“Where were you?”

“I was just checking out the area!”

“uh huh, well the next group is about to go through that gate over there. I haven’t been able to find Ja-…err, he said his in-game name was Weiss right?”

“Yeah, it’s a friggin weird name.”

“Hmmm yeah, but that’s Weiss for you. He’s always like that. Anyways, as I was saying I haven’t been able to find him, so I think he went in ahead of us.”

“He would do that.”

“yeah, oh well we might as well head on through then.”

Pete and Ju melded into the crowd as it began to flow through the gate. They were nearly the last in the group to make it through. There were two stragglers behind them, both Asian. They began to move through the area between gates when Pete paused for a second, he had just had a thought about the Asians.

Pete quickly turned around to get a second look at the two.

“No………way!”

“Hmm? What is it Pete?”

Ju turned around to look and finally realized who they were! She recognized Seoyoon before Weed, for the simple reason that she had always admired her beauty whenever some of Weed’s escapades had aired.

“That’s them! Oh Weiss will be jealous!”

“Wait a second, is that him behind them!?”

They finally noticed the red headed player running from the guards towards the portal. Pete and Ju had already passed through to their destination, and Weed and Seoyoon had nearly passed through. At this point, Weed had become slightly annoyed with the people in front of them looking back through the portal and had turned around to see some red headed idiot trying to escape the guards. Then the gate closed, leaving all four of them to wonder what happened to the redheaded player.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pete and Ju surveyed the land before them in speechless awe. Their parents had taken them on skiing trips to the Rocky Mountains and even to a Canadian Mountain one winter. But none of that prepared them for what was spread out before them.

Like the world outside, the game world had seasons. Currently, the Versailles continent was in the middle of a mild spring. The last of the snowdrifts from the previous winter were rapidly receding and the sun was shining warmly on the frigid northern lands.

Before them was a large city in ruins with a large keep at the center of it. There were enormous mountains off in the distance with snow laden plains and hills running from them to the ruins. Behind the pair stood a large tower that had been partially destroyed in what seemed some great battle.

“Brrrrr! Where are we?”

“I’m, not sure.”

Ju continued to shiver as they began walking down from the mountain ridge where the ruined tower had stood. Along the way they noticed oddly shaped stones, they might have been sculptures but a thousand years of weathering had removed any distinctive features. As they began nearing the city they overheard the other users discussing where they were.

“This has definitely got to be Morata.”

“Maybe, but what happened to all the trees? Why does everything seem so cold and gloomy? I mean, look at the city! It looks like

it’s haunted!”

“Well there has been a thousand year time lapse.”

“That’s another thing! Why would they make such a huge time lapse?”

This caused all of them to pause their discussion and continue walking while thinking. Most users weren’t able to understand that part of the lore for this new Versailles continent that they were returning to.

“Actually, I have a friend from RR that was part of the marketing team at Unicorn. He said that the reason was that the original storyline was supposed to have a thousand years of darkness cover the continent. But Weed changed all of that.”

The others then considered this as well.

“Wait, why didn’t the system bug out then when it went counter to the storyline you had.”

The friend of the employee looked hesitant before saying.

“Because by then they weren’t controlling the system…”

“What!?”

“SSHHHhhh!”

The friend of the employee looked around furtively. Pete and Ju tried to appear like they weren’t listening. The friend then continued in a lower voice.

“This game isn’t run by people at all anymore.”

“what do you mean?”

“You know that genius guy that made the original Royal Road?”

“Yes.”

“Apparently he began immediately working on an update for the A.I. that oversaw RR after its launch. At the end of ten years, he had finished it.”

“So?”

“The rumor at Unicorn is that he made it…well…sentient.”

“Wait you mean that the A.I. can think and learn like a human!?”

“Yeah, it now completely controls the game supposedly and that’s why the system didn’t crash. All Unicorn does is just make money off of it.”

“I don’t really know how to feel about this….”

“Eh, I wouldn’t worry too much.”

“But that means it can see everything we do in-game right?”

“…oh.”

“yeah…”

“Well hey, at least I’m pretty sure they didn’t make it a girl right!?”

There was a bunch of nervous laughter from the group. Pete and Ju thought about this piece of information for a bit before shrugging it off. They didn’t really understand the full implications of sentient A.I. and didn’t really care.

By now the eleventh wave had reached a large encampment that was set up outside of what must have been the city’s north gate. It was here that the users stopped and began milling about. None of them had been sure what to do and had all just started walking towards the city to try and find out. But now that they had reached this encampment they were unsure of what to do next.

Then, a man came out from one of the tents and made his way to a raised platform. The man was lightly armored with a breastplate as the only bit of plate armor on him. He stood ramrod straight before loudly addressing the crowd before him.

“First! I would like to thank you foreigners for aiding us like during the time of our forefathers. Second, I will explain the situation! Currently we are attempting to recapture the ruins of Morata from the darkness that has covered this land for a thousand years. You of the eleventh wave will join those that have gone ahead and cleanse the city of the filth that inhabits it! We must reclaim this city and expand before the other four nations! It will be us, the children of the second Arpenian Empire that will reclaim all of Versailles!”

There was a roar started by a group of soldiers that had gathered behind him and then taken up by the users. Then as it began to quiet down one of the soldiers stepped forward to address the users. It appeared like he was some lower ranking officer in the army.

“Alright, we the army of the Third Arpenian Empire have produced weapons, armors and spell books for all of you foreigners that will fight alongside of us in the battle to reclaim Morata!”

*TING!*

Reclamation of Morata

After a thousand years Morata now lies in ruins. The souls of those that died during the final battle still keep it. Clear the city of all enemies and purify it.

Quest Difficulty: B

Reward:

+500 contribution points with the Third Arpenian Empire

+500 Fame

Special Reward:

-If you survive you will gain a new secret skill with an additional skill slot

-If Morata is the first reclaimed city all players in the city will receive a 20% EXP boost for one week

This gave the users pause. A class B quest for beginners was unheard of! The monsters they would have to clear would be at such a higher level than them that it would be impossible.

“how are we supposed to do this!”

“There’s no way a bunch of level ones can clear this quest! It took over a hundred users in the mid 100s back in RR to do B class quests!”

“Actually how many people are here?”

A few of the users began to crane their necks as they looked around.

“I think I read somewhere that around half of the player base was planning to play on launch day.”

“So that’s around 400 million right?”

“yeah, and if it’s evenly distributed…then that means it’s about 80 million to a city!”

“Those bastards at Unicorn must be laughing. Watching wave on wave of weak users slowly wear down the city’s defenses!”

“Well screw them! I’m going to live! I want that bonus!”

Gradually the users began to accept the quest and then began forming parties. Ju and Pete were jostled around in the shove of users, a few people asked them if they wanted to form a party but they declined. The two of them were slightly confused as to what they should be doing since this was the first time they were in a virtual world. Eventually they had broken away from the crowd and stood at a distance to just people watch.

“This is insane!”

“I know Ju, I’m not really sure what we should be doing right now.”

“Well we should be doing the quest…..”

“Yeah but where do we get these promised weapons and armor from? Also we don’t even know how much of the city has already

been cleared by the first ten waves.”

“I guess but does it really matter? I mean the progress of the reclamation.”

“Yes! We need to know that so we can avoid areas with high concentration of enemies.”

“I see…”

They fell into a contemplative silence for a bit, before Ju started walking away. Surprised, Pete was about to ask what she was doing when she had already started a conversation with a guard. After she was done she waved Pete over.

“So the guard told me where to find the weapons at!”

“Alright nice, did you ask about the situation inside?”

“….oops”

“Ohwell, not a problem for now, let’s just go and grab equipment.”

The twins followed the directions the guard had given them and found themselves amidst another crowd of users as they looked over weapons and armor. Most already seemed to know what weapon they’d be using so they moved on quickly.

Pete noticed that the people that appeared to be veteran players all seemed to select bows as their weapon. A few though picked up basic skill books that seemed to teach the fireball spell as well.

‘I see, they want to survive so they all want to stay in the back and fight from a distance!’

He was completely right! Every veteran user knew that with a quest of this difficulty at this low a level, the only way to survive was to stand back. Several large parties had already been formed with this in mind, the plan being to annihilate individual enemies with constant ranged fire power!

Pete turned to comment on this to Ju, only to notice that she had already started browsing the assorted bows. He smiled realizing that Ju would probably do what all the veteran users were doing since that was the kind of character she enjoyed playing. Pete, on the other hand, preferred to fight on the front lines as a great warrior! Despite the risk of dying he didn’t want to change that, also he recognized that a few units of fodder were needed to keep the enemy agroed while the ranged units killed it. With this in mind he went to the less populated melee weapons rack and began to look over the selection of swords, daggers, axes, and other types of weapons.

He picked up a large greatsword.

“Item information.”

Reclamation Greatsword

The sword is imbued with holy magic to aid in the cleansing of what was the heart of the second Arpenian Empire! It was clearly made with function over design being the important property and this is shown by the high durability and attack.

Durability: 50/50

Damage: 10~15

Holy attribute: 6~8

Pete’s eyes widened in surprise, he never would have expected such a powerful weapon to come with no equip restrictions. His surprise was fleeting as he remembered the purpose the sword had been made for.

‘This is how they – no, I guess the A.I., planned to make it possible for us to fight in such an absurd quest.’

In the end he selected the greatsword and the light armor set that had been made for the reclamation war. Most new users thought he was being foolish, they couldn’t understand why a person would choose such a heavy weapon and pair it with light armor. However veteran users understood, his goal was to be able to agro enemies quickly and then run away while a group of archers and sorcerers eliminated the target. Still they chose to be long ranged units as they had no interest in risking death to do something so risky.

After Pete had finished outfitting himself he whispered his sister to tell her his plan on how to fight whatever was waiting for them in the ruins of Morata. She agreed to the plan and said she would try to find other users for them to join up with to make the plan effective.

A few minutes later, Pete and Ju met back up near the ruined gate to Morata. Behind Ju was a six person group of users. They

were all new users like them: three wizards, two priests, and one archer.

The groups exchanged friendly greetings before forming into a singular party. One of the priests, a girl named Mira, was the party leader. The other priestess was her youngest sister, a white haired and golden eyed little girl named Shiro. The middle sister was named Kurokami, unlike her sisters she had chosen the beast human as her race with rabbit as the animal part, and she was one of the wizards. The other two wizards were named Wistal and Rynner. Rynner was Mira’s boyfriend in real life and Wistal was a guy they had all met in a different game. The new archer was someone no one had ever met, Ju later confided in Pete that she had talked to him since he seemed alone, his name was Flynn Rider.

After they had gotten themselves completely sorted out, they turned to face the gate.

“Ready?”

“………………….”

Pete looked behind him. The others in the group weren’t moving and were instead looking at the walls in trepidation. He turned back around to observe the walls and then looked back at them.

“Guys….”

“Huh?”

Rynner was the first to reply.

“Let’s gooooo.”

“Oh yeah.”

The small conversation between the two seemed to break the rest of the group of their spell. With that momentary pause over, the group rejoined the massive crush of users as they began to shove through the gate.

As they walked through they began to hear some odd and loud noises from the front of the crowd, it wasn’t till they were fully in that the group recognized it as the cries of fear of thousands of users that were ahead of them.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Weed was annoyed, he was very annoyed. He was forced to stand in the crush of users and being jostled around and what was worse was that his wife was being subjected to the same treatment.

This was the part of Weed that never changed, his complete devotion to his family! He urgently tried to guard Seoyoon from any form of jostling as they followed the crowd through the gate.

'What were they thinking, allowing this many people to play the opening event. With this, it won’t even be any fun!'

Weed hadn’t been part of the development for this opening event and couldn’t understand why there were five starter cities that everyone had been randomly sent to. After a quick whisper to his friends, it seemed like the ones that had been in the final five were sent to a different city. This caused Weed to shiver; something seemed off if there was only one of each of the final five in a starter city.

He reflexively gripped Seoyoon to make sure she was still there and hadn’t been lost in the crowd. She smiled, understanding the sources of his tension, and patted his hand reassuringly.

“That reminds me, why did you pick up that priest book and a sword? Aren’t you going to be a swordsman again?”

“Hmm? I was actually thinking of being in more of a support role this time around.”

“…..”

Seoyoon was shocked. She had no idea Weed had been thinking something like that, she had been almost certain he’d want to be on the front lines where all the japtem and EXP that he loved was. As they continued walking she began to allow him to lead her as she couldn’t stop thinking about why Weed would want to be in a support role.

She didn’t look up until she felt her arm jolt, Weed had stopped suddenly. She turned to ask him what was the matter, until she finally heard it.

The screams from the front of the crowd

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hi ya'll! Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I really wanna post about every other week at about over 3000 words per chapter. Anyways hope you like the first part of the reclamation battle! As always please comment and critique! I love reading the posts. Also make sure to subscribe! (if that's possible?) to make sure you'll know when a new chapter is up!