章 129: March
*Boom* *Boom* *Boom*
A small convoy of 100 was moving across a rugged plain, the sound of their march drawing in the surrounding infect.
From their left a small group consisting of 30 infected came rushing out to attack them. In the middle of the convoy a man looked at the approaching enemy and gave quick orders.
"Centurions to the front! We don't want any infected on this trip. Archers, Mages and Druids attack from the back! All other classes provide support!"
With his order the convoy stopped in place and quickly got into a steady defensive position. There were 20 centurions that walked to the front, as it was the most popular tank class. The set their shields up and prepared their weapons.
In the next few minutes the infected would be annihilated and drops secured.
The same man that had given the order gave a small sigh when the convoy started walking again.
*Sigh*
"Not enough Exp. It's spread too thin with our forces. It will take forever at this pace to reach level 15."
To his side a man in mage robes patted him on the shoulder and spoke.
"It may be hard to level in this game. But it should pick up when things get back to normal. We just have to finish our mission here."
The commander shook his head.
"Robert. It's been 3 weeks and our main forces are just barely getting past level 13. All the good leveling spots have been taken by the top guilds and ours have been forced out. At this rate, we will once again fall behind"
The mage laughed out loud and slapped his good friend on the back.
"What?! Losing your drive? That's not the man I've known for 6 years."
The man rubbed his back and lamented in his mind. 'I'm the warrior here and he's the mage. Why the hell am I feeling pain??' As he rubbed his back the mage's expression turned serious.
"But that's why we are here right? If we can get that item, we will be ahead of even the top 3 guilds and can carve out a place for us."
Roberts' face turned serious as well.
"Yes, the information we received sounds good. Hopefully it won't leak and this will be an easy expedition."
They both nodded to each other before clasping hands. They looked at each other's eyes and saw the resolution to become the best guild in the world. They had been perpetually locked out for the last 4 years. When the created the guild 'Danger' they had shot up through the ranking relatively fast. It was started up by these 2 friends here.
They took America by storm when they began and over the first 3 years made it easily into the top 20. But they had become stuck at rank 11. They couldn't for the life of them break into the top 10 guilds. It was a sore spot between the 2, because if they could make it to that level, even if only for a season, they would get many brand deals and sponsorships 10 times higher than what they could get now.
Not that they didn't earn enough money being in the 11th spot, they wanted the prestige that came with the top 10.
So it wasn't a hard decision between the 2 when they heard about the first ever VRMMORPG game coming out. It was the game the world had been waiting for, for decades. This was their chance to distinguish themselves and reach number 1.
But 3 weeks in and they had been having troubles. They had started out in the Australian continent as it was a big land mass, with relatively less sporting clubs and large guilds compared to Europe, Asia or America. They thought it would be prime land to build their guild.
The problem was they weren't the only ones to think like this. Out of the top 20 guilds in America, 10 had also come to the continent. Most were places between the 10th and 20th spot, but the 3rd ranked guild, 6th, 8th and 9th guild had also all appeared here.
The number 1 and 2 guilds of America stayed to duke it out, but the appearance of the 3rd ranked guild was a huge blow. With the overcrowding of so many American and Australian top guilds, the continent that they thought would be easy pickings to start in, had become one of the toughest in the world.
This had led to major trouble getting leveling grounds for their guild and had eventually led to now. The developing company 'Sim Tech' had released no information about the monsters that would be in game and a new piece of information was spreading around.
It had been found that monsters weren't respawning. The infected that roamed the land and had been the main source of exp, were slowly starting to become less and less. They were best for players to kill as their infection, which is their most prevalent ability might kill them, but they could always revive latter.
The only cases of monsters respawning and coming back were in the dungeons that were hidden all around the place. They were hotly contested over by the best guilds and would lead to major casualties to acquire.
This lead many to believe that exp would be finite, in a sense, at the start. Many weren't sure what the end game content would turn out like, but the consensus was in the next few weeks the amount of exp that could be gathered would slow down.
And possibly die out in the future if one did not control a dungeon. This just increased the relevance and need to acquire them, leading to many guild fighting to obtain them. Of course some of the NPC empires also took control of dungeons for their own use, making the numbers even lower.
Robert lowered his hand and looked back to the long range group. Comprised of archers, mages, druids and any other class that were long ranged, they were situated at the back of the group to protect them. Sometimes infected would appear from behind the group, but they would be quickly annihilated.
The sound produced by the convoy would always attract a large number of them, and sometimes other beast from the surroundings forest and terrain. The beasts were usually smarter though and didn't attack big groups such as theirs.
In the middle of the group were 5 small figures, each carrying large backpacks that dwarfed their bodies. Their clothes were in general rags compared to the robes and armour of the surrounding players. They didn't look too dirty, but you could tell they were mistreated before, some having bruises, cuts and scars on their faces and body.
The youngest of the bag carriers, looked to be 6-7 years old, while the oldest would only be 13.
"Is this the right thing to do?"
The mage that was standing next to him traced where his eyes were looking and he too put on a sorrowful expression.
"We couldn't afford any carts or horses. This was the only way."
*Sigh*
"I know we didn't have enough EP on us to get the carts, but we could have gotten the adult slaves to carry the potions and miscellaneous items."
"You know just as well as I, we would only get 2 native adults with how much we had. We needed to get the kids. They were cheaper."
The mages voice was one of disgust as he spoke about their transaction. He didn't like the idea either, of using kids as slaves. If they weren't in such a rush and in need of so many supplies on their journey, they wouldn't have taken them.
The least they could do, now that they had to use them, was treat them right. Once they bought them, from the slave trader in the town they just passed, they feed them food and had them take showers. They were a lot worse before they joined the convoy.
Most empires and town around the world had different policies when it came to outsiders. Most players were treated nicely or amicable. They would be given tasks and the people in town knew they were different than them.
They had all appeared on the magic transportation circles one day, so it was no wonder they were treated differently. Some place treated them fine, while others out right tried to kill them. It was a shock the first day, when thousands of players were killed once they appeared. Of course once they resurrected they were in a different place.
This had led to a huge outcry from players, which were justly mad at having to start the game late. They would miss out on the first day of the game and be behind everyone else.
But 'Sim Tech' didn't seem to care and didn't respond to all the hate. They knew the game wouldn't be abandoned by players even if they did hate them. They could just rake in all the money they would be making and couldn't care less about them.
The world of AGAE was ruthless in such a manner and more instances of this could be seen as people continued to play. One of the biggest protests towards the game was slavery. Even though they were all NPC's that were slaves, people still thought it wasn't right.
Most empires around the world had turned the "Natives" Into salves. In game lore, they were the people that lived here before the apocalypse started. Most of the survivors from before, dubbed "Natives", were kids. It was just a plain and simple fact.
Most empires didn't care about this fact and any native they could find would turn up a slave. These slaves would then either be bought by players as support, or leased out by firms. Usually they were used to carry potions and other such goods.
By using a multitude of different slave crest magic's they could even be used as cannon fodder in wars. Understandably many were outraged that such a thing was put in the game. But once again 'Sim Tech' said nothing and left it as is.
It was rare these days to find natives that weren't being treated in such a way, as most when found would be forced into slavery. Some players tried to help them and raise them into their own fighting forces, while others tried to capture them for bounties that some of the empires put out.
In the end it was a part of the game.
The mage confirmed his thoughts and looked away from the 5 kids holding their supplies. They needed something to carry the supplies, and this was the best they could do right now. In the future, they would get horse drawn carriages or item storage rings.
Both of them turned their focus back to the front of the convoy as they tried to justify the use of slaves in their head. It was better not to think about it in the end.
In the next hour they crested a hill and their target came into view. A destroyed city with a town in the middle, on the other side of the town a small mountain filled with trees was displayed. The town was destroyed with some of the walls crumbling. No infected or any other creature could be seen in the vicinity. It was truly the definition of a ghost town.
They didn't know what destroyed the town, or what was keeping other infected and beasts from populating the area, but they didn't care. What they came for should be in the center of the destroyed town. All they had to do was get in and out.
"Full March ahead!"
クリエイターの想い 
Zevren
Zevren Hey guys here's the chapter. Hope you enjoy.
It's a bit of info dump, I'm not the best at world building. But I wanted to get some facts out their. Back to Liam next chapter.
Did they just rock up to the town that I think they did?
Please leave a comment about mistakes, or suggestions you may have.
9 Chapters this week, still didn't get top 100 :(
I'll keep trying
Patreon Link - https://www.patreon.com/user?u=15033387
Patreon shout out - Yuriy Shuvalov
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