Waking up a few hours later Eldrian felt his stomach complaining. Grumbling as soon as he sat up. Finding this strange Eldrian glanced at the time on his phone, finding that it was almost 2 o’clock in the afternoon.

‘Yikes, was I really so tired?’ He asked himself, realizing why he felt so hungry. He hadn’t eaten much before taking his nap, only something small. Not having expected that he would sleep so long.

“But it was sooo nice.” He mumbled as he made his way to his kitchen. He was irritated that he had slept so long, as he had wanted to go hang out with Erik or his sister if he wasn’t free. But now he didn’t really have enough time, unless he decided to log into the game later. Which he didn’t want to do.

‘Let’s send her a message and ask if tomorrow would work, probably lunch.’ Eldrian mumbled as he poured himself a bowl of cereal, not in the mood to make something. He decided to rather go to his sister, hoping that she would offer to make lunch. He always really enjoyed her cooking and he really felt like eating a homemade meal.

After filling his bowl Eldrian quickly wolfed it down, refilling it right after. The second time he ate slowly while enjoying a comedy show on his PC.

Feeling much better he started thinking about what he needed to get done before logging back into the game, while still enjoying the comedy show.

‘First things first, see what other players experienced. The event post did say that every kingdom would have an event and that each one will differ.’ Eldrian mumbled to himself as he sorted out his thoughts.

Pausing the show and going onto the forum Eldrian found that the entire first page was filled with mostly complaining posts. The developers seemed to have already answered their complaints in a single post which was pinned to the top of the general thread.

Eldrian read through it in curiosity, wanting to know how they were going to handle this situation.

This post basically explained that they had warned everyone about the game’s realism and difficulty. Both via devs’ posts and the contract which required one to be over 18 years of age. More even if the person’s country’s laws stated so.

They also added a paragraph that basically just blamed the players for still treating it like a normal game.

‘Why are they so defensive?’ Eldrian asked himself, finding it strange that they immediately went to the contract to make a defense. Even trying to blame the players later on.

Eldrian turned to the comments after having finished the post. Which seemed very much like a denial of guilt to him. Just as he started reading the comments he saw that a new post just made it to the top. Having been pinned by one of the forum moderators.

This post was seemingly a conclusion on what happened. The post name was, [What happened with the first story event?]

This post was made by a group of players who loved data and had been going through all the comments. Noting down the complaints of the players as well as valid points brought up in either defense or criticism.

The post started off by saying that each region or rather a kingdom seemed to have gotten a different quest, just like the developers’ post had promised. Many of them seemed very similar to some others, but after looking over most of the posts the creators of [What happened…] concluded that there was always a difference of some type.

On the smallest level, this difference was that the monsters were of a different type. Or that the pack/horde was a few hundred more or less. But they added that there was also many major differences.

Reading through this thread, Eldrian was left amazed at their ability to analyze such a messy forum so quickly. Seemingly very accurate as well. All the comments were praising the post creators for their objective post, while adding a complaint about the game’s unfairness if they could.

The post went on to make a collection of all the monsters which had appeared. Making the first bestiary which players could use with ease. In this collection, Eldrian found the Wolfbeasts and Direwolves which he had found. There was even a short description added, which was just the description players had given them in their own posts.

Eldrian found the description very lacking as the only point he agreed on was that they were agile. But he knew that this was normal, seeing as it was the first time players had faced the monsters. It would most likely become better with time.

The creators of the post also stated that they were going to start a thread to catalog all the monsters. Asking players to add any they discovered onto this thread.

‘That’s it. I should start a thread with which to gather players to help the NPCs in a better capacity.’

Reading on another major point this post described was that due to the different enemies the quest ranks seemed to differ. Some kingdoms’ players received bounty quests which were generally ranked E to C, while most of those facing an army/pack were rank B or A. A few kingdoms even received an S-ranked quest.

Surprisingly the creators of [What happened…] even made links available to the posts of special cases like these. Allowing readers to easily verify the information by going to the original post.

The last major point was on how people completed the quest. Which Eldrian felt was actually quite fair and forgiving. From the post creators’ conclusion if a player was actively part in the quest’s success then they would receive the standard reward. Or at the least their quests didn’t turn into a failed quest, implying they could complete it to get the rewards.

Reading this Eldrian quickly connected it with how it would affect most players. From their speculations, it seemed that as long as a player did damage to a beast, then they would succeed in the quest. Even if they were to die right after.

‘This particular part should help calm many players’ Eldrian thought to himself.

While they did die, maybe even as bait, they can still get the basic rewards of the quest. Eldrian felt that 10 000XP and 10 silver wasn’t bad for someone used as bait. He hoped players would calm down from getting these rewards, and not try to get revenge on the NPCs.

Eldrian followed the links in the post next, curious about how those kingdoms with completely different scenarios were doing.

The first he went to was an S-ranked quest link. This post was created by one of the players of a kingdom called Inglas and was called [Inglas Starts Falling].

They had failed their S-ranked quest. Reading this post Eldrian felt every kingdom facing an S-ranked would have failed.

Unlike Phallos which had faced a monster horde just shy of 8000 beasts, Inglas had to face a horde of over 50 thousand beasts and even an organized goblin army.

Eldrian was surprised as he read the part about goblins, never having thought they would appear with the word organized. But a short video the player supplied made it clear that they were indeed organized.

This video was just a few seconds clip of the player’s fight. He was desperately trying to not get killed in the clip and on the upper edge of his view was the army. There was a circle draws at their position to help people see the goblins, as the entire rest of the player’s view was blocked by beasts. These beasts seemed to be a variation of hyenas. Just like Phallos had monsters of the wolf variation.

Most of the goblins were in scrappy leather armor, but they were standing in a formation. With some beast riding goblins in the center, spear-wielding goblins in the front, and short bow archers goblins behind those spear goblins.

Seeing all this Eldrian could feel his throat drying out. Wondering just how on earth were they supposed to win. He felt that the quest was simply impossible, making him question the quest ranks.

‘If the difference between A and S is a factor of ten, then what are epic or legendary quests going to be?’ He asked himself, comparing the numbers to what happened in Phallos. Realizing that it wasn’t really ten but adding onto the fact that the enemy was organized, he felt it was reasonable.

Sure he felt that the goblins shown in the video looked weak. But he had already learned that looks could be deceiving, and they certainly looked like a real army. Certainly a poor army, but still an army.

After thinking of all this he continued to read the post. Their kingdom, unlike Phallos, had sent an entire army division from their border city. Instead of treating it as a training exercise.

From what the post creator of [Inglas Starts Falling] heard and assumed, it seemed that this army was made out of almost 30 thousand NPCs. With the player party size having only been 1700.

Reading this Eldrian felt that players would have no influence in the battle even if they were all as good as a normal soldier. He felt there were simply too few players to make a difference. But he also felt that the NPCs should have won.

Reading on he quickly realized why they hadn’t. The army had seemingly seen that goblins were leading this horde of monsters and believed that they would be stupid. So they had simply discarded their own tactics and faced the horde in a frontal battle. Which the goblins used to surround them with their beasts, mainly aiming for the mages and healers as the battle started.

Eldrian could only speculate that this is what happened from the video he was looking at. This video was the entire video of the fight, from the start until the player died. After which no more information was available, seeing as the post’s creator was dead at that point.

While watching the video Eldrian started thinking that he should really start recording all of his gameplay. It would make it far easier to share his experiences and information, which he was planning on doing. Wanting to help players grow stronger so they could actually do something in the game. Not just being a spectator.

Watching the 12-minute video Eldrian felt like killing the Inglas army commander. It was clear this guy had a superiority complex as he led his troops in a frontal charge, even taking to the front without choosing a second in command.

The players didn’t really want to follow which was clear by their slow movement, but someone screamed in the video. They knew they would die if they were alone, so they followed hoping for the best.

Watching the entire video Eldrian felt goosebumps over his body. He had counted more than five Alphas just from this one player’s perspective. And one of them didn’t just have color in his fur, but the color seemed alive. Moving over its body as it moved, but the clip of it was too short for him to inspect it more.

At the end of this post was the player just describing their current situation. Where they were stuck inside the city they respawned in. If they tried to go out then they would quickly become monster food.

The city was now in siege mode and more monsters were gathering in this kingdom. This was proven with one of the players have gone up the wall, from where he had taken pictures of over six black masses. Each seemingly being an army.

‘Fucking hell!’ Was Eldrian’s only thought as he finished reading this. Realizing that this might be what every kingdom will face soon. Making him realize that they really didn’t have all that much time to prepare.

Going back to the information post Eldrian followed a link to one of the kingdoms which had gotten a bounty quest.