“As expected by the only son of the chairman and CEO of S corp. Must be nice being able to throw your weight around because of dad's money."

“What a bad man nya~”

“Who’s gossiping about me?"

I recognized that snarky, unpleasant voice.

It was Steel Slice, leading a large group of goons. At this point, I couldn't tell crossing paths with him here was coincidence or the heavens were just giving me the middle finger.

There were about a dozen players behind him. Rock Head was to his right as usual, and Stomper was on the far side of the group. Stomper was avoiding eye contact with me, since the last time we met didn't go too well for him. The memory of putting him down gave me quite a bit of satisfaction.

“You’re lucky you’re safe in town, dipshits. The second you step out of town I’ll gladly kill you both again.”

Meat Shield hissed at Steel Slice.

“Whoa there. Tell your kitty cat to behave, Spoon. Ha. Spoon. What a fucking retarded name.”

Steel Slice’s followers laughed as if on cue.

My cat hissed and raised one of her fluffy murder mittens, clearly irritated that someone besides herself was insulting her master.

Meat Shield pounced onto Steel Slice and scratched his face. The cat clung onto Steel Slice’s helmet as his followers scrambled to pull the cat off. One of the followers managed to grab and throw her onto the ground.

“Kill this cat!”

Steel Slice drew his sword and swung it at Meat Shield. But my elusive dimensional shifting cat disappeared amidst the dust.

“Huh?”

The Steel guild members were confused. The cat just vanished into thin air.

Taking advantage of the confusion, Books and I were sprinting down the street away from the Steel Guild thugs.

The streets were awfully quiet. We ran for a few minutes, passing a few civilians, but not a single guard.

"Where are the town guards?"

In theory, the town guards would showing up when things were getting heated or violent. But not a single guard showed up to the commotion. Something was wrong.

In the distance, I heard a blood curling scream. I looked back at the Steel Guild, and even they stopped in their tracks out of surprise. More yelling ensued, some of which was distinctly non-human.

"Did you hear that? What the hell was that!"

As if to answer Books' panicked question, a strange quest notification suddenly popped up.

Quest Goblin invasion of small town Objective Defend the town from the marauding goblin army. Type World influencing event Difficulty A Rewards Dependent on contribution Penalty on failure None Warning: World influencing events will permanently alter Eclipse Online's world state. These types of quests cannot be rejected or postponed. Proceed with caution.

=========

"World influencing event?? Already?"

Every player in town received the [Goblin Invasion] quest at the same time, including us and the Steel guild. The sound of confusion rang through the streets, as NPCs and players ran and shouted chaotically.

A horn sounded in the distance. The attack from the goblin army already began. Goblins armed with spears and rusty swords poured into the town and began attacking players and NPCs indiscriminately. An A rank quest was far beyond the capabilities of players at this stage, but Eclipse Online advertised itself to be a realistic and gritty experience that didn’t hand hold anyone for being low level.

“Shit. Lesser health potion…”

Books’ [Potioneer] skill generated a lesser health potion this time. A lesser health potion wasn’t going to help them beat the sea of goblins that were flooding into the town.

Steel Slice’s group was fighting a few goblins in the distance. They had numbers, but eventually they would be overwhelmed.

=======

Meanwhile, at KB broadcasting.

“We’ve just received word from users that a major world influencing event is under way.”

“As expected from the world’s first super AI. The conventional rules get thrown out the window.”

KB broadcasting showed several scenes of goblin raids. One of the scenes featured Steel Slice and the Steel Guild fighting off goblins despite the odds. If I had to guess, Steel Slice was able to get prime broadcasting spotlight because of his father's S corporation connections, and he took full advantage of it to show off the combat prowess of his epic [Barbarian King] class.

“Wow, look at those users fighting so valiantly.”

The broadcaster looked on in excitement as the Steel Guild took on eleven goblins at the same time.

“Look at how well they fight. They are even inspiring courage in me!”

=====

“Fighting valiantly… what a total scam.”

Books and I were watching the KB broadcast from our screens from the safety of the upper floor of an inn. Thanks to new technology, streams were accessible even in capsule virtual reality.

Even as we were watching, red bordered notifications continued to pop up in my view. These were server notifications, meaning every Eclipse Online player was seeing them at the same time.

Server notice of World State change The goblin king has launched a simultaneous attack on the city of Talos and all surrounding towns. This marks the beginning of the goblin-human war. Due to the the sheer scale of the campaign, all human territories are affected by the goblin king’s invasion. Human cities on the border have entered into a war time state, and will prioritize military action over other endeavors.

=====

At Eclipse headquarters, developers and media personnel were shouting angrily.

“What the hell is the AI doing?”

“The goblin king invasion is supposed to be planned for next year. The users aren’t ready for this at all!”

The developers at the company were panicking. Eclipse’s super AI was coded to give the users the most immersive experience possible. This was done by giving the AI unparalleled control over content implementation and control over the game world.

However, certain scripted possibilities and world states were designed by the game developers to ensure that the game would have a robust life span with engaging content.

The goblin king invasion was one of these scripted triggers for a possible new world state. It was set as a disaster level event.

That's right. The Eclipse AI just let loose a disaster level event less than a week and a half into Eclipse's launch.

What the fuck.

“Should we eject the AI and run the game ourselves?”

“It’s not possible. The world is too large and complex for us to run it. We need the AI.”

Groans came from all sides of the table.

They would only be able to watch in horror as the goblin king’s armies started to wipe towns off the map. Soon, they would march towards cities. NPC armies would hold them at bay for a long time, but goblin occupation of areas outside of cities meant it would be extremely hard for players to venture far out of town and explore all the content that the game had to provide. In a way, it was similar to death by strangulation.

It was silent in the meeting room, as they watched the game stream from the monitor in front of them.

The screen briefly flicked to two users hiding in the upper floor of an inn as goblins were committing a massacre outside. Their IDs were [Spoon] and [Books].

=====

I observed the chaos on the streets through the inn’s second floor window. Goblins, goblins, goblins were everywhere. Spears jutted out of several civilians' corpses on the streets, and goblins were even trying to climb onto a shop's ledge to get to the rooftops.

“Heavens forgive us! This is divine punishment for our sins!”

The inn keeper downstairs was hysterical. I could hear him shouting from even with the door bolted closed.

Down the street were Steel Slice and his goons, who were actually holding on for longer than expected. Two of his goons were killed, but the bulk of the team was still alive and fighting well.

“Summon cat.”

Summon successful.

Meat Shield popped out and landed on the window sill.

“Looks like you guys are in trouble~”

“Books, Meat Shield, you guys have any ideas on how to get out of this mess?”

Books shrugged.

“I need to be in combat to get drops from my [Potioneering] skill. Not much I can do from here."

Meat Shield licked her side, seemingly unaffected with the pandemonium outside.

“We should save the townspeople~”

I resisted the urge to whack my pet in the head.

“Save the townspeople? Do you see all the goblins out there?”

“But think of the reward~ My fur is too silky to get dirty, but Master is always dirty, so he should do the fighting~”

“If Master can kill lots of goblins, he will earn lots of gold and buy me treats~”

My cat was pushing me to go on a suicide mission so she could leech off of me for treats. What a spoiled cat.

“How the hell do you think we can beat so many goblins? We’re underleveled and undergeared!”

“So then get some better gear~ Then kill some goblins to level up~”

“I wouldn’t pick a weak person to be my master~”

…

“Ah.”

My class was a thief class. The town was about to collapse anyway, and the town guards were occupied. It was a lawless land.

I motioned to Books.

“Let’s rob the armory.”

Books gave me an incredulous look, but after thinking about it for a bit, he nodded in assent.

Desperate times called for fast decision making, and when forced to make a decision between several bad choices, sometimes all you could trust was your gut.

I ran downstairs and scoped out the situation outside. NPCs, players, and the Steel Guild were still in an all out brawl with the goblins. Both the town blacksmith and barkeeper were involved the fight.

We waited for the coast to be clear, and then waited for Meat Shield's tail signal before darting between two houses. There was a lone goblin in the alleyway.

“Meat Shield, if you help me take down this ugly motherfucker, I’ll get you lots of treats later.”

“Oh~ Treats?”

I didn't need to say another word. Meat Shield darted up the wall and pounced on the goblin, clawing at its face.

“Ha!”

Books swung his sword at the goblin, gashing its arm. I ran up and slashed at it with my dagger repeatedly as it was busy fighting off Meat Shield. The goblin fell with a cry.

You have gained experience.

You earned 7 silver.

Singular goblins were relatively weak. If we continued to utilize Meat Shield's reconnaissance capabilities, we would be able to reach the armor without much conflict. Maybe my cat was useful after all--although that usefulness didn't extend an inch beyond acting as bait and spying from a safe distance.

“Let’s keep going.”

I ran towards the armory and swung open the door.

The armorer stood alert with a sword and shield in his hand.

“Oh? It’s you two?”

“Yeah, we need some better equipment to fight the goblins. Can you let us borrow some?”

The armorer spit on the ground, reading the atmosphere in the room.

“Bah, you’ll never pay me back. These weapons and armor are my blood, sweat, and tears. I’ll defend my stash even at the cost of my own life. I don’t care if I have to defend it from goblins or humans, I’m not moving from this spot.”

The armorer was a level 5 non-combat NPC. Normally it was suicide to aggro a town shopkeeper, but right now the town was in disarray and the town guards were occupied.

There was a glint in Books’ eyes.

“You know, I feel a bit bad doing this.”

Books drew his sword.

“But my quest to be rich won’t be stopped by a random NPC armorer!”

He ran at the level 5 armorer and swung. Meat Shield darted behind the armorer and clung onto his leather tunic. I joined the fray shortly after.

Bam.

The armorer’s sword connected with Books. Blood dripped from Books’ torso, and his health dipped below 50%. Books clutched his wound and retreated, chugging a lesser healing potion from his inventory.

The armorer’s level was low, but he was equipped with a decent sword and shield. This wasn’t as easy as we thought. He swung at me twice, and I dodged twice. Even though my strength and defense stats were nonexistent, my dexterity was already significantly higher than a normal thief’s at my level.

“Phew. Rolled another health potion.”

Books got back on his feet and yelled as he charged the armorer. Metal struck metal as the armorer blocked his wild sword swing. Meat Shield got to his neck and bit in with her small but sharp teeth.

“Aghh!!”