“Cici, can you give me a status report on C-2?” I asked, sitting in the lounge area of Olympus. It had been a week now since the game had been released. Aside from Balu briefly visiting to spend some time with Bihena, there hadn’t been anything noteworthy. So, I decided to check to see how everyone was adapting to the new game.

“Of course, sir.” Cici’s voice spoke out from the speakers in Olympus. “At this point, roughly sixty percent of the population in the primary planets have experienced their first simulation. Of these, more than eighty percent have fallen victim to their simulations, while a further five percent are still in the process of clearing them.”

I nodded my head slightly, my brow twitching. “So, only fifteen percent of the people who entered the game have cleared a scenario?”

“That’s correct. This is due to many people asking for extravagant conditions in their simulation. Only zero-point-five percent of those that have cleared their scenarios did so with such conditions in place.”

“Right… does Codex Chaotic have any form of ranking system?” When I asked this, there was a brief pause. People were always stimulated by a sense of competition, even in a single-player game.

“There is a configurable ranking option, yes. How would you like me to assign the rankings?”

I thought about that for a moment, before shrugging my shoulders. “Assign the players points based on the difficulty of the void beast that they faced, as well as the time to complete the simulation. If they lose, subtract that many points from their total score. That should convince more people to slowly adapt instead of biting off more than they can chew.”

“Understood, sir. Should I subtract points for those that are remaining in the simulation after completing it?”

“No.” I shook my head firmly. “If they remain in the simulation, they don’t care about rankings in the first place. Just let that simulation be their reward. However, make sure to set up reminders if they play for too long at a time and start to damage their health.”

“I will keep that in mind.” Cici responded briefly. “Do you have any other instructions?”

“Not right now.” I said, standing up. I was somewhat tempted to play the game myself, but I felt that the dangers were too high. I didn’t know if dying in a game world would be enough to destroy everything, but that was not really a risk that I could take. At most, I could send my Virtual self in, since I had gotten a new one after Desbar’s servers were fried. However, my Virtual self was busy training in Fragments of Acidia.

As I walked out of the lounge and towards the elevator, I closed my eyes, focusing on my connection to Priscilla. She had been rather active since I granted her the title of my priestess. I checked in on her now and then in secret, and she didn’t brag about her now position, but rather simply sought to inform people that she would help them with any of their troubles that she could.

In doing so, she had created hundreds of divine abilities to use in the many divine tomes that I had given her partial access to. These abilities ranged from altering the weather to curing illness, bestowing blessings, and even offensive techniques to defeat powerful monsters. Although she did channel a small amount of divinity from me whenever she used one of these techniques, she was simultaneously promoting faith in me to those around her, so I’d say that it was a net positive.

As far as her pestering me with constant prayers? Thankfully, that wasn’t an issue. At most, she would pray to one of the other gods or goddesses, and have them relay a message to me. She did this once via Aurivy, asking me if it was okay for her to use the powers I had bestowed her so openly. This seemed to be her answer to the information that I wouldn’t always be able to answer responses.

While thinking about that, I blinked, calling out again. “Cici? How is Tsubaki doing?” I asked, entering the elevator and heading towards my own palace within Olympus.

When I arrived, Cici’s voice followed behind me. “She is still in her initial simulation. Would you like me to show you?”

“You can display what’s going on in an active simulation?” I asked in surprise.

“Of course, sir.. There is the chance that someone will wish to livestream their experience, so such a function is necessary. Additionally, I can provide multiple camera angles adjusted in realtime to provide the best viewing experience.”

I paused for a moment, before nodding my head. I turned down the hall, heading for my office. “In that case, please display Tsubaki’s simulation.”

Tsubaki couldn’t be happier with her simulation. Because the world paused any time she logged out, she was able to still do things such as cook and clean around Olympus regularly before logging back in. However, this Trial of Blood was considerably different from those that she had gotten used to.

Having felt that she became too accustomed to fighting in the wilderness with her previous trials, she set the current one to a more urban setting. Her simulation was akin to a sort of apocalypse. There was a massive monster attack, and one of the monsters infected a portion of the surviving population, taking control of them and blending in among the survivors. Because of this, Tsubaki had to be constantly wary of not only the monsters, but of the people as well.

Next, she removed all forms of magic or class levels from the simulation, meaning that she was only able to fight with basic levels of strength. This forced her to rely on salvaging and her own intuition to fight the giant monsters that still inhabited the city.

As for figuring out the void beast plaguing the world? Tsubaki wasn’t worried about that, nor had she noticed anything strange. In fact, she was doubting whether there was such a void beast at all. Perhaps the conditions that she set for herself were so harsh that the simulation determined that a void beast was unnecessary.

Tsubaki held a rifle in one hand as she lurked on the top floor of a dilapidated building. She wore a skintight wingsuit and goggles, but notably did not wear a parachute. Parachutes were too large of a target when deployed, so Tsubaki set up an alternate landing method in various target buildings.

She knew that she only had two or three shots before her target got close enough that she would have to evacuate, so she was using armor piercing rounds with the most powerful rifle she had managed to salvage. It was loud, and bound to draw the attention of both survivors and monsters, but she considered it worth the risk. After all, her target this time was one of the biggest beasts in the city.

When Tsubaki felt the vibrations run through the building, she knew her target was close. Turning her body, she aimed the rifle out the window, peering through the scope. There was a massive centipede, its body more than two hundred meters long, and with the face of a humanoid on its head. It let out screams of pain as it moved, mimicking the sounds of its victims.

Tsubaki had studied this monster for days, having set it as her first real target for her trial. She steadied her breathing, watching the monster through the scope while lining up her shot. Its movements were too fast for any reliable accuracy while it was moving, so she waited until it came to rest, its body wrapped partially around another building.

She held her breath, adjusting her aim to one of the monster’s large eyes. After the first shot, it should rush towards her, making the second shot somewhat easier to land than when it was moving normally. Once her shot was lined up, she pulled the trigger, feeling the recoil of the gun pushing her back slightly.

There was a loud bang, the bullet tearing through the air and piercing through the eye of the humanoid face. The centipede monster let out a shrill screech, its head rearing back and eyes tightly shut. Tsubaki knew that she had successfully pierced the eye, seeing a trail of green blood leaking down from it, and immediately loaded her second shot.

The centipede opened its remaining good eye, looking around in a frenzy. When it determined which direction the shot had come from, it began running in that direction, causing tremors throughout the area. Tsubaki steadied her breath again, and fired her second shot. However, the centipede monster closed its remaining eye the moment it heard the gunshot, causing the bullet to do only superficial damage.

Tsubaki clicked her tongue, strapping the rifle to her back as she ran towards the back of the building. As part of her precautions, she had opened every window on the top floor of the building that she was firing from, making it easy for her to run and jump out of that window. When she did, she spread her arms and legs out, the webbing of the wingsuit deploying and letting her glide down the adjacent street.

Though she couldn’t afford to look behind her, she could still hear when the monster crashed into the building that she had just left, pressing a button on a small device in her left hand. Explosions rocked through the air, pushing her further along as she detonated the explosives that she placed throughout the building.

Tsubaki focused, controlling her path as much as she could. Her destination was in sight, she just had to make sure that she hit it at the right angle. She was flying towards a large net, loosely spread out over a hole in the wall of a building’s third floor. When she was just about to hit the net, she pulled up on her wingsuit, increasing her angle while also slightly decreasing her velocity. Immediately after, she pulled her limbs in to brace for the impact.

When she hit the net, it immediately broke off of the wall it was pinned to, unable to withstand the sudden force applied to it. Although it slowed her down, it had only marginally done so, and her body crashed through onto a large mattress she set on a rolling platform. Tsubaki grunted in pain when she hit the mattress, which rushed to the far wall where she had other padding placed.

She could feel that her shoulder had been dislocated from the impact, and grit her teeth as she pushed it back into place. More importantly, though, the rifle that she had been wearing snapped in half as soon as she hit the mattress. However, Tsubaki herself had survived, though she would need some time to recover.

Did I kill it? She asked, her message being transmitted to Cici.

I can confirm, the monster was stunned by the explosive blasts, but ultimately died under the weight of the rubble falling on its body.

Tsubaki let out a long sigh of relief, nodding her head. That was one of her trial targets down, and there were only two more to go before she considered this a success.

My brow twitched as I watched Tsubaki pulling off a stunt that would be hard to come by even in an action movie. “Really… she always pushes herself too hard.” I said with a shake of my head, before becoming curious. “By the way, what is the void monster that she has to identify?”

Cici cleared her throat, showing Tsubaki’s face. The tinted glasses suddenly became transparent, revealing her bright red eyes. “Every day, the eye colors of every creature are randomized.”

That would explain why Tsubaki hadn’t been able to identify it, given how simple it was. It wasn’t likely that she paid attention to herself in a reflection that much. “I… see. I was expecting something a bit more… well, more.”

“Due to the perils already present in the simulation, it was determined appropriate to use the least dangerous void beast options. Realistically speaking, Tsubaki should have died eighteen times already, including this most recent hunt. Any further difficulty would have made success impossible.”

“Something that I’ve learned over the years…” I said while shaking my head. “Never try to tell Tsubaki what is or is not possible.”