Rewards, Awarding Ceremony And Their Rising Popularity

"And that's the end of our event! The final standings: Number one Maple! Number two Pochi! Number three Pain! Let's proceed to the awarding ceremony!"

The world in front of everyone turned white, and then moments later, they were back in the starting square. Mutsuko(Evergreen), Kaede(Maple), Satania(Queen), Tama(Tama), Pochi(Pochi), and Rikka(Snowflake), were now together again, just like before the event started.

"Good job guys! We did it!" Evergreen said excitedly as she high fived with her friends.

"You should be thanking us all Maple! We helped you get to top one! A-Hahahaha!" Queen said to Maple while wearing a smug smile on her face.

Well, she had the right to be smug since they did help Maple big time in getting that top position. Pochi and Tama's case was kinda unintended though.

"Kukuku, it was such a brilliant display from both of us! My [Tyrant's Eye] disabled that wannabe top player until he met his demise!"

Looking at Snowflake who is covering her golden colored eyes, Maple at first smiled wryly before showing a bright smile to her friends.

"Thank you guys! With your help, we managed to get the maximim rewards from our quest!"

"Ei~, ei~, ou~!"

"Yatta, nanodesu!"

Pochi and Tama cheered at the same time while high fiving. They didn't quite understand yet what they did to help their big sisters but they helped on something so it's all good.

While they were celebrating, the top three players were asked to take their places on the podium, so Maple and Pochi left to step on the first and second spot. Pochi just nonchalantly stood on her own podium while puffing out her chest while Maple was kind of feeling embarrassed.

There were a lot of eyes on them so she couldn't help it, you know? She felt even more embarrassed when she saw how Pochi was unfazed by all of this.

Pochi seems to have noticed Maple's gaze on her so she smiled brightly at her before waving her hands. Once she saw that Maple waved at her as well, she went back to looking at the audience and waved at her friends while shouting.

"Ya-hallo everyone! Pochi is standing in front of many people, nodesu! Isn't Pochi awesome, desu?"

Because of Pochi's antics, Maple's nervousness went away. That's when she heard someone address her.

"Hello there Maple! What do you have to say about taking the top spot?"

"Er, umm… It was unexpected. Without the help of my friends, it wouldn't have been possible!"

"Oh? Which friends were you talking about?" The host-like guy seems to be curious about who Maple's friends were. However, when he heard her answer, he immediately showed a knowing look, as if he expected that answer to come.

"It's Evergreen, Snowflake, Queen, Pochi, and Tama."

"I see. Well, congratulations on getting the top spot in our first event! Your achievement will be etched upon our game's Hall of Fame and be immortalized! Everyone, let's give Maple a round of applause!"

Once the cheers subsided, the host went to Pochi and ask her some identical questions.

"Hello there Pochi-chan! What do you have to say about taking the second spot?"

"Hmm? Pochi doesn't particularly feel anything nodesu."

At Pochi's reply, the host was totally stunned and didn't know what to say for a moment.

Seeing that the announcer guy was kinda stunned, Pochi immediately thought of something else to say.

"Umm, umm, Pochi is happy, desu?"

"I-Is that so. You're quite the strong willed one, it seems. Anyway, we saw that you defeated Chrome and Dread rather easily. They were one of the top players, you know?"

"Who's that nodesu? Are you talking about shield-guy and ninja-guy nanodesu?"

"Y-Yeah. That should be them…"

"Even if they are the top pla-yers, they still doesn't stand a chance to the greatest greatswordswoman nodesuyo? That ninja-guy only needed Pochi to hit him once, nodesu. [Admin-sensei] is even faster than him by many MANY more!" Pochi was so fired up that she didn't even notice that she's hurting someone's feelings.

The host noticed Dread's deathly pale appearance so he quickly pacified Pochi and congratulated her, accompanied by the audience's loud cheers. Sure enough, this was enough to divert Pochi's attention.

As she was continuously waving her hands, Pochi didn't forget to apologize to her previous competitors.

"Thank you nanodesu! Pochi is sorry to the enemy-sans Pochi killed nodesu!"

After Pain's speech, Pochi and Maple accepted their prize and they met up with their friends to talk about many things regarding the event.

Meanwhile, without their knowledge, the forums were full of posts about how cute and pretty Maple, Pochi, Tama, Snowflake, Queen, and Evergreen were. There's even some farfetched theories that started to form regarding how they became so strong.

✽✽[NWO]: The Mysteries of the Chaotic Group[An Inquiry]✽✽

Anonymous Spear Master: A'ight, I started the thread.

Anonymous Greatsworder: Nice! Also, nice naming choice. The concern of the day is the clearly abnormal group of, let's say wild cards.

Anonymous Mage: To be completely honest, Pochi and Maple deserves to be on the second and top spot. They had more nuts than Pain. The main thing is about Tama's placement.

Why was she only at fourth?

Anonymous Spear Master: The girl spent most of the last hour playing around with her preys. Most of the people I know who encountered her have some kind of trauma regarding her after that event…

Anonymous Archer: They were adorbs so no biggie.

Anonymous Great Shielder: Regarding Maple, I doubt that thing she is wielding is even a great shield…

I came ninth at the last stretch but got totally knocked out of the rankings because of Pochi-chan.

Anonymous Spear Master: F

RIP brother.

Anyway, getting that high with a great shield ain't easy so it's already an achievement that you got that high in the list.

(Averts eyes from Maple)

Anonymous Greatsworder: BTW, did you guys see the final rankings?

Event 1(Final Rankings)

Maple- Maple herself

Pochi- Maple's friend

Pain

Tama- Maple's friend

Mii

Drag

Kasumi

Shin

Marx

Queen- Maple friend

Dread

Four of the top 10 rankings are owned by Maple's friends. Pochi is a force to be reckoned with, killing almost everyone in one blow, Tama is a really fast unit who could appear and disappear anywhere, wherever and whenever, while Queen is the one who killed Pain in one go, sending him to top three in a flash.

Anonymous Mage: You mean that final blow?

No matter how many times I watch that, it's still insane. Not to mention that hard CC that piled up on Pain, rendering him incapable of helping himself out of that predicament.

Anonymous Great Shielder: Maple->Well, she's a walking fortress. What else could I say?

Pochi>Her damage is scary. She one shots literally every player she faced.

Tama->She's fast as f*** and I've never seen her receive damage due to that. Not to mention her damage output which is insane.

Queen->She one shotted Pain. Enough said.

To me, this group is a total enigma. Their builds and equipments? I really can't give any speculation without enough information.

Anonymous Greatsworder: Their builds are game breaking, that's for sure. I wonder how the devs will balance this out.

Anonymous Archer: Speaking of the four that was mention, isn't there some kind of parallel between them?

Maple seems to have a very high VIT.

Pochi have a high STR.

Tama have her out of this world AGI.

And Queen have high INT and MP?

I'd assume they dumped all of their points on one stat but that wouldn't explain how Queen was able to spam spells like there's no tomorrow while hitting like a truck. That Snowflake and Evergreen are also weird.

Snowflake have this bone chilling sustain that she provides to her allies while Evergreen have some weird items inside her inventory.

Anonymous Great Shielder: I heard that Evergreen is a pretty popular blacksmith. She's just starting to rise in fame though. They said that the equips she made are top notch in terms of effects an the status they provide.

Regarding Snowflake and the sustain she provides, I call hax. She managed to make Queen take no damage whatsoever by the end of this event. If I'm not wrong, she even taught her how to position herself during fights.

Anonymous Mage: Yeah…

That girl is really exceptional. She managed to teach her friend while also keeping tabs on all three of their health bars.

This is some next level s***, I'm telling you.

Anonymous Archer: Hey guys, I just noticed. I watched the event and followed each and everyone of them. From what I observed, Tama, Queen, Pochi, and Maple was undefeatable one-on-one? Maybe except for when they duke it out themselves?

Anonymous Mage: That's a serious possibility.

For starters, about Maple, you'd have to do something about those AOE status effects. She said something about the name of her spell and by the looks of it, it's gotta be a top tier spell.

You also have to pierce through her ridiculous VIT. Good luck with that.

For Pochi, she deals a f*** ton of damage. One wrong move and she'll one hit delete you from the server. She also have spell immunity, an instant cast hard AoE CC skill, and a maneuverability/AoE damage/hard CC skill.

She also have mad instincts so good luck with defeating her. It would be quick and painless so there's that as consolation.

For Tama, she's fast. Like, literally. She have lots of tools to escape and she could also go invisible(which is already a cheat in of itself). If you can't avoid her unrelenting and precise attacks fast enough, you'd be showered by sakura petals.

Don't even try. She'll just make you cry tears of blood. And it wouldn't be a fun experience either.

For Queen… well, where do I even begin? First off, she's just using an elementary level spell, Fireball, but she's dealing so much damage that even greatshielders die after a few hits. She also doesn't seem to run out of mana. Not only that, but she could also chant and cast spells while moving. If she learns how to utilize her skillset even more, I think she could just micro you until you drop dead.

If there ever came a day when she learns any kind of CC skill, she doesn't even need to micro anyone.

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※~To be continued~※

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Author's Remarks:

※ End of the arc regarding the girls! As for their rewards, it will be shown after Shun goes back from his LDM adventure.