Is this really a Game?!

After some 30 hours of Wolf being in the cell with the fifth prisoner, the door opened as the two of them came out. Wolf walked him to his cell before opening the one next to it.

“It’s your turn.” Wolf smiled at the captured bone whose body flinched after hearing the words, he didn’t want to go with Wolf of course, but there was nothing he could do, his body was chained up by chains that completely drained him of mana and he was incredibly weak at the moment.

At the same time, Wolf was doing his ‘interrogation’, Reign and Shadow were waiting for Greenie and Loreno to return. The chances of something happening to them were minuscule as not only was Greenie a Tier I fighter, but the other squads that went with him were also incredibly powerful.

They didn’t need to wait long as Greenie and Loreno’s group arrived about 1 hour after them. It was obvious that they had gone through a fight, but nobody seemed to be injured, which was a good thing.

“Sir.” Loreno bowed to Reign as he got into the safe zone. Well, to be more specific, the moment he entered the territory as Reign had created a path for them to go through thanks to his powers. As he could manipulate the size and shape of the safe zone, he could also create a tunnel of sorts or a road that led to the safe zone from any place in the territory. He only did it to make it easier for Loreno and his man to arrive as creating more of them in the territory wouldn’t be beneficial to the players since they could easily escape any situation they deemed to be dangerous.

Even though fewer people would get injured and killed this way, it would also have an impact on their mental state and how much potential they were squeezing out. The skills and abilities many players had would improve drastically in dangerous situations since they would be forced to give it their very best, if Reign simply made the pathways that acted as small safe zones, then barely anybody would get into any difficult situation.

Reign didn’t want his people to stagnate or to feel safe when going out every single time. It wasn’t that bad if that happened inside the territory since the players could get rescued most of the time thanks to the devices they were given, but every time they went out, it would be a completely different story.

Not only would it take a longer time for anyone to get to them after they used the device to send a distress signal, but the chances of them being at the same place after someone arrived were minuscule as well, which would make it quite difficult to even find them, let alone save them.

Because of that, Reign didn’t want to make it too safe for the players since the more time passed, the harder it will get. Right now he and the others aren’t doing anything since they wanted to wait for the rest to come back before exploring further from the territory.

The areas around them were now simply not enough as they were Tier I fighters and needed to fight monsters who were the same in order to be able to get more exp and gain powerful items. Reign and Shadow even discussed going back to the lake to fight the flood dragon, but after a moment of thinking, they decided against it. The dragon was incredibly powerful and Reign saw no chance of defeating it right now. There was a possibility that it was perhaps even a Tier II monster, but that shouldn’t be the case since it was in the IronBark Woods after all.

Tier I fighters was not all the same and the power one had could be very different. The dragon was probably level 80 or above and that was why it was so powerful. They needed to level up quite some more and at the very least be equipped with rank S weapons before even dreaming of fighting the giant monster.

“Don’t bow, man, come on, let’s get you all settled in.” Reign said as he patted Loreno on the shoulder before he and his people started walking through the safe zone. The safe zone Loreno was a part of was incredibly small and there were only about 20 people that came with him, some decided to stay in the safe zone, but they were the minority of course. .

As Loreno and his people all walked around to find a place to stay, Reign went to Greenie who was waiting for him.

“We were attacked by some strong monsters, but that was it, there wasn’t even one boss monster amongst them and I just let the others take care of them while staying with the group.” Reign nodded at Tank before they started walking before Loreno’s people.

They were visibly impressed by the safe zone and how huge it was. Hundreds of people were present and it was obvious to them that living here wouldn’t be a problem at all. Food and water were in abundance while players with weapons and armor could be seen walking around.

The whole thing seemed surreal for them. They had struggled fiercely in their safe zone, there were about 50 of them in the beginning, but as time passed they needed to go out and scavenge around for food. Some people would hunt and bring the carcass of a huge boar back in order for them to have something to eat while other times they would eat some fruits they had found nearby.

Sometimes the food wasn’t good, there were even those that died of poisoning, but they persevered, and in the end, Loreno and the others from his squad became powerful enough to destroy any monster in the surrounding area, food and water were no longer a problem, but there were only half of them left.

Seeing such a huge and striving safe zone was pretty much the same as a culture shock to them. They of course knew what had happened in Doncaster before as Neil and the others talked with them before. Simply seeing the town outside of the safe zone was enough to make them know what kind of a hellish place it used to be. Even though hundreds were in the safe zone, compared to the over ten thousand that used to live in Doncaster, it was only a fraction of the previous population.

Reign let Loreno take his people on a tour of the safe zone before getting them settles in a building while he went to check up on Wolf. Coincidentally, Wolf had just finished interrogating Bone and had returned the man to his cell. Even though Bone needed some ‘persuasion’, he was quite easy to break and he told him everything he knew, which was not much really.

Bone was only valued in the beginning by the order, the more time passed the fewer people thought of him and even though he was a higher-up in the order, he rarely got a chance to communicate with other higher-ups and join the meetings they all had.

One thing was certain, however, the enemy was a bit stronger compared to what they thought. Bone was after all a Tier I fighter and yet they happily sent him out to die simply because they didn’t like him.

From what Bone knew, other than the leader, there were at least two more people that had gone through the first evolution. Compared to Reign and the others, that number was low, but there were definitely more of them that had evolved without anyone noticing. Still, if they were to battle, Reign and the others would definitely be able to win against them, even if they had 10 Tier I fighters, they were confident that they wouldn’t lose.

Wolf told Reign everything he had found out. It turned out that Reign was right about the leader’s ability to possess others, it did have restrictions, at least from what the prisoner knew.

The man had to cooperate with the leader and allow him to put a fragment of his soul inside of him, otherwise, it wouldn’t work. Another thing was that the leader couldn’t really control him, simply observe from inside his body or talk when the man allowed him to.

It was much inferior to what demons could do, but it was still something that allowed the leader to have eyes at multiple locations and if not for Reign, the man would have died if the leader decided to remove his soul fragment from him.

Of course, the man had no idea of that, but Reign was certain that that was the case. Otherwise, the leader wouldn’t have so brazenly shown himself to them previously. Alas, he made a grave mistake as not only was Reign able to destroy the soul fragment and deal damage to him, but he also saved the life of the prisoner who told them everything he knew.

Suddenly Reign and Wolf stopped talking as a bright light came from the center of the safe zone, it seems someone had finally decided to come back after going through the evolution.