Solo Cultivation in The Apocalypse

Reon and Hitori were sitting in the Pontianak Lair's courtyard, on their thrones. Reon leaned forward with a sigh. "So that is it?" she pushed back her hair. "You two argued yesterday and Kamiya left the house. Will he be coming back?"

Hitori shook his head and inhaled. "How do I know?" Hitori sighed.

"Right, and now he has not logged in today."

Hitori hummed. "I doubt he will be even coming to the Vr-cade. Forget logging in."

"Oh, god."

Hitori and Reon stayed silent for a while. After Kamiya left the house yesterday, Hitori had trouble sleeping and eating. He came to the Vr-cade in the hope of seeing Kamiya.

Hitori clenched his fist. "I said he was being eaten by his need for money."

"He is desperate, Hitori-san, he needs money."

"Which was stupid, what I said." Hitori listened to her but continued, "then he drew his wand, which was stupider than my action."

"He was hurt, you know, that is the only thing he is left with-- to collect money and save his sister. He has struggles and responsibilities, that might get into any person's mind at this age."

"Then came the counter lady, she cast damaging spells on him-- which was the stupidest thing to do."

"The counter lady?" Reon frowned.

Hitori looked at her. "I wonder where the hell she was when Kuzu bullied Kamiya. Why did not she bother to cast those spells on that science user?!"

"The counter lady?" Reon nodded. "Where were you sitting that day?"

"The same alley we always do."

"And do you ask that woman to allot you that alley or she does do it herself?"

"Herself. I just ask her to book our seats together, does not matter what alley."

Reon nodded again. As if she had found a clue, she asked, "Is that Vr-cade booming?"

"Ye---" Hitori paused. He pulled his brows together and looked at the ground. "Wait..."

Reon said, "is it… or is it not?"

Hitori raised his eyes at Reon, full of confusion. "Now that you mention it, our number four alley is always empty. Not a single person sits in that alley."

"That helps. So is the Vr-cade usually crowded or empty?"

"That is the only Vr-cade in the city, of course, it is booming," Hitori said. "I remember. I remember that when I went off to buy us some drinks, the cafeteria was always full. While walking back, I noticed a number of players in that ten-alley Vr-cade. But never noticed we are always alone."

Reon snapped her finger. "Do not you find it strange? You get allotted the same console station, you two always play alone, and yet the whole Vr-cade is filled with crowd."

"Yeah..." he nodded, "the woman, she is friendly and all, but appears only when I was in danger, but did not when Kamiya was getting beaten up."

"And, Hitori-san, Kuzu, and his underlings-- they are scientists-- how the heck did they get into the Mage's Vr-cade?"

Hitori's eyes widened. "Oh carp," he muttered, "how, indeed?"

"I do not judge people but this woman has given has enough leads, enough loose ends, and enough proofs to say that---" she stopped and looked at Hitori.

"She is working with or for Onogi." Hitori nodded, it was a sudden realization that he had ignored all the time. "Crap, it is true." he creased his eyebrow.

"It could be." Reon shrugged. "She might be working for Onogi-- she can kill Kamiya and you anytime she wants, but she is ordered to keep both of them alive-- for Onogi or for Kuzu."

"If she wanted to, she could have killed us a long time ago. No, it is something different that is making her keep us alive."

"Maybe. I can explain why she popped out in between you and Kamiya-- only one reason-- she feared you two might kill each other, Kamiya knows some serious curses, and her mission might fail-- or you would kill Kamiya, either of them."

Hitori looked at Reon and stayed silent. His heart right was racing, he did not want to believe that that friendly counter lady was working for Onogi. But from the proofs Reon had presented, it could be true.

"I am not accusing her or something, I am just guessing-- and guesses could be wrong. I can not come on that side and make sure for myself-- you will have to do that yourself, Hitori-san."

Hitori turned back to the ground. "Make sure?" he grabbed his forehead. "Sure." Hitori nodded and got up from his seat. "See you later, Reon-san." And logged out.

Hitori spent the rest of the day planning his next step. The first thing was sure: He will have to stop gaming.

Not much was happening either since the battle and since Kamiya left. Hitori told Mono and Senso to not log in till he notices them do so. But still, Hitori could not take the risk, he ordered Reon to log in daily-- whenever possible-- and do some leveling raids.

In the worst case, if their territory was attacked again, Hitori needed someone to inform him so.

Since the battle, while most of the players turned to the trio's side, the people whose pleasure lies in conquering territories fell on the trio's territory.

Most of these players feared the trio who took down Onogi's army. A few decided to wait for the best moment to strike. And others were planning a strategy to attack their territory.

Anything could happen, at any time.

Hitori could not contact his parents and Kamiya for two whole days. Kamiya's suggestion on reporting his missing parents, Hitori thought about that. He did not want to do that though.

On the thirty-first of December 2052, Hitori woke up and found himself alone, once again, in his house. No Kiku, no Kamiya, no-one.

Things had gone according to Hitori's plan for the past two days, and he was satisfied. But the plan had not moved even to the twelve percent mark.

After making his breakfast, Hitori locked his room door and sat in his chair. He turned on the magic browser and opened the game's sight.

Hitori did not plan on sitting idle on his throne in the courtyard waiting for enemies to strike. He knew he had to increase the span of his territory. For that, he needed to learn more about the other players, dungeons, and the game's map.

And so here he was, on the game's website. Hitori moved his finger to scroll down when a post caught his attention.

"Winning the game with their mind-blowing strategies, this new player has reached the top fifty on the leaderboards in just two days!"

Hitori clicked on it. The player's name was Divine Valley, level thirty-one. A video popped as a backlink.

"Watch this, Divine Valley's latest battle!"

'Watch?' Hitori frowned. Either the game did or the player themself did.

Hitori played the video. A person clad in robes appeared in front of the screen. "Hello, everybody! I am back with another stream!"

The person used a voice change which thickened his voice. That person was standing in the middle of the leveling field, and from forward came a few monsters.

"Keep watching, I promise this will be another entertaining video," said the voice and disappeared.

Hitori leaned back and watched as the person slashed the monsters and ran all around the field-- attracting even more monsters.

"What is so good about him?" Hitori wondered. "He is level thirty-one but then why is he playing like a noob?"

Hitori watched for another few minutes when he decided to turn it off and focus on collecting information about the game.

He brought his finger to the cross when suddenly the running player stopped. He smiled, the camera confused on his half-covered face.

"And now the moment you all were waiting for, friends," he said.

"The climax?" Hitori whispered. He pulled his finger from the screen and sat back in his chair.

Divine Valley took out his wand and held it vertically upwards. He then stretched his wand. "Up." he jerked his wand up.

Hitori's eyes widened at the sigh. Numerous metallic spikes erupted from the field and the ground tilted to one side. "Earth element! How?" Hitori explained.

He jumped from his chair and leaned on the table. "No way, someone can use Earth spells in the game too."

Hitori gulped.

When the ground tilted, the player was unaffected by the tilt but all of the monsters kneed and rolled to the side-- where hundreds of spikes were kept ready for them.

Hitori diverted his eyes from the screen when those twenty to thirty monsters were cut into pieces at once.

There were a few unclassified monsters who were still alive. "Looks like it is not the end, friends, well, it will be soon!"

"Do not tell me," Hitori muttered, he shook his head, "he was not fooling around at all when he ran around the field attracting monsters."

Divine again stretched his wand, the monsters were approaching, and he gave it a swing.

In instant, the hundreds of spikes came together to form tens of spikes, bigger than the previous ones.

"He planted those spikes!" Hitori declared with a bang on his table.

Divine then served the heads of the remaining monsters, then pulled his wand into its leather sheath.

Divine let out a sigh and rubbed his forehead, without revealing his face. "And that was it! Thanks for watching and thanks for supporting! It was fun, let us meet again next time-- tomorrow at the same time!"

And the half-an-hour-long video ended. Hitori guessed Divine then spent his time picking up the drops-- may be a legendary item or two.

On researching more about this new hot player, Hitori found that Divine did over ten streams on his first day-- the twenty-eighth of December, two days ago.

Then his frequency increased to over fifteen on day two of his streaming. That day was his turning point. He gained a lot of audiences to watch and donate to him just because of how brilliant his strategies were.

The climax was what kept the audience till the end of the video. The thrill at the end of his stream when he just blows everything gained him the majority of his audience.

Hitori sighed and leaned back. He rubbed his eyebrows and messed with his hair. "Ah, shit, shit. Why did we have to fight?!" he banged the table again.

After going through his daily breakdown, Hitori took a glass of Blue Lagoon which calmed him down.

'Seriously, do I need to turn to drinks and other addictions to get rid of this?' Hitori swirled his glass before drinking his drink in one gulp.

"Ah... you were right, Kamiya." Hitori banged his glass on the table. "Oh, Kamiya, we can make a lot of money from streaming, there is scope in that domain. Sorry, I..."

Divine Valley earned more than thirty thousand yen on his second day. Considered a pretty big amount to be earned by someone on their second day by the professional streamers.

"Look at that guy," Hitori said to himself, pointing his glass filled with blue liquid at the screen, "earning thousands in one day, we do not earn that much, I know."

Hitori took a sip. Then gulped it down.

"But still, he still is selling his strategies. You can not last long like that, he would not last long that way. People will know him, they will know his strategies. And he would not be able to defend himself."

Hitori filled his glass for the third time in ten minutes.

"Not now, but when he will reach the top, players will come for him. They will hunt him down, what will you do then? Your enemies will know your weakness, your planning, your everything. You can not survive in the world of gaming that way, by selling your strategies."

Hitori dropped his glass, got up from his chair, and fell on his bed. Then slept like a fool up till it was middle of the noon.

Yes, his plan to gather information failed. He would realize he is behind his original plan.

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