Apophis's team finally exited the dungeon…
…And was immediately besieged by the swarm of waiting players.
Countless voices called out from the crowd.
"Hey Apophis, what item drops did you get?"
"Did you guys find out anything about the main plot?"
"Hey, Big Brother, can you help me out with some CG? Promise I'll pay you back!"
Finally, a famous personality of the MMORPG world appeared in front of Caesar and Apophis, the player "Zeus."
Everyone knew Zeus. He was a renowned Esports champion of PvP arenas in various MMORPGs. In Apophis's first life in "Horus," Zeus became known as the strongest of the 7 Gods, an incredible Sniper able to annihilate a planet with a single shot—and a member of the "Spartan" Superguild.
Zeus spoke up, addressing Apophis and Ceasar. "Congratulations to both of you! This is a great accomplishment."
He turned to Ceasar. "Legatus Ceasar, since you've been in the dungeon for hours, you won't be aware of it, but the Superguilds have announced their support for the siege of Tyo. Can we count on you to convince your guild to join? I know you're not the leader of Renovatio Imperii, but without your backing, the star players and guild leaders won't vote for their participation in the coalition."
Of course, at this time, Apophis was the only player who knew the truth about NPC intelligence. Players hadn't realized NPCs were any more important than monsters. After all, in every other game, NPCs were about as intelligent as oysters. And, of course, if they even could be killed, they'd soon respawn as though nothing had happened.
In "Horus," NPC death was permanent and therefore directly influenced the story.
It would not be until much later that players would begin to realize they had killed truly intelligent and conscious beings, an event which would eventually cause a worldwide scandal.
But Ceasar knew none of this. When he heard about a raid against NPCs, he thought nothing of it. "Well, Zeus, I'll join the Imperial Council and talk with the other Guild Senators. I'll keep you informed, all right?"
Zeus wasn't satisfied with this answer, but he had an idea to spark Ceasar's rivalry and turned to Apophis. "And you? After all, you defeated Ceasar in a duel. Therefore, you're clearly one of the best players in the game. Having you join us would be a huge morale boost for the raid."
But Apophis had a lot of things to do and didn't feel like wasting time killing NPCs. The whole raid would be completely useless to him. "Sorry, friend, but I have a lot of things to do. I hope we can work together next time, though."
Zeus was disappointed with both refusals, but accepted them gracefully.
The main lesson Apophis had learned in his previous life was that while guilds offered some benefits, the investment of time and resources they required was considerable. In fact, the more powerful you were, the less the guilds had to offer you.
While the game was still young, EXP and GC were still fairly easy for players to earn, but progress would stagnate at higher levels. Belonging to a guild didn't seem important to many players initially, but it would eventually become obvious as the best way to beat content that would give the rewards players needed to progress.
Of course, most of the big guilds would eventually leverage their necessity to set up a shameful and exploitative system which bound players to the guild with a multi-year contract. They would also be required to give 10% of their EXP and GC earnings to the guild, which the top agents would redistribute as they saw fit.
It was pure racketeering, but as the game progressed, it became harder and harder for players to advance alone. After all, this was a space exploration game! Only guilds had the resources to finance capital ships worth several billion GC, which was what was needed to get closer to the main objective of the game...
Discover the center of the galaxy !
