"Okay, why don't we all just calm down," Yin said in a hurried voice. "Loran, was there anything else you wanted to mention?"

Loran remained silent, eyes still locked with Soze's, but after a few seconds passed he turned to Yin. "Yes actually, there is one more thing we need to talk about. During yesterday's expedition, we may have discovered another group of players."

"What do you mean by may have?" Soze asked, setting aside his anger for a moment.

"We didn't actually see any players, but we found goats that were pre-named, that means someone had to be in the area to do it."

"So there are others in this region?" Yin asked.

Soze shook his head. "We would need to know how widespread these goats are to say for certain."

"It's definitely a gamble, but I'm feeling optimistic about this one," Loran said.

"Based on what?"

"For starters, it's not like we players were given designated starting areas, or at least not well-defined ones. It seems like the one billion players were scattered across the game map at random. With everyone eventually settling down for the first night certain campsites would become villages like ours, and if the player distribution was even enough-"

"Then the villages would all be within a day or two of travel!" Yin realized. "Even if some players decided to go farther before establishing themselves it would still be relatively close by thanks to our enhanced movement stats."

"Exactly."

"That could be true..." said Soze, staring down as he considered the idea.

"On top of that we need to remember that this game has around a billion people trapped in it. Even if the game world is the size of a literal planet that doesn't leave too much space to put everyone."

"Indeed, until population centers become denser it would make sense for a village or two to be relatively close by. Overall the most limiting factor is probably just the fact that we are in this valley."

"Yeah," Loran sighed, "it's also possible that the village is on the other side of the mountains. If that's the case we probably have no way to reach them. But we should still try."

"Will our food shortage not get worse if we bring in more people?"

"If they've survived for this long then they can feed themselves in their village. Once we get Demeter's farm established it won't be too big an issue to have them come over here." Loran shrugged. "Who knows, maybe they've already started their own farm and will take us in. So what do you-" Loran began to ask Soze a question but stopped when he saw the older player staring blankly into space, his face pale. "Soze? What's wrong?"

"Are you still mad at Loran's comments?" Yin asked, drawing a quick glare from him.

"Yes, but that's not it. I was just... what Loran said about how the players were distributed evenly across the map."

"What about it?"

"The map isn't going to be entirely made of starter areas. Even if we say the game isn't evil enough to have players spawn in the ocean or something, how many players would have started in a higher-level area, like across the river? If only five percent of the map is suitable for starting players then that would mean..."

Soze didn't finish his sentence, but the implications of his idea formed words in Loran and Yin's minds.

'950,000,000 dead.'

They both took a quick breath. A number like that was chilling to think about, and difficult to even comprehend. It was nearly a tenth of the global population. It easily overtook every other atrocity in human history by several orders of magnitude. Even World War 2, the bloodiest war ever, only had an estimated death toll of around 80 million over six terrible years.

This was more than ten times that in less than a week, possibly less than a day.

Stolen novel; please report.

"...I don't think that's right," Loran said softly.

"Then please explain," Soze asked, his voice even but Loran could almost hear the desperation behind it.

"Three things. First, if nothing else, did we ever find any dead bodies across the river? Or maybe out near the Demon Bear territory?"

Yin shook her head. "No, nothing like that."

"Player bodies don't just disappear when our HP hits zero, we already know that from... a few weeks ago; and we do find the occasional animal carcass out in the woods from wolf hunts, so it's not like the animals here can just consume an entire body without issue."

Soze began nodding his head. "We can't say for sure, but the area across the woods seems to be of a similar size as this side is. If a hundred and fifty people spawned over there we would have found at least one body." He flinched as a thought occurred to him. "Although I don't think the ants would take much issue with dragging away bodies to their nest."

"You're right. But, point number two, we've explored up and down the river quite a bit. That's probably the best place to set up camp in the valley, but we still haven't seen anyone else near it. If the distribution really was perfectly even, there would've been other people who wandered to the river like I did on day one. If no one else spawned near the river, then it's safe to say that no one spawned in the higher level area at all."

Yin and Soze visibly relaxed. "So what was your third reason?"

Loran smiled nervously. "Honestly, the third thing is just that I'm going to deny the possibility that many people died just for the sake of my sanity."

Yin let out a soft chuckle as Soze facepalmed hard, though with a small smile.

"So the most likely scenario is that the players have each spawned in a beginner area?"

"I think it might be less of a beginner area and more like a safe area. The plains with the Mountain Goats seemed really peaceful, and if the goats' presence keeps the usual predators out it would be a perfect place for players to start in, although it might be a little lacking in EXP."

"If it really is safe from predators then there would probably be some smaller game," Soze commented, "and even going into the woods wouldn't be too dangerous as long as they stuck to the wolves."

"So what's the verdict?" Yin asked.

"....We'll form a search party." Soze decided. "There's a decent enough chance that people are out there, and if they are, then we need to make contact with them."

The team would be made of AGI-focused players, both to reach the grasslands more quickly and also to help search a wider area. It would certainly stretch their manpower thin since they already sent over a dozen hunters out for the Iron Ant expedition, but it wouldn't be impossible and making contact with the other group before some tragedy befell one or both of them was a priority. The only remaining question was where to start searching.

"I say they should start by heading east of the village," Loran said.

"That seems acceptable," Yin said. "The other expedition will be exploring the northern region, so making our way south will cover the rest of the valley."

"There is still a bit of territory in between," Soze pointed out, "but you guys can check that out once you've found the ant nest, okay?"

Loran nodded.

"Very well then. Is there anything else you would like to report?" Yin asked.

Loran thought for a moment before giving a shrug. "I've been keeping the information about the new players away from Bates, I guess that's worth mentioning," he said before explaining his concerns about Bates souring the situation between the player groups.

Soze rolled his eyes. "You really don't trust him do you?"

"It's not like he hasn't given me a reason."

"I find it unlikely that he even could do something that egregious," Yin said. "Unless those other players are extremely distrustful, it would take a truly awful first encounter to drive them away, given our imprisonment."

"You're probably right," Loran said. "Bates may be petty as hell, but at the very least he isn't needlessly hostile or anything. It would honestly take some serious incompetence to mess this up."

~~~~~

"Hey boss, didn't you say we were gonna work on that map or something?"

"And?" Bates asked, turning the map in his hands, comparing a particularly knarled tree with a mark on the map.

"Well, you haven't been writing or drawing anything since we got out here."

"The answer is simple buddy, I lied." Bates said with a smile. Rolling up the map he dashed forward, the rest of his team following after him. He came to a stop behind a rather large bush, looking over it. "We're here for that!"

Less than a hundred feet away, in the middle of the open grasslands, was a very large Mountain Goat. Its horns were massive and riddled with tiny white lines where cracks from old battles had slowly recovered. Its fur was long and thick, reaching down and almost covering its hooves. Standing alone, it calmly ate away at the mid-sized bush in the field, occasionally raising its head to survey the area, and reveal that it was easily a foot taller than the ones that Loran encountered, standing almost nine feet tall.

One of Bates' five teammates whistled appreciatively. "That's a big goat."

"But boss, didn't you say we weren't going to bother with the goats?"

"I only said that because that punk wanted me to take over making the map. They clearly didn't want us to go near these guys so I'm guessing they either plan to tame some themselves later or get players from the village to do it instead." An ambitious grin spread across his face. "Either way, we're going to do it first!"

The other players began to grin along with Bates, all of them staring at the Mountain Goat like it had a giant prize symbol floating above it.

Only one of them wore a more innocent smile. "So you know how to tame it, boss?" The question wasn't one born of caution, but simple curiosity.

"It'll be fine," Bates scoffed. "We just have to weaken it and then drag it back to camp. That's how games always do it."