Hope And Despair

Sage: "What is it?"

Sage got a feeling Bun Bun know something.

Bun Bun: "Have you seen MrL's post on the forum? uwu~"

Sage: "Yeah. What about it? Is there something special you noticed?"

Bun Bun: "Did you noticed that the picture MrL posted on the forum is quite odd? Especially the picture on mission objective. uwu~"

Everyone immediately opened the game site forum to check on MrL's post.

TwentyCharactersLong: "Odd? But I don't see anything special…"

Abigail: "Same here."

yynes0w0: "Baby gave up trying."

Kade: "… Seriously, what is odd about the picture? Cause I can't see anything out of it."

Chicken Puzzle Piece: "Argh! Is it find the difference? There is a slight difference between the objective and reward picture, right?"

Chicken Puzzle Piece scratched her head showing that she is very frustrated right now. She hated those games that have to find a couple differences between two pictures, just because she is bad at it.

Sage pulled a long face and had his eyebrows frowned. When he is in serious concentration, he looks like that.

Bun Bun: "It is not really a difference. If you say difference, the whole picture is different than the other. What I am trying to say is, that picture is photoshopped. uwu~"

Everyone: "!!!"

Bun Bun: "To be exact, after the 'spawn area', it was cut. I suppose there should be an 'and' after that. I wouldn't noticed it if the text was not glitched. But since the text was glitched, this edit was not so perfect anymore. uwu~"

A Grade Material: "So we just have to find out what their other objective is."

TwentyCharactersLong: "What is the point? It is their mission, not ours."

Sage: "No, think about it this way. The pictures only showed the 'kill players that come out of spawn' objective and the 'experience per player killed' reward. If Bun Bun is right, then there should be another objective that those players should do. And that has a high chance being the 'if failing to do this objective, you fail the mission' objective."

Bun Bun: "Ta-da! Bingo! uwu~"

A Grade Material: "That's why I just said we have to find out what their other objective is."

Abigail: "The problem is how."

Everyone fell into silence again.

Kade: "We can guess. Then use the process of elimination to get the most possible answer."

Sage: "Good idea."

Sage nodded on Kade's suggestion.

Abigail: "It is either 'kill something', 'protect something', 'make something' or 'achieve something'. Literally all kinds of missions in game are like this."

Kade: "First, it's 'kill something'. If they wanted to kill something, they won't be able to send that amount of people after us. If it is the other way around, it will be too easy to not kill something, so out."

A Grade Material: "'Achieve something' is out as well. Achieve what? Level up and fail the mission?"

Sage: "It can't be 'make something' as well. It simply doesn't make sense. It will be too easy too if you are not allowed to do make items."

TwentyCharactersLong: "So the final answer is 'protect something'. It should be 'they have to protect something, but if that something dies, they fail the mission'."

Sage: "That would seem like the most possible answer. Another guess I wanted to say is that their objective might also contain that we, the players inside are not allowed to kill that 'something' outside. So, they have to protect that 'something'."

Kade: "I wanted to say that as well. But you guys kept saying, so I didn't have the chance to say it."

Abigail: "Their objective might be not letting us kill any monsters outside."

Kade: "That's… sucks. Why would they receive a mission like that?"

Sage: "So our objective will be head out and kill monster."

Sage knocked on the table with his fingers to get the attention of the players.

TwentyCharactersLong: "How do we do it? We already lost once. At this point, you should know that fighting them directly is a dumb idea."

Sage: "We can let multiple monster hunting groups head outside to fight while stalling them. The smaller monster hunting groups will be able to sneak pass their defense."

Sage: "That is the only tactic I can think of."

Sage: "If you all got any ideas, speak it out loud."

Sage: "I am tired, sigh."

No one heard the whispering sound Sage said at last.

Abigail: "When their numbers are more than us, it seems that this is the most possible solution."

Sage: "Nobody have any ideas?"

Everyone: "…"

Sage: "Alright, then let's do it."

…

Everyone who decided to do this then went out the spawn from different gate, trying to break out the cage.

After two hours, no successful attempts. Less and less players trying to head outside. And very quick, there were no more attempts. The player spawn was filled with dreadful despair.

Player A: "I can't even play anymore! I am quitting!"

Player B: "Why there are no punishments on those player bandits?!"

Player C: "I am reporting this game! No, this is not a 'game' anymore. This is pain imposing simulator!"

…

yynes0w0: "Sigh~ There is no point in trying. Let's wait for Shadow to break open this situation. Or wait for the open day. Then millions of players will come here. The spawn must be very cramped then."

Abigail: "Even if I didn't want to agree, the situation turned out to be like this. I guess I can't help you. Sorry."

yynes0w0: "You don't have to. It is not your fault."

Abigail: "When this incident is over, I will help you level up."

yynes0w0: "Thanks! Love you!"

…

In an office, Sage lied on the chair like he lost all his energy.

A Grade Material: "Guild leader, you looked bad this way."

Sage: "Yeah? Whatever, I just want to rest now."

Sage: "Tell me when we got more reinforcements. I am quitting the game for now."

Then Sage went offline.

A Grade Material shrugged.

Time to visit other people's house. A Grade Material thought and walked outside.

…

Carolina Reaper: "Wow! We are lucky that we are outside before this happen."

Chips&Fries: "At least we know we are not heading back to spawn for a long time now."

omelet ketchup rice: "Come to think of it, does safe area exist outside spawn area?"

Carolina Reaper: "Don't know, but we can find it."

Pineapple Pizza: "Either way, we will keep walking."

omelet ketchup rice: "True."

…

At this point, the players who were trapped in the spawn kept playing like normal. Because all the others either quitted playing, or went on a riot, although it had no meaning and effects.

As time went on, the players who were trapped inside are getting more hopeless. Less and less players went outside. This resulted less bandits checking up on the players. But either way, they still cannot get out of spawn until 20 game days later, Shadow finally went back to spawn. When their team headed out, there were a lot of monster hunting teams saw hope and decided to follow them. The Fourth Disaster saw it and tried to stop them. But eventually, they failed. And thus, this incident is over.