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# Chapter 24: The Promising Candidate

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Kuuuuung!

A wild boar, riddled with bullets from all directions, collapsed sideways, bleeding from every part of its body.

And simultaneously, a system message floated in the air.

【You have successfully defeated all wild boars.】

As the event signaling the end took place, cheers erupted from the players.

“It’s over!! Finally over!!”

“I thought we were screwed when they swarmed us like ants.”

“But wasn’t it easier than expected? With the soldiers blocking the way, there wasn’t much to worry about.”

“I was messed up because of those soldiers. Ugh, I need to raise my contribution, but they keep stealing all the kills. I nearly lost it wanting to smack them on the back of the head.”

“Didn’t you get help from a soldier earlier? What an ungrateful brat.”

“Seriously, why argue about that with NPCs? They’re not even real people.”

Some players were disgruntled about not being as impactful as they’d hoped. Yet, most seemed relieved in this current situation.

Especially the players trembling deep in the village felt this way.

The NPCs were no different. While the boar’s strength was manageable for the soldiers of Arkeia, the sheer number was overwhelming.

“As you mentioned, we’ve successfully defended this place without any significant damage in preparation for the disaster. Thank you on behalf of Arkeia.”

“No, thank you. I didn’t expect you to send all your escort troops away to the outskirts.”

“That way, there’ll be less damage overall. Besides, thanks to the funds you provided last time, we were able to upgrade our equipment and avoid much of the danger.”

If she weren’t in the noble position, Aurelia jokingly stated she’d have wanted to fight on the frontlines herself.

She appeared to have a haughty demeanor but surprisingly had a combative spirit.

After politely exchanging farewells with her, I fell into deep thought.

Why weren’t any people dying?

“…Hey, little brother. I’ve been thinking this for a while, but don’t you have a bit of a sociopathic vibe to you?”

Shut up. Of all people, I didn’t want to hear that from you!

There is a cliché in the death game genre.

And most of those clichés revolve around the deaths of characters.

For instance, you have an Extra A who foolishly gets themselves killed, or Extra B who tries to use the protagonist but ends up dying instead, or a group of extras who die to show the absurdity of the situation without any real meaning.

And from this perspective, the fact that no one died in the first trial is clearly abnormal.

“What you’re talking about is a cliché from fiction, right? Doesn’t really apply to our situation now, does it?”

How can it not relate? The reason those guys are messing up our game is that they’re trying to make content using us.

If in a zombie thriller, a plot twist happens where “the zombie tried to infect its first victim, but it just so happened that the target was a retired killer, who then overpowers the zombie,” would the audience buy that?

“…I don’t know, but I kind of want to see that?”

…Now that I think about it, I’d like to see it too. Maybe my example was poor.

In any case, from the perspective of an ordinary content creator, this first trial shouldn’t have ended this blandly.

After defeating all the wild boars, a Wild Boar King could jump out and cause chaos, or the defeated boars could revive as zombie boars and attack, or the NPCs who were clearly standing still suddenly stop moving as if time froze – any of these would have been a normal way for the players to face a crisis.

“Which world are you calling normal?”

I cheerfully ignored my older brother’s murmurs and sank deeper into thought.

What should have happened didn’t.

Victims who should have existed weren’t there.

Sure, I had prepared sufficiently for this trial, but that was to minimize damage, not to expect a flawless victory like this.

What this means is simple.

Those guys can’t properly control Nebula right now.

That’s good news for me, but it also carries bad news.

“Isn’t it just good news?”

Let’s take the neighborhood thugs as a standard.

If collections are going well, they pay off higher-ups and keep some for themselves, so they won’t cause too much trouble.

They might even let some trash slide if it looks like it can be ignored.

But what if the collections aren’t going well? What if they can’t pay off the higher-ups?

They’ll inevitably have to take risky moves.

Or they’ll start looking for the reasons behind their poor collections to eliminate them.

“That’s all just speculation.”

It is speculation. Annoyingly so.

Is there any way to check the state of other servers?

“It is possible, but it’ll take some time. It might leave traces. Do you want me to try anyway?”

No, if it leaves traces, I should stop.

Predicting the GM’s actions may be helpful or merely harmful, but hiding my identity and striking back through Nebula is the main plan for victory.

After a while of walking and conversing in my head with my older brother,

I noticed Nadia, her face all lit up, chatting with a group of hunters.

She seemed to have noticed me shortly after, as she waved goodbye to others and ran over.

“Did the story end well?”

“Yes, it wrapped up smoothly.”

“Even so, that’s impressive. To have ties with such a high NPC like the lord of Arkeia.”

She whispered with a voice so small as if afraid of being overheard, her rabbit ears perked up as she glanced around. Perhaps every action she took was exaggerated because she was used to acting while being conscious of others. She probably wasn’t a streamer or a virtual YouTuber but likely someone in the entertainment industry.

“Didn’t I do something unwise by hinting at a connection between you and Aurelia?”

Ultimately, it’s impossible to keep it completely hidden.

As I’m here talking to my older brother, it’s impossible to maintain complete concealment when I have to go to the lord’s mansion and make various requests.

For now, the soldiers are pretending not to know me under Aurelia’s orders, but if you look closely, they treat me differently than other players.

As for the players passing by, whatever, but it’s better to share some information with Nadia since we’ll be playing together in the future.

If they think I have secrets, they’ll misinterpret any unease they experience along the way.

That said, I’m also not releasing every piece of information.

I’ve told her that I have a wealth of knowledge about the game, my current level, and my relationship with Aurelia, but I haven’t revealed that I’m the Sub-GM, Erin.

“If you wanted to hide that, you shouldn’t have made your ID like that in the first place.”

I’ll reveal it eventually. Just not now.

“It seems you’re really receiving a lot of help from Erin.”

“No, with your skills, you would have excelled even without me.”

That was half the truth.

It was true that Nadia’s marksmanship was top-notch, even if her understanding of the game mechanics was lacking.

She excelled at the assault type of play, where she ran around shooting while set up to snipe from afar was less her strength.

While pure FPSs may differ, this type is much more useful in fantasy games.

The fact that she had been struggling on the village ground was due to some early misfortunes, and she would have eventually risen had she found the right opportunity to push through. This time, I was just filling that role.

“Haha, I’m glad you say that, even if just a compliment.”

However, Nadia didn’t seem particularly impressed by my words. Was she just taking it as mere formalities?

Just then, that damned screen appeared in the sky again.

《Hello everyone! It’s your lovely GM Lunara! So glad to see you all!》

“…The audacity to call herself lovely. To the players, no less.”

With an expression that conveyed disbelief, Nadia shook her head.

No matter how many rewards she offered or how she coaxed players to participate voluntarily, it wouldn’t be normal for the operator of a death game to paint a rosy picture of themselves.

Unless…

“She might not be talking to us at all.”

“Pardon? Then who is she talking to?”

“Who knows. It’s just a speculation for now.”

Nadia tilted her head at my words.

《The first trial, ‘Wild Boar Hunting’! To introduce what a trial is, I prepared a relatively simple one. How was it? Wasn’t it too easy? But don’t worry! Next, more creative and delightful trials will be waiting for you!》

《For now, let me introduce the top 100 players who showed exceptional performance in this trial!》

1st: Karshu (Warrior/Beta Server)
2nd: Americano (Mage/Delta Server)
3rd: StartedAsKing (Mage/Lambda Server)
4th: SuperEmperor (Warrior/Sigma Server)
5th: Sibilla (Bard/Mu Server)
6th: 3D (Mage/Kappa Server)
7th: Labyrinth2010 (Mage/Tau Server)
8th: MoonlightPriest (Priest/Ksi Server)
9th: Mudamudamuda (Mage/New Server)
10th: &–& (Mage/Eta Server)

……
…

The older brother, who had been scanning the above list, muttered.

“Though I can assume they all scored high individually on their servers, too many mages? Half of the top 100 are mages. If you count bards and priests as magical professions, that’s a full 70%.”

Well, it was a trial favorable for mages.

With their high firepower and area attacks, wild boars charging in a herd would have been prime hunting opportunities for them.

I’m actually more concerned about the Warrior named Karshu claiming the 1st place. How did he manage the hunting?

“Wow, there are people with such IDs. ‘StartedAsKing’ and ‘MoonlightPriest’ are weird, but what do you even call that emoticon-est ID?”

Nadia seemed focused on different aspects than I was.

In a typical game, such IDs wouldn’t be strange at all, but calling out “StartedAsKing!” out loud would definitely be amusing.

However, this lady didn’t seem like the type to worry about that right now.

75th: Nadia (Hunter/Alpha Server)

“Hey, you’re in the rankings too? Quite high, actually.”

“Wait? Huh? Whaaat?!”

Nadia’s expression shifted to one of considerable shock.

She probably hadn’t expected to rank.

But it wasn’t all that strange.

With me practically giving all my XP to Nadia, her level was already high, plus her player control was good, and the class itself had high damage output due to division of labor.

This trial required them to take out multiple monsters at once, so if it had been a raid against a single monster, she could very well have ranked higher.

“Funny that you didn’t even use your sword properly but just relied on magic.”

From my perspective, where I had no intention of seeking rewards or ranking, there was no reason to put in that much effort.

I couldn’t fight lazily when people were dying around, but I hadn’t planned to go all out beforehand. The trend in this genre has always been to save powers for when they really count.

“That sounds more like an artifact than a trend from today’s perspective.”

Is that so?

《Gold medal items will be given to players who made it into the ranking, and silver and bronze medal items will be given to the remaining players according to their contributions. Medals will be converted into points at the end of the final trial, so don’t lose them and keep them safe!》

……What the hell?