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#23 Chapter First Trial: Boar Hunting

“Yes, everyone! It’s time for another delightful black-masked fun with Lunara!”

> Black Mask (hanging onto sponsors because I can’t solve it alone)

> Black Mask (showing my face right up front)

> Black Mask (junior employee)

“Hey! Quiet down! Don’t hit me with facts! A delicate girl shouldn’t be hit even with flowers! This is the first of Lunara’s quotes!”

> Isn’t it embarrassing to create your own quotes?

“It’s said that you can’t be a streamer without a thick skin. Ahem, anyway, let’s get to the point.”

With a smile, the isekai bottom-tier streamer Lunara continued speaking.

“In about ten minutes, the first trial event will occur in the BE I’ve conquered, and you all know that, right? There are two main purposes for this event. Any guesses?”

> One is thinning the herd, right?

“Yes, that’s correct. This one was too easy.”

As Lunara snapped her fingers, a large screen appeared in the air.

Inside the screen was the starting village. To be precise, it was a view of the people there.

[Haah….]

A person slumped by the roadside, sighing vacantly.

[Hey, someone help me. I promise I’ll repay you when I get back to reality. So please.]

A player pleading with others for help.

[Shit, shit, these fucking bastards. Crazy idiots.]

Someone cursing endlessly at who knows who.

Watching these people, Lunara shook her head in exaggerated disbelief.

“Ten days. Yes, ten whole days have passed. I clearly warned you all about this trial. But, but! Look at how many players are still dazed and stuck in the starting village? They haven’t even hunted once! Isn’t that just too much?”

> That does feel a bit cancerous. Why did they even participate in the first place?

> Seriously, in that situation, shouldn’t you at least move to survive? Kids seem a bit slow.

> They don’t even plan on doing anything themselves; they’re just asking for help from others. They’ll probably blame others until they die.

Obvious disdain, insults, and mockery flooded the chat room.

In a situation where a single misstep in fighting monsters could result in death, it didn’t matter that normal play was impossible.

It’s important that many of the players waiting there didn’t originally want to participate in the game either.

They were the audience, and those other players were the actors on stage.

Why should the audience understand the personal issues of the actors?

As Lunara admired the rising view count in proportion to the viewers hurling insults at the “useless lumps,” she thought,

‘The story of the Black-Haired Beast was spot on.’

In fact, right after the game started, Lunara had been considering sending the willing players back to their original world.

It wasn’t because she was trying to be kind; it was clear that leaving unmotivated players would lead to a scenario like this.

The useless lumps didn’t contribute to the game; they just took space and distracted attention.

If such players stayed, the viewers would find it frustrating and annoying, so her original plan was to create extreme situations focused on the highly motivated participants.

However, the biggest sponsor of this large broadcast, the Black-Haired Beast, expressed a contrary opinion.

-Easy to understand incompetents who can be freely cursed at are surprisingly useful. There’s also the catharsis of sweeping them away in one go.

Having fed them enough sweet potatoes, it was now time for the cider.

With a gleeful smile, Lunara continued speaking to the angry viewers.

“I have given the players ample time and opportunity, and they wasted it like trash. Now it’s time to pay the price!”

> Right! Right!

> Are we going for a massacre?

> What exactly are you planning to do?

“It’s simple. The wild boars prepared for this trial are set to attack lower-level players first. And there are a whopping 30,000 of them!”

> Isn’t the maximum number of players per server 10,000?

> It’s not just the cancerous ones dying; it seems like everyone will die.

“Oh, don’t worry about that! Once about 30% are dead, I’ll deploy rescue NPCs separately. The server with reduced numbers will be compressed with another server.”

> True, there are so many people now that it’s a bit chaotic about whom to focus on.

“Yes, that’s a good point! The second goal of this trial is just that. To find the ‘main characters’!”

Through this event, while some players were clumsily eliminated, there would also be some who stood out given their performance.

Finding these players to serve as the main camera for the ongoing game, or in other words, the narrators, was the second goal of this event, Lunara explained.

Viewers cared more about watching one specific player they were interested in struggling and striving than watching a lot of unrecognizable players get eliminated.

“After this event, our channel will have around 1,000 subchannels. Each subchannel will follow 1,000 selected players based on trial contributions, popularity, player level, and you can then check out that player through that channel!”

> Can we use real money to strengthen them or give them items?

“Oh, that’s prohibited for the sake of balance.”

> Did Lunara really care about such things?

> Isn’t Lunara’s identity someone who shouts “call anything as long as it’s fun”?

“Hehe, don’t underestimate me, Lunara. For bigger bucks, I can endure small amounts of money! But remember, you can send a message while sponsoring that player, just like you would with me. I take a commission on that, so keep it in mind.”

> Is our sponsorship useless for them?

“Not in the short term, but I plan to gradually create dedicated items for them. It seems like there’s a cash system in this game. I think it’ll work out somehow.”

> Does it even make sense to spend money on those who will die anyway?

> I think it might be fun as I level them up.

> 1,000 subchannels? Lunara has really grown.

As Lunara happily enjoyed the rapidly updating comments, the trial start time arrived and she clapped her hands together.

“Alright, let’s start the event!”

With 10,000 players in one server and starting villages in a total of twenty servers.

In the grassland ahead, an enormous number of wild boar herds began to appear.

They were nearly the height of a person’s chest, with tusks sharp enough to bend iron plates, gleaming with red madness in their eyes.

Without needing a command, they all rushed towards the starting village at once.

<■■■■■!>

What followed was pure chaos.

Each wild boar was level 20.

Players who are steadily receiving ‘task’ rewards and leveling up at hunting grounds might attempt to hunt them down with relative ease, but the problem was that there were just too many.

While some players charged at the boars to secure contributions, only a handful among the herd were actually blocked.

The wild boars burrowed into the village and began to massacre the lower-level players first.

[Don’t come! Don’t come!!]

Players flailed about to survive but, having avoided combat, they were essentially low level with no player skills, making the boars too strong to face.

They died like being hit by a car when struck by a massive muscle mass, skewered by powerful tusks, or mangled to death in the jaws of omnivorous boars.

City guards and high-level players tried everything to take down the boars, but it was nearly impossible to fully stop them from hunting only the weak players.

> Oh wow, a person is flying in the sky.

> The boars seem really scary.

> But some of the clever ones are fleeing to the roofs of buildings.

> Yep. Those hiding inside buildings often die, but the ones on top seem to last a bit longer.

> Whoa, they’re shoving other players to save themselves.

> Barbarians, that’s how they are.

Real-time comments were updating as the total player count diminished rapidly.

At that moment, Lunara smiled at the smoothly progressing situation.

> But in this server, the boars are actually getting wiped out? They’re being cut down right at the entrance.

“Eh?”

Lunara, startled, checked the relevant server.

And her mouth fell open in disbelief.

“What is this?”

On the screen, hunters were firing their guns.

And it was on the roofs of buildings on the outskirts of the village, all lined up in formation.

Tatatatatatatat!

Though it wasn’t to the level of modern firearms with dozens of bullets fired per second, the hunters’ firing rate was sufficiently fast.

Some had hit rates that weren’t too impressive, but in an environment fitting the description of half-boar, half-grass, a little inaccuracy didn’t matter much. They hit them all anyway.

Wizards, bards, black knights, and other ranged classes also followed suit, bombarding spells down from the rooftops, and the boars began to drop dead.

The wild boars tried desperately to enter the village, but with obstacles zigzagged across potential entry points and warriors guarding in between, their attempts at entry were repeatedly thwarted.

“This… why?”

Lunara couldn’t hide her confusion.

The one-sided ranged attack from roofs? Other servers had done that.

Restricting entry points as obstacles or guarding paths to prevent boars from entering? Other servers had done that too.

However, the reason why only this alpha server was achieving overwhelming success was twofold.

One was that the hunters, who were merely considered average firepower characters on other servers, were now in complete formation here, unleashing an awe-inspiring barrage of fire.

And the other was.

“Why… why are NPC soldiers there?”

Average levels in the mid-30s.

There were human weapons blocking the entrance, capable of easily slaughtering the current players and the boars alike.

That was strange.

Originally, NPC soldiers were proactive about protecting their fellow NPCs but were passive when it came to protecting outsiders (players).

Lunara knew this, which was why she had pushed out the boars so freely, yet oddly, the soldiers on this server were aggressively blocking the boars.

Although the soldiers were high-level, the small numbers were an issue for Archaia; if they were overwhelmed, the “targets the soldiers must protect” inside would also be at risk.

In a hurry, Lunara called the game’s management AI.
“NPC behavior is strange; get rid of them. If this continues, the event won’t go as planned.”

“Reviewing the command… -Negative. No unnatural points have been found in the thought circuits of these NPCs. Interference with NPC behavior for purposes other than bug fixing violates principles.”

“No, I’m the GM, so I set the principles! What kind of frozen principles are these?”

“This is a regulation set by GM Ryu Inseo regarding the foundation of the game.”

“So change it!”

“The authority to alter principles was frozen by GM Ryu Inseo himself, making it impossible.”

“Who in the world limits their authority over their own creation!?!”

No matter how much she stomped and shouted, her words did not reach, and after a long sigh, Lunara issued another command.

“Then change those hunters over there. Their firepower is too strong. You have to balance with the other classes. This should be within the principles, right?”

“Reviewing the command… -Negative. Modifications to data about specific classes require a prior announcement one week in advance. Also, to implement a balance patch, consent from 10 or more sub-GMs is needed, or persuasive efforts concerning this AI are required. Currently, there are no sub-GMs online. Would you like to initiate persuasion on this AI?”

“What is with all these strict rules!? I’m the main GM! Shouldn’t I be able to do whatever I want!?”

Ryu Yerin had set multiple safety devices in place to prepare for any potential rampages from her brother, and Lunara’s takeover of Ryu Inseo’s account through magic was no exception.

At least before starting the game, in what could be considered an administrator mode, Nebula hadn’t interfered much, so she could freely add new classes or implement trial systems, but after the game started, her authority was heavily restricted.

Lunara yelled and even tried using magic to forcefully subjugate Nebula but soon realized that none of it was working.

‘Am I being toyed with by some mechanical device from a world that doesn’t even have magic?’

Lunara felt humiliation and anger; however, there was no other way.

‘The Blue Dodo Beauty seems to be quite interested in this device… I’ll have to pull her in.’