Is this really a Game?!



The more powerful Reign and the others became, the more difficult it was for them to find a suitable hunting ground since they needed to go further and further away from Doncaster. At first, they didn't think much of it, by constructing a portal, they could easily go to and from Doncaster, but the problem became bigger once they found out that after a certain distance, the cost of a portal became more expensive.

If Reign and the others had to continuously create portals, they would find themselves lacking money soon as even though they were getting an influx of people from the underground, most of them had never fought before and were below Tier I.

It would take months for them to become powerful enough to actually start helping the territory out in a significant way, not to mention the fact that most of them were not ready to fight against monsters. 

The people below Pripyat had spent months being protected by the army and the volunteers that decided to fight against the monsters with the soldiers, which left the remaining 90% of the population to do nothing.

Going up to the surface for them was a great shock as they couldn't believe just how much the world had changed. General Neil never blocked the information of how different things were now to them, but thanks to the fact they were never forced to fight, many had no idea just how different things were now.

In the city, they still had electricity, of course, the internet didn't work, nor did TV, but almost everything else was still in function. Coming up to the surface and seeing how people were living lives that were vastly different than before was a shock, as well as the fact that there was no more electricity, cars were not working, and neither were weapons nor any kind of home appliances.

Mana was needed to operate anything, and thanks to the system, Reign and the others were able to utilize the territory options to create an array around the city that drew in mana and powered everything, of course, it wasn't enough and they needed to purchase and use mana crystals, but they had enough saved thanks to the constant battles and exploring the players did, leading to the city being self-sufficient for now.

Some decided to move to Doncaster and tried doing odd jobs, some started hunting with other, much more capable players and tried sensing and utilizing mana while others were too scared to do so and decided to go back to the underground city.

Still, slowly but steadily, people were arriving at Doncaster, increasing the number of players. As weeks passed, Reign and the others managed to find a territory that had Tier IV monsters and was suitable for them. 

They had found one close to Pripyat before, but the only Tier IV monsters there were low and mid-grade, which were at this point in time nearly useless to Reign and the others.

They had to pay a hefty sum to construct a portal, but it was better than having to travel for days in order to go to one that the explorers had already found. Not only was it too far, but there was no saying whether the monsters would be powerful enough to be useful to Reign and the others.

The explorers were not as powerful as Reign and the others, so the only thing they knew was that the monsters were Tier IV, but not what grade.

Paul had departed from Doncaster shortly after Reign and the others had found the underground city. His goal was to go to the territories that he had previously found and to try and connect Doncaster with them, only if he believed they would be friendly, however.

Reign had given him permission from the system to connect a portal with the other territory. Reign and the others had constructed 4 portals in Doncaster that were not connected to any area. Those would be used to connect to a portal that another territory constructed, which would allow Doncaster and the said territory to use the facilities they had, as well as to allow the players to use the portals the friendly territory had already built in order to go to distant places.

Slowly, a network was being formed around Doncaster. By constructing one portal that would connect to a new territory, they would gain multiple portals that they could use, which was a win-win situation as the players from the other territories could do the same.

Since Paul departed, only two weeks had passed before a portal was suddenly activated. He was the first one to walk out of it and bring good news to the players as he had been successful at creating an alliance with a territory. 

The territory on the other side was a small part of a city that the players had managed to take over and defend against the monsters who were present there. Compared to Doncaster, it wasn't as secure, but they were similar in size, but their strength was vastly different as the most powerful amongst them were only Tier III while more players in Doncaster had managed to evolve to Tier IV. 

Seeing as how they would gain nothing but benefits, the leaders of the other territory accepted Paul's proposal and constructed a portal, but they made sure to place a couple of mana crystals right in front of it and bury them in the ground.

If the players from Doncaster turned out to be hostile and were actually trying to take over the territory with force, they wouldn't hesitate to pour mana in the crystals and blow them up, destroying the portal and probably killing a couple of the players as well.

Luckily, Doncaster truly was friendly and none of the players had any thoughts of conquering the territory. Upon seeing just how large and safe Doncaster was, most of the players from the other territory wished to join it.

Even the 5 leaders of the territory started bargaining with the players, not knowing who the leader was. Their territory was somewhat safe, but there were powerful monsters in the center of the city, if they were to attack them, their defenses would not hold. The portal was there and the players could definitely use it to reinforce them, but there was no saying how long it would take for them to arrive as they weren't in Doncaster at all times.

Keeping most of the players in Doncaster would mean that they would be safe no matter what happened. There would be people in their own territory at all times in case an attack occurred, but that would be it.

Only about 3 000 people lived in the territory, so it wasn't a problem for all of them to move to Doncaster. 

The second territory that Paul managed to convince to connect to Doncaster was larger and had about 6 000 people. They were closer to Doncaster in strength compared to the first one and had some Tier IV players.

Their territory was safe and none of them wanted to move, but having an alliance with Doncaster was nothing but a plus to them as they suddenly had access to two friendly territories and a bunch of areas that had portals constructed in them.

Days and even weeks passed until Paul returned to the second territory, bringing some concerning news.

Reign and the others were hunting that day. They had managed to level up multiple times and all of them were high-grade Tier IV combatants. It wouldn't take them long before reaching the top of the realm and finally evolved to Tier V.

They planned on leveling up until they became top-grade Tier IV combatants, after that, they would go back to the mountain range and enter the depths. The fog never stopped moving and was now much closer to the wall compared to before, being only about 5 meters away from it.

They knew that the clock was ticking. If they were unable to clear the depths soon and find what was creating the fog, the wall would be devoured by the fog and the players would have to man the wall inside the fog, which was much more dangerous than being outside of it.

More powerful monsters started appearing near the wall, but thanks to the high number of Tier IV combatants present in Doncaster, they were able to defend the wall without much trouble and Reign and the others were free to focus on leveling up.

As they arrived back in Doncaster, they heard the news of Paul coming back and wanting to speak with them. They all gathered at the office in their building and listened to what Paul had to say.

"You're saying you found an entire city that is defended by a dome similar to the one the castle has?!" Reign and the others couldn't believe that something as shocking as that had happened.

An entire city that was much larger than Doncaster, one that had tens of thousands of people in it was actually completely fine, defended by a powerful dome that kept the monsters out.

"I tried getting close, but when I did, I decided to come back, it was far too dangerous." Paul suddenly said with a heavy expression as he stared at Reign and the others.