Is this really a Game?!

While walking towards the city with the four men Reign and the others learned their names. The strongest player in the group was Jackie, the muscular guy that they talked to earlier. The guy that almost died to the kobold was Adam, he was the youngest and the least experienced amongst them, but because he managed to unlock his ability during a battle with a monster he was considered to be amongst the most talented in the town, the ability in question is one that allowed him to create a form of acid on his hands, allowing him to corrode the weapons of his enemies, he could also throw it and use it as a long-range attack.

Of course, him using his ability like that only happened when he unlocked it the first time, since then the strength of the ability was lowered and he had to slowly level it up as well as rank it up as it was a pitiful rank E right now and it is useless in fights.

The other two men were called Tom and Ashton, they are brothers that used to run a grocery store in the town, both were still in their early twenties and decided to give it their best to become stronger and survive in this dark new world they were in. Jackie is level 8 while the two brothers are level 7, Adam is the weakest with his low level of 6. Reign was surprised to hear their levels, by talking with them he and the others found out that they were considered amongst the strongest in the town, it was truly baffling to them that the towns strength level was so low, as only 3 people were known to have leveled up to 10 and were considered the strongest here.

When Jackie nervously asked them their levels they told him the truth, anyway they had nothing to fear from the people in the town as their strength was truly too low. Jackie and the others were visibly shocked, they already knew that the group in front of them was crazy strong but they didn’t expect them to be so high level, after all even the strongest three in the town were merely level 10, far below them.

No monsters attacked them while they were walking which further baffled Jackie, every monster they encountered simply ran away from them the moment they saw them. Tank told him it was because they were using mana to pressure them, which allowed Jackie to know why it was sometimes so hard to even stand near them. He knew about mana, it was fairly recently when their safe zones leader, one of the three level tens explained it to them, he of course found out about it from the trial he had to face for his class.

As they neared the town Jackie started explaining the situation inside of it. Turns out that the current state of it was far worse compared to what Reign and the others believed it was. Monsters roamed the streets and killed most of the town’s inhabitants, leaving less than ten percent of them alive. It was thanks to multiple safe zones that those people managed to survive though, food luckily was not an issue as most of the safe zones were located in big warehouses full of food. For the safe zones that were not as lucky, it was a bit of a different story. They had to leave and find food in the stores and markets nearby. Luckily the game was not so heartless and made it so that only low-level monsters roamed those areas, allowing the poor people a chance to survive. Everyone would be safe from starving for the next couple of months and they believed that it was enough time for them to become stronger so that they could hunt the monsters inside the city in the end.

Jackie also mentioned that most of the zones were safe as the troublemakers inside of them had been dealt with, most of them put in make-shift jails while others were outright killed. Only a small amount of zones were dangerous for newcomers as those were run by criminals. Everyone wanted to deal with those people as they sometimes attacked others but it was too dangerous to try it right now, after all, it was easier to attract monsters if you travel in big numbers, so until everyone got stronger that plan was on hold.

Their zones leader was very strong, he was lucky enough to become a pioneer and gained strong powers thanks to it, even though the difference in levels between him and the other two top players was not big, his strength was far above theirs. Partly his strength was so high because of the item he got together with his ability, the man managed to get a well-ranked sword right at the beginning, and that made fighting a lot easier for him, as the sword was able to cut through most monster with ease.

Beast had a flash of anger pass through his eyes when he heard the stories, some of the zone inhabitants were extremely ruthless, killing and raping others was nothing in their eyes, he clenched his fists until they became red while he was listening. Nobody noticed that nobody except for Wolf who flashed a small smile at the situation, it was a good thing in his opinion, as Beast needed to grow stronger mentally.

Only a short time passed after they had finished talking before they arrive at the end of the forest. Leaving it they were stunned at the scene in front of them, houses and tall buildings were everywhere, but there were no people, only some monsters that occasionally passed through the streets. The dilapidated buildings, the dried blood on the streets, and the many stores that were completely wrecked showed a scene right out of an apocalyptic movie.

Everyone crouched immediately as Jackie previously explained that they needed to sneak, most of the monsters here were of a low level, but higher leveled ones could be seen as well. Hobgoblins, a small number of ogres, and even orcs were not such an uncommon sight. The sky was gloomy and they could see giant birds flying above the buildings, next to them were creatures that looked like humans but were completely red in color, with black wings sprouting from their backs. They were called Draifs, some of them were simply monsters with incredible power while others were humans that got turned into monsters by the other Draifs. The human draifs were weaker compared to the original ones, but were higher in number and are considered amongst the strongest monster that could be found here.

The ogres ranged from levels 15 to 25 while orcs were anywhere from 20 to even 30, the strongest being the tribe leaders. Such a scene made everyone tense as they didn’t expect such strong monsters to be found here, the orcs especially were very troublesome foes, their physical strength was incredible and some variants could be found such as the shamans who could use curses to lower your stats and bombard you from long range with other spells they had.

In the distance they could see a giant building, it was the government office. That was the most dangerous place in the city as many giant apes could be found there, with the strongest being a humongous ape that seemingly ruled the monster-infested city, hearing that Reign and the others immediately understood that it was probably a field boss, and considering the levels of the monsters here it had to be at least level 30, one of his slaps could probably wipe them off the face of the Earth. The government office was situated right next to the town park where the apes spent most of their time, luckily for the inhabitants it seemed that the apes didn’t really care for the town and rarely went out of the area

“Well gentlemen, I welcome you to Doncaster, try not to fall in love with it too fast ok?” Jackie tells them with a bitter smile on his face, the town he was raised in had become a hell hole where surviving was an incredibly difficult task, simply looking at the town was enough to tear his heart open.

“Don’t worry Jackie, once we get the teleporter running it will be much easier for you guys, we have beginner areas at our place too, so leveling up will be much easier for you guys without having to sneak around here.” Shadow pats Jackie’s shoulder and speaks words of encouragement to him.

“Thank S-Shadow, I appreciate it.” Jackie smiles back at Shadow and nods his head.

“So, which way is your zone, since it’s one of the biggest ones it should be a good place to start.” Wolf comes close and asks Jackie flinches a bit as he never noticed Wolf coming behind him.

“S-sorry but the way you just showed up behind was unexpected, and don’t worry, our zone is near the city center, it’s mostly inhabited by low-level monsters, I’m sure you guys will have no problems with them,” Jackie answers Wolf’s question while scratching his head in embarrassment.

“Just follow us, we’ll take you there without alerting the nearby monsters,” Adam says excitedly while looking over at everyone.

“That’s probably for the best, even though we are not afraid of those guys down there it wouldn’t be a good idea to draw attention on the first day of coming here.” Wolf nods to Jackie and goes back to Reign and the others, he simply wanted to gain more information before they set out to the zone, befriending them was never something he even thought about.

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