He gave me an indifferent nod as he saw me. “New guy, right. Battle mode, then?”
I hadn’t played with any of the other modes yet, so battle mode was the only one I even stood a remote chance in. Naturally, I agreed, and the first round began. For this round, I chose to play as demons, the same race I had taken note of on the market a while back.
My starting creatures were five imps, and from my map, I appeared to be in an underground cave. This will probably work to my advantage, geographically. I smiled, setting all five to work on mining the gem pillars embedded in the walls. “As you say.” One of the imps spoke out as they flapped their tiny wings to quickly reach the gems.
Unlike the centaurs, each imp only cost me a single point to buy. However, I had to get special buildings in order to unlock their evolutions. They very much reminded me of another race in a game I had played in the past, which made it somewhat easier.
Within ten minutes, I had upgraded my starting five imps to earth demons, allowing them to dig and mine with increased efficiency. I was also breeding hellhounds, and expanding my cave system to create a larger base. Finally, I had advanced my technology to the exploration age, allowing for even more abilities for my demons.
I didn’t actually see my opponent’s forces until nearly half an hour in, when I was at the information age of technology. Doing this allowed me to create some interesting units, specifically the demon lords. Each demon lord required a vast quantity of gems, but also possessed an incredible fighting strength.
When I saw them, I couldn’t help but click my tongue in annoyance. He had chosen to play the humans, and I stumbled upon one of his mines. Although it was accidental, it gave him an easy way to find me, giving up my element of surprise. However, it also let me know where to find him, so I tested the waters by sending out one of my demon lords, while setting up contingency bases throughout my tunnels.
The demon lord quickly emerged from the mine, spitting out black flames that destroyed his miners and the few troops he had gathered to defend the mine itself. From there, it stepped out and began attacking the town he had made near the mine. With the loss of troops, he wasn’t able to defend that town, and it was quickly lost.
“So, that’s how you want it, huh?” He shook his head, and watched as his city burned. He had already created roads to use for trade routes, so I ordered my demon lord to follow those roads, while my earth demons dug out a tunnel underground to follow. Honestly, it felt like I was using an epic unit as a simple scout, but in this case it worked.
My demon lord found the next base soon enough, a large fort city. At this one, there was a party of five people waiting at the gate, each one equipped with a weapon. For one, it was a glowing, golden sword. The other four had what seemed to be large rifles, and all were ready for the demon’s arrival.
Enchanted weapons? I looked at the golden sword curiously. I hadn’t seen any options yet to buy magic-related items. I couldn’t help but look to my opponent and ask. “How did you get a sword like that?”
He glanced up at me, largely uninterested. “You need to find mana stone veins, if you want to unlock the magic development route.” As if that explanation was enough, he looked back to the battle that was about to take place.
My demon lord didn’t seem to fear the enchanted weapon, and charged forward. Under suppressing fire by the four riflemen, he suffered minor injuries before appearing before the swordsman. However, with a single swipe of his sword, he managed to inflict a fatal wound on the demon lord.
I watched, stunned as the scene returned to the default one, marking the battle as over. I had been preparing my tunneling crew to launch an attack from below, but after that display I had second thoughts. In my mind, five demon lords should have been enough to take out anything short of a nuke, yet he was countered in a single blow.
I knew that I had probably already lost this round, but still proceeded to expand underground. And… that was probably a bad decision, on my part. Later, I knew that I should have left my tunnels and established surface bases as soon as he knew how to find me, but the thought did not cross my mind until it was too late.
As if viewing a cinematic scene, the central platform shifted to show a view of a large lake, five men standing along its borders carrying staves. I was confused, because as far as I could tell, I had no units in the area to trigger a combat event. Soon though, my confusion was replaced by shock when those mages began casting their spell.
Five mages, working in concert, opened a hole beneath the lake. I watched as the water funneled down, through the new drain created, and knew what was happening. Quickly looking at my map, I found a flood washing through the tunnels faster than I could stop it. In an effort to halt the tide, I had earth demons collapse the tunnels, only for the rubble to get washed away.
Although this tactic did not completely destroy all of my bases, over ninety percent of my forces had died in that one attack, including all of my demon lords. With a sigh, I shook my head and looked at the other party. “I lost.”
The platform immediately shifted to its inactive state, and the man gave a nod. Soon, he vanished in a flash of light, only to be replaced a moment later by a more energetic, short humanoid. I could only guess that the new man was a halfling by his stature, and he excitedly greeted me. He apparently recognized me as one of the new Keepers, as well, and we had another battle round.
This time, I again chose the demon race, for their geographical advantage. Starting underground was a big plus, as long as you kept an eye out for the dangers. But, again, this time I managed to lose. The cause of my defeat this time was actually that my opponent simply advanced too quickly while I was trying to find the mana stones that I had been told about. The sight of dozens of halflings wearing storm trooper armor and firing laser rifles was… not what I had expected.
In the third round, I actually managed to find the mana stones, and started making magic demons. This time, I managed to pull in a win, albeit a close one. My opponent had been using a heavily defensive strategy, so I was able to tunnel into the center of their base and overwhelm them.
The matches continued like this. Out of the thirty-nine rounds, all of them were in the battle mode. However, I did not stick with demons the entire time. Every few rounds, I would change the race I was using, as a way to understand their strengths and weaknesses. I tried out humans, demons, centaurs, angels, even slime people at one point. That was an interesting round.
I knew my chances of winning lowered every time I changed to a new race, but that didn’t really matter to me. I was doing this as a learning experience, and I knew that I wasn’t going to win even if I chose one race for all of the games. What I was doing was testing the waters, learning as much as I could about the physical abilities of each race, for future knowledge.
In the end, I had only gotten eight wins out of all thirty-nine matches. To my surprise, Kathy actually managed to get third place. And she was crying tears of joy when she was up on the stand, waving to everyone. Most likely, she used the same flood strategy that she used against me in her later games.
Smiling for her success, I slowly slipped out of the room to see what else this place had to offer. I wanted to at least get one more game in, before I went back to my own world. I had to admit, these were kind of fun.
Chapter 28
Once back out in the hall, I took another look at the various rooms, now that there weren’t very many people in the hallway. I wanted to find a game that sounded interesting, but not impossible for me at my current stage. I mean, a lot of these games would probably be far easier for someone that had experience as a Keeper.
In the hall, I saw two notable figures. One was Seraphine, standing about halfway into the hall, with her hand on the shoulder of the twitchy Keeper I had noticed before. Seeing as this was her event, I wanted to go over and thank her. However, as soon as I started to approach, the other Keeper looked straight at me, and hurriedly walked off.
Confused, Seraphine t
urned to face me, before showing a face of understanding. “Ah, you are one of the new ones. EarthForceOne, as I recall?” She nodded her head, as if confirming it to herself. “Grimor mentioned you.”
“Ah, hi… Sorry, was I interrupting something?” I glanced back in the direction that the other Keeper had run off to.
Seraphine only gave a bitter smile, shaking her head. “Don’t mind him. He’s always like that around people he doesn’t know. I think, these days he only shows up because his companion makes him, for the interaction.”
I nodded my head slightly at that. “Is everything okay with him?”
“Hmm? Yeah, for the most part. Everyone around here calls him the Meta, though I don’t really like that nickname. However fitting it might be, it is still better to refer to Xanos by his real name.” Seraphine explained.
“Why do they call him the Meta?” I felt like I was being set up for that question, so might as well ask it.
The angel Keeper gave a small smile before answering. “It’s his methods. He tries to reach the truth by reproducing everything within his own worlds. He is the Meta, because he created his own Keeper games, with 9,999 participants. Although he couldn’t perfectly replicate the system, since we do not entirely know it ourselves, he seems to have gotten the vast majority of it.” She gave a small chuckle, before shaking her head. “According to him, there is even a version of myself that appeared in his experiment.”
I raised a curious eyebrow. “And, the twitchiness?”
“He’s paranoid. To him, his system is the most perfect replica, proven by the appearance of a few very similar Keepers. So, he is paranoid of any Keeper that doesn’t exist within the worlds he created.”
“Ahh…” I think I understood that. “So, he thinks that any Keeper that isn’t generated naturally in those experiments could be a factor connected to the origins of this system or something?”
“Right.” Seraphine nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. “Now, was there anything you needed me for, EarthForceOne?”
“Uhm, Dale please…” I said, trying my best to smile. “And, I wanted to thank you for inviting me to the event, as well as maybe get some advice on a game. Wanted to try one more out before I head back.”
She nodded again, looking at me. “Well, do you have anything to narrow it down?”
“Ah! Uh, well, maybe something exciting? But, preferably something that doesn’t require too much experience as a Keeper, since I only got the job a little while ago.”
She thought about that for a few moments. “Have you tried the simulation games, yet?”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I just got back from that one.”
“Ahh… Well, if you are new, you probably don’t have a champion yet. Or the powers for a personal duel. How about a race? That does not require any particular experience as a Keeper, and I believe it to be quite exciting.” Seraphine nodded to herself as she said this.
Okay, maybe the conditions I gave were a bit strict, but… I guess I could give the races a try. “What are the rules for the races?”
Seraphine gave a small grin when I asked that. “It’s simple. You can either bring a vehicle in from your own world, or use one of the preset ones, or even run on your own if you have the speed for it. The restrictions are that no vehicle can exceed five times the speed of sound. No teleportation or weapons. The vehicle cannot exceed fifteen meters in any direction. Once everyone chooses a vehicle, the contestants will be placed on a small obstacle course that is generated for the race. The winner is whoever passes all the checkpoints first.”
As soon as she started explaining, I knew that I had no hope of winning this race. “Uhm… anything else? I don’t think I have nearly the reaction time to handle a vehicle moving that fast.” I smiled wryly. Mach 5, that’s faster than anything that even existed on Earth when I inherited this job.
Seraphine gave a disappointed sigh. “Well… you could try the Designer games? It’s not really that exciting, but it would be a good exercise for a new Keeper like yourself.”
“Uhm… explanation, please?”
She smiled, nodding her head before explaining. “Basically, it is just where a group of Keepers gather together to see who can come up with the most interesting creatures. Whether they are sapient species, monster races, even items or systems. After everyone has submitted their entry, they vote on the most popular. The winner gets their submission paid for by the guild, as long as the cost is cheaper than five hundred points.”
“So, the only requirement is that it be something that isn’t already on the Keeper store, right?” Seraphine nodded when I asked that, and I definitely felt like this would be a much better game for me. “Could you show me where that room is?” I asked, looking around. I didn’t see a ‘Design’ door anywhere nearby.
“Ah, it’s at the very end of the hallway. You probably won’t make it in time for the next round if you move at a normal speed, so I’ll help you out a bit.” Seraphine grinned wickedly, snapping her fingers. Immediately, the floor beneath my feet twisted, chains reaching up and grabbing my feet, more coming to secure my arms. “Have fun.” She said, before the section of floor beneath me began sliding down the hall slowly.
Well, this isn’t so bad. Aside from the restraints… I thought to myself, as the floor began picking up speed. My opinion changed when I suddenly began rocketing forward, only able to remain standing thanks to the chains holding me firmly in place. I passed a countless number of doors, before finally slamming to a stop at the very end of the hall. I was certain that, if this weren’t an Admin Room, the g forces from that would have been enough to kill me. At least here, it only felt incredibly uncomfortable.
After remaining dizzy for a few moments, I looked up to see a single doorway, the word ‘Design’ written above it. Shrugging, I walked inside, seeing only ten other Keepers in this room. None of them looked familiar, so I moved off to a side. There were no chairs, desks, or any kind of furnishings for this room. Only the single door from which we entered.
“Ah, someone came to join us.” One of the Keepers, likely the judge, nodded to me as he saw me enter. “Not many people participate in this game. I don’t suppose you saw anyone else on your way, did you?”
When I shook my head, he let out a disappointed sigh. “Pity. Well… I guess this is all we are getting for today. Does everyone here know the rules?” The other Keepers all nodded their heads, as did I. I had just had the rules explained to me, so no need to go over them a second time. “Alright, then everyone can begin. Remember to not submit your idea to the system until the judging period is over.” He cast a glance to one of the other Keepers, a lamia man who shrunk back timidly under his gaze.
At his words, a blue window appeared in front of me, a single blinking line at the top. “I’m going to take this one.” One of the Keepers said, confidently. I wasn’t really paying attention to tell which one had spoken, as I was thinking about what I should submit. There was one idea I had considered, but I wasn’t sure if it was creative enough for a contest like this. Either way, I decided to go with that, to save myself the trouble of trying to come up with an entirely new idea on the spot. Even if I didn’t win, I’d probably be buying this myself when I got back home. Slowly, I began thinking to the blue screen, my thoughts transcribed into words.
Race, Centaurs. Comprehension, five. Agility, six. Strength, eight. Lifespan, seventy years. Luck, six. Awareness, seven. Male to female ratio, 1. I listed the basic qualities of the race, before moving on to the advanced portion. What I had so far was most likely already in the store, but I was confidant that what I was including next would make them unique. After going through the process, a series of screens appeared in front of me.
Race Name
Centaur
Comprehension
5
Agility
6
Strength
8
Lifespan
70
Luck
6
<
br /> Awareness
7
Male:Female ratio
1
Example Adult Male
Example Adult Female
Racial Abilities
- Magical Inept
- Rare Variants: Unicorn(0.01%), Pegasus(0.1%), Qilin(0.001%)
Race Name
Unicorn Centaur
Comprehension
7
Agility
6
Strength
6
Lifespan
70
Luck
6
Awareness
7
Male:Female ratio
1
Example Adult Male
Example Adult Female
Racial Abilities
- Magical Affinity 3
- Rare Variants: Horned Pegasus(0.1%), Horned Qilin(0.1%)
World Keeper: Birth of a World Page 22