Defense Specialization and Speculation
Outside of the game, management was looking at a display that showed the remaining guilds.
“This…is clearly finished.”
“Yeah…”
There was a bright 6 on the display.
All of the guilds that were shown on the display now were in the top 10.
In other words, it had already been confirmed, which guilds would be in the top 10.
This event had been planned to go on for 5 days but was essentially ended on the morning of the fourth day. They had watched the number of guilds fall on the display, but now it was completely still.
“They are all so murderous, huh!? Hey!?”
“We’ll edit all of the highlights of this event into a video. I doubt anything interesting will happen from this point.”
The man gave orders to the others, and they began to choose memorable scenes from the massive amount of recorded data.
“Maple is in nearly half them…”
“You want us to take out the memorable scenes without showing her? We’ve already tried doing that quite a bit.”
He said to the man who had mumbled. The man who had mumbled put his hand to his forehead and leaned back into his chair.
“Well, the reason that this event didn’t go as planned seems to be because of Maple Tree’s meddling…”
“Ifrit’s Kingdom is 10th, and they’ve gone extinct, right? I had made predictions about the rankings and…they are completely off.”
Ifrit’s Kingdom took down many of their rivals, but they pushed themselves too hard and went extinct. However, they did succeed in keeping their spot in the top 10.
“If only we could learn to predict Maple’s movements…”
It was something that many players wished.
It was easier to deal with people when you could plan ahead of time.
“There is no use thinking about the impossible… More importantly, the number of days for the next one…we need to reconsider all that.”
“Still, who would have thought that it would accelerate to the point that there were 2 whole days left…”
Not being able to predict the enthusiasm of the players was their mistake.
As the man thought about the next event, a different man seemed to have thought of something, as he raised his voice so the whole room could hear.
“Then let’s make some guesses! About what Maple is doing now! What do you think? I’ll buy lunch for whoever gets it right.”
Everyone in the room agreed to this.
Of course, they would, there was no reason not to.
“We can watch the recorded data from a little while ago. Though, it only shows the area around the orb…”
So saying, they prepared to play the footage of Maple Tree on the 4th day.
“So, it’s possible that she’s not at the base?”
“Why not? It will be hard to find her though…but I think she will be in the base…”
“Alright, let’s start guessing! Raise your hand if you think of something!”
The man who promised to buy lunch gave the signal, and several people raised their hands.
And they all said their guess in the order that he indicated.
“She’s playing a board game with the other guild members.”
“She’s practicing flying in the sky with the machine god.”
“The twins are juggling her.”
“She’s testing to see if she can gain skills by biting weapons made with ‘Smithing.’”
“Eh? Don’t you think those are a little too normal?”
“Maybe you’re right…”
After being told that those were too normal, everyone started to reconsider what they thought Maple would do.
And their guesses become more and more chaotic.
“She’s inside the mouth of a giant turtle.”
“She’s fighting Sally for some reason.”
“She’s biting the turtle.”
They all fired off their guesses.
And once they were largely exhausted of them, the room fell quiet again and the man who had suggested it all announced that it was finished.
“Now…let’s see.”
“Ahh.”
After a brief pause, the giant monitor showed Maple Tree.
As for Maple, she was completely covered in wool, and weapons were sprouting from her body. Yui and Mai were carrying her as they walked around the base.
After seeing this, they slowly closed the video.
“Should we put that in as well?”
“…Yeah.”
The scene was quietly added to highlight reel. And the rest of the team went about whatever it was they needed to do in order to process seeing something that defied understanding.