a statue in drizzle and eavesdropped.
“Hey, don’t say that. Our company had a case of a player’s consciousness getting trapped before. The higher-ups have a right to be jumpy,” GM2 said, taking the data panel, frowning. “The Treasure Imp’s data’s normal. The attack spike is just from gear. Tch... but I don’t remember any code that lets a Treasure Imp equip gear.”
He checked her core data again; nothing anomalous. He turned back to her stat page, and the numbers had settled like dust.
“Huh? I swear it was over five thousand a second ago. Why’s it zero now?”
The coder scratched his head. “Did my eyes glitch?”
“You done yet?” the colleague with the scanner asked. “It’s an NPC. We don’t need to dissect it.”
“No... I did see five thousand on the Treasure Imp.”
“You’ve been overtime-blind, man. There’s no five-thousand-attack Treasure Imp,” the other laughed. “Let’s grab drinks after work. Vacation starts tomorrow. Breathe a little. Health first.”
“Yeah...”
They swept the nearby map one last time; no anomalies, no ghosts. They packed their gear and left the Starter Village.
Once the two GMs were gone, Nana Toki endured a bit longer, and the Immobility finally ticked out like a candle.
“Whew. I’m beat.”
If the System hadn’t whisked her gear back into her backpack, those two would’ve torn her apart with questions.
Hey, the usually-useless System actually did something. As the host, she was... oddly touched.
System: ...
System chose silence.
[Ding! Main Quest triggered: The Sealed Truth]
[Quest: Uncover the truth behind the incident hidden by Otto Game Company three years ago.]
[Auto-accepted.]
