Might of Players 57 – Pay Your Respects at My Grave

---Third POV---

ProGar_Daddy exclaid, "Sothing's wrong! Viktor is starting to talk philosophy!"

"Discussing the future with the dead—oops, I an, the undead—what a bizarre image..." Hedgehog said.

NeverShowOff furrowed his brow in thought.

An NPC taking the initiative to ask players questions? It was definitely not as simple as it looked on the surface.

The future… perspectives…

Wasn't this basically a survey?

He imdiately thought of the recent stir online.

Though he couldn't understand why such a heartfelt, groundbreaking virtual reality ga was being mistaken for a rebranded scam, it had indeed affected the ga's reputation.

Several familiar IDs had disappeared from the forums recently.

Sending out a survey under such circumstances seed reasonable.

He found it sowhat novel.

An NPC-initiated survey—this was the first ti he'd seen one!

Because of this, he carefully thought for a while before speaking.

"So players might not fully understand the greatness of the mission to save Aeltia, but for now, The Watchers are doing well. I don't think there's anything that needs changing. More and more of our comrades will definitely join us in the future."

"Ti will prove everything."

Viktor sighed softly and muttered, "But ti is the one thing we lack the most right now."

"What?" NeverShowOff didn't catch what he said.

ProGar_Daddy slapped his palm and suddenly realized:

"Oh—I get it now. This is a player survey! Viktor, you can't sell your beta-testing slots anymore, can you?"

He had just checked the number of applications on the official website yesterday.

Pitifully few.

If the ga allowed duplicate applications, he alone could cover all the current registration fees!

Garble sighed helplessly. "This is an NPC, not the ga's developer. How would they know about beta slots?"

"Ah, it's all the sa," said ProGar_Daddy. "There's definitely a GM secretly monitoring ga activity, especially since Viktor's identity is the faction leader."

Hedgehog scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"It's been more than a day since the news broke, and the ga company is just now taking action. Their response ti is way too slow, isn't it?"

Viktor remained silent.

Stop. Stop.

The ga company you're complaining about is just one person, who also has to double as an NPC. How could the response ti not be slow?

Jokes aside.

As the first virtual reality ga they could play, players still cared deeply about its developnt.

If the company really went bankrupt because of bad press, what else could they play?

Hedgehog leaned back against a wooden stake, hands clasped behind his head.

"The main problem is that Chronicles of Aeltia doesn't have its own marketing channels. One piece of news from a random social dia account caused this much trouble."

ProGar_Daddy shook the water off his spider silk, gestured for Hedgehog to move aside, and flung a strand of silk onto a two-ter-high wooden pole.

After finishing, he clapped the remaining water off his hands.

"At the end of the day, the company is just too small. If they were willing to sell shares to Skyrain…"

"They could plaster ads across every platform, hire so paid comnters, and there'd be no more bad press—or lack of players!"

Garble pondered for a mont before saying, "I think they should figure out why YT banned ga promotions. YT is a major platform; it can't be entirely influenced by Skyrain."

"What other reason could there be? It's not like the ga company has actual issues with its docuntation, right?" said ProGar_Daddy.

"..."

NeverShowOff thought for a while.

"For a first test, the ga is doing quite well. As long as they promote it more, a little bad press won't be a problem."

"Are you planning to use your connections to promote it?" Hedgehog asked, surprised. "Didn't your account just get banned? And you're still pushing it?"

"There are plenty of ways to promote a ga. You don't necessarily have to na it to attract players."

After years of navigating the online space, NeverShowOff had a clear understanding of how gullible and contrarian netizens could be.

In summary:

"Though I know there's crap on the mountain, I'll climb it anyway."

"You say this ga is crap? I'm supposed to believe you? I'll decide for myself after trying it!"

"—Turns out it's crap!"

Once, NeverShowOff took a ga ad deal, but miscommunication during negotiations left the ga company refusing to pay the final installnt.

Since the video was already made, he cropped out the ad segnt and uploaded it just to earn a bit of ran money.

However, netizens—with their rebellious streak—noticed the ad-like elents, tracked down the original ga, and spread it in the comnts section.

This unexpectedly overachieved the promotional goals.

The ga company even paid him extra in the end!

Though YT banned him from promoting Chronicles of Aeltia, the comnt-section word-of-mouth campaign couldn't be tied to him.

NeverShowOff patted his chest and reassured Viktor, "Don't worry, Leader. Leave the task of finding more comrades to us. Don't let public opinion affect your developnt plans!"

"Exactly, leave it to too!" ProGar_Daddy chid in. "Just don't turn this into another ga with auto-pathing and auto-battle systems!"

Other players quickly voiced their agreent.

Even though the ga was a bit hardcore, they'd gotten used to it over ti.

If, one day, Chronicles of Aeltia started popping up with in-ga ads, that'd be the real betrayal.

"You all…" Viktor was deeply moved.

What The Watchers needed were visionaries like these!

"Since there's nothing new you all need, I'll leave you to it."

With that, he casually hung the freshly cleaned spider silk onto a nearby wooden pole, bent down to avoid it, and left.

His pace quickened as he walked.

The players' words gave him new inspiration.

Perhaps he was overthinking things.

If the only way to prove Chronicles of Aeltia wasn't a scam was to approach the top level, then maybe it was better to let things run their course!

"Six hundred years away from the internet, and I've forgotten what players are like," Viktor sighed, gazing at the sky as he returned to his residence.

As the first true virtual reality ga, Chronicles of Aeltia should never worry about attracting players.

There was no to please everyone.

He just needed those wealthy players, fed up with cookie-cutter gas, to be willing to pay the registration fee!

He was determined to make a truly money-sinking program!

---

As Viktor walked away, ProGar_Daddy looked back.

"Dude, you're really persistent. Aren't you afraid your account will get permanently banned?"

"I'll just use a smurf account, no big deal," NeverShowOff shrugged nonchalantly.

"How much of an effect it'll have… we'll see."

His account wasn't particularly influential, nor did he have many connections in the gaming community.

Doing all this was his final bit of passion for virtual reality gaming.

If it didn't work out…

He'd go back to his old grind and spend half his ti offline playing other gas.

Hedgehog followed up, saying, "I think there's no need to rush. The fewer players there are, the bigger the gap between us and the new players, right?"

For players in the first tier, it was not just about skill—it was also heavily tied to when they started playing. Ti was the hardest cost to recoup.

You could say, the later new players joined, the better it was for the old players!

To his surprise, the other three players sighed and shook their heads.

"That's too naïve."

"You're new, so it's normal that your thinking hasn't caught up yet."

As Hedgehog grew increasingly confused, NeverShowOff softly said, "Isn't it possible that the ones urgently needing more players… include us?"

The in-ga store in this ga wasn't much different from having none at all.

It only offered basic necessities like food, tools that don't refresh wear-and-tear, and limited supplies of tough grass fabric.

All wood and stone must be gathered and crafted by the players themselves.

If they didn't get more players to help with the grunt work soon, when would they ever progress to the industrial era?

ProGar_Daddy added, "For example, if the number of players increased tenfold right now, we could outsource the spider silk processing tasks and recruit other teams to wrestle goblins for us."

Hedgehog imdiately nodded solemnly. "That's definitely a need for new players. As soon as I log off, I'll tell my buddies to grab so beta test slots!"

Garble helplessly said, "It won't progress that fast."

As he spoke, NeverShowOff suddenly rembered sothing and looked over.

"By the way, Garble, weren't we setting traps in the swamp area? Any leads on goblins?"

Since Viktor ntioned that the goblin nest wasn't far, they figured it might be active just outside the safe zone in Honeyvale.

They set up traps for capturing animals—not necessarily to catch a live goblin, but even injuring one and exposing its tracks would be enough!

Garble shook his head. "I checked this afternoon, and the traps haven't been touched."

"That's strange," Hedgehog muttered. "Could it be that the bait isn't attractive enough to goblins?"

"Or maybe it's just too soon to see results," Garble suggested.

He scooped the spider silk he had just rinsed into a freshly drawn bucket of water and continued, "Our top priority right now is solving the problem with the spider silk. The goblin issue can wait a bit."

The spider silk they bought for 1,000 magicoins could lose its value if competitors popped up after a delay.

That would be a huge loss…

---

The next two days were relatively uneventful.

By day, Viktor spied on players' activities and monitored their ga panels. By night, he coded relentlessly to work on his recruitnt plan.

The only noteworthy incident was players complaining about NPC working hours. Sotis, players wanted to submit quests but found Alyanne resting.

They even started forum threads to complain, asking Viktor to cancel the work-hour system.

However, the discussion on the threads took a weird turn.

Sohow, the players started theorizing that the system was designed to prevent addiction.

When Viktor found ti to check the forums in his busy schedule, he discovered that players had solved the issue themselves with their own overthinking.

Viktor was amazed.

He promptly added that reasoning into the next update notes. A free excuse? No way he'd waste it!

Another night passed.

Viktor, running on the stamina of soone who had lived for 700 years, finally developed the program he wanted after working non-stop!

As he prepared to find a fitting excuse to integrate his new, money-making ga into the official site, his gaze casually swept over the registration count.

[Registered Players: 455]

Oh, 45.5 players—three more registrations in two days… Huh? 0.5? How is that even possible?

Wait. What? Three digits?!

Viktor blinked and stared. The number didn't change.

"Is the website bugged again?"

He quickly pulled up the website logs.

No errors.

Starting two days ago, the website's traffic began to skyrocket.

Last night, at 9 PM Earth ti, the Chronicles of Aeltia official site had over 1,000 hourly visitors!

The registration count jumped by 130 in one go!

There were even threads popping up on the forums!

Although Viktor didn't know what exactly had happened, he was teary-eyed.

Threads! Those dreaded creatures everyone curses—threads were a hallmark of popular gas!

He clicked into a post from a new reservist player.

[From Site A: Is there an official group chat?]

"Right now, influencers are getting more and more abstract. There's even one pretending to be a ga developer, lol! Your fake posts are hilarious. I took the ti to binge-watch all the promo videos. I can't believe it didn't start off as a cody! The early scripts weren't as good as the recent ones, but the quality was decent. Just think of the 99 bucks as a tip for the devs! Also, hurry up and update! I want to see more of the Broke Squad's adventures!"

Below were a pile of " 1" replies.

Viktor scrolled through several days of posts before finding a familiar userna.

"Our little website's gone viral. @ProGar_Daddy, any thoughts as the main culprit? "

[ProGar_Daddy]: I'm dead. Don't @ . Pay your respects with so flowers on my grave

[ImmuneToBeauty]: Lol, don't worry. Life's short anyway, you will experience it soon enough

[Hedgehog]: Damn it! Give back my tall and mighty image!

Under ProGar_Daddy and Hedgehog's comnts were even more check-ins and laughs.

Clearly, the issue stemd from the Lucky Stars Team.

"Doesn't NeverShowOff run a Twitch-like platform? How does that tie into Site A?" Viktor wondered aloud.

With a head full of questions, he searched for frequently ntioned keywords from the thread on Site A.

To his surprise, he found a video tagged Chronicles of Aeltia trending with over 700,000 views!

The thumbnail featured a mud-covered figure mid-air, frozen in a "spread eagle" pose.

From the mop-like hair, Viktor imdiately recognized it as ProGar_Daddy.

What surprised him more was:

"Site A allows Chronicles of Aeltia videos?"

How had it not been flagged by Skyrain or reported by concerned netizens, exposing the ga company's shady background?

When he clicked on it, it turned out to be the original video Viktor had uploaded a few days ago of players' first battle with the red earthworms.

But the comnt section and bullet-screen comnts were far livelier than the official forums.

From a sea of s and laughter, Viktor finally pieced together what had happened.

Because the video's graphics were indistinguishable from real life, viewers assud it was a role-playing video of actors mimicking ga characters.

And since the antics of the Lucky Stars Team were so abstract and absurd, the video went viral!