Chapter 318

Chapter 318. The Struggle of All Against All. (1)

Lately, the Central Zone has been buzzing with stories about fortress sieges, secret clans being exposed, and all sorts of drama exploding left and right.

In the forums, the Central Zone has gained a reputation as a “spectacular place” where one exciting event after another takes place.

But all that chaos is really just centered around the top-ranked players and their connections, as well as the shady dealings between the major clans.

With over 100,000 users in the Central Zone, the stories involving just 500 or 1,000 people are… well, only really talked about in the forums.

For the rest of the Central Zone “locals,” they either just shrug it off or don’t even care, living day by day in the struggle of all against all.

Or, they quietly go about their lives, treating the forums as something to just glance at.

But, as with any community, the number of users who just lurk far outweighs those who actively post or comment.

So, while these quiet users aren’t mentioned in the forums or chat rooms, their numbers are actually quite significant.

However, due to the PvP nature of the game, where everyone is out to maximize their gains by raiding each other’s bases, it’s common for fleets and bases to get completely wrecked.

And of course, there are users who get so thoroughly crushed that they lose all motivation to continue.

—

“Sniff, today was delicious.”

“All you care about is the food, huh?”

—

There are also plenty of users who just wanted to try the game casually but ended up getting dragged into the chaos, or even those who just opened a mail and got “kidnapped.”

So, how do these users live?

—

-“Hey, we’re taking the Resource Zone today.”

“Oh, go ahead.”

-“Thanks.”

—

Unlike the typical “struggle of all against all” in the Central Zone, these users have formed small, tight-knit communities, almost like “villages.”

You could say they resemble the small clans that are common in the Central Zone.

In fact, when these users band together, they often evolve into small clans, so it’s not entirely wrong to think of them that way.

But what sets these “villages” apart from clans is…

—

-*Boom!*

-“Ugh, they’re at it again.”

“What now, did another ship get blown up?”

-“They ran into each other and started a firefight. One of them got their ship harpooned.”

“Yikes.”

—

There are users who’ve lost everything, their bases and fleets completely destroyed, leaving them with nothing.

Then there are those who avoid combat altogether, just casually upgrading their bases and playing SimCity.

Or those who only focus on resource gathering, to the point where they should be called miners instead of Commanders.

Overall, these users are like “non-aggressive mobs,” living close to each other without any clans.

The problem is, as mentioned earlier…

The users in these villages are either terrible at combat or have no desire to fight at all.

In other zones, medium or large clans would take over and manage such groups, but…

Unfortunately, this is the Central Zone, where clans with more than 10 members are rare, making their situation truly pitiful.

So, what’s it like?

—

-“Ah, we’re screwed.”

-“Why?”

-“Those jerks are back again, damn it.”

“Oh.”

-“We’re here to collect resources. Hand them over quickly.”

-“For real.”

—

Every day, more powerful users from the surrounding areas come to raid the village users, take their resources, and leave.

Of course, the village users don’t just sit back and take it—they tried to resist at first.

But as mentioned earlier, the vast majority of village users have no will or ability to fight.

Meanwhile, the users raiding the villages have survived in the Central Zone, a den of demons, by building elite fleets and leveling them up meticulously.

The village users stand no chance.

The biggest issue is the inability to replenish “fleet power,” which is crucial in this game.

While Superhumans can be recruited through gacha and hidden in bases, ships are too large to hide effectively.

As mentioned before, most village users have already had their fleets wiped out, leaving their morale shattered and their fleet power in complete disarray.

Even the plundering users knew that when ships gathered, it was impossible for a relatively small number of them to overpower the fleet.

Even if the raiders spared the ‘superhumans,’ they targeted resource mining ships and transport-type destroyers.

And except for the ‘minimum’ ships needed to fend off the various NPC mobs that automatically flew at users, all other ships were mercilessly sunk.

Even the ships they already had, and the moment they tried to build new ones…

-“Talking back with a fleet…?”

-“Oh, please.”

-“No way, nope!”

They showed no mercy, sinking even the ships being built in the shipyards, daring to resist.

Of course, naturally, the ships obtained from gacha weren’t sunk but quickly raided and taken by them.

===========

Anyway, living day by day by offering a certain amount of all resources except gold…

There was a time, albeit only two days, when the clustered village users lived without being harassed by raiders.

When was that? It was a truly strange, if not bizarre, event.

It was none other than when Icarus first gathered a grand fleet of over 50,000 ships to seize Avalon Fortress.

At that time, no one knew why the 3rd ranked player was going all out, so the raiders all held back.

The clustered village users enjoyed an unexpected short peace and had a very pleasant time.

Of course, now it’s revealed that Icarus doesn’t operate such a large fleet unless it’s to take over a base…

At the time when our Icarus was suddenly being harassed by another user…

…going back a bit, when Icarus was busy fighting in Barracuda, the raiders were still active.

But for the clustered village users, that experience was vividly etched in their memories.

Although they managed to deal with the raider users by offering resources…

No matter how they thought about it, it was something they couldn’t handle as fellow users.

If they hadn’t experienced peace at all, it might have been different.

But as a result of enjoying two days of true ‘peace’ by chance…

The users in the clustered village finally decided it was time to make a decision and plan the best way to escape from the raiders.

Of course, ‘creating a clan’ was excluded from the start.

—————————————-

<Clustered Village Chat Room>

-[Honestly, clans seem a bit off.]

-[If we make a clan just to live among ourselves, wouldn’t we end up like that Walpurgis or whatever?]

-[I’m from that alliance, and it’s really not worth it.]

-[Hmm]

—————————————-

Although it’s hard to say it’s the same situation, seeing a clan of 500 people being brutally crushed by surrounding users’ attacks…

No one would dare to try the same method.

And while other methods were suggested besides creating a clan…

—————————————-

<Clustered Village Chat Room>

-[Then let’s gather more resources and gold and call other users to drive out the raiders.]

-[The current raiders are the ones who were called and then settled in.]

-[Ah.]

-[LOL]

-[Wow, it’s all the same.]

—————————————-

In a truly hopeless situation, everyone felt nothing but despair.

But just when everyone thought there was no solution, someone suddenly came up with a brilliant idea.

—————————————-

<Clustered Village Chat Room>

-[Wait, thinking about Walpurgis…]

-[?]

-[There’s that user who attacked and failed, right?]

-[Icarus?]

-[Yeah, that guy. Why?]

-[That guy has a base, and he’s holding it alone, right?]

-[Yeah.]

-[What if we petition him to take us in?]

-[Huh?]

—————————————-

It was none other than the suggestion to go to Icarus, the one who had inadvertently shown them what true ‘peace’ was in the past.