Chapter 1035: The Thrill Of The Hunt
<span style="font-weight:400">“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.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Of course, sir.” Cici’s voice spoke out from the speakers in Olympus. “At this point, roughly sixty percent of the poption in the primarys have experienced their first simtion. Of these, more than eighty percent have fallen victim to their simtions, while a further five percent are still in the process of clearing them.”
<span style="font-weight:400">I nodded my head slightly, my brow twitching. “So, only fifteen percent of the people who entered the game have cleared a scenario?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“That’s correct. This is due to many people asking for extravagant conditions in their simtion. Only zero-point-five percent of those that have cleared their scenarios did so with such conditions in ce.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Right… does Codex Chaotic have any form of ranking system?” When I asked this, there was a brief pause. People were always stimted by a sense ofpetition, even in a single-yer game.
<span style="font-weight:400">“There is a configurable ranking option, yes. How would you like me to assign the rankings?”
<span style="font-weight:400">I thought about that for a moment, before shrugging my shoulders. “Assign the yers points based on the difficulty of the void beast that they faced, as well as the time toplete the simtion. 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.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Understood, sir. Should I subtract points for those that are remaining in the simtion afterpleting it?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“No.” I shook my head firmly. “If they remain in the simtion, they don’t care about rankings in the first ce. Just let that simtion be their reward. However, make sure to set up reminders if they y for too long at a time and start to damage their health.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I will keep that in mind.” Cici responded briefly. “Do you have any other instructions?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Not right now.” I said, standing up. I was somewhat tempted to y 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.
<span style="font-weight:400">As I walked out of the lounge and towards the elevator, I closed my eyes, focusing on my connection to Prisci. 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.
<span style="font-weight:400">In doing so, she had created hundreds of divine abilities to use in the many divine tomes that I had given her partial ess 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 positive.
<span style="font-weight:400">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 ry 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.
<span style="font-weight:400">While thinking about that, I blinked, calling out again. “Cici? How is Tsubaki doing?” I asked, entering the elevator and heading towards my own pce within Olympus.
<span style="font-weight:400">When I arrived, Cici’s voice followed behind me. “She is still in her initial simtion. Would you like me to show you?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“You can disy what’s going on in an active simtion?” I asked in surprise.
<span style="font-weight:400">“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.”
<span style="font-weight:400">I paused for a moment, before nodding my head. I turned down the hall, heading for my office. “In that case, please disy Tsubaki’s simtion.”
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<span style="font-weight:400">Tsubaki couldn’t be happier with her simtion. Because the world paused any time she logged out, she was able to still do things such as cook and clean around Olympus regrly before logging back in. However, this Trial of Blood was considerably different from those that she had gotten used to.
<span style="font-weight:400">Having felt that she became too ustomed to fighting in the wilderness with her previous trials, she set the current one to a more urban setting. Her simtion was akin to a sort of apocalypse. There was a massive monster attack, and one of the monsters infected a portion of the surviving poption, 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.
<span style="font-weight:400">Next, she removed all forms of magic or ss levels from the simtion, 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.
<span style="font-weight:400">As for figuring out the void beast guing 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 simtion determined that a void beast was unnecessary.
<span style="font-weight:400">Tsubaki held a rifle in one hand as she lurked on the top floor of a dpidated building. She wore a skintight wingsuit and goggles, but notably did not wear a parachute. Parachutes were toorge of a target when deployed, so Tsubaki set up an alternatending method in various target buildings.
<span style="font-weight:400">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.
<span style="font-weight:400">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.
<span style="font-weight:400">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 uracy while it was moving, so she waited until it came to rest, its body wrapped partially around another building.
<span style="font-weight:400">She held her breath, adjusting her aim to one of the monster’srge eyes. After the first shot, it should rush towards her, making the second shot somewhat easier tond 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.
<span style="font-weight:400">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 sessfully pierced the eye, seeing a trail of green blood leaking down from it, and immediately loaded her second shot.
<span style="font-weight:400">The centipede opened its remaining good eye, looking around in a frenzy. When it determined which direction the shot hade 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.
<span style="font-weight:400">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.
<span style="font-weight:400">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 ced throughout the building.
<span style="font-weight:400">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 arge, loosely spread out over a hole in the wall of a building’s third floor. When she was just about to hit the, 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.
<span style="font-weight:400">When she hit the, 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 arge mattress she set on a rolling tform. Tsubaki grunted in pain when she hit the mattress, which rushed to the far wall where she had other padding ced.
<span style="font-weight:400">She could feel that her shoulder had been dislocated from the impact, and grit her teeth as she pushed it back into ce. 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.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">Did I kill it?</i><span style="font-weight:400"> She asked, her message being transmitted to Cici.
<i><span style="font-weight:400">I can confirm, the monster was stunned by the explosive sts, but ultimately died under the weight of the rubble falling on its body.</i>
<span style="font-weight:400">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 sess.
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<span style="font-weight:400">My brow twitched as I watched Tsubaki pulling off a stunt that would be hard toe by even in an action movie. “Really… she always pushes herself too hard.” I said with a shake of my head, before bing curious. “By the way, what is the void monster that she has to identify?”
<span style="font-weight:400">Cici cleared her throat, showing Tsubaki’s face. The tinted sses suddenly became transparent, revealing her bright red eyes. “Every day, the eye colors of every creature are randomized.”
<span style="font-weight:400">That would exin 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.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Due to the perils already present in the simtion, 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 sess impossible.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“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.”