Restarting From Genesis

After a few more minutes of casual chatting, the developers had finally finished setting up for the briefing. With larger stacks of paper strapped to their clipboards this time around, a couple developers took the stage.

"Alright, can I have everyone’s attention please?" He asked into the microphone, causing the current ongoing conversations to quickly come to an end. "We’ve got a lot of information to cover, so we’ll try make this as quick as we possibly can."

The first topic the developers began reading out stats regarding the beginner village. This didn’t benefit Arthur much as he left the village on the second day, but he did find it interesting that there were still only a handful of people still in the village doing quests, especially now that there were currently no bandits acting as gatekeepers to the next town.

The next point was that everyone in the game had at least one soul now, the most common soul being the fighter soul, as it was the easiest to acquire. There was actually a fair amount of players that had two souls now, but it was generally the same three race souls.

The most common out of the three was the wild hare soul. This was a soul that Snowbunny had acquired on the first day and it seemed that the group that were crowding around her at the time wasted a significant amount of time grinding wild hares to acquire one for themselves.

The second most common out of the three were goblin souls. This was a soul that Typhoeus had acquired for himself at some point. The reason for the high number of people with the soul was simply because there were plenty of quests that called for the subjugation of goblins.

The third most common soul within the groups was a wolf soul. Not many people currently had them, but it was significant enough to count in the listings. The wolf souls were typically acquired after a player had accidentally walked too deep into the forest surrounding Lycoa. The fight to the death that ensued had a small chance of rewarding a successful player, which seemed to be the reason why a handful of players had one according to the stats.

"Besides from the souls, we’ve had the most titles granted today." The developer began reading out. "In fact, the titles acquired today alone outnumber the amount of titles acquired in the past two weeks."

"Wow, a handful of rarer titles have been handed out today, that’s interesting." The developer seemed surprised as he read the sheet. He began looking at certain people in the room and nodding his head with approval, but once he turned to Arthur and Alvira, his facial expression showed great concern.

"It has been a busy day today, a lot of things happened, and we’re looking forward to next session." Another developer took to the stand and began talking, "As you guys probably know, there was an event in Orchomenus that was caused by a player, which caused a special undead to invade the town.

"That undead has since been killed, and a similar event should not happen for quite some time, so don’t be turned away from the town." The developer began explaining, "Apart from that, an important figure in the town has been killed, so you may find that the town will change drastically in the coming days."

He hadn’t leaked out the reason why an important figure had died, only that they had, which was public knowledge if you listened in to local gossip.

The developer began warning players of potential changes that could come. A world that adapts to player choice was still a strange concept in games. So the developers took it upon themselves to give the players a heads up that changes were coming to avoid any possible confusion.

A few more less interesting topics passed before they got to what they were expecting at the end, the leaderboard readings, but before that could happen the developer decided to throw out a single line that caused everyone in the meeting to stare at them.

"Congratulations to Snowbunny, Merlin and Typhoeus for being the first group to kill a level ten boss."

Arthur’s group could feel several rows of daggers targeted towards them, but a few groups just seemed impressed, such as the roleplayer group that began congratulating them.

"Alright, coming in at third place, a level three with two souls. Responsible for dealing major organ damage to the level ten boss, Typhoeus." The developer read out Acai’s results before turning the page.

"Coming in at second place, a level three with two souls. Responsible for dealing the killing blow to a level ten boss, Snowbunny." The developer flipped the page once more and continued.

Maria poked Acai and gave him a smug grin, it was the first time since session one that she had ended on top of him.

"And as usual, coming in at first place. A level four with three souls, one of which being the first two star soul to be seen in the game. A man who has racked up a total of eight titles and who also contributed to the death of a level ten boss, Merlin." As the developer spoke, Arthur could feel the daggers that were targeted at his party focus solely on him, but he was too busy counting how many titles he had with his fingers.

"That is all for today’s session, thank you all for coming." The developers spoke up one last time, "Please remember that wave two starts as of next week, so for those of you still in the first village, we’d recommend getting out quickly. That is all."

With that, the session had come to an end. And after a few more minutes of conversation, the roleplayer group started leaving first.

"Hey guys, do you have plans for the week?" Before Arthur’s group could leave, Maria asked both the guys a question, "Or I mean, just this Friday."

"No, I should be free. Why, what’s up?" Acai answered first, and she received a similar response from Arthur.

"My mother likes hosting tea parties, and there’s one coming up this week, on Friday." Maria started nervously explaining, "She always said that I could bring friends if I wanted, but I haven’t really had any friends that I could invite before."

"Would you both come if I invited you?" Maria asked with hopeful eyes.

"Sure thing, I don’t mind." Arthur answered first, it was an opportunity to find out more about his teammate and get closer to her as a friend, he wouldn’t turn this down even though he despised most social gatherings with rich people involved.

Acai held himself back from teasing her. He awkwardly scratched his head and said he didn’t really do tea parties. But when Maria mentioned that cake was involved, he changed his tune pretty quickly.

"I’ll text you guys the time and place later." She said with an excited smile on her face. "Thanks!"

As the group started making their way out, they saw a familiar group hovering near the entrance. It was a very unhappy looking Kyle and his groupies, and when Arthur’s group got near, Kyle attempted to block their path.

"Move aside jailbird." Arthur mocked him with a smug grin on his face. "Or are you trying to pick a fight in public?"

Arthur’s glare after saying those words sent a shiver down Kyle’s spine. Arthur’s face had already embedded itself in Kyle’s subconscious, the appearance of this face always meant pain. But what was even more terrifying was his lineage.

It seemed as though Kyle had taken the advice Arthur gave him last time, after a quick google search it was easy to tell who had the more powerful family out of the two. Hell, Arthur’s friends also held equally as scary backgrounds, a new money upstart like Kyle’s family wouldn’t dare compete against any of them.

Kyle stood aside with his fists clenched, and Arthur walked past, leaving the guy with nothing but a bitter feeling. Arthur knew that the guy was going to retaliate at some point, Kyle was way too emotional over what amounted to kids fighting in a video game.

His inferiority complex was unmatched, and while Arthur found it fun to torment the guy, Kyle’s actions in-game were more extreme than what he did in the previous timeline. Things such as mass player killing and forced recruitment were obnoxious acts he didn’t dare try doing last time and it was very likely that certain players weren’t enjoying the game as much as they would have.

Arthur thought about bringing it up with his father, but that was typically a nuclear option that he’d rather keep for a last resort. He figured he would try bring up his concerns with the developers instead if it escalated any further.

The group split up and Arthur walked to Donovan’s car as usual. He hopped into the passenger seat and sat back in the seat.

"Donovan, I’ve got plans this Friday." Arthur said, which surprised him. "I got invited to a tea party."

"You are going to a tea party? Outside of family obligation?" Donovan spoke with a shocked expression that was obviously exaggerated, and then he started having too much fun with it. "Are you being coerced? Is it blackmail? Threats of violence? Are you feeling ill?"

"Donovan." Arthur spoke out in a stern voice, which interrupted Donovan’s act. "Get a new comedy routine. I though this one was exclusively for when I get invited to birthday parties."

"Yeah, but I don’t get to use it that often." Donovan started the car up after his retort left Arthur feeling somewhat defeated.

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