Golden Experience

Wayne had no idea what was going on.

He hadn’t met with Rare again after they had gone into the forest together. Whether she was busy in real life or their login times just never coincided, Wayne had no way to contact her since they weren’t friends in-game.

Meanwhile, the day of the server-wide event arrived. He figured if she were going to be in the event, then he’d meet her there. However, he didn’t see anyone that looked like her at the arena. Feeling put out, Wayne was eliminated from the prelims in block 2, then watched the championship from the spectator seats all alone.

Compared to the prelims, the championship match finished insanely fast. A mysterious player wearing a full suit of black armor completely massacred all the other players. What happened next totally blew Wayne’s mind.

<<Thank you for your patience. The champion of the First Event: Battle Royale is [Rare]. Congratulations.>>

<<Since there is still a significant amount of time remaining until the event ends, with champion [Rare]’s permission, there will be an exhibition match that is open to all players.>>

<<The rules remain the same as the battle royale, but we will prepare a special reward to any player who assists in defeating champion [Rare].>>

<<Please go to the center of the arena in order to register—>>

Rare. The system just said “Rare.”

You couldn’t choose a name that was already in use in this game. That meant that “Rare” should only refer to the player Wayne knew and no one else. But was that person in the black armor really Rare?

What happened in the two weeks since he had last seen her? When they had first met, she had surely been wearing starting equipment. She also made a remark the first time she ever saw magic. That kind of stuff.

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In any case, he had to meet her. Had to make sure.

Wayne went down into the arena.

They announced that registration was closing, and that participants would be transported to the field momentarily. Wayne found himself in a meadow. Now he just needed to find Rare.

According to the system announcement, if you helped defeat Rare, you’d get a special reward or something. Which meant most of the participants would be targeting her. “Any player who assists” meant that even if a bunch of players helped beat her, they should all get the reward. In other words, it was just like how XP was distributed after combat. Therefore, if defeating Rare was your goal, then you wouldn’t consider any other participants your competition.

That meant that if there were a lot of players grouped up somewhere, Rare should probably be nearby. So first, he should look for those players. After leaving the meadow and approaching the forest, he saw a gathering of players. He had the feeling they had already long known he was coming since they didn’t particularly react to his appearance. In other words, their target was Rare. They weren’t wary of him at all even as he got closer and closer.

“Yo. You looking for the champion?”

As soon as he was close enough, someone called out to him.

“Yeah, I am. You guys too?”

“Of course. This is supposed to be a battle royale, but if we all fought each other, there’d be no way for us to beat the champion. So if any of us regular players wanna survive, we gotta team up to vanquish the final boss first.”

“Final boss, huh…”

“Fits perfectly, don’t it? Even if we can’t win, we at least wanna see what’s under the helmet.”

Wayne already knew that it’d be the rugged face of a catkin woman, though.

“Yeah, sure…”

He decided to travel with them. Even if they were just searching randomly, with more people it’d be easier to find her. The trees weren’t too dense, so they could see a fair distance into the forest. He occasionally saw other players in there heading in approximately the same direction.

“Think those players have the same goal?”

“Maybe they have a friend who found the boss and are in touch with them.”

“All right, let’s follow them.”

After leaving the forest, they came upon a ton of players. Rare was probably somewhere on the other side of this crowd. He had to meet her.

“All right! This is probably enough people! Let’s go! It’s a raid!!!”

Someone led the charge, and the battle began. Wayne could fight in both close quarters and at range, but his objective was to talk to Rare, so he wanted to be at the front of the group. Since combat had already started, everyone naturally split up to secure their own positions or line of sight, making it easier to move up front. He dashed across the battlefield, squeezing out before all the other players.

When he got to the front lines, all the shield-bearing players with metal chest protectors had surrounded a single player in black armor. Various magic spells and arrows flew in from far away, and swordsmen and spearmen who could dodge them went from playing meat shields to launching attacks.

Wayne mixed himself into that group. He would have been left out if they were all as strong as the championship players who had formed a temporary party to challenge Rare, but they weren’t that powerful. Players with widely varying levels of strength had formed a united front. So even if Wayne joined them, he wouldn’t be called out for it.

While preparing to attack, Wayne shouted, “Rare!”

Rare turned toward Wayne. None of the attacks hitting her had any effect; if she was concerned about him, then she wouldn’t outright kill him.

“Rare! What happened?! How did you…?!”

“Hey you! You know the champion?!”

“Guy, let’s talk later! Give us a hint for how to get that strong!!!”

This was no time to deal with other players.

“Rare!!!”

However, without responding either to Wayne or to any other player, Rare suddenly raised one arm and started mumbling something. Immediately after, countless bolts of lightning leaped out from Rare’s hand, spinning in a maelstrom and mowing down every player around her.

Wayne found himself back in the spectator seats in a daze.

“Hey, you were trying to talk to the champion just now, weren’t you? You friends?”

The person talking to him had been one of the shieldbearers in the front lines just now.

“…Not friends, we just grinded XP together a few times.”

“Ah, is that all? But right now, no one knows anything about that player, so you’ll be the only one with any information on her. Is there any way you can get in contact with her?”

“…Maybe, if I can meet with her. I need to ask about today. As far as I know, she shouldn’t be that good or strong of a player.”

“Then she found some way to get really strong really fast, maybe. This is getting more and more interesting. Hey, mind friending me? If you find out anything, be a pal and let me know.”

After saying so, he held out his friend card. Wayne sluggishly accepted it, then put it in his inventory.

<<You have become friends with [Gi1gamesh].>>^[1]

“Call me ‘Gil.’ I wanted ‘Gilgamesh,’ but it was already taken.”

That meant “Gil” wasn’t an abbreviation of his player name, but it’s not like they were actually friends, and Wayne didn’t know his real name. So calling him “Gil” anyway wouldn’t cause any problems—

For an instant, Wayne felt like a mental puzzle piece was about to slot into place. But he was having a hard time thinking straight right now.

After parting with Gil there, Wayne decided to log out for the day.

He had completely forgotten about the reward for participating in the event, but it was automatically sent to his inventory after maintenance.

^[1]: This is a fun “translation.” So “Gilgamesh” in katakana is spelled ギルガメッシュ, but this guy chose the name ギノレガメッシュ. So he uses the “no” ノ and “re” レ kana because, when next to each other, they look like “ru” ル. And what’s the Latin alphabet equivalent of this trick? :)