rpbooks Chapter 27 : Cleanup
Chapter 27 : Cleanup
CleanupWest of the Main City, Desolate Village.
Like many other players scattered across major servers around the world, Cecilia had received a full-server announcement that the servers would be merged in a week.
Both regions were in Asia. Unless something unexpected happened, it was almost certain that the Japanese server and the national server would merge.
Although merging servers just a week after the game launched seemed confusing, Cecilia thought about it carefully and decided it actually wasn't much of an issue.
Japan's population base was small, especially compared to the domestic market—the scale of the gaming market simply wasn't in the same league. Moreover, the residents in Japan were under constant work pressure, so very few could stay at home and play games every day. Compared to online games, they preferred single-player games that could be saved at any time.
There was also the issue of Legend of Kaloran itself: the game was too expensive, the early game was too difficult, the mechanics too hardcore, and the cost of in-game purchases was too high. All these factors had caused a huge player exodus.
From launch until now, just the daily active users on the national server had dropped by more than 10 million, not to mention the other countries. As the number of players dwindled, the cost of operating servers only grew higher, so it was no wonder the developers would choose to merge servers to save on expenses.
However, these things didn't really concern her, so she didn't bother to pay much attention.
Merging servers meant merging maps. At that time, players from both countries would be fighting over the same resources on a single server.
Would anyone be able to take resources from me?
There wasn't the slightest ripple in Cecilia's heart. In fact, she was even considering grabbing a few world-class bosses from the Japanese server.
After all, she was desperately short on experience points right now.
The past few days, she had been addicted to grinding for materials in the arena. While she had successfully obtained five sets of High-grade Mithril, her experience bar hadn't budged and was still stuck firmly at level 15—a bad sign.
Casting aside the matters that would only happen a week later, Cecilia opened her friends list.
Dawn's Light and Yuewu were still shown in Desolate Village, not in the Main City, which meant they were both still alive and hadn't been killed by the Wall-eating Rats. Factoring in the time, with the help of the Darkwing Demon Bat, they should have almost finished clearing the monsters there.
After a brief hesitation, Cecilia decided not to wait any longer and headed back into Desolate Village.
By the time Cecilia arrived nearby, the battle between people and rats deep within the village was nearing its end. Dawn's Light, although badly injured, was fighting more fiercely thanks to some passive skill. Yuewu had already drained her mana bar and was cursing as she used her short magic staff to whack a Wall-eating Rat on the head.
-27!
-18!
-24!
Although the Mage's base attack was low, due to her level advantage, the damage she dealt was considerable.
Of everyone there, only the Darkwing Demon Bat remained ferocious, plunging straight into the densest swarms of monsters. Each beat of its massive wings sent a large number of rats flying, dealing enormous damage at the same time.
At that rate, its experience bar was also climbing rapidly. Not long ago, it had just reached level 10, and now it seemed on the verge of breaking through to level 11.
Watching this scene, Cecilia stroked her chin thoughtfully.
If I leave the Darkwing Demon Bat here to hunt freely in this zone, that doesn't seem like a bad idea.
There weren't many Wall-eating Rats left anyway. About seven or eight minutes later, as the last monster fell, the Darkwing Demon Bat finally folded its wings and stopped.
With its ultrasensitive echolocation, the Darkwing Demon Bat could ignore visual blind spots and detect every living thing within several kilometers. Since it had stopped moving, that meant there were no more living rats in the area.
Seeing this, Cecilia, who had been standing far away, finally relaxed. She stepped lightly over the rooftops and hurried over.
After a grueling fight, Yuewu's stamina was already completely spent. She had barely sat down on the roof to rest for a few seconds before Cecilia strolled over looking calm. Immediately, Yuewu feigned annoyance and said, "Oh, really, sister Ce! I trusted you so much, and you actually used us as your rat-cleaning tools!"
Cecilia felt a bit embarrassed at Yuewu's complaint.
She wanted to argue, but the truth was, that was exactly what she'd done. It really hadn't been fair of her—not even warning them beforehand.
However, she could tell Yuewu was just joking. As for apologizing—that was impossible.
Expressionless, Cecilia ignored the comments, glanced at the mountain of monster corpses piled in the street, and subtly shifted the topic: "I seem to have underestimated how hard this boss fight is going to be."
"What do you mean?"
Dawn's Light came over, standing on the street below and looking up at Cecilia.
"As you can see, because of the system's difficulty-balancing mechanism, there are more monsters here now. The first time I came, there were just over two hundred; after teaming up with you, it rose to seven or eight hundred. I'm thinking, because of this, the boss fight might also be a lot harder."
After thinking it over, Cecilia slowly explained.
"You mean...this E-Class world boss might be way above level 15?"
Dawn's Light immediately understood what Cecilia was getting at. He paused, then asked, "So, what should we do now?"
"It's fine, I'm confident—don't worry."
Cecilia shook her head, sounding indifferent.
As long as the boss wasn't another rat, she didn't care if it was level 15, 20, or even 25. It would make little difference to her.
When Dawn's Light heard this, he quickly remembered that the person standing before him was none other than the top player dubbed "Humanoid Boss Raider."
Before most players had even finished making their characters, she had already solo-killed a level 10 world-class boss. Even though the second boss kill had relied more on luck, there was no denying how formidable her strength was.
Because there were just so many Wall-eating Rat corpses this time, even with all hands on deck—and with Dawn's Light helping—the young man still had to make several trips, taking nearly half an hour to collect all the loot.
Dawn's Light was a bit speechless. As the captain of a top team, he was always able to delegate these tedious tasks to others. When had he ever done such grunt work himself?
But looking up at the two girls sitting side-by-side on the roof, all resentment melted away.
If you're going to be a dog, you'd better make sure your owner is worth it.
Not just anyone could be Cecilia's dog.