Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 19 is... a genius game producer?
"Haah~"

Alice yawned, her face full of tiredness: "I'm going to bed."

Lingge, who was putting the dishes back into the cupboard, didn't say anything, but just nodded slightly. Alice tiptoed out of the kitchen quietly, fearing that Lingge would ask her to do something else on a whim. Just like just now, she wanted to chat with Metien after dinner, but was caught by Lingge and made to wash dishes in the kitchen for half an hour, which made her so tired that her back and waist ached. She no longer dared to say anything big like "I want to be the best maid in the world".

In the meantime, she also used various means to ask Lingge about Mr. Yanke and Mrs. Maggie, but the latter completely ignored her questions and turned his head when he thought she was talking too much, staring at her with calm eyes. Alice, who felt that she had a psychological advantage, felt guilty in the face of this gaze and dared not say a word.

This made her feel ashamed and regretful, and she was even more certain that Lingge must have hidden something important. It didn't matter if he didn't say it now, she would definitely find it out later. Good days were still to come!
With this in mind, Alice went upstairs with a proud look on her face, intending to harass Metien, but she found that the pink-haired girl had already turned off the lights and gone to bed. She immediately lost interest and returned to her room. After changing out of her maid outfit, she fell headfirst onto the quilt and fell into a deep sleep...

Wait, I seem to have forgotten something?
Alice, who was sleeping in a bad posture while hugging the quilt, suddenly opened her eyes. She turned over and her eyes fell on the small round table in the corner, or more precisely, on her game console and cassette storage box.

During the three days she traveled through time, she would start the game console every night, hoping to see the progress bar stuck at 99% jump to 100% one day, and start her counterattack as the real protagonist. Unfortunately, the results were always disappointing, and this tiny gap was like a huge chasm that could not be crossed.

Wanna try it tonight?

Maybe it's broken altogether?

In that case, no matter how many times you try, it will be useless.

I won! ?

I'm about to start a counterattack! ?

The counterintuitive logo of GI flashed a few times and then disappeared. Alice held her breath, like an internet-addicted girl who secretly got up late at night to play video games without her parents' knowledge. She nervously watched the progress bar crawl forward, from 15% to 50%, from 55% to 95%, and finally got stuck at 99%, not moving at all.

Then she pressed the power button to turn off the game console. Her fingers were bent and she would press the button with just a little more force, but suddenly she opened her eyes wide and with great willpower she resisted the urge to press harder, because she saw the progress bar on the screen seemed to jump, and then, 99% became... 100%!

Could it be that the genius player Alice's one-life clearing performance started from here?
She looked at the suddenly darkened screen in disbelief and surprise, searching for the right words to express her excitement, but a pop-up window popped up on the screen, grabbing her attention:

But...what if?
Alice lay on the bed and blinked. In the darkness, she was like a cat quietly hiding in the cracks, with a pair of ruby ​​eyes shining. Suddenly, she moved, as if following some mysterious premonition, got up from the bed, crawled towards the small round table, and in just a few seconds she was in front of it, stretched out her hand, and grabbed the silver-white cube.

After waiting silently for a few minutes, Alice saw that the progress bar still did not move. She let out a sigh of disappointment and muttered, "Premonitions are really unreliable."

She fumbled skillfully and gently pressed the power button of the game console, and the familiar blue screen appeared before her eyes again, reflecting the deep and blurry light, making the girl's face look a little pale.

[No game data detected, please insert the cartridge. ]

Cartridge? Oh, yes, you have to insert the cartridge. Although GI was criticized as a "cartridge merchant" when it announced that this game console supports both holographic sensory simulation and traditional peripheral operation modes, Alice, who has had the honor of playing many classic games of the last generation, does not mind this nostalgic way. She quickly took the storage box next to her, opened it, took out the cartridge with serial number I, and inserted it into the slot on the upward side of the game console with a little excitement.

She inexplicably heard the sound of gears snapping together, a bit like the movement of a clock. Could this be the legendary "the gears of fate have begun to turn"? After a closer look, she found that there was indeed a rusty metal gear turning in the lower right corner of the pop-up window, probably another form of progress bar.

The content of the pop-up window changed: [Game cartridge detected, starting to scan cartridge data. ] Alice stared at the game pop-up window without blinking. The waiting time is always very long, maybe only a few seconds have passed, but she feels like a century has passed. Finally, the metal gears stopped turning, and the content of the pop-up window changed: [No cartridge data detected, do you want to re-edit? ]

There are two more options below: [Yes/No]

What! ?

Alice was stunned.

What does "No cartridge data detected" mean? Is there no data in this cartridge? Damn it, the game instruction company is really a jerk, daring to sell fakes... Although she won it and didn't spend a penny, it still violated the legitimate rights of consumers anyway!
She wants to complain, report, and demand compensation!

But in the 19th century, there was obviously no consumer association in the Kingdom of Brittany, so Alice had no way to complain and could only accept this fact. Besides, it didn't necessarily mean that the game couldn't be played anymore. Didn't you see that it also gave the option of re-editing?
I want to see what this is all about!

Alice, feeling indignant, reached out and fumbled around on the left side of the game console, then pressed another button hard. A faint blue light suddenly flowed out, outlining the shape of a game controller in the void, which she held in her hand.

She manipulated the handle and selected [Yes].

At this moment, the content on the light screen changed dramatically. The UI of the game interface became a combination of steel, gears, metal bearings and mysterious runes, perfectly fitting the steam and fantasy background mentioned in the game promotion. Under the magnificent iron dome, gears are connected by metal bearings, and they fit together perfectly, forming a giant machine with precise structure, resembling a clock tower and a temple. The mysterious runes with a faint blue glow spread on the surface of the tower and the temple, and finally outlined different words on the exposed gears. Should that be the words on Earth? Or the words in another world? Alice couldn't tell, after all, she could recognize both kinds of words now.

The contents written on these mysterious runes were neither mysterious spells nor fantastic magic, but terms that Alice was very familiar with: [Game type], [World background], [Main storyline], [Main characters], [Combat mechanism], [Core gameplay], [Map design], [Branch storyline], [Collection elements], [New elements added in the second round]... and so on. A rough scan showed that there were more than twenty major items.

Faced with so many options, Alice was confused, and a thought emerged in her mind: the so-called re-editing of the cartridge data, could it be that she had to start from scratch and create a new game?

But she is a genius player, not a genius game producer!
Isn't this too much to ask?

The hand holding the handle began to tremble.

No, no!
Having already achieved this, how can you retreat so easily? Alice, oh Alice, you dare to say that you can become the best maid in the world, why don't you dare to say that you can become the best game producer in the world? After all, in the other world of the 19th century, there should be no such profession as game producer, right?

Sometimes, the transition from a genius player to a genius game producer is not difficult to make as long as you grit your teeth.

Alice thought over and over again, and her thoughts were flooding in her mind... Generally speaking, after a psychological struggle, she decided to grit her teeth and rather suffer herself than let the game console suffer - especially the SLP game console that was given away in limited quantities worldwide.

With shaking hands, he pressed the handle hard.

How does one say it? The gears of fate start turning from this moment on...

　Woo woo woo, give me some meow

　　
　
(End of this chapter)