Chapter 255: Aftermath

Long messy blonde hair, loosely tied into a ponytail at the back of his head. His cheeks sunken in, with dark circles under his eyes. Despite his clearly exhausted state, frustration was the emotion shown by the wrinkles on the side of his face and the frown on his lips as Iouen sat up out of his Simbox to a dimly lit, small room.

A single, older model Simbox sat up against the wall of the room, barely fitting. Aside from it, the room had nothing but plain white walls and a window with dark blue blinds closed, blocking out the daytime sun. He swung his legs over the side of the Simbox and touched his feet on the hardwood floor for a brief moment, staring down at them. Eventually, though, he got up and walked to the door to swing it open and step out into the hallway of his small apartment.

He was immediately met with the sounds of broadcasters speaking, from within his living room. Turning down the hall, he could see a report on display that was covering the brawl match that he’d just participated in.

“Watch this movement, right here. He manages to project two shields and deflect multiple attacks within the span of three seconds…” One broadcaster spoke in an amazed voice.

“This level of spell control, from a non-spellcaster class - it’s simply incredible to witness. Not a single movement was wasted…” The broadcasters were sitting in a studio simulation, with clips on floating screens behind them from Aegis’ livestream showing gameplay from the brawl. The network broadcasting it was not VGN, but one of the larger foreign networks.

Iouen half heartedly turned to take a glimpse at what was on display, but instead was met by the eyes of a young girl as she rolled a wheelchair around the bend of the hallway to get a view of her older brother.

“Check it out,” She pointed over her shoulder at the screen. “You made a highlight reel. Too bad it was someone else’s.” She spoke sarcastically. In this moment of her speaking, he could see the IV’s linked up to her body and the simple gown she was wearing. She looked paler and more sickly than he did, though without the bags under her eyes.

“Sorry, Daisy.” Iouen said as he turned to look back at his feet.

“For what?” Daisy asked curiously.

“Failed the contract. If I’d stopped him, we might’ve had enough money for one of those nano-bot trials.

“Oh c’mon…” Daisy replied in a cheerful voice as she reared her wheelchair around to face the screen. “What is that thing you always say when I lose a game?” She began fidgeting with her wrist implant to change the screen. Iouen didn’t reply, but instead looked curiously at what she was doing. The broadcast switched over to his mercenary website where his services were advertised. On it, his listing was being bombarded with hiring requests of all sorts.

As Daisy had pulled it up, he had 23 requests, but in the brief few seconds that the pair looked at it together, the requests shot up to 31 and were climbing. He briefly glimpsed at the headlines of the requests, things such as ‘Lead our Guilds Army’, ‘Help Defend this Village’ - all high paying jobs.

“Just because you lost, doesn’t mean you’re a loser, right?” Daisy smiled hopefully. “Get your ass back in there!” She added cheerfully as a smile crept over Iouen’s face.

“Can I atleast have a snack first?” He chuckled in response.

“Sorry, Makaroth. With the amount of attention brought to the brawl, we can’t afford to avoid covering it. We’d lose too many viewership numbers. Instead, management is planning to show his participation in the upcoming tournament and play it up.” The VGN employee spoke timidly from within the meeting hall of the Sages of Destiny. Aegis’ livestream was still on display on the livestream viewer floating above the table in the center of the room.

Synopse, Makaroth, and all of the others were staring silently at it. Most eyes were on Makaroth, but Makaroth’s were on Aegis as he stood alone in the arena, panting heavily and not speaking a word. Makaroth had both his fists on the table, clenched tightly in anger as his eyes strained, but suddenly they let up, and he released his fists into open hands that he gently placed on the table.

“Right. Of course. That’d be the smart thing to do from here.”

“One other thing…” The employee spoke up, drawing Makaroth’s eyes onto himself which the VGN employee was not happy to have. “The other networks are creating a narrative already around the fact that those 14 mercenaries were all hired to stop Aegis. They’re theorizing that either you, Seraxus, or Feng put them up to it. Whatever the answer, it isn’t a good lo-”

“Pin it on the pirates. The ones he stiffed earlier.” Makaroth replied quickly.

“Makaroth…” Synopse spoke up, but was once again ignored.

“It’ll fit nicely, they have plenty of reason to want revenge on him for how he fooled them on his way back to Kalmoore.” Makaroth shrugged innocently before turning to Synopse.

“Right, yes, of course. We’ll run with that. I’ll get right to it.” The VGN employee replied quickly before disappearing from the game world.

“They’re not gonna like that.” Calikgos commented, shaking his head.

“You let me worry about them. I’ve got another task in mind that’ll guarantee they’ll let it slide.” Makaroth stood up from the table.

“I suppose this means I should start training my team for a possible encounter with Aegis and his party.” Synopse also stood up.

“Nah. Don’t worry about that just yet. He hasn’t made it to the tournament yet.” Makaroth said with a mischievous grin. “For that, he needs to make it through the preliminary matches. I’m sure he will, but then he’ll be informed of the designated arena for the finals and whichever island it is set on. That arena, he’ll have to somehow get to in person.” Hearing this, Lilyana stood up from her chair beside Makaroth and wrapped her arms around his avatar’s oversized muscular right shoulder and leaned on it with a smile.

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“My husband is so clever. Kalmoore only has one airship, right?”

“Exactly.” Makaroth turned to her, and the two leaned in and kissed lightly on the lips. Synopse, on the other hand, shook his head in disbelief at what he was hearing being suggested.

“Guess I’ll just go get ready for the preliminaries. But… if I may…” Synopse paused to make sure Makaroth was listening, “Stop trying to prevent him from getting into the tournament. He’s got the same determination you do, so I doubt it’ll work.”

“Maybe he does,” Makaroth shrugged, “But he doesn’t know this game like I do.” He spoke confidently before turning to Calikgos. “Let’s have a chat with the Shattered Pirates. I’ve got a new, high paying request for them that’ll have them forgive us for blaming this fiasco on them, and help them get revenge.”

“This Arena will close in 180 seconds.” The female announcer spoke, her voice carrying through the air around Aegis. Once she had, a timer appeared at the top of Aegis’ peripheral vision, counting down the three minutes, and a notification popped up in front of his face.

[Any items dropped during the brawl can be taken by you. Anything you fail to pick up will be returned to the player who dropped it once the arena closes.]

After reading it, Aegis waved the message away and began panning his eyes around the arena floor. The broken tiles, and shattered earth that’d been sent up from the many attacks dealt during the match obscured his vision somewhat, but for the most part he could clearly see the collection of items that’d been dropped.

Iouen’s bow, the large maul, daggers, leather armor and staves - all of the equipment looked well crafted and enchanted. He had no doubt it’d be quite valuable and worth a lot to sell. On top of that, several of the players had dropped coin pouches, filled with gold. Aegis couldn’t imagine it would’ve been much - they all had plenty of time to stash their valuables before the brawl started.

Finally, though, Aegis’ eyes landed on Finley’s greatsword. Of all the dropped items present, it stood out the most. Despite not being in the hands of any player, it continued to shimmer with a black aura of darkness that gave off fumes of abyssal smoke, dissipating in the air above it.

His stamina slowly recovered above half, allowing his breathing to calm. He straightened his back, and briefly glanced up at his viewership count - 3 million players were watching him as he stood in the middle of the arena doing nothing. He was tempted to walk over and grab the sword, not only to have it but to disarm Finley of it, and as his eyes turned back to it, the conflict in his mind became visible on his face.

Ultimately, though, with 1 minute on the clock remaining, he made up his mind. He crossed his arms and stood staring forward, only hoping that Shinji would catch his determined glare from a good angle (he did). A glare that was intended for no one but Makaroth, who caught it on his livestream viewer briefly within his guild meeting hall before he shut it down to prepare for his own livestream to begin.

The last few seconds that the timer had left were filled with nothing but the silent winds howling above the arena walls in the open sky around Aegis. When the timer hit 0, Aegis’ vision went blank, and he was teleported out of the arena. Within two seconds, he re-appeared in the registration hall with all of his companions.

“FUCK YEAH!” Darkshot was the first to react to his reappearance, rushing forward to give him a hug and shake him up.

“Incredible showing.” Herilon grinned while patting him on the shoulder.

“Not bad.” Sapphire smiled while chewing pieces of a carrot she’d recently bit off.

“You did it!” Lina rushed forward and hugged Aegis as well, pushing Darkshot off. He squeezed Lina tight while looking over her head to see a big proud grin on Rakkan’s face as he nodded back at him approvingly. Pyri, too, was smiling at him with glowing red cheeks, tears swelling up in her eyes.

“My lil boy’s gone and became a big ol PvPer.” She squeaked, causing Aegis to finally break his stoic expression and chuckle.

“Don’t forget why you did all that, though.” Herilon reminded him as he released his grip on Aegis’ shoulder.

“Right.” Aegis nodded back, turning to the old man behind the desk. “We’d like to register for this month's gladiator tournament. Us, a party of five.” Aegis pointed out his companions.

“Very well. The 5 members of your party that you have selected have all earned enough gladiator points to qualify for the preliminary rounds of the monthly Gladiator Tournament. Are you sure you’d wish to register with this party? Once registered, your party cannot be changed.” The old man spoke in a robotic fashion.

“I’m sure.”

“Very well. You have been registered.” He replied, and as he did, Aegis and the others had a notification appear in front of their faces.

You have been registered for the Monthly Gladiator Tournament alongside the following participants: [Lina], [Pyri], [Rakkan], [Darkshot]. The preliminary matches will begin in 2 days, 20 hours. Check in for the preliminary matches will occur one hour prior at any Gladiator Registration NPC. [More Information…]

Aegis waved away the message and turned to the rest to see them doing the same thing, and each of them began exchanging looks with grins on their faces.

“Hell yeah. Finally!” Darkshot pumped his fist into the air, to which Darkwing cooed excitedly from his shoulder.

“How do the preliminaries work, exactly?” Aegis asked curiously, turning to Sapphire and Herilon - though after asking his question he got the sense that Lina and Rakkan also had the answer to this question as they eagerly leaned in to respond. Sapphire beat them to it, however,

“You’ll randomly be matched up against other teams for 5, 5v5 matches in an arena similar to the one you just fought in. Typically, to qualify for the top 16, you’ll need to win 4 out of 5 of those matches. You might need to hit 5 out of 5 though this time around, given how many players want to participate. It’s being hyped up by every broadcasting network at the moment, due to the amount of top streamers participating.”

“I don’t think there are any streamers from the top 50 who aren’t trying to qualify. Except for a few social streamers like Yumily, of course.” Herilon added.

“We could get matched up with anyone, though. From a group of level 30 players who are your biggest fans, to” Lina spoke excitedly but was interrupted.

“Seraxus.” Rakkan jumped in, bearing his teeth and clenching his fists.

“A showdown in the preliminaries.” Darkshot added as the room went silent for a moment.

“That’d make things easy.” Aegis replied sarcastically. “Doubt we’ll get lucky though…” His mind wandered as he looked towards the door leading out of the registration hall. “With almost three days left, and our training feeling all but complete… why don’t we get an upper hand on the competition in another way?”

“What do you have in mind?” Pyri asked him curiously.

“We’re all advanced class players now. No need to sit at level 150. Let’s do some grinding.” Aegis replied with determination.