"What kind of ghost city of mutant beasts is this? I want to go home!"
"Whoever kidnapped me listen, I have money! I'll pay, just let me go!"
Some people were still shouting in panic.
Others had already rushed forward to grab weapons from the platform.
Yami Tsukishiro moved quietly to the shadow of the nearby city wall.
He pressed his palm against the cold stone and pushed with force.
The wall didn't even tremble, there wasn't so much as a scratch.
"Looks like waiting it out is the only option," Yami thought.
The enclosed area had nothing else worth exploring.
During that time, a few people noticed his lone-wolf behavior, but no one paid him much attention.
He saw several people clutching weapons.
Some looked confident; others… not so much. A few even attacked each other in desperation.
There were far more cold weapons than firearms probably because most didn't know how to use guns.
Time crawled by.
Many still clung to the hope that this was just a dream.
Regardless, everyone stayed put, waiting in tense silence for the countdown to end.
[Thirty minutes are up! Everyone will now be transferred to the City of Mutant Beasts!]
"Hey! Why are you glowing?!"
"Aren't you glowing too?!"
Light poured down from above, wrapping around every person present.
[Welcome to the City of Mutant Beasts! The first wave of mutant beasts is approaching! The rankings are now open!]
The city around them was nothing but ruins and debris.
Yami found himself standing in the middle of a street littered with overturned cars, shattered glass, and piles of bricks.
It was pure devastation.
The thousand people who had been packed together just moments ago were gone—scattered who knows where.
Feeling a tug in his mind, Yami raised his hand.
A translucent blue screen appeared before him.
A map like something out of a game was displayed, showing a single red dot and various icons for resource supply points.
The red dot was clearly his location.
On the side of the map was a ranking board… currently empty.
But it was the icon in the upper right corner that caught his eye.
[Total participants: 10,000 / 10,000]
"Not 1,000 people… but 10,000."
If he remembered right, the earlier weapon platform had shown only 1,000 participants in the area.
Now the number was ten times that.
"In other words, there are a lot more people caught up in this mess," Yami muttered.
A wry smile tugged at his lips.
"How ironic being a dungeon master, yet forced to play in someone else's game… designed by who knows what."
With no other choice, he started down the cracked, rubble-strewn street.
He had just reached the corner of an intersection when
"Ahhh! Help!!!"
The desperate cry echoed sharply.
Glancing over, Yami saw a man in a business suit sprinting for his life, terror plastered across his face. The samurai sword in his grip clattered to the ground as he bolted.
"ROAR!"
A massive tiger-like mutant three to four meters tall, its hide bristling with jagged spikes lunged after him.
It slammed the man to the ground like a predator pinning its prey, strings of saliva and mucus dangling from its gaping maw.
The man screamed again, still trying to call for help
"Bang!"
...but the beast's jaws came down in one sickening bite.
His head and torso were severed instantly, his form bursting apart into glowing motes of light.
It was just like watching a game avatar die and vanish.
Yami narrowed his eyes.
"A human body… that's not actually flesh and blood?"
Seeing that strange, pixelated death made him far more certain, this was a virtual world.
But if this was only a game, why had they been forcibly dragged into it?
What exactly was the point of this 'Runaway Node'?
And the most important question, if you die here… does your real body die too?
A Sword Art Online brain-death scenario wasn't something he intended to test.
"ROAR!!"
The mutant beast's bellow cut off his thoughts.
It barreled toward him, claws digging into the cracked asphalt.
Yami glared coldly, lifting one hand.
"What's your problem, huh?"
"Ghrrr!"
The mutant beast froze in mid-air.
From directly beneath it, a razor-edged shadow blade shot upward, slicing through its body in a single, chilling strike.
The blade withdrew just as quickly, the shadow melting back into its original form.
The spiked tiger's body slammed onto the cracked asphalt then broke apart into drifting motes of light, just like the office worker earlier.
A notification flickered above.
[Ranking List]
[1st place: Yami Tsukishiro — 1 point]
Only his name sat at the top.
"So the rankings go by mutant beast kills," Yami thought.
There wasn't really any other explanation.
Still, his attention on the board lasted barely a second before a much more important notification appeared, this one from the Muliverse Dungeons.
[Ding! You've killed a Level 1 monster. Reward: 10 magic stones!]
"...???"
Yami blinked.
"You get magic stones for kills in the virtual world?"
The surprise quickly gave way to calculation.
Ranking points? Whatever.
Magic stones? Now that was worth farming.
His gaze shifted sharply toward a shadowed alley nearby.
"Come out," he called coldly.
Silence.
A few seconds passed. Nothing.
"Tch."
Clicking his tongue, Yami turned around, ready to walk away.
--------------------------------------
Support me at patreon.com/Arthorain and read upto 50 Advanced Chapters and Exclusive R-18 Content!
--------------------------------------
Update schedule: 7 chapters/week
Every 100 power stones = 1 Extra Chapter
By voting with [power stones], you can easily get double the number of chapters.