[Your civilization has been drawn]
“What? Already?”
A bare-chested, middle aged man with ash white hair sat alone in the middle of a large room. His brows jumped up, but a mere second later they returned to their place as his eyes narrowed.
“Who will it be this time? I hate to admit it, but meeting newbies would be for the best,” he muttered aloud as he waited for the system to deliver more details.
And it didn’t take long.
Only ten seconds later, a series of notifications rang in his mind.
[Your civilization has been declared the subordinate civilization]
[Earth has been declared the leader civilization]
[You have 23 hours to decide the number of Gold coins each civilization will bet. After the 23 hours have passed, the leader civilization’s choice will be revealed to you, and you will have 1 hour to decide who enters]
[The fight will take place one day from now in Arena #3416.]
[Time Remaining: 23:00:00]
“Earth? The last time I checked the rankings was a week ago but I don’t recall seeing it in the top 100,000.”
The middle aged man mumbled to himself and called up the rankings through the system. He calmly said, “Search for Earth.”
Soon, a line appeared in his mind.
[Earth (Unranked)]
When the text flashed before him, he froze, unable to believe what he was seeing. Seconds passed, and after doing a double take more than one time to make sure it was real, he finally accepted that he wasn’t dreaming.
“Haha… hahaha… HAHAHAHA!”
It started with a chuckle, but in the blink of an eye, it turned into uproarious laughter that threatened to tear a hole in his throat.
“It’s fate! It must be fate! Even the Universe wants my civilization, Oreto’s civilization, to prosper!” he said cheerfully.
Bang!
The doors slammed open as a scrawny man barged inside with no decorum.
“Sir, sir! Big news!” he said through pants, too excited to notice the annoyed glare already directed at him. “We’ve been paired against an unranked civilization, and this time, we’re the subordinate civilization!”
“Oh yeah? And how do you know?” Oreto’s cheerful mood seemed to vanish as he spat the words through gritted teeth.
It seemed just seeing this person put Oreto in a bad mood.
The scrawny man was about to explain when a wave of mana sent him flying back toward the door.
“It was a rhetorical question, you idiot!” Oreto shouted before lowering his hand and taking a deep breath to calm down.
Even after so many years of entering the portal, he still cursed himself for bringing this scrawny man along with him. He was of no help. The only thing he was good at was getting on his nerves day and night.
“By now, everyone in our civilization should know about this. Go and tell them to come here, we’re going to have a meeting.”
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Cough… cough…
The scrawny man slowly stood up from the ground and yelled, “YES, THIS HUMBLE ONE WILL DO AS SIR SAYS!”
Then, without hesitation, he stomped his foot on the ground, shattering the marble floor and kicking up a cloud of dust, before dashing off.
Oreto, now immersed in the cloud of dust, stared at the spot where the scrawny man had been just a moment ago with eyes wide, his hands slowly clenching involuntarily.
“That damned fool.”
/////
Right after leaving Erevan’s room and splitting up with Jack, a notification rang in Nova’s head, stopping him dead in his tracks.
[Your civilization has been drawn]
‘Oh? I thought the system was going to give us a grace period, but it seems like it can’t wait to feed us to the other civilizations.’
Nova thought as a smile spread across his face, totally unbothered that a fight was about to start not even a full day after having entered the portal.
[Your civilization has been declared the leader civilization]
[Grenara has been declared the subordinate civilization]
[You have 23 hours to decide the maximum number of warriors each civilization will be allowed to send. After the 23 hours have passed, the subordinate civilization’s choice will be revealed to you, and you will have 1 hour to decide who enters]
[The fight will take place one day from now in Arena #3416.]
[Time Remaining: 23:00:00]
Nova read through the notifications and, after having read through them, he quietly said to himself, “Grenara? I wonder how much they’ll bet, but that depends on whether they’re strong or weak. It’s a pity it doesn’t say anything about that.”
“Well…”
Turning on his heel, he said, “Back to Erevan, I guess.”
/////
Erevan hadn’t even had time to move from his sofa when a series of notifications rang in his head.
He quickly scanned them and nodded in satisfaction. “Good, good. The faster we complete the portal and get out of here, the bigger my achievement will be. I can’t wait to finally go back.”
He sighed softly.
Click
The door slowly, no, very slowly opened, but halfway through, a voice rang out through the room.
“Why are you taking so long to open a door?” Nova’s calm voice came from the entrance. “Look, just push it.”
“You—”
The other voice was cut off as the door sprang wide open, revealing to Erevan what was happening outside.
There, right at the entrance, stood an awkward Jack and a relaxed Nova.
“Ah, it’s you two. You just left, but I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon,” Erevan said, a smug smile on his face. “What can I do for you?”
Jack threw a glance at Nova before entering the room and taking a seat on the sofa as if he’d heard nothing.
There’s no need to answer him as that will only make him feel even better. I should just ignore whatever he says, Jack thought, looking at every other spot in the room except where Erevan was.
He’d stormed off earlier, filled with fighting spirit and ready to train, but now he was back, and, to add insult to injury, the sofa where he’d stood before hadn’t even cooled down.
He truly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Mhm. We’re back.” Nova nodded as he strolled to the sofa and slouched down like he’d never left in the first place. Then, he looked at Erevan and asked, “What’s the plan?”
Erevan crossed his arms in front of his chest as he leaned back and said languidly, “I’ve checked that civilization’s ranking, and they’re barely hanging within the top 100,000. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Ranking?” Nova echoed in surprise.
“Mhm,” Erevan nodded. “It’s a ranking based on the number and total strength of a civilization’s people inside the portal, but it’s just that, a mere, faulty ranking.”
Jack couldn’t hold himself back. “Why is it faulty?” he asked.
Erevan smiled at him. “From what I’ve seen, the ranking is the sum of all the people’s strength in a civilization. That means a higher count of people will most likely get you a higher position.”
He shook his head slightly. “But there’s a problem. Fights are mostly small scale, one versus one, usually. So the total strength of a civilization means very little in this scenario.”
“Take us, for example. We’re just four, and thus our ranking will never be among the top. Despite that, we might be able to win against many high-ranking civilizations here. Tell me, isn’t this a faulty ranking or not?” He chuckled as the words left his lips.
Jack, taken aback by what he’d just heard, nodded. “Indeed. I wouldn’t want to be listed in that ranking at all.”
“Yes!” Erevan clapped his hands. “It only serves to announce to your opponents how much of a threat you are and to keep the fight small scale, sending only their best people.”
While Erevan and Jack went back and forth, Nova had already tuned them out and was checking their enemy’s ranking.
[Grenara (99,876th)]
‘A bit on the low side. How much will they be able to bet with this low of a ranking?’ Nova’s first thought as soon as he saw it.
“As for the plan…” Erevan suddenly said, snapping Nova back to focus. “We’ll keep this fight one versus one. The only thing left is to decide who’s going.”
“So…”
He looked at the two in front of him. “Who wants to go?”
Immediately, two voices rang out.
“I’ll go.”
“I’ll go.”
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