CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

GREAT WIN!

THANKS FOR THE CARRY!

AWESOME PLAY AT THE END!

Jason smiled.

The other player was just as enthusiastic out of game as he was in-game.

In the past, Jason had heard the phrase “infectious enthusiasm” used to describe someone who could spread their energy to others.

He’d never understood that description before. Usually, he just thought that most people with so-called infectious enthusiasm were annoying.

However, Jason decided that he liked the other pilot.

Their playstyles were very different, and they clearly saw the game differently.

However, the pilot was honest and earnest.

He was also a true team player.

Jason was keenly aware that the Salvage rule led to enormous differentials in player pay-outs.

The player who got the last hit on a Mech added it to their inventory.

Even if players were on the same team, there was still an enormous incentive to steal kills when a high-value Mech like the King of Thieves was on the line.

To be blunt, Jason wasn’t nearly as kindhearted as the Lucky Duck’s pilot.

He would have tried going for the kill himself.

Jason typed in a quick response, asking the other pilot for his name.

Devourer22: Hey, hate to ask this, but I was distracted when you introduced yourself earlier. What’s your name again? I’m Jason.

The other pilot responded quickly.

Rooster7: Ah, no worries. My name is Danny. I was wondering if you wanted to play the next Tournament of Assassins stage together too. We made a pretty sweet team!

There was a brief pause. Then he sent another message.

Rooster7: I know we’ll have to fight each other if we make it to the last round, but there’s no reason not to team up again for now!

Jason deliberated for a moment, but he already knew the correct answer.

Now that Jason had finished playing through the entire map, he realized he’d underestimated the competition.

After sneaking up on the enemy camp, Jason thought that the rest of the mission would be a piece of cake.

However, the two crossbow Mechs had repeatedly outsmarted him.

Not only had they snuck up on him, but the larger machine’s last-second shout to alert the King of Thieves had caught Jason completely off-guard.

On top of that, he’d needed the Lucky Duck’s scouting abilities to ambush the King of Thieves successfully.

On the surface, those losses would have discouraged most players.

Swallowing your pride was always a tough experience.

However, Jason took a very grounded mindset to wins and losses.

Losing wasn’t the end of the world. It simply meant he needed to improve.

For now, Jason wasn’t skilled enough to win the Tournament of Assassins alone. He’d love to reach that level of skill, but he still needed to work on his game knowledge.

Sneaking around a map was an unfamiliar situation.

However, the OverManiacs deal wouldn’t wait for Jason to improve.

For now, his best chance was working together with the other pilot.

They were a good team, and Jason enjoyed the other man’s company.

Besides, both players knew they’d have to battle one day.

There were no false pretenses.

Devourer22: Yeah! I’d love to play together again.

The other pilot responded immediately.

Rooster7: Awesome! Let’s start planning! I’m sure you already have it, but here’s the second mission file.

Unlike the first mission, the prospective assassins were given their dossier for the second mission a week in advance.

Players were given a full week to strategize until the Sunday of the following weekend.

Despite the additional preparatory time, hardly any players managed to clear the second stage. There were usually only a single-digit number of competitors left by the third and final round.

The target for the second mission was the Paranoid Parachuter, a Mech that specialized in fleeing.

Unlike the King of Thieves, which was still built for combat, the Paranoid Parachuter had no weapons.

Instead, its entire 50,000 Credit Cap was dedicated to parts and abilities that helped it escape danger.

Like the King of Thieves, the Paranoid Parachuter could use the Peerless Escape Artist ability.

However, it could use the temporary dash technique up to three times per battle. It was an added bonus granted because the machine had no other special abilities.

The Mech was also equipped with a seemingly limitless number of utility grenades.

Combined with the machine’s incredible movement speed, the Paranoid Parachuter could slip out of almost any situation.

But despite its powerful equipment, the Paranoid Parachuter’s greatest advantage was its immense synergy with the stage.

The Mech hid in the massive Castle Notoria, a black fortress embedded on a cliff face.

The Paranoid Parachuter could flee at any time with its eponymous parachute.

The demonic-looking fortress was named after a book from The Lesser Key of Solomon, and it featured a full garrison of Illusionist Grunts.

Castle Notoria’s forces included the Bandit Kingbreaker Grunt and the Hemoborn watchdogs, the Illusionist guild’s standard-issue Mechs.

However, advanced commander models, such as the three-headed Watchdog Cerberus Edition, also guarded the fortress.

The enhanced Grunts effectively served as minibosses.

Finally, Castle Notoria loomed above a seemingly endless sea.

Countless deadly stingray and orca Hemoborn swam in the treacherous seas beneath the cliff face.

Just like before, players were given a full map of the fortress as well as in-depth data on the Grunts and Paragon target.

But this time, considering the fortress’s famed near-impregnability, the data report read more like a boast than an actual dossier.

Suddenly, Jason’s stomach grumbled.

The loud noise briefly disrupted his immersion in the server, and he soon realized that he was very tired - far more tired than he would have expected.

He’d only played for about two hours or so, far less than his usual time playing as a One Star Boss.

It didn’t make sense why he was so tired.

It took a bit until Jason realized that the Tournament Assassins was far more mentally taxing than his previous work.

When playing as a One Star Boss, Jason had only concentrated in roughly one in every three battles.

After all, there were plenty of fights where he simply didn’t have a chance to win. Jason did his best every mission, but it didn’t take a lot of concentration to get instantly nuked and killed.

As a result, he inadvertently got a lot of rest time.

On the other hand, Jason had gone all-out throughout the Tournament of Assassins mission.

He’d kept maximum focus throughout the match, carefully weighing every single one of his moves to ensure secrecy.

Extended concentration had a compounding effect.

There’d been no time to rest his mind during the harrowing mission. Surprises had awaited him at every corner.

Going all out all the time was much more fun than getting instantly destroyed, but it was also much more taxing!

If Jason wanted to level up as a pilot and an independent entrepreneur, he needed to improve his mental focus and discipline.

For his business model to succeed, he’d have to play through multiple missions each day.

Then again...

Jason grinned as a flood of messages appeared on his screen.

Rooster7 - Danny - had seemingly boundless energy.

He’d already come up with several plans for attacking Castle Notoria.

Apparently, he’d tried the mission three times before with friends.

He and his guildmates had beaten the first stage, but they’d fallen short over and over again here.

This time, he was playing by himself.

After losing too many premium Mechs to the Salvage Rule, his friends had been scared off. They’d decided to try a different mission instead.

As he spoke with Danny, Jason gradually realized that the other player was trying to start a guild.

He had several other friends he’d met playing online, but none of them were particularly good.

Out of his current members, Danny was by far the most skilled.

As a result, the group’s overall earnings were poor.

In fact, the guild was so poor that they weren’t even an official guild yet.

Becoming an official guild required a license from the Overdrive Corporation.

To register, players needed to purchase in-game land from the company.

Small guilds usually owned space stations.

Medium-sized guilds moved onto moons or colonies.

Elite guilds like the Illusionists owned entire planets.

Selling digital real estate was another way for the Overdrive Corporation to earn money. The idea seemed ridiculous to outsiders but officially licensed guilds came with substantial awards.

However, Danny was determined to stay a free-to-play player.

He had a simple job working in a coffee shop. As a result, he wanted to buy his space station using Credits he’d earned in-game.

His frugality was why he stuck to the Lucky Duck.

Its One-Armed Bandit weapons system, which let it summon a random bladed item every minute, was a good option for a pilot who needed power but was low on funds.

By repeatedly rolling at the start of the match until he hit a good result, Danny could strike with power much greater than his Mech’s price tag suggested.

The other pilot’s determination and enthusiasm motivated Jason to push through his hunger and mental strain.

Come to think of it, this was another benefit of working on a team. Even if you were feeling tired, an enthusiastic ally would push you to succeed.

As they continued working together, Jason and Danny debated a number of possible plans.

The other player’s experience playing on the map was invaluable.

Some of Jason’s ideas - like trying to dive beneath the fortress and swim back up - were guaranteed to fail.

Danny and his friends had tried a similar submarine strategy before, only to fall prey to the underwater predators.

The seas beneath Castle Notoria were effectively impregnable.

In fact, the Paranoid Parachuter often deliberately tried baiting players so they fell into the water.

The jet black Paragon could safely parachute into the seas.

Enemies who tried diving in were promptly devoured.

Swimming through the water on purpose was playing right into the Illusionist’s hands.

Other times, the two players pooled their knowledge to discover new solutions.

Danny had played through the Tournament of Assassins before, but Jason’s unique familiarity with the Red Minerva had allowed him to discover certain unique counterstrategies.

During the Forest stage, Jason had snuck past the highly sensitive watchdogs by moving through the trees.

There were no trees near Castle Notoria, and even if there were, the enormous fortress would have loomed far above them.

However, the fortress was buried in a cliff. The Red Minerva’s digging abilities opened up several routes of attack.

In addition, the Lamia form could slither through some of the castle’s pipes.

Of course, those abilities wouldn’t be enough.

There was a possibility the Red Minerva could sneak into the fortress, but the massive garrison would catch Jason and his draconic partner before long.

They needed two things - a distraction and a man on the inside.

Jason thought about bribing a member of the Illusionists, but he quickly dismissed the poorly thought out scheme.

For one thing, Jason had never once heard of such a plan succeeding.

It was much more likely that the Illusionists would set up their own ambush in response to Jason reaching out to a Castle Notoria defender.

The Illusionists compensated their members well, and very few players wanted to risk losing access to the guild inventory and the proprietary Mechs and weapons within it.

On top of that, all top guilds had a strict blacklisting process. They attacked traitors on sight and sought to kill them as soon as they logged in.

Infuriating an entire guild of deadly assassins was a blatant mistake.

Just as importantly, neither Jason nor Danny had any money to bribe people.

But by the end, the two players managed to develop a rough plan.

However, the plan required significant upgrades to the Red Minerva and a new temporary Mech for Danny.

It was a good thing the two players had a full week to prepare.

With their plan set in stone, Jason logged off the Overdrive server.

He pushed his chair back then went downstairs to get food. On his way to the kitchen, he saw his parents watching TV in the living room.

Jason beamed brightly as they waved at him and asked him how work was going.

As a One Star Boss living in the company gaming complex, Jason had felt totally alone.

With nobody around to trust or talk to, he’d quickly started feeling like just a cog in the Overdrive Corporation’s machine.

However, bonds with other people were another reason to work as hard as possible.

Jason finished making his sandwich and then brought it back with him to the basement.

After he finished eating, he switched to some exercise clothes and went out for a run.

Despite his excitement, he planned on taking it easy for the rest of the night.

Rather than make any big decisions about his build, he’d concentrate on doing simple drills. He didn’t want to make any rash decisions when his mind wasn’t in top condition.

Unlike other machines, changes to Hemoborn were more or less permanent because they involved modifying a biological organism. A rash decision was extremely costly.

Jason wanted to be in the best possible mental state before making any changes.

Jason had quickly realized that constant exercise, a good sleep schedule, and a clear mind were just as important as his actual practice on the server or the parts equipped to his Mech.

With a week to prepare, he needed to ensure that both he and the Red Minerva were in absolute top condition.