Is this really a Game?!

Everyone was back at the territory, most of the players were not in the main building as they had gone out to hunt, from the two that had stayed to train with each other Reign found out that they had actually formed teams, even though 5 of the players that now lived with them were solo players they had grown a bit closer with each other and decided to fight alongside one another, at least they wanted to try, they shared a roof over their heads so they thought it would be fine to do so.

As the negotiations and the trip back made Reign and the others a bit tired they decided to stay in the building today and train with each other, it wasn’t until the evening that the players returned from their hunt, they were all happy as they chatted with each other when entering the building, it seemed that them forming parties was a good idea in the end.

As there was a mix of close and long-range players, to be more exact there were 3 players that used long-range weapons and as such, they decided to create two teams, the leaders of the teams were the two strongest players in the building currently, one of them was Adam who was currently the strongest while the other was a young man named Elijah, he was actually one of the 3 long-range players, his weapon of choice was quite different from the others as he actually used javelins and throwing axes.

The javelins and throwing axes would disappear after some period of time, Elijah could also use mana to make them disappear earlier or stay longer, after they disappear they would of course materialize back to him, that was instantaneous, however, and would take some time which meant that he couldn’t attack as often as other long-range attackers could. The advantage however was power, the throwing axes and javelins packed a lot more power behind them compared to arrows or throwing knives so they were perfect for fighting against bosses, not to mention that you could also use them to fight in close quarters as well. .

The two had a small rivalry going on, the difference in strength wasn’t large and both of them did their best to outperform the other, Elijah even started practicing a bit more with his javelins as he wanted to use them like a spear in close quarters, simply to prove that he can do the same as Adam could which in turn led to the other practicing martial arts together with his spearmanship so that he could have a wider arsenal of moves when fighting.

Reign and the others had grown quite fond of the players, most of them were quite young, the youngest was a girl called Ashley that used a crossbow, she was only 13 years old while the oldest was Elijah who was 17. Of course, there were older players amongst the 6 that would come to train alongside them, the oldest one there was 28 years old.

Reign and the others felt like they had a small responsibility to take care of the 10 people that now lived with them, they also decided to have breakfast together with them as they would all go down to the huge dining area every morning.

Shadow left to meet Eldar and start his training while the others stayed to train alongside the players, the training session went well, since they had decided to form teams Wolf had the idea of doing some group training as well. The players were divided into the two squads that they had formed and they fought against Wolf, their teamwork still needed some work, which was to be expected as they had only just formed the squads that same morning.

Adam’s team had two long-range attackers that tried to attack Wolf from a distance while the other 3 players attacked him in close quarters, of course since the difference in power was so large Wolf only used a part of it while fighting against them, he used a big slab of metal that he melted with his flames so that it could resemble a sword as he was worried that his sword would potentially destroy their weapons if they fought for long.

The result for both teams was, of course, the same, none of them managed to land a single hit on Wolf and in the end, they were all lying on the floor, panting heavily after going through such a tough ordeal.

Adam of course did the best, using his teleportation ability he was able to attack an opponent from a blind spot right away, even during an attack he would sometimes teleport behind Wolf right before connecting in hopes to hit him with a surprise attack, Wolf’s speed and battle instinct was however too high and he managed to dodge or block every single attack. Sometimes Adam would even give a sign to the two long-range attackers and they would fire at his back before the attack would land however he would teleport which would result in Wolf suddenly being attacked on two opposite sides.

If used correctly, Adam’s ability had great potential when fighting alone or when fighting in groups, the biggest drawback it had was its high mana consumption and the lack of firepower it gave. Compared to Reign and the others who could do a multitude of things with their abilities the teleportation that Adam had was strictly focused on one thing, teleporting, of course, no one knew whether or not that would change after Adam managed to evolve it further.

After the training session everyone gathered to have dinner, Shadow also crawled back to the building and sat down with them, he seemed fine, that was until they asked him how his training went. His hand started shaking immediately as he started mumbling,

“F-f-ffine, it w-w-went ffine.” Seeing the look on Shadow’s face made the others chuckle a bit as they knew that the training session that Eldar prepared for him was definitely above and beyond what they have been doing, they quickly stopped their chuckles as they knew that soon they were going to have to go through the same thing.

During dinner Adam and Elijah started talking to them, they could see that they were hesitating for something so Wolf told them to spit it out. The players were wondering if Reign and the others could take them to a higher area tomorrow morning for a little bit so that they could fight against stronger enemies, they thought of going there alone but you never knew what might happen, if they were to be attacked by a group of enemies while battling others then there could be casualties.

Reign and the others thought about it for a second before agreeing, they could take the players to a higher leveled area before later moving towards the grassland to hunt the monsters there, their levels were now high enough not to worry about the monsters there as much as they previously did. It would also be good practice for the players, fighting against monsters that were stronger than they were would help them improve their teamwork, even though they could do the same with Reign and the others it wasn’t the same when there was no real danger after all.

They all went to bed after that, the players had trouble sleeping as they were excited about tomorrow, some of them had fought against stronger monsters in the past so they knew how beneficial it was, if you managed to survive you would find that your ability and reflexes had gone up and the next time you wouldn’t struggle as much against them.

After everyone had breakfast the next day they all went to one of the areas that surrounded the town, Adam and the others were all between levels 13 and 15 now, fighting against the demons gave them enough exp to level up at least once back then and they also hunted regularly after the event so their levels didn’t stagnate.

The area they were now in was filled with monsters from level 15 to level 20, each of the monsters was strong, of course, Reign wanted to find them an elite monster that was at least level 17, that would provide enough of a challenge to the players whilst giving them a chance to defeat it.

They split up, Reign, Beast, and Greenie took Adam and his squad while Wolf and the others took the other squad, they decided that they would come back to the entrance of the forest after about 2 hours. During the trip they quickly came across some monsters, Reign let Adam and the others fight them, the monsters were all common ones and they were not particularly hard but the group still struggled of course since they were all at least the same level as them.

After some 20 minutes, Reign finally found what he was looking for, it was a leopard that was level 17, simply by looking at it and the aura it gave off Reign was certain that it was an elite even from afar, he quickly beckoned to Adam and the others before they charged at the monster that was looking at them with a dangerous glimmer in its eyes.