Chapter 11: Customer Service
"So you are not an automated response after all," Joo Joowon said, suddenly becoming a bit more energetic. "How many living players are still alive right now?"
[ Dear player, I do not have permission to access that information~ ]
"Come on, sweetheart, don’t be like that. Whether you have permission or not is just a matter of one sentence from you, right?"
[ Please do not flirt with customer service. ]
"How is this flirting?" Joo Joowon argued confidently. "You call me dear player, I call you sweetheart. What’s wrong with that? Hey sweetheart, let’s make a deal. This game should have a friend system, right? Add me. Later we can work together from inside and outside to pull off something big. We split the profits ninety ten. You get ninety, I get ten. If you are not satisfied with the split, we can negotiate again. Wouldn’t you make a fortune? So, are you in or not?"
[ Please do not entertain unrealistic fantasies. ]
"How is this unrealistic?" Joo Joowon continued tempting the customer service. "Think about it. You work so diligently as customer service, but there probably is not much room for promotion. You should at least earn a little extra for your retirement, right? As long as we are careful and do some behind the scenes operations, the benefits will come naturally. Don’t worry, my mouth is sealed tight. If you still don’t trust me, then I just won’t interact with other players in the future. I guarantee there will never be any leaks."
[ I am the game’s dog. ]
The moment those words came out, even Joo Joowon was stunned.
However, hearing such shamelessly loyal words spoken in a completely emotionless mechanical voice instead made it feel fake.
He sighed regretfully. "Alright then. If you ever change your mind, you can come find me anytime. I’ll always welcome you."
[ Please do not persist in strange directions. ]
Joo Joowon shrugged. "If I want to contact customer service again in the future, how do I reconnect?"
[ The customer service function will permanently go offline once today’s trading market closes. ]
"Hm?" Joo Joowon immediately straightened up and suddenly noticed a key point. "Does customer service only connect to players?"
[ No. ]
Joo Joowon instantly understood.
No wonder the customer service kept spouting nonsense.
At its core, perhaps game customer service was never meant to serve players in the first place, but rather the NPCs and bosses within the game world.
Most likely, because the game had only just finished loading, the game operators did not feel reassured and temporarily left customer service active in case problems needed to be reported immediately.
But with the game’s overwhelming power, ten or so hours was enough for it to finish checking and repairing all functions without issue.
While Joo Joowon was deep in thought, he suddenly noticed a countdown timer appear in the upper left corner of the window.
It matched the opening time of the trading market exactly.
The customer service clearly was not going to waste time endlessly chatting with players.
Once the countdown ended, customer service would also go offline.
Joo Joowon had already asked everything he wanted to know.
He poked at the now cold gyoza and asked, "Before you leave, do you have any advice for me?"
[ There is no advice. Only blessings. I sincerely hope that you, player, can become a god tier player and have your name recorded in the history of the game. ]
"One last question!" Seeing that the countdown was about to reach zero, Joo Joowon hurriedly asked, "Where is the game shop? How do I become a game VIP? I’m willing to sell myself! I’m willing to use my lifespan to recharge money into the game!"
[ Players may unlock the shop after reaching Level 10. This game upholds a philosophy of fairness and justice. There are no recharge channels. ]
The moment customer service finished answering, the countdown instantly reached zero.
The customer service window immediately closed.
The Marketplace countdown seemed to be sucked away by a whirlpool underwater, causing the entire interface to shake violently.
Once everything calmed down, the Marketplace screen officially appeared before Joo Joowon’s eyes.
Joo Joowon rushed into the bedroom in a flash and quickly took out paper and a pen to record all the information he had gathered.
Although the customer service mostly spoke nonsense, the information it revealed was still extremely valuable.
If he did not write it down now and later forgot after his memory blurred, then would he not have wasted all those questions?
The functions that had received the reply "Please explore on your own" were all features that the game definitely possessed, but they simply had not appeared yet.
Some kind of condition probably needed to be fulfilled before they would unlock.
As for the replies saying "This service does not exist," those referred to functions the game would not provide for free.
There might be similar systems, but perhaps they simply went by different names.
And lastly, during the moment when Joo Joowon intentionally tried to tempt customer service into cooperating with him behind the scenes, it had clearly become nervous.
That meant the conversation process between customer service and players was being monitored.
However, it was probably not being monitored manually by real people, but instead through some kind of mechanical program that flagged certain keywords for heightened supervision.
That was likely why customer service deliberately expressed its loyalty in such an exaggerated way.
What did that imply?
It implied that the apocalypse game had probably descended upon more than one world before this.
In other worlds, the internal game staff members might once have colluded with players.
Otherwise, there would be no reason to implement such a monitoring system.
And afterward, perhaps because the system detected that customer service had not colluded with players, the monitoring process left and everything reverted back to automated programs.
That was why, before leaving, the customer service subtly revealed bits of information that were within its authority to disclose without breaking the rules.
Comments