"The specific figures are still being compiled, but the situation doesn't look good—"
An elderly man in a lab coat took off his reading glasses and shook his head, his expression grim.
On the video feed, a stack of reports lay spread before him. Information and data windows streamed across the screen, while an assistant beside him typed furiously, processing the latest summaries and updates.
"From the data we've gathered internally so far, roughly ten to twenty percent of existing registered users were lost in this True Body Mission."
"The death rate was even higher among users with little experience in mission worlds, or those who were complete newcomers."
He spoke almost casually, but everyone listening was shaken.
That "ten to twenty percent" was nothing to dismiss. One or two people lost out of every ten was a horrifying prospect, though many might struggle to grasp its full weight.
Even in an ancient army, a force that lost ten or twenty percent of its soldiers in a single battle without falling into disorder or routing would have been considered exceptionally disciplined!
And this was modern society.
Anyone with half a brain understood what such a terrifying attrition rate meant.
Of the hundreds of thousands of known users in the country, tens of thousands had likely become the price paid for that seemingly calm surface.
The initial period of calm had passed. "It" had bared its fangs and drawn blood with the first bite!
For those who could see where things were headed, that was hardly good news—
"Next, the organization will likely need to ease some restrictions on users and increase support. We must ensure a steady influx of new blood so the domestic user population doesn't shrink—more than that, it needs to keep growing!"
After a moment of silence,