Chapter 249: Prep

A transparent screen remained suspended above the wooden table at the center of the Sages of Destiny’s meeting hall. Makaroth leaned forward with his elbows on the table, chin resting on his clenched hands with his fingers intertwined. He silently glared up at the screen alongside all of his guildmates, and the VGN representatives. Not a word was spoken from any of them, nor did any sound come from the livestream that was displayed on the screen before him.

They all watched intently at the reactions of Aegis, visible on his livestream as he stared wide-eyed in the direction of the old man behind the counter. The registration list remained floating there, with Aegis, Finley, and the names of 14 other players visible. Finley, too, stood alongside Aegis staring at the list. It was a long 15 seconds of total silence, both on the stream, and in the guild hall.

“Those are ours?” Makaroth asked finally, breaking the silence. His words were directed at the VGN employee, but his eyes didn’t shift from the screen.

“Y…yes. We grabbed who we could on such short notice.” The employee replied nervously.

“How good are they? Who are they?” Makaroth asked impatiently.

“Uhm…” The VGN employee began frantically fidgeting with his interface to find a suitable answer, but he was beaten to it.

“I recognize three of them.” Synopse spoke up, squinting at the broadcast of Aegis’ livestream to look at the list of 16 registered users. “Ioen, the ranger…” Synopse pointed out the name with his index finger on the transparent screen, leaning over the table. “He’s famous for leading mercenary groups to victory in numerous major siege PvP battles. He’s skilled in organizing and leading groups of players that have never played together before.”

“A strategist?” Lilya asked, and Synopse nodded back to confirm.

“How is a strategist going to be useful in an FFA battle?” Makaroth grumbled under his breath.

“C’mon.” Calikgos huffed air and chuckled at the tension still hovering in the air amongst them. “You guys, it's 14 vs 2. You really think those guys stand a chance?” He said with a big grin. Makaroth and Synopse both turned to glare at him, but before they could utter a response, sound once again began coming from Aegis’ livestream, drawing their attention towards it.

“There’s two of you, right? So is it still possible?” Darkshot asked.

“Heh.” Finley responded mockingly while shaking his head.

“What? Aegis is really good. You are pretty good too, aren’t you?” Darkshot replied.

“It’s not so much about skill…” Aegis mumbled to himself as he looked down to his feet, his mind going deep into thought.

“Why not? It’s always about skill.” Darkshot protested.

“The problem is going to be the action economy.” Pyri stepped in to explain while Finley and Aegis’ minds both drifted off. This caused the others to turn their attention to her as she took a deep breath and shrugged. “For every one action or decision that Aegis and Finley make, their opponents will make 14. That means that the quality of their actions, skills, and attacks need to be 7 times more valuable than those of their opponents. That’s incredibly challenging to pull off. Especially if their enemies are organized and working as a team.”

“Are you sure those 14 players are all going to be working together?” Sapphire asked while motioning to the list.

“Pretty much.” Cheryl replied.

“Yep.” Finley said as well.

“Damn.” Sapphire grumbled back.

“There’s still one thing in your favor…” Herilon stepped forward to stand alongside Aegis and Finley, eying the list more carefully. “Even if they’re working together, the rules of the FFA battle will forbid them from partying with one another. That means they won’t be able to heal or buff each other, and there will be friendly fire.” Herilon paused as he looked to Aegis, whose attention he had gotten from these words. The two briefly exchanged looks as Aegis gave him a knowing nod. “If you can take advantage of that, you might have a chance.”

“Tch.” Finley shook his head as he turned from the group, and began walking out of the building.

“Where are you going?” Rakkan asked as he walked by Cheryl, who quickly moved to follow behind him as he stepped through the worn doorway.

“Putting all my gold and items in storage, so I don’t drop it when I die. I suggest you do the same, Aegis.” Finley replied, his voice trailing off as he and Cheryl disappeared through the threshold. They shut the creaky door behind them, leaving the group in silence once more - only this time all of them were pondering the situation. Suddenly, though, Aegis jerked his head upwards at the list of registered players once more, squinting his eyes at them.

“If these aren’t directly employed by VGN, they had to be hired players, right? Mercenaries?” Aegis asked.

“Most likely.” Herilon shrugged back.

“How did they hire them? How do you hire mercenaries in the game to do things like this?”

“Usually they list themselves for hire in mercenary guilds.” Lina answered enthusiastically.

“So these guys, they should have listings somewhere, right?” Aegis turned to her, and she nodded back.

“I think so…” Lina replied hesitantly, while everyone else jumped into action by opening up their interfaces. Their fingers were pressing transparent screens floating in front of their faces that only they could see, and Sapphire was the first to get a hit.

“Yep. Got three of them, they’re all members of the same mercenary guild based out of Lanusk.” Sapphire exclaimed excitedly. “They’re pretty pricey to hire, but they’ll deny they’ve been hired and do just about anything for you… Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like they’re open to be re-hired.”

“Re-hired?” Darkshot looked at her with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah…” Sapphire shrugged back, glancing between Darkshot and Aegis. “I mean, that’s why you want us to look them up right? If you can outbid VGN, they’ll join your side?”

“No.” Aegis quickly shook his head. “That’s not the reason. I’m not going to pay anyone else. Can you send me their listings?” He asked Sapphire.

“Sure.” She fidgeted with her interface a bit more before Aegis received a message from her on his friends list, detailing the web address of the mercenary listings. Once he had it, he pulled it up into his own interface.

The listing displayed before him was indeed matching one of the names of the players registered for the brawl, and it contained a great deal of information on the hired player - including their class, equipment, and skills. Specialization, and recorded video montages of their greatest accomplishments were also included in the listening, to help sell themselves as a mercenary.

“Are all listings for hiring mercenary players like this?” Aegis confirmed once he had finished reading over it in detail.

“More or less.” Sapphire shrugged.

“As far as I know.” Herilon also replied.

“Good. Okay.” Aegis took a deep breath and looked over his companions. “I need your help. I need you guys to find the mercenary listings for all fourteen of these players, as soon as possible.”

“Okay… but…” Sapphire replied curiously while Lina, Rakkan, Darkshot and Pyri immediately got to work without question. “May I ask why?”

“Because friendly fire isn’t the only advantage I can have going into this.” Aegis grinned at her.

Finley stood in front of a large wooden door, a huge iron lock placed above the handle that he was in the process of unlocking. He’d pulled a big iron key out of his inventory to click the lock open, then began shuffling items out of his inventory and placing them down inside the large storage chamber behind the door - it was already filled with quite a few sealed crates and barrels that lined the back wall.

Cheryl stood in the doorway, unable to enter the player-exclusive area, but watched Finley with her arms crossed.

“You’re really going in that brawl to help him? I don’t think that was included in what he paid you for. You’re risking a lot, for nothing.” Cheryl sighed.

“Heh.” He shook his head without turning back to look at her. “You’ve got a lot to learn still, Cheryl.”

“What’dya mean?” She squinted at him curiously.

“When there is conflict, there is money to be made on both sides. Picking a side is a mistake. You should always set yourself up to be beneficial to both.”

“How is you signing up to help out Aegis in the brawl doing that, exactly?” Cheryl asked curiously. To this question, Finley simply turned to look her in the eyes and smiled deviously.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Makaroth and his companions continued to watch Aegis’ stream, but there wasn’t much to be seen. Most of what Aegis was doing was through his interface, and his interface was being hidden from the stream. This left the majority of the entertainment and informational value of his stream to come from Hae-won, but she’d entered into an off-topic rant about autopod brands with the viewers in Aegis’ livestream chat.

“He’s not going to be able to outbid VGN on any of those mercenary contracts, is he?” Lilya asked the VGN employee, who shook his head profusely at this.

“Absolutely not. Our contracts are rock solid.”

“Good.” Liyla smiled.

“Then, why’s he want to look them all up?” Calikgos asked.

“He probably wants t-” Synpose was interrupted by loud knocking on the large pair of double doors leading into their guild hall’s meeting chamber. Following the knock, two players pushed the doors open and stepped inside.

Both players were familiar to the officers of the Sages of Destiny, but for different reasons. One of the players was a member of their guild, escorting the other into the room. The other had the name [Emerill - Level 159] sitting above his head.

“You’re one of the dark players that attacked Kalmoore, aren’t you?” Calikgos asked curiously.

“I am indeed. Greetings! It’s a pleasure to meet you all.” Emerill smiled.

“His friends are the ones helping Aegis.” Liyla mumbled to Makaroth.

“Why’d you let him in here?” Makaroth motioned towards the guildmate of his that was walking in the room alongside Emerill.

“Because I have a proposal for you. On behalf of my companion Finley.” Emeril bowed dramatically. These words were met by a curious silence, as Makaroth exchanged looks with Synopse briefly.

“I’m listening.” Makaroth replied while crossing his arms and glaring across the table at Emerill, who stood opposite him.

“For the price of 2 million USD, Finley will turn on Aegis in the brawl, guaranteeing his elimination from this upcoming tournament.” Emerill spoke proudly. Immediately after the words left his mouth, several officers began to chuckle, including Calikgos.

“2 Million? Are you insane? Why would we pay that when we already have the advantage?” Calikgos spoke in a condescending tone.

“An advantage, yes. But it’s not guaranteed to go your way. I can speak from first hand experience, Aegis is very persistent.” Emerill shrugged.

“Your friend is the reason we’ve even got this problem in the first place. We’re not dealing with you, get lost.” Makaroth replied coldly.

“Very well.” Emerill sighed. “I’ll be hanging around outside your guild hall, in case you change your mind.” Emerill gave a slight nod and smile before turning to leave the room - the other member of their guild that had led him inside the chamber followed him out and shut the doors behind him with a loud bang.

“This is getting ridiculous. This kid doesn’t even like games, and he’s causing so much trouble.” Makaroth grumbled to himself before turning his sights on the VGN employee once more. “Make sure you tell these mercenaries to crush those two idiots.”

“Yes sir.” The employee replied.

Three hours went by in no time at all. At no point did Aegis or his companions step foot outside of the run-down registration building. The elderly NPC sitting behind the counter paid no mind to their presence as the group repeatedly exchanged information with one another by utilizing their friends list and interfaces.

It wasn’t until exactly 5 minutes before the brawl’s starting time that Finley and Cheryl re-appeared, swinging the creaking door open wide. The door was irritatingly loud on its rusty hinges, but it drew no attention from Aegis or the others.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t even left this room? You’re out of time, you realize that, right?” Finley asked, but got no response. Aegis was focused intently on his interface, not realizing that his viewership numbers were quickly creeping up to 2.5 million. Word quickly spread of the upcoming brawl, and the fact that Makaroth wasn’t currently streaming helped with the promotion of the event. Not only that, but several other non-VGN streamers who stood in defiance of Seraxus’ reign of terror were doing their part in hyping up Aegis, including the largest german guild Schadenfreude.

“Hello?” Finley snapped his fingers loudly, finally getting Aegis’ attention.

“Five minutes left. We can enter the tournament grounds already pre-emptively. We should enter at the same time so we get adjacent starting positions.” Finley spoke loudly.

“Right. Good thinking.” Aegis nodded back, finally closing out of his interface. As he did, so did the others, and they all exchanged anxious looks.

“You’re ready? Did you drop off your items in the storage hall as to not drop any of it?”

“Huh? No. No time.” Aegis shook his head.

“You might want to get on that.” Finley replied.

“Nah. It’ll be fine.” Aegis answered, causing Finley to smirk.

“Cheeky lil kid.” He added with a head shake. “Alright. Suit yourself. I’m going in now.” Finley waved at him before walking to the old man. “I’m registered for the upcoming brawl. I’m ready to participate.” Finley said, and within an instant, Finley’s character avatar dissipated into white light and disappeared - he was transported into the PvP arena.

“Good luck cutie.” Cheryl winked before stepping out of the building by herself. Once she was gone, Aegis took a deep nervous breath and shrugged his shoulders. His eyes wandered amongst his companions who all stared back at him, looking just as nervous as he was.

“Good luck.” Lina stepped forward and gave Aegis a quick kiss, her and his face blushing bright red afterwards.

“Thanks.” Aegis nodded, then stepped towards the elderly NPC. Before he could speak, Pyri placed her hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“Aegis. Don’t trust Finley, no matter what. If he looks like he’s switching sides…”

“Why would he switch sides? I paid him.” Aegis raised his eyebrows at her. She shook her head dismissively and ignored this question.

“If he starts acting suspiciously… even a little bit. Knock his ass out. Got it?” Pyri replied. Aegis nodded back, causing Pyri to release her hand from his shoulder.

“I’m registered for the upcoming brawl. I’m ready to participate.” Aegis copied Finley word for word, and instantly after he’d finished speaking, his vision went blank. Like Finley, his body was seen dissipating into light by his companions as he was taken out of the registration hall and transported into the brawl arena.

Within seconds, his body reformed on top of a small circular stone pedestal. The outerrim of the pedestal had a transparent blue wall around it that went up to the open sky above. The first thing Aegis did was try touching the wall, but it was solid despite being made up of wavy blue light and being easily seen through.

Please wait for the match to begin.

Match begins in: 3:25

The message popped up in his face as a reaction to him touching the blue wall, and he quickly waved it off. From there, he decided to properly take in the rest of his surroundings. He spotted 15 other identical circular altars spread out in a large circle around him, in a round arena with a sandy, stone-tiled flat arena not too unlike the ones he’d done his intermediate quests in.

Each and every one of the circular altars had another combatant waiting on it, also trapped within their blue walls and waiting for the timer to countdown. The nearest altar to his left contained Finley, who exchanged looks with Aegis briefly.

“You’re certain they’re all against us?” Aegis asked him.

“The moment you appeared, they all started doing that.” Finley answered, gesturing towards the other players. Aegis followed the gesture with his eyes and saw what Finley meant. Every single one of the other fourteen players were glaring in his direction. It sent an anxious chill down Aegis’ spine - not a single one of them was anything less than level 150.

“They’re not the best PvPers in the world, but this is a paycheck for them. They make a living off of this. You better be ready, because you are their meal ticket. They will stop at nothing to take you down. This isn’t a game to them.” Finley spoke ominously. “Go all out from the start. You won’t get a second chance to regret it.”

“Got it.” Aegis replied as he eyed the timer counting down as red numbers floating at the top of his peripheral vision. With one minute remaining, he carefully equipped his shield to his back, and his claws to his hands, drawing out the blades from his knuckles thanks to his redesign of the item.

“This is suicide.” Hae-won whispered nervously to herself, allowing Aegis’ now 2.6 million viewers to hear her.

“This is content.” Tommy responded, currently in a voice call with her in Shinji - though Aegis’ viewers couldn’t hear him. Shinji said nothing, looking intently at the still broadcast, stretching out his fingers as he prepared for the action that was to come.

“Yo what?” Seraxus said to himself as he caught a slew of messages streaming through his chat. “That Shattered guy is that desperate to qualify? He teamed up with the Harbinger of Darkness?”

“Shit, this I gotta see.” Zuon heard Seraxus speaking to his viewers as they walked side by side. Zuon began frantically fidgeting with his interface to pull up Aegis’ livestream.

“C’mon kid.” Quinn mumbled, as she and Ren watched Aegis’ stream being displayed on a large screen within a Kordas tavern. She was accompanied by nearly all of her guild, as well as Christoph and Artaphernes. Where Aegis had left them behind, all of his party members, Sapphire, and Herilon too had pulled up his livestream. Within the town of Rene, his council members were all spectating as well, pausing whatever current tasks they were doing. Amlie stopped in the middle of tending to her fields, while Ruffily stopped mid-construction of a building. A screen of Aegis’ stream was on full display within Erikson’s tavern as well.

“Yuki, are you watching? This doesn’t look good.” Yumily messaged Yuki nervously as she and her fellow band-mates were watching Aegis’ stream on the deck of their Airship. It was sailing high above the abyss, in-between islands.

“I can’t watch. I’m busy.” Yuki replied to the message as she was focused on her task at hand within the crafting chamber of the Night Hunter’s guild hall - she was working intensely alongside Tullan who was covered in sweat, hammering away at the mithral form of Aegis shield. “I need to be done for when he wins.” Yuki added confidently.

“This kid, does he ever get tired of being the center of attention?” Feng laughed to his guildmates that sat around him in a tavern with Aegis’ stream on full display. “Why’s he qualifying like this? Why not the normal way.” He shook his head mockingly at the situation. Makaroth, on the other hand, watched the stream silently alongside his officers. He had no comments to make, instead simply glaring at the timer to the match as it counted down.

Match begins in 10… 9… 8…

Aegis took a deep breath, eying the counter one final time before glancing between his opponents. Staffs were glowing, arrows were knocked, blades were unsheathed.

7… 6… 5…

“Here goes nothing.” Finley spoke ominously.

4… 3… 2…

“Avatar of Darkness.”

“Avatar of Eirene.” In unison, wings of light and shadow erupted from their backs and bright glows of black and and white clashed with one another.

1… Match start.