Desolate World

"She is a streamer," Cloud said to her daughter.

"Huh? The bard girl?" Sofia asked. She was surprised.

They were among the crowd. Sitting on the log chairs, enjoying the concert. Geo was not with them, as he had gone with his friends to play. At first, Sofia was surprised the doting grandmother would let her grandson go without her following along. 

At the moment, she understood why. Her mother wanted to make sure something about Emily.

It was the third song that Emily sang on the stage. The response of the townsmen was good. They enjoyed the show very much. Sofia didn't know how Emily could make the volume of her voice and the guitar's much louder. She guessed it was because of a piece of equipment's effect. She didn't want to confirm it, as it was Emily's privacy. But, she hoped she could lend Emily's help in the future, if such an event would be held again.

"Yes. I have confirmed that from her gesture. It was just like someone operating a 'bug'," Cloud said.

"Bug?" Sofia asked. She was really confused with the term. 

"It was a tool that functioned as a camera. Only this tool can record the picture and sound in this game. It can be said as the eye and the ear of humanity in this world," Cloud said seriously.

Sofia then remembered the woman reporter that interviewed a player who had just killed another player, to rob the rare equipment from him in the past. 

At that time, she was just ignorant of the importance of the 'game' to humanity. But, with Cloud revealed the realities bit by bit, and then her husband's ownership of some quotas that could migrate people to a different world, she knew the significance of the 'bug'. 

Her mother on an occasion told her and Ace that the union could only oversee all human players through their activities log. The activities log could record what players do, where, when, who they meet, and each achievement that they made, like getting what loot after killing a monster, etc. It looked complete. But it couldn't record sounds or pictures. 

Each of the players' activities logs could only be accessed by the union if the government thought it was necessary. It was impossible for the union to check each of them, even if they had the most advanced AI in the world. At most, they could only observe players who made certain achievements or suspicious activities.

But, the 'bugs' were different. They could also record videos. It would make humanity further understood about this world. But, instinctively she knew that they were not so simple. There must be some restrictions in the use of them.

"So, what are the restrictions?" Sofia then asked her mother.

Her question made Cloud smile. She then said, "You caught it fast. Well, for some reason, we could only make 100 of them. And I knew well the union had completely distributed them to some reporters and streamers.

So, I am sure, she was one of our agents. Or at least, half agents, as they weren't required to do anything special, except for recording everything that they thought was interesting. But, if somehow, we need their services, they can't refuse. 

So, this is the plan…." 

***

It was already in the middle of the night. Ace was really tired. He preferred hunting for a few days nonstop, than to do his executive chores. 

This day, he had received a total of 457 reports from various observation spots, spy birds, and outposts. It hadn't included the reviews that he should do tomorrow. With the efficiency of Mose, he definitely would get the summary tomorrow. And many more records should be reevaluated tomorrow. 

He couldn't even take care of the guild's business at all. He only knew that they got 73 new members today from the guild's information panel. It was definitely good. As the total number of guardians that were summoned was 103 today. It meant, almost 75% of guardians that were summoned today had joined the guild. It was definitely a good start. 

The next day, Sampson, Geo, Cloud, and the combat team would start some leveling up parties. They would go deep into the forest to harvest some experience. The parties would be divided based on the number of participants at four different times. Every new guardian had to participate in the leveling party at least one time per day and until they reached level 15. So they would definitely be busy from the next day.

He could only go home after Jordan left to do a spying mission in Iron Gate Fortress and Mose came to replace him. Although he was just a secretary, Ace gave him some authority if an emergency occurred. After all, besides him, only Mose who was the most informed about the circumstances of the Night Guard.

Ace then opened his guild's panel and saw about 60% of the newbies were online. Many of them had started to take missions from the guild house's counter, while the rest were leveling up by forming hunting parties while also doing gathering missions.

Actually, he had taken some interest in some names, because they showed extraordinary dedication in doing guild missions. 

Sofia, as the manager of the guild, had formulated a reward system for the guild. Each time a member of the guild, whether personnel from townsmen or guardians had finished a mission from guild house, besides receiving experience, dirac, and sometimes items, they would receive guild points. 

By trading the points, they could get various items from the guild store. And at the end of the month, the top 5 guardians and the top 5 personnel of the guilds based on the accumulation of guild coins that they earned would receive special rewards. The rewards were some amount of dirac, discounts, and rare items that had been displayed in the guild rooms.

For the third to fifth places, they would get 3,000, 2,000, and 1,000 dirac. For second place, he or she would get a discount of 50% for buying an item with a maximum value of 10,000 dirac in the guild store. And for the first place, he or she would get a monster's heritage that could be used to make an equipment set.

***