Maria, Lizzy, and Emily arrived at the plains area very quickly thanks to Maria’s enhanced movement capabilities that she developed along the way. She combined both her wing movements and chains to bring all three of them to their destination but when they arrived, all they saw were traces of battle with no squads of players within sight. Usually, it would be easy to spot a team or a player as they moved through the flat plains because the plains were at the center of the entire map so people would have to move in and out of this zone to get to the other zones but for some reason, it was particularly quiet this time around.
Of course, once all of the zones were closed off, the plains would remain and any that managed to survive that long would be forcefully pushed into the zone for a final showdown. It was still early in the game, so it was only natural that there wouldn’t be anyone but even after waiting for around 15 minutes, Maria and her friends didn’t see anyone moving to and from the other zones. All they did was hunt the remaining monster camps that weren’t hunted yet by the other players and by the time they dealt with the last one, they still didn’t see another team.
Since they queued up for a 60-player game, there would only be 20 squads in all. The remaining teams in the Battle Royale were shown in the system window that they could pull up at any time to check the details of their loadout and map. It showed that there were still 12 teams left including theirs, so it meant that not even half of the squads had been eliminated. The fact that they haven't been able to spot a single team despite there being quite a lot of them still alive was extremely weird, especially for Maria and her team who were in the plains area which acted as a hub for players to move around the map from one zone to another.
“This is boring! I thought you said this place is where all the fighting would happen!” Maria cried in exasperation of not finding any player squads to defeat.
They had already taken out the last monster camp, so now there was really nothing for them to do in the plains area.
“...Let’s go into the other zones and hunt them then. Waiting around is boring and we’re all level 6 now. We’ve unlocked all our skills so let’s not wait for the other teams to get stronger and wipe out as many as we can find,” Emily suggested.
“I'll second that, waiting here is boring and it’s not like we’re going to ambush anyone here. Let’s get moving then. I say we hit the forest zone,” Lizzy said.
The girls quickly began to move and follow Lizzy’s suggestion to attack the players hiding in the forest zone. The first zone would typically start closing off after 5 minutes into the game and after that, the subsequent zones would close off every 3 minutes. The first one had already closed off and it was the one they appeared in at the start, the ruins area. When it did close off, they waited and found no one exiting the zone, so it was safe to say that the 2 squads they eliminated inside the zone plus theirs were the only ones that started there.
Another 3 zones had closed off while they were in the plains area, but unfortunately, no players came out of those zones. There were a total of 9 zones in all: the ruins, tundra, desert, cityscape, swamp, volcanic, floating islands, underground, and lastly, the plains zone. The ruins, desert, volcanic, and floating islands zones had been closed off already so only 5 zones remained. With 11 other teams remaining beside theirs, it meant that there were at least 2 to 3 teams in the remaining zones that were still open.
“Wait!” Lizzy suddenly said as they were about to head into the forest zone.
“What is it, Liz?” Emily asked.
“Let’s do a little bit of calculating, alright? There are only 5 zones left, so excluding the plains where we’re on, that means there are only 4 zones left that still have player squads in them, right?”
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“And?” Her two friends questioned.
“That means there are 2-3 squads in each zone and the next zone will close in another 2 minutes. Couldn’t we just wait because there’s a guarantee that at least a few squads will come scurrying out into the plains!” Lizzy exclaimed.
“That’s when we’ll nab them! I like that idea!” Maria quipped.
“That’s just the theoretic amount, you two! For all we know, the next zone won’t have any squads because they could all be concentrated in just two other zones or even a single zone!” Emily said, trying to debunk Lizzy’s claim.
“You know that’s impossible, right Em?” Lizzy immediately objected before explaining herself. “If they were concentrated in just one or two zones, then they’d be fighting. I said this because if it’s just 2-3 squads in the remaining zones, then they’d be too spread out and wouldn’t have to fight each other if they’re all just trying to play mantis with one another.”
Her logic was sound and it convinced Emily. She had thought the same but one could never be too sure. There were some stupid cases of this before where half of the players playing were actually acquainted with each other because they were one guild so they teamed up, eliminated the remaining squads that weren’t a part of them before duking it out on the plains zone for content for their guild's Switch channel. Emily could only hope that nothing coincidentally stupid as that would happen to them on Maria’s debut Battle Royale match.
“...True, well fine then. I guess we should wait now?”
“Yup. Just another minute now, be ready to quickly move to the zone that’s closing. We’ll attack any squad that comes out! Focus on one of them and we’ll try catching the other one right after!”
“Yes!”
“Alright.”
*****
At the cityscape zone, a squad of two players was rushing towards the zone’s exit because the zones were almost about to close. Usually, the players inside the closing zone would be informed half a minute beforehand that their zone was closing and they got that notification.
“Dammit, they got Jimmy! Those damned angel bastards and their increased movement speeds. It’s just a cheat!”
“Never mind that. We should quickly head to the zone’s exit before they do. After that, find another zone to hide in and recuperate. My armor’s been destroyed and I have two-thirds of my HP left! We need to find healing items quick!”
This team of two wasn’t from any notable guild that Maria or her friends knew about, but they were frequent players of the Battle Royale mode. Unfortunately for them, they had encountered both an Angel and a Devil team in the cityscape zone along with a few other squads but were ambushed by the Angel team. The angels, devils, and any other race that had wings had a movement advantage in the cityscape because they could glide and use the movement burst technique to quickly navigate the cityscape’s streets and alleys.
Their squad consisted of a ranger, warrior, and priest but in the Angel team’s ambush, their priest had been caught and immediately eliminated. They had survived this long by killing small monster camps and hiding away in the cityscape zone’s various corners and accessing the battle mode's market to buy HP and MP supplies to keep them alive. Since their zone was finally being closed off, they naturally began running towards the zone’s exit. The other teams in the zone had been eliminated except for the Angel and Devil teams who were, at the moment, still fighting against each other.
“Sean, the exit's just ahead, we’re almost out!”
“Carl, head straight for the forest area, the angels and devils don’t go there since the trees obstruct vision and keep them from using their movement bursts. We’ll be safe there for a while!”
“Roger!”
Unfortunately for them, right as they exited their zone, another team of players was waiting for them.
“Liz, you were right!”
“Told ya, now let’s quickly deal with these 2, I bet there’s still another team inside!”
“Mary, don’t use your skills, we’ll deal with them.”
The two players that were coming out of the cityscape zone, Carl and Sean―IGNs undisclosed―both stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the team of 3 girls blocking their way. However, when the two noticed that they were only chicks, they laughed before rushing straight at them.
“Even without Jimmy, we can still do this. As usual, I’ll take the front. You deal with the others and stop them from interfering, we’ll take out at least one of them and break through!”
“Right!”
They were underestimating Maria and her friends because they were girls but that was pretty stupid of them. Even though Emily had given Maria the order not to use her skills, she impulsively used [Calamity Cleave] and threw her ax at the two when she saw that Carl and Sean were undermining them.
“How about you idiots eat this!”
Emily and Lizzy didn’t waste their time reprimanding Maria and made short work of the two fools that charged at them. By the time they were defeated, Sean and Carl were still in their stunned states. They didn't even get to use any of their skills before they died and got ejected from the game. They were too surprised to even get mad at the absurdity of their situation.
“W-What the fu―”