Chapter Nine

Aster emptied the contents of his stomach, mostly acid and bile. It burned his throat.

What happened here?

His hands shook, his vision was blurry.

The crowd had been in this building just minutes ago, there isn't a chance that they wouldn't have noticed. More likely... 

There is a murderer in that crowd.

He stood shakily to his knees, trying to calm his breath. He didn't know how many others knew, but he had to go warn the townspeople.

He looked back down at the body. Aster wasn't the most religious, but just leaving the body like this felt wrong. Stepping over it, he grabbed a towel from the back of the bar, laying it over the deceased tavern keep.

-

The crowd was dense and violent, like a punk rock concert. Aster tried to weave his way through the sea of people, but he couldn't manage to make any headway.

The torrent of adventurers was making their way into the town hall, pushing wildly against a long desk manned by two well-dressed townsfolk.

Rather than make his way towards the front, Aster slipped backward to the side of the hall, finding a rather rickety chair to stand on.

Even a head above the rest of the crowd, he couldn't quite understand what was happening at the front. It seemed like the adventurers were harassing the man and women at the front for some sort of quest.

It made sense. You come to a new world without any money or supplies to your name, so what is the most valuable resource? Jobs and quests. 

Something was wrong.

As far as Aster knew, in games, the NPCs should simply stand there and give out quests to each and every person who asks. The two in the front, however, looked incredibly overwhelmed. Each second that they didn't hand out a quest, the crowd got rowdier.

A man near the front of the crowd seemingly had enough of waiting and grabbed at the woman's long blond ponytail.

She scrambled back with a shriek.

Her coworker's eyes went wide.

"ADVENTURERS. WE HAVE NO QUESTS FOR A MOB. GET OUT. NOW." His voice thundered out, making Aster suppress a shudder.

It had the opposite effect on the crowd.

People who were simply pestering the two at first were now reaching across the desk, grabbing at the two.

Someone stepped onto the desk.

The man opened his mouth to shout again-

The sea of people gave way. A flash of metal. Two screams, muffled by the angry mob. All hell broke loose.

People looted the hall indiscriminately.

It was like the beginning of the apocalypse.

Aster smelled smoke.

He needed to leave. Now.

-

Aster sat back on the decrypt fountain's edge, watching the chaos rage around him. 

Buildings burned as adventurers ransacked the square.

A memory of some coworker's idle conversation resurfaced in Aster's head.

-

"If only I could get into a death game... I'd be able to quit this stupid ass job and retire."

"Bro, you would literally die in the first few hours."

"No man, I have a plan. I would skip the rush and-"

"Skip the rush? Are you stupid?"

"No no no. I would get a head start on training and-"

"Ha... Man, you might survive the first few days. Hell, you might survive the entire game, but you would end up right back here afterward with a boring plan like that."

"What? Why would I end up back here if I survived the entire game?"

"Don't you know how those guys are paid? It's not based on survival. It's about viewership. Do you think people are going to watch you hide out in the woods for the entire game? No. They want to watch heroes. They want to watch villains."

-

The mad dash for resources. The slash-and-burn approach. It all made sense.

All these players, survivors of countless death games, had optimized the first few hours of the game to the nth degree.

Get as many resources as possible for yourself, then ensure no one else will be able to get them. It might stunt their growth in the long term, but it was worth it to get even the slightest advantage.

Technically, people out in the real world had the ability to watch anyone that they wanted at any time. In reality, almost everyone watched the highlight reels or whatever stories the entertainment channels were airing at the time.

If you got noticed at the beginning of the game, you could be set for life.

And what was the cost?

Just the lives and homes of a couple dozen NPCs.

Aster knew that, objectively, what the players were doing wasn't wrong. That it didn't make sense to express sympathy for NPCs, who were just lines of code in some far-off super computer.

It's just... The two townspeople in the town hall didn't act like computers. Their eyes were genuinely full of fear.

-

Some hours passed.

Most of the adventurers had left the town, in search of new resources to pillage.

Aster had simply sat and watched.

He watched them burn and kill and pillage.

They were meant to save this world? They looked more like demons who had arrived to end it.

Ash flittered down from the sky, resting on his disheveled black hair.

What townsfolk remained had come out from hiding, desperately doing their best to stop the fires from spreading.

He wanted to help.

Aster stood up and approached the grey-haired woman that was directing the clean-up efforts.

As he walked up to her, Aster called out "Excuse me, is there anything I can do to help?"

She turned around to him with a wry smile that instantly turned into an angry scowl.

"Haven't you done enough already?" Her voice dripped with anger, with hate.

"I-" Aster started to respond.

"If you want to help. Leave," She interrupted him, not giving him a chance to defend himself.

"Okay." 

Aster could tell she was done with the conversation, and walked away.

He tried approaching a couple others, offering his help.

"Get away from me."

"Your kind are no longer welcome here."

"Please just leave us be."

Eventually, just stopped asking. Aster grabbed a bucket, silently joining the parade of people rushing water back and forth.

By the time night fell, there were no fires left to put out.

He didn't try to talk his way into a place to stay.

His clothes were wet, making the nippy autumn air much less pleasant.

His entire body ached in exhaustion.

In his first night in Alurian, Aer slept in the town square, leaned up against the fountain.