The Immortal Player

The streets were crowded as match after match were being conducted inside a nearby Arena. It was as if an opening ceremony of an Olympic event was being held in that area.

That said, in an adjacent building, a meeting room was filled with sweaty people wearing suits, despite being well air-conditioned.

The door opened and an old man entered with a smile on his face. The old man said, "Why the sour faces when we just made a successful start on the Simulated Battle Tournament?"

"This… Uhm…" The man said—who was seemingly in his late 30s, and who was seated to the left of where the old man sat.

"What?" The old man frowned in response.

The man could only force out a smile in response. Then, after a few seconds, he said, "There's a tension building up at the Asian-Australian Server, Chairman. The Continental Quest is going out of control, and the players were barely able to suppress the attacks from the wild mountain wolves!"

"D-Director Neal is right, Chairman!" Another man—who was sitting beside the man who talked to the chairman, nodded in agreement. Then, he added, saying, "In fact… The Asian-Australian Players were only able to bravely do so, thanks to the hype that Team ARES and Team Fuji made on the first match of the Competition! That said… We are already starting to receive complaints from the players—about the absurdly high difficulty of the quest for a 'starting event' on that server!"

The man referred to as Director Neal nodded in response, before adding, saying, "And… Even if we say that the Asian-Australian Server has the 'Adventurer's Guild' to guide them… The tenacity and strength of the wolves—in some places in that server, were still overpowering them as we speak. That is why… We would like to request your assistance regarding this matter, Chairman."

"Hmm… For you guys, from the Game Monitoring Team, to even personally report this…" Chairman Dong Li, the owner of the Bearth Online Game Developer Group, frowned.

After a few seconds of pondering, he glanced towards Director Neal and said, "I have seen the reports earlier. But… I didn't expect the situation to worsen this fast!"

"Deploy the AAS-Knights to investigate this matter!" Chairman Dong Li said in a calm demeanor.

However, for some reason, the eyes of all the people inside the room enlarged after hearing what he said. In fact, even Director Neal, whom Chairman Dong Li was speaking to, could only stare in a daze in response.

"I know that you guys prefer to 'touch' the System than deal with the Alphas, but… It would be better to fix the situation without messing anything with the System. After all… I am sure that no one here wants to create potential bugs in the Self Progressing Artificial Intelligence System of the game!" Chairman Dong Li said.

Then, he smiled before adding, saying, "Also… You can approach the Quest Management Team and ask them to send 'special quests' to the players from that server—who are potentially 'A-Rank' or higher in strength. It would be great to give the AAS-Knights some hand."

"I-I understand, Chairman…" Director Neal forces out a smile in response.

This, in turn, made Chairman Dong Li sigh heavily before saying, "You should relax a bit, Neal! We just reached a milestone after working years for this game left to us by our parents!"

Director Neal simply sighed before saying, "Will do, chairman… Thanks!"

Chairman Dong Li did not say anything in response and simply rotated his chair—allowing him to face the glass side of the room, overseeing the noisy Arena and the crowd on the street.

The room was slowly filled with an awkward silence—making the other people inside the meeting room feel like leaving already.

Fortunately, Chairman Dong Li broke the silence, saying, "By the way… I remember that the son of Mr. John Armaz mentioned something about his 'Masters' in the game… Won't it be a good idea to ask those 'Masters' if they could be of help—other than the AAS-Knights?"

"Oh… Yes, I do remember! I will look into that matter!" Director Neal said—seemingly exited for some reason. Then, he added, saying, "It's a great opportunity for us to meet someone who is possibly as strong as the AAS-Knights!"

…

At this moment… Around fifty people were seated in the dimly lighted room—that is as big as a small auditorium. It was a bit rowdy—with some of the people talking about something related to food, whilst some were talking about matters related to the game.

That said… They all suddenly went silent as soon as the room's door opened.

Weyron, Meen, and Director Veronica entered the room—holding tablets for some reason.

Weyron went first to the centermost of the room—as if he was a professor about to give a lecture to his class. Then, he said, "Sup, guys! How's the training?"

The fifty players under Team Oran Gutan could only force out a smile in response.

Well… It's not like Weyron expected them to give him an answer or whatsoever.

So…

Whilst connecting his tablet to the hologram projector, Weyron simply sighed heavily before saying, "Don't push yourselves too much, just to be able to 'reach' the level of those 'monsters' from Team Ares! I know that you guys got fired up after the skirmishes with them, and after seeing the result of their match, but… It's not all about hundreds of swings nor hundreds of stabs that differ them from ordinary players like us!"

Weyron paused for a second, glancing towards all of his guild members. Then, he tapped his finger to his head, whilst saying, "They have the supervision of my genius cousin!"

"I am not saying, that I am incompetent or what… But…  I am sure that all of you know by now, that all of the transformation skills we got, and are experimenting at, are all supplied by him—from some NPC that I even do not know!" Weyron added. "Anyway… Our arrangement for the first match… Sadly… Our boss has a specific 'order' for us, to show off our 'Hound Unit'! So… I have no choice but to deploy our 'Hunter Team'!"

"Awwwe!"

"YES!"

Around 10 People celebrated amongst the players, whilst the rest… They were seemingly disappointed, not being part of the team to be deployed, that was said by Weyron.

"Well… It's not like it matters whichever team we deploy!" Weyron said in a calm but confident tone.

Afterward… Team Oran Gutan's Pre-Match Meeting started.

At this moment, Director Veronica could only shake her head and sigh, before murmuring to herself, saying, "I don't think that this group can simply be called a Gold Farming Team, Nephew Pedro…"