January 25.
Greed Island, second basement level of Rimuru Castle.
The fluorescent light on the ceiling flickered twice with a crackle, like a noticeably choppy video frame. It was jarring.
Abengane, with his brown skin, had been lounging in a chair with a backrest, leisurely leafing through a book titled Shamanic Beliefs and Rituals. Now, even he couldn't help looking up.
I should find some time to replace that tube, he thought.
The fluorescent lights illuminating the "Rimuru Castle Basement Lantern Teleport Point" were always on, almost never switched off, so they wore out especially quickly.
After the "Teleport Lantern's" theoretical cooldown ended on January 10, there had basically always been at least one person on duty in this room, like Abengane today.
In truth, though, Doon, Ida, and Elena were also monitoring the room. If anything unusual happened, they would know about it as soon as possible.
The reason someone still had to be on duty was to prepare for the unlikely event that Gelman Squad returned and immediately needed emergency assistance.
Abengane might not be able to provide enough help in a race against time, but at least he would have a chance to do something.
He also genuinely enjoyed his life these days.
His work was now mainly divided into three parts.
The first was playing his part in Greed Island's daily operations and version updates.
Especially now, after months of work, the island's game had completed the basic updates and modifications planned earlier and entered the closed beta stage.
The version update had first been proposed in late September last year. Now it was late January, about four months later.
The closed beta would run for a month, followed by another month of changes based on player feedback. After that, Greed Island would reopen to the