ShangriLa Frontier ~ Shitty Games Hunter Challenges Godly Game ~

ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 382: Fishbowl Shark Part 1

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During the battle royal type of event, not only limited to those presented at the end of the Edo Period, one of the most important tasks that needs to be done first and before everything else is to confirm your own position. Rushing in blindly and swinging your sword is all good and nice if plan to play Berserker, but in most cases it would just get you killed before you know it.

For the time being, those of the players who aim for the top score are running around the map, trying to catch as many people off their guard and eliminate them for some easy points. Those guys are like walking typhoons, so it is best to leave them be for now and try to avoid them. Those are all people who for the duration of the event abandoned their morals and humanity, so they would skewer us or cut off our heads on the spot without as much as a second thought.

Besides, why would those people even worry about scoring the first place to begin with? Sure, the reward must be all nice and awesome, but what’s the point in obtaining it if you are going to lose it right afterwards? Because you can be sure that other players are going to gang up on the winner right after the event ends so that they could kill them for as long as they would drop the reward item out of their corpse. Unlike many top tier rewards, giving a National Treasure-class weapon as a reward is like seeing a rainbow in the sky after the rainy afternoon: you are extremely lucky if you happen to see it. And it’s the opportunity that one cannot pass up on.

Incidentally, probably it is to serve as the added flavor for this event, but lots of the other roads outside of the main ones used around that time in history had been decorated with grave markers and other kind of ghostly ornaments and apparitions. The developers were really trying their best to sell us this feeling of a death game here, huh?

Or was that the developers idea of being considerate, judging by the fact that you cannot communicate or interact with the living once you are eliminated from the death game? Because if that is so, then that’s really stupid. I get it that some players might get bored quickly of just spectating, but that’s just the kind of event they have all signed up for. This feels like giving players who suck at first person shooters aim bots or wall hacks.

Not to mention that some people will sure come up with a way of using those extra ghosts hanging around the map for their own advantage. Hell, who knows if you can’t actually use those ghost to attach them to other players and make them a scapegoat just like that? It surely is an underhanded tactic, but it is not something that I cannot fathom other people doing for their own benefit.

As for the winner of this event, they will be picked in one of two way: you either manage to survive all the way to the final day, or you will be the last man standing on the field. So depending on the strategy that people will try to utilize, things can end rather quickly or they can needlessly drag out. And as always with events like this, it all boils down to the matter of which faction is going to have more supporters: the one that passively lies in wait, or the one that prefers to actively search the field for more opponents to slay.

Those who lie in wait are going to find a way to use the ghosts to their advantage, weeding out potentially strong opponents or forcing them to slay one another. On the other hand, those who actively look for battle might find a way to use the ghosts as well to lure the waiting players out of their hiding spots and comfort zones.

So in the end, even though this event seems to be a rather straightforward one, in reality it requires some serious cunning and strategizing as to how one can effectively use the lingering ghosts and spirits to their maximum advantage. And once people will start to realize that simple truth, a vast majority of participants will surely start to curse the fact that they decided to take part in this event in the first place.

「Umm, so basically this means what?」

「It means that only the very best of Rankers can hope to win this event by means of brute strength alone. And if you do not possess such strength, the only solution left to you is to use your head negate that disadvantage.」

Differences in strength tend to be the reason why some games tend to depopulate quickly. However, there is a very good reason as to why the names of the top ranking people of this game tend to stay the same since the moment the game was lunched. That is because the top ranking people of this game are literal monsters who possess both the skills and understanding of the game’s mechanics. An ultimate combination.

And the reason why I was able to get my hands on some of the best rewards possible? Not because of my actual battle prowess, equipment and power, but it was all because I was smart and cunning enough to devise a plan to hunt down the best players and eliminate them one by one.

「Actually, just how strong the top players of this game are? I admit that I have some skills behind my back, but I have literally no information for comparison here.」

「Normally you would think that some sort of cheating was involved in here, but since we all know what kind of game this here is, it is downright scary to think that ever since the initial lunch of the game the top ten Ranker spots are one and the same.」

Let’s not over-exaggerate things here, but…… Yeah, there is a whole lot of truth to what Kyo-Timate just said. Challenging the top ten Rankers in this game would be equal to a human trying to win against a cheetah in a race. But yeah, the fact that the best ten players are the same and never change is something that really makes you wonder about things. And if there was ever someone who would delude themselves into thinking that one of the first ten spots were out there for the taking, boy do I feel sorry for them.

And the deeper you decide to delve into this game, the crazier it becomes. For example, losing a sword fight because you opponent used a meat skewer. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This game is pretty much like a bowl filled with sharks, and the more sharks accumulate in it the more brutal the fights between them become, only to reach a stage where cannibalism becomes an everyday occurrence. I know that this is the Bakumatsu Period, but some sort of moderation would be a nice thing in here, you know? Or at least add the option of sealing the monsters away for the time being……

「Oh well, for better or for worse, if we happen to see someone followed by a huge group of ghosts, it might actually be a good idea to assume that they are a Ranker and keep our distance. It’s certainly a whole lot better than leaping head-first into danger……」

「Like that one?」

「Hmm? Yeah, exactly like that guy over there! The one that looks so imposing that you can’t help it but to shudder in fear. If my memory serves me correctly, this one should be the Number Eight in the top ten Rankers, “Shogun’s Sincerity”……」