Chapter 8: Chaos

The forum's second topic was the arbitrary arrest of players who'd just started playing the game.

There were hundreds of complaints that, as soon as a player loaded into one of the starting towns, soldier NPCs from the Republic of Tyo's army immediately arrested them for no reason.

The players couldn't understand what was going on. As far as they knew, they were identical to NPCs, so how were they being singled out?! Up until this point, NPCs had treated peaceful players just the same as they did other NPCs.

They were unaware of several simple facts.

The first was that, while humans and the Tyottings who lived on the planet were physically identical, players had a characteristic that only NPCs could see: a small patch of shining energy on their foreheads.

When a player's HP dropped to zero, this small patch of energy spread across their body and consumed them, but it was visible even while they were healthy.

The second fact was that, while the Tyotting civilians had a peculiar culture which made it nearly impossible for them to consider all players as vicious monsters as a result of the actions of the worst players, the nation's military was strictly disciplined to reject this impulse.

Tyo had once been a warlike nation, before the unprecedented peace which they had now enjoyed for centuries. While the civilians' mentality morphed in unnaturally pacificistic directions, their military took care to train their soldiers to deal with any threat that might arise.

Now that the players were causing utter chaos in all the starting towns, the military had been deployed to deal with the strange new threat.

For, of course, from the very moment the game had launched, players had caused indescribable mayhem.

Horus allowed players to perform any action imaginable, no matter how evil. Players were free to steal, harass, attack, murder, and even torture NPCs.

Unfortunately for the Tyottings, word quickly spread among players that killing NPCs was far more profitable in terms of EXP and Galactic Coins than hunting monsters or even questing.

Due to the pacifism of the Tyotting civilians, who couldn't bear the thought of even turning their hunting rifles upon other humans trying to kill them, the players began unchecked massacres all over the nation... until the military showed up.

Unlike other MMORPGs, Horus's NPCs didn't come back to life so that a predefined story could continue. Unlike the players who killed them, dead NPCs stayed dead. This was, in fact, why the players became known as the "Eternals."

Therefore, the advantage was ultimately on the side of the players. If events followed the same path as in Apophis's previous life, the Republic of Tyo would quickly collapse as their military was unable to deal with the constant influx and power growth of human players.

This would eventually lead to military intervention from the Federation of United Planets and prevent players from leaving their "homeworld" of Era.

Therefore, Apophis needed to reach the city of Omeya before martial law was extended to the entire planet.

However, he had a little time to spare. On the way, Apophis stopped to kill a few wild animals. Now that he was LvL 4, the monsters capable of threatening LvL 1 characters were weak enough that he could kill them with his bare hands.

First, he killed some boars, and then some deer.

And, finally, Apophis killed a Tyotting man who was also out hunting.

Immoral? Yes. Apophis took no pleasure in killing the man.

But the EXP was far too good to pass up... and it wasn't as though the man had very long to live, anyway.

Had it not been for the cataclysmic future which awaited the planet, the event which only Apophis knew would soon come, he likely wouldn't have killed the Tyotting hunter, even for the EXP.

As things stood, though, the hunter's death was more merciful than what awaited all his friends and family.

This last kill raised Apophis's EXP bar to 77%. Of course, this casual grinding wouldn't be enough to level up anytime soon. It would probably take a whole day of intensive farming to reach LvL 5.

But before he worried about grinding or questing in the last days of the Republic of Tyo, Apophis needed to buy some supplies before all the stores were closed due to martial law.

Because the rate of communication within the nation was so slow, Apophis knew that he would have some time in Omeya before the military presence was fully integrated and before all civilians were forced to abandon their normal lives.

Upon arriving in the vibrant Omeya, Apophis dropped off the still-unconscious Zetark child at the city's hospital. The medical expenses cost him 2500 GC, which he was happy to pay up, knowing that she would likely be a useful companion in the future.

Then he ran to the city's armorer. Apophis bought a full set of protective armor for 1000 GC, then a motorcycle for 2000 GC.

He considered buying a cheaper motorcycle for less money and buying slightly better armor, but his years of MMORPG experience told him that it was always best to maximize travel speed when there was no fast-travel available.

Moving faster meant completing quests more quickly, and he couldn't afford to sacrifice that advantage, so he bought the best motorcycle available.

Finally, Apophis visited the gun dealer. Firearms were very useful for raw ranged damage in the early game, but these ones were weak enough that they'd become useless after LvL 5.

Unless one had the Sniper or Hunter class, of course, which provided many skills to boost these weapons. After this point, most other classes would be better off with melee weapons which were supported by their Talent Tree Skills.

Apophis was far more interested in the store's incendiary grenades, which would be extremely useful once he unlocked the Esper class. Apophis bought 50 of them at 100 GC each, leaving him with 2023 GC.

He took the opportunity to post an exchange offer of 1000 GC for real-world credits online, hoping to earn his first real-world salary before long.

Then he rented an in-game hotel room and logged out.