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nAfter teleporting Erik had found himself in an empty closed room, similar to the one they had teleported from. At that time he had been quite unstable but had managed to stay standing, with a slight headache. Akarui though completely failed and had to rely on Erik by clutching onto him.

nThey both just stayed still for a while to recover from the aftereffect of teleporting. Once Erik made sure that Akarui could stand on her own he had tried to check if the doors would budge. Unfortunately, they were locked, as such, he headed up to the top to ask the mage to let them out.

nOn his way up he had tried to make up a reason for why they were here, surprisingly the mage was actually quite used to unknown people appearing inside his tower.

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"Yeah, it's a nice way to make some extra cash.

" He had said without any embarrassment or secrecy,

"That will be one gold coin for each of you to leave, and for me to not report you.

"

nThat was over a week ago now, Erik had been quite frustrated that he had been swindled out of the gold the other mage had saved him from spending. In the end though, he was just glad that he had enough to not be reported. The mage having kept his word up until now.

nAfter that, he had left with Akarui and used his map to figure out what was going on in this town. With its help, he managed to quickly find the adventurer's guild, where a large number of people were astonished seeing a Dryad walking in with a little girl following behind him.

nSeeing their looks of surprise Erik used the excuse he had thought of, but not needed at the tower, explaining that he had been forced to run. And as he ran from the monsters he had happened upon Akarui and taken her with him.

nEveryone completely ate up this story thanks to Akarui's cuteness and his uniqueness. If any of them had used Observe his story would have quickly fallen apart, luckily no one wanted to do something that is considered extremely rude and disrespectful. Especially not after hearing the sob story Erik had fed them.

nFrom there he had quickly gathered the quests for gathering certain herbs or making potions and salves. One of the guild's clerks informing him that they have spare rooms they could stay in, so that they need not pay the hiked-up prices of an inn. Though they still needed to pay.

nFrom then Erik had been working hard to try and make more money, having learned from the guild that to teleport out of the kingdom would cost a minimum of 10 gold. And that was if the kingdom he aimed for was a bordering kingdom. The price could go even as high as 100, and you had to have a connection with either a high-ranking mage or the royals. This type of teleportation was far more guarded and only possible from the capital.

nAfter a week of constantly fulfilling quests and selling excess potions and salves to players through the temples, Erik had managed to make nearly two gold. As such he was not too worried, that was until today.

n

"Wait, what did you just say?

" Erik asked, having been about to hand in another quest. As he was walking he overheard a group of rough-looking NPCs talking about the border finally caving.

n

"What, haven't you heard?

"

n

"No I haven't, are you sure this is true,

" Erik replied, hoping that what he just heard was but a rumor.

n

"Yeah, it is. As much as it does suck that it is...

" The person sighed and took a big swing of his drink.

"Vuetvale has finally been overrun, while the city has yet to fall, many nobles have been teleporting out of the city. Using their life's savings just to save their lives, the mages really weren't kind to them.

"

n

"What about the other cities?

" Erik asked, knowing that there were three cities constantly fighting to keep the monster invasion from moving into the kingdom of Vruntis.

n

"I heard that Lisvale has completely fallen, and Ardton is on barely holding out. Luckily we are far from the border, but this is not good.

"

n

"This sucks, are we going to end up like the other kingdoms?

" One of the other NPCs asked, to which the entire table became quiet. Everyone had heard the rumors of how entire kingdoms had been wiped out. Normally the whipping out followed shortly after their borders being overrun. Hence everyone was extremely worried.

n

"Surely not, we are close to the capital. If just by extension, they should keep us protected to keep themselves from being starved to death.

"

nFrom here the group forgot about Erik and started spiraling down into worry. Erik leaving after realizing they were too worried themselves to really answer his questions.

nShit, we made it out with little time to spare. Worse, there is no way I am going to make enough to teleport me and Akarui out. Even if we do, where should we go? It is not like this world is a safe place.

nErik did not even think of trying to stay and fight for this kingdom. While most of the NPCs were kind and nice, he knew he could do nothing. While he was more than halfway to Tier 3 in magic and alchemy, he knew that was not enough. He might be able to save a few people, but he could not change the war.

nAt this time he started talking with Eldrian more and more about their situation, who at this stage had just finished reaching Tier 2. At this point Eldrian was not able to offer much help, he was engrossed in learning more about this world and improving himself. Due to this, he did not have a profession with which he could make money. Though he certainly still wanted to learn blacksmithing, the time was just not right.

nHe realized this and knew he couldn't offer much help, having only a few silvers to his name. Still, he decided to try and figure out more about teleportation. Eldrian specifically aimed to bring this up when he met Pelaros again, he hoped that he might be able to at least provide Erik the contact needed to get into the noble circle and access to inter-kingdom teleportation. Though he had no idea if Pelaros was significant enough, as just a border city's mayor.

nIt was at this point that Erik realized how hopeless his situation seemed. With little hope he turned to the forums, glancing at the tournament announcement, and more specifically the rewards listed.

nThis tournament was going to be held in quite an accommodating way. While it is all combat-focused, one could decide if they wanted to fight in a team, or alone. There were also categories for using only certain weapons, magic included.

nThe top reward would go to the single combat, open category; and the team combat, open category. This is where the grand prizes which Miracle announced were, the other categories had modest rewards in comparison. But they were much more appealing to Erik.

nInstead of real-life money, along with an in-game item. These only rewarded the in-game items, with fifth to tenth place only gaining five to one gold coin. In comparison, first place in the two big categories would award fifty gold coins. With the current rate of one silver to one dollar, this was actually very impressive.

nLater that day Erik contacted Eldrian, simply stating that they needed to try their best to win at least one category. Especially aiming for first place.

n...

n

"Finally...

" Joren sighed in relief as he got confirmation that the tournament's arenas had finally been finished. It had taken them a great deal of effort to make these with the ability to allow players to use all they had from the game itself.

nThey had truly not realized how hard this part was going to be, it was simple to put a pause to the simulation as an entirety. Doing so meant that they couldn't use anything from it though, and at best they could let the players fight as ordinary people.

nThey had to test and figure out quite a few things to actually manage in making the arena, luckily they had managed. The pressure lying on Joren not from the announcement or anything like that, but from Eldrian constantly asking Gengxin if he could attempt to reach Tier 2 with his other classes now.

nConstantly might be a stretch, but everyone was worried that Eldrian might 'accidentally' do something, and then boom; another soul fiasco. Luckily this struggle had also informed them a great deal about what they had been missing in the design of the cabins. Having thought of them as extended headsets, instead of an entirely different piece of equipment.

nThat was how they had addressed the arena issue at the start too, simply thinking they needed to create virtual arenas through the AI they already had. That did not work since all the conditions were not addressed when doing so.

n

"Let's hope this works as intended,

" Joren said after a moment of just enjoying the match two game testers, who were checking to see if damage reflected correctly and that pain was still limited.

n

"Yeah, are you sure about the rewards though? Adding in-game items isn't that going a bit far?

" Constantin replied.

n

"No, while cash is nice. It doesn't mean that much to quite a number of players. Money in-game is really scarce though, and adding it isn't hard. It is just gold, we can spawn it in. It is actually much easier for us than the first prize of a hundred thousand dollars.

" Joren replied.

n

"I don't get it, won't that break the balance of the simulation?

"

n

"No, most of the reason we haven't done it is since the AI are being so stubborn. We never forced the issue because we didn't want to risk things, I think we should start risking things.

" Joren continued to reply.

n

"Did Micaela sign off on it?

"

n

"She didn't care much, as long as we aren't harming Eldrian she is happy. She has been following along and is actually quite frustrated that we are slowing down his progress.

"

n

"What about the others?

"

n

"I don't know, that's her problem. Not mine. There is a reason I didn't take that job when they offered it to me.

"

n

"Right,

" Constantin smirked as he replied, he understood all too well declining that offer. While it looked good on paper, with them getting to handle more projects and being paid more. It actually meant losing out on being part of everything. He quite likes being part of things, and not just watching from above.

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