Pride Online

Chapter 200: Belated Party Part I

“Anne, have you sent me that new file yet? The one about the hunting gate event.”

A voice rang up in the middle of a little busy office in Tristan. The two desks that were a few meters apart were full of piles of papers and evidence items that the GMs took from the players who created them to cause trouble.

“I sent it to your email, didn’t I?”

Another voice rang. GM Anne, or Rattana, seemed to be too busy with her work to look at her junior. She was behind her desk with large-framed, light-blocking glasses on her face. She was pointing a spark from her hand to the item in front of her that looked like a thick book.

“I couldn’t find it anywhere. Are you sure that you’ve sent it to me?”

“Look again. Maybe it’s in the junk box.”

“No, it’s not. Didn’t you just forget to send me?”

“Yes, I did, ...oh my god!”

BOOM!

She did not finish her sentence, because the thick book exploded. A small fire was catching up, making the one who was watching it from afar, hold his hands up to cover his face.

“Come on, Anne. What are you doing? Why did you play with the evidence?”

He said, looking at his senior again. She was now choking on the smoke. Her skin which was always clean, was now dirty and shabby with the soot. She took the glasses off and it was obvious that only around her eyes did not get the gunpowder soot like anywhere else on her pretty face.

“I didn’t play with it.” Rattana corrected with a high-pitched tone, while she was coughing continuously.

“Then why would you poke that book? Ugh, this smell is too strong. Let me open the window to release it real quick!”

Then the short GM with thick glasses named ‘Ton’ ran to open the window in the office wide instantly, even though there was someone out there yelling, “Who’s stepped on some shit here?”

“Ugh, I should have punished that player harder, if I knew this. How could someone come up with an ‘explosive shitty book’? ...These kinds of prank items like this are too many to deal with nowadays.”

“There’re these pranksters everywhere, Anne.” Ton said, covering his nose with his hand.

“I was just trying to take that bomb out. I couldn’t leave it like that, knowing that it would go off at any moment. Why would I have to do this kind of job anyway?”

She found a napkin to wipe the strain off her face, while she was complaining. Rattana never liked complaining in her normal time, but it seemed like currently she had so much work to deal with that she was about to lose it now!

“Anyway, where’s my file, Anne? I need to finish reading the rest of the details in time.”

“Right. Sorry. I’m going to send it to you again now.”

Then Rattana pressed a button on her information window. After that, an envelope icon flew to GM Ton’s information window right away.

“But Ton, it’s almost morning now. Are you sure that you’re not going offline a bit?”

Rattana asked before tossing the dirty napkin into the trash bin.

“My work is just as overloaded as yours. The more events there are, the less time we can spend outside the game. Also, if you, who are my senior, haven’t left yet, I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to leave first either.”

“Aw, those are genuinely nice words of you. But be careful. If you always put all your time into work like this, you won’t be able to find a girlfriend.” The woman teased, making the other laugh aloud.

“I’ll probably be single for the rest of my life then.”

Hearing that, the GM girl shook her head wearily and amusedly.

“Anne.”

GM Ton called the senior from his desk.

“Yeah...?”

“So, the hunting gate event hasn’t been canceled for this year, has it?”

“No, it hasn’t. Why?” Rattana tilted her head as she asked.

“Well, from some old report I read, it says that in the year where there’ll be a ‘Crystal War’, and the other major events will be canceled, right? But why do they still insist on hosting the hunting gate anyway?”

“Oh, about that...” Rattana smiled slightly as she took a seat down on her chair. “Didn’t you notice how much the number of players in the Pride has been growing in the past two years?”

“I did. The rate of players logging in times in the game increases 5% every month.”

“Right.” Rattana nodded. “New players have been increasing immensely in these two years. Some of them joined the game because they’re interested in Crystal War, which is already like our game’s main attraction.”

“And that has something to do with not canceling the other events?”

“It definitely has, Ton.”

Then another voice came, making the ones in the room look and see a man walking in with his shabby, worn-out clothes and a huge sword carried on his shoulder.

“Da, what have you been up to that makes you look all crappy like this? ...And where’s that sword from?”

“I ran into some items hunters, so I joined the fight with them a bit.”

Thada said smilingly, before tossing the sword to the floor with a loud clank noise.

“Woah, that’s the Latens wile sword, an A-ranked item with 1,200 attack points, isn’t it? The evidence that you took from them?”

Ton hurriedly came and checked the sword out, before looking up to ask, while Rattana was leaving her desk to find another napkin and toss it to Thada.

“Yeah, it’s the sword that they stole. Could you report this to the owner to take it back, Anne?”

“Okay. But how about you, looking all poorly like this means that you still couldn’t catch those jackasses?”

“No. Why would you even ask...?”

Thada cut her off with a plain voice. The tall man walked over that sword, before taking a seat on his chair in the office, defeated. He let out a sigh, then looked at Ton, who was drafting a report on his transparent window about this large sword they had just found.

“You were asking about the hunting gate event, right, Ton?” Thada asked.

“Yeah?” The younger one raised his eyebrows.

“As to why we are still hosting the event of the year, while we’re having the Crystal War as well, ... this is what you’re curious about, isn’t it?”

“Uh, yes, I am.” Ton nodded.

Hearing that, Thada curled up a sweet smile, while he was getting a hair bobble to tie his hair in a loose ponytail, before resting his back against the chair.

“Didn’t you notice that last year, we hosted a lot of events for the players, and each one of them had a huge number of prizes as well?”

“I did.” Ton nodded.

“These events were to build the starter cost and motivation for the new players, encouraging them to farm levels for joining the Crystal War. The same case with the hunting gate event, it is to motivate players to go hunt monsters and collect points, so they can exchange it with a ticket to join the event that has many million coins for the first prize winner.”

“You’re saying that these events are made to support the Crystal War?”

“Yeah, and believe me, this event is worth it, and many people will be interested surely.” Thada smiled widely.

Hearing that, Ton raised his eyebrows, catching eyes with Rattana confusedly.

“Hunting gate event is the last event before we get into the war. So, I think that it will motivate the players to improve their skills more. Because apart from the money, the winner will get the right to form the army as well. ...Believe me, those big guilds will be joining the hunt for sure. And from what I know so far, at least that one celebrity is definitely joining.”

“...Who?”

Rattana asked with a curious expression. Thada did not answer her right away. He just managed to open his window and cast it to her instead.

She looked down to read the information on the screen, narrowing her eyes. And after she saw a large amount of information running there, she frowned her eyebrows even more...

“There’s someone who went hunting Ouroboros?”