VRMMO - Breach
Chapter VII
“Hey, look, it’s us there.”
Simon pointed at the display located in the lobby. There was a text floating over it that said “Recent Public Matches," and coincidentally, it was the match they have played together just now. With the DivineCrown.
Alice grabbed Simon’s hand and said, “Come on, let’s get closer.” Then she dragged him closer to the screen.
Simon could only sigh. Inaudibly, he complained to her in his mind. Didn’t we just play in this game? That was his question. Well, technically yes, but Alice skipped the most interesting part. Also, she was interested in others’ reactions.
The screen displayed the moment where DivineCrown, with a knife, killed a player called Butch3r. Everyone laughed, “The guy that calls himself Butch3r dies from a knife!” Someone in the crowd yelled.
“Shut up, Predator! In the match with Divine, you will be prey yourself!” There was someone who had to roast the poor guy for disrespect. This caused another wave of laughter.
“Damn, for real. But hey, nobody noticed how that second ranker was on the seventh arcade stage and got so many kills in the head? Did the hackers finally appear in the game?” Another one pointed out the only weird thing on the leaderboard.
Everyone denied him. Creating the exploits for this game is simply too costly. You'd better buy something in the game with that money and become powerful by buying some game passes. Besides, any external software trying to inject anything into the game gets the accounts instantly taken down.
“Just look at the way he plays, I say he is an Alter.” The last word was just a term the Breach players used for the people who played on new/alternative accounts while they also had veteran accounts.
“Imagine if he would have won against the Divine. That’d be hilarious.”
Someone puffed a decorative cigar, “Oh fo sho.”
Simon turned to Alice, his question to her this time was; who exactly are those Divines? Were they some kind of cult? Or just a group of players?
“It’s a sign of status, nothing more, nothing less. There are groups some professional players form and gather the best players they can find.”
From Alice’s words, those groups were usually not for fun but with a professional purpose. Every player in the group was qualified to play at the professional level, but instead they joined these kinds of groups. Mainly because half of the people who join the groups are teenagers. They receive payment via services that don’t require them to be eighteen years old or older.
Those groups finish hard quests easily. They are farming experience easier. They find the best loot on the hard mission, then resell it somewhere else for a high price. It's kind of like a monopoly but in the game.
It’s great for advertising. A lot of Breach streamers and influencers are in groups with similar to “Divine” initials at the beginning of their usernames.
Alice also remembered something, “Speaking of those groups, Pyro is in a similar.” Simon raised a brow.
"I believe they go by the name Ghosts, and they are also quite talented. Not on the professional level, but they have the best accounts for the free world.”
The reason why Pyro was farming in the free world on the alternate account was because of this. He was simply doing what their group was best at. Passing the PVE missions and farming experience to the max levels.
And believe it or not, Simon, in his childhood, was no stranger to the gaming business. In his days, selling gaming accounts was normal, and it remained the same here. Maxed accounts today in such a popular game will cost a lot.
While the popular group finds the buyers, the group members like Pyro will farm the accounts and then sell them. It was always as simple as that, and it always worked, even though it was forbidden by the game rules. Nobody would notice anything anyway.
As the operative went into his deep thinking mode, someone in the large crown noticed his username.
“Hm, Deadropper…” The man glanced back at the screen and reviewed a replay of one of today’s public matches. “You are that guy on the replay. What a coincidence.”
Simon snapped back, “Yes, it’s me.”
That guy opened his mouth and was about to shout out to others, he knew where this was going. “Guys! There is the second-ranked guy on that replay!”
Everyone looked at him, “Huh, you have some hallucinations, mate?” Someone from the crowd responded to the noisy attention seeker.
“What do you mean?” He turned around but saw that the player on the replay, Simon, had already left the lobby together with his partner.
…
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Somewhere outside of the digital world, in the real world. People still had obligations to fulfill before they could play the games.
*Tring!*
The school bell was ringing, indicating that the current lessons had ended and there was a break for students. A high schooler, of course, had to attend classes every day except for weekends. Pyro was just a sixteen-year-old teenager with a great interest in history. Other than that, he didn’t particularly enjoy other subjects, so most of his time in school was boring.
During the breaks, he could at least take out his smartphone and watch some cool videos. That’s exactly what he's doing now. When the teacher left the classroom, he placed his legs on the desk and pressed his back against the chair. After making himself comfortable, Pyro opened a certain app on his phone.
It was called “Breachers”.
This app showed up after the demand players made a few months ago for the in-game recording of Breach. Since they were unable to connect to other software, they needed some other options to record the game. Developers made this and earned quite a bit of money from this as well. A smart move, thought Pyro.
Someone came and sat next to him as he opened the app, "Hey, whatcha watching?" This was his classmate, also interested in this game.
"I just opened. Let's see if there are some cool clips today." Instead of watching broadcasts live, Pyro preferred to watch them on this platform. The broadcasters had the channel even here so, any news would appear here anyway.
"Heard about the mission?" His classmate asked.
Pyro nodded and said, "My mates were messaging me the whole time about it. They are probably assembling the teams."
"You'll have a tough time, even the Divines couldn't beat it. I feel that with just five people, this mission can't be passed…"
At his words, Pyro grew surprised. With just five people? It wasn't an easy mission like 'Hit the Jackpot' where you could just speedrun. This was a mission where every floor had fifty-plus level NPCs... so how could they pass it with just five people?
Pyro shook his head, "There will be tactics coming up soon. We'll figure it out. That's what we are best at." Months of just farming on the same missions all the time gifted him with certain abilities. Finding flaws in the NPCs and the game so that next time he can pass it easily and quickly.
"One day, those developers will consider you guys abusers of the bugs, and ban every one of you. Why do you always find such flaws and how?!" His classmate was dumbfounded.
"It's called a clever use of game mechanics. We don't exploit bugs, and it's not always me. It's the entire group, and then they record and publish it."
He scrolled through his phone and found one of the first clips about the mission. It was a cutscene. Speaking of this, it meant that there was some kind of story introduced... But unfortunately, Pyro hated spoilers, so he scrolled further.
"Hey, let me watch it!"
"No, spoiler enjoyer. Perish!"
[Oh my god!] Another video showed up on their screen and the crazy reaction to it gained their attention back.
"That's DivineCrown, isn't it?"
Pyro nodded, "Yes, it's him."
This was one of those types of videos, short ones with specific titles that attracted people. In this case, 'Luck or Skill' with the video showing gameplay of DivineCrown. He was one of the best non-professional PVP players, frequently appearing on the leaderboards. Pyro attentively tracked this guy's progress.
The relaxing music played in the background, and someone in the video began to speak,
[Today's footage is of a very lucky or skillful display of gameplay from DivineCrown! He pulled one hell of a clutch today on the public. Watch this video closely.]
The screen switched, [On the video, we can see how the timer on the screen just hit zero, and this is the last timer! The zone begins to shrink and, with the notification, Crown makes a crazy move. He jumps down from the tenth floor and, while in free fall, he kills the remaining player, thus winning the game. Comment down below if you think this was pure skill or incredible luck.]
Instead of Pyro, his classmate was the one to open the comment section. Much to the annoyance of the first. In the comment section itself, there was a deathmatch between the teams. Pyro facepalmed. They were seriously debating over that.
[Anonymous User #1: "Crown is a smart guy. He went for the risk because he was unsure if he could outlast his enemy. Also, his reflexes were always a big help; he zoomed very quickly and knocked his enemy down, automatically killing him."]
[Anonymous User #2: "This was just a lucky shot. When you are free falling from the tenth floor to the fifth, everything becomes blurry. You are falling so quickly that you can barely see what you have passed."]
[Anonymous User #3: “You idiots, go watch this footage before even knowing what the hell was happening in the game. This guy benefits from your useless arguments and debates. He makes money from this sh*t.”]
Pyro thought, ‘Finally, someone with a brain.’ and clicked on the video to watch. The app took him to a different page; it was a real account of DivineCrown where he posted the footage of his matches. The subscription button was already different from its initial color, meaning that he was already subscribed to this guy.
The video, with the title “Insane fast zoom in free fall.” has already gained thousands of views from the Breach community. It was hard to believe that this was all a display of skill, but it really was. DivineCrown knocked his enemy down by hitting the head after aiming at it while also in a free fall.
His classmate at the side commented, “That’s just skill.” Pyro silently agreed.
[Anonymous User #4: “Anyone got the third person footage of this match? I heard there was much more in this game by the second ranker.”]
[Anonymous User #5: “There are no footages open like this at the moment, nobody had recorded it. Those moments will probably appear in the game’s weekly highlights.”]
Pyro raised a brow and looked closely at the match’s leaderboard. He saw a familiar nickname, but to ensure himself that this was the person he knew, he skipped the video back to the moment with a fast-zoom... The person had the same skin. The one he gifted to Simon, and his nickname in the game was Deadropper…
“Huh.” He felt extremely confused. Had Simon decided to play a PVP game for the first time? He won second place.
“Is he someone you know?”
“Desmond, if I told you that this guy started playing the game just yesterday, would you believe me?”
His classmate deadpanned, “If you are telling me it that way, it means that it is like that.”
“Exactly and look at his accuracy rates.” Pyro smugly asked Desmond to do that. Not suspecting anything yet, so he did and turned his attention to the leaderboard.
“He’s a hacker!”