The Second Assault

Akiol had just turned in a quest. He had completed several in a row yet he only obtained two levels!

The main purpose of this was to encourage players to do more exploring the questing. No developer wants their players to stick to one place! Fighting enemies of higher level grants bountiful experience.

There were some more dungeons, however Akiol didn't have his party to help. He would rather do it with them than strangers.

He debated doing another quest but decided against it. He figured it was time to explore. He wanted to find the Slime Kingdom but he had no clue where it was. The Slime King didn't summon him again either, which was a bit disappointing.

As he was about to leave a notification had appeared.

<Worldwide Announcement: The first ever competition will start on Friday! More detail can be found [here].>

Akiol pressed the [here] button and was greeted with a forum page. The information can be summarized as so:

Players had until Friday to register for the competition. The game company itself would stream starting with the official bracket. Only 16 players and teams would be able to qualify for their respective tournaments. The 1v1 competitions would come first, followed by the non-guild 5v5, finishing with the guild team battles.

The qualifier matches would not be streamed. There would be no retry for those who missed their match. The final four were required to sign a legal document for their cash prize if they won. The rest of the information was mostly stream times and such.

Akiol smiled, this meant it was time for the party to gather. So he sent a message to the chat group.

Akiol: I assume you all got the information? If so meet me in Chalkworth.

With the message sent Akiol took a table at the Adventurers Guild. The first one to arrive was none other than Wrock. Sitting down he sighed, "Why must I be first? I don't like having to wait."

Akiol comforted Wrock, "I am sure they will be here soon."

In the next five minutes Kan'na appeared. She took a look at the table and sat, "Second huh..?"

Not even a minute later Tilia walked in. Taking a seat she smiled and declared happily, "It looks like I am not last!"

As Tilia sat happily Yielya walked in next. When she took a seat she said nothing. This was a tad concerning for the party, for she usually had some remark.

Akiol asked, "You good?"

Yielya shook her head, "I am about ninety percent sure we might have an issue."

This perked the party's interest however Yielya simply said, "Wait until Jarvis is here."

It took another three minutes until Jarvis arrived. When he sat Wrock was the first to speak, "It took you a while, what was the hold up?"

"I didn't have a teleport scroll to here. Since I was exploring I had to make my way back. Sorry if I made you guys wait long." Jarvis answered.

Yielya waved it off and spoke urgently, "That's okay, we have more pressing matters at hand though. I am extremely positive that we are going to be ambushed when we leave this city.

This was surprising to the party. Tilia asked, "What made you so sure?"

"When I arrived here there was several players who were teleporting here. I decided to follow one and I realized they were gathering in one spot. I simply thought it was just a gathering however when I saw none other than Stabbed I thought otherwise."

Akiol spoke disappointedly, "He hasn't gave up huh?"

"How many do you think there is?" Jarvis asked.

"I guess around double the previous attack." Yielya answered.

"We don't have another wild beast stampede to fight them off this time too..." Akiol noted.

There was a collective sigh, except for Wrock, they had just gathered and now they would have to deal with a war.

This didn't mean the party was going to ignore the issue. If they didn't deal with it now it would become far more troublesome in the future. It did mean that they would have to do more than survive though.

Before only half the party survived, this time they would have to destroy many of the players. Even if they lost they had to make sure it wasn't instant.

Akiol took a deep breath and stood up. Looking down at his fellow party members he asked, "We going to destroy them or what?"

—————————————————————

Desk Guy leaned forward in his chair, he didn't realize that a show may happen. At first he was disappointed that his favorite team were split up. He thought perhaps they were never a real team. It was to his pleasant surprise that they met up again. Not only that but there was a large amount of players gathering outside the city walls.

He watched the team walk out the Adventurers Guild. Turning on volume and putting on his headset he got comfortable. He truly hoped they would battle, he was sure that Reputation Management would like a video clip of a large scale battle.

Even if it was the same players large scale battles haven't happened very often. There were two others besides the one the slime had participated in. However those weren't as large scale as the one he saw now. Nor were they entertaining.

He currently was supposed to help with ironing out any bugs that could happen with the competition. However this took higher priority.

A coworker noticed Desk Guy's lack of, well working. Walking over they asked, "What seems to be your distraction?"

Desk Guy looked at the coworker, it was a veteran. She had been a great contributor in the development of A World's Legacy.

Desk Guy sighed and responded, "It looks like my favorite player squad is about to fight with nearly five-hundred enemy players. I didn't want to miss a chance of good footage for Reputation Management."

The coworker narrowed her eyes, looking at the screen she realized the 'squad' Desk Guy was referring to was a small team of six. It would normally be a slaughter but she knew that Desk Guy wouldn't pay attention to such things.

She prompted, "And who do you think will win?"

"Definitely the large player group, however I don't think it would be a one-sided slaughter."

"Oh? Then put it on the projector, the team could use some entertainment."

Desk Guy shrugged, it meant he could watch the battle on a larger screen so he didn't care.

Lights were dimmed and the projector started rolling. The development team crowded around the projector. All quietly asking questions.

The female coworker from before gathered everyone's attention and announced, "Apparently a large amount of players had gathered to fight a small squad of six. I figured it would be a nice break to watch the battle."

One of the workers commented, "That's a short break!"

Another one refuted, "If they intentionally gathered many players to fight then perhaps we would see a fight with experts."

"That seems plausible." Another agreed.

Desk Guy quieted them down. He wasn't about to have a bunch of muttering developers ruin his show.

Everyone's attention was drawn when the six had confronted the large group.