Kuzu watched till Hitori, Reon, and Kamiya entered the clone– now the lab dungeon– and disappeared.
Then Kuzu turned around with a click on his tongue, "we will meet in a few minutes," Kuzu told Uragi.
Uragi raised his hand to stop Kuzu but all he did was watch as Kuzu exited the courtyard.
As soon as Kuzu walked out of the courtyard, he logged out and woke up in his chair. He opened his eyes slowly and stared at the dark ceiling.
Kuzu sighed, 'everything is going according to my plan.' He thought as he pulled his head from his chair's headrest.
Kuzu decided to pull out another cigarette from his metallic cigarette case. He tapped his cigarette's end twice and the tip lit. Kuzu took a small smoke in and blew it out like a kid blowing bubbles.
Kuzu got himself together and tapped his keyboard– a digital one. He brought his cigarette near the table, a cigarette stand popped out. Kuzu dropped his cigarette on the stand and started typing something.
The message he typed read…
[Meeting in three minutes, gather around in the base within two minutes. I want to see everybody's face there, no delays.]
Kuzu pressed the enter button and the message was sent to more than a hundred players across the Tokyo server. Kuzu pulled his smoke back and leaned into his chair.
He took a deep smoke and watched as the smoke left his mouth and entered his eyes, "fuck," he grunted. He rubbed his eyes to clear the smoke, "aah…" he opened his teary eyes and stared at the cigarette in his hand.
"Bitch," he muttered, "it is the time to gather my forces." Kuzu threw his smoke back into the case.
Only one minute had passed, Uragi had texted Kuzu but he did not care to reply to him.
Kuzu closed his eyes, picked up his smoke, and tried to recall the speech he was about to give in front of tens of men in a minute.
After another minute had passed, Kuzu jerked off his chair, extinguished his smoke, and sat back into his chair before pulling it in front of his table.
'I had to sacrifice the Clone Dungeon… to win… to trap you in my trap. And it worked… just perfectly.' Kuzu grinned at the thought.
'You may be a bigshot in the gaming world, you may be a prodigy in the world of gaming but… in the real world, you are just a fucking mage with no brains.'
Kuzu closed his eyes and rested his head on the headset. He saw his vision spinning around like a roller coaster then he received a notification from the game.
[you have logged in]
[you have entered the Emperor Onogi's Main Base]
Kuzu opened his eyes, and he found himself sitting on a throne that had a crown on one miniature tower and the other pointed tower stood proud.
Kuzu raised his eyes. Polished tiles covered the empty area in front of Kuzu for as far as he could see.
He glanced at the time, there was still a minute left before the meeting would start and not a single player had entered the base.
Kuzu was about to doze off but he saw a few sparks of pixels in the air. A man clad in a gladiator suit appeared in front of Kuzu with a tight frown.
"Can you tell me what is going on?" Uragi stomped on the stairs and climbed up the throne.
"Meeting." Kuzu closed his eyes anyways. "We are holding a meeting that will start it…" Kuzu glanced at the time again, "in forty seconds."
Uragi climbed down from the throne and sat on the chair that was placed on the side of the empty area. There were chairs on both sides, arranged in a row.
Time passed but no one had appeared yet. Uragi was out of patience, "is no one coming? Do your men do not respect you?" Kuzu glared down at Uragi with his left eye.
"They still have fourteen seconds to make it." Kuzu made himself comfortable on his throne.
"If it were my men they would have appeared as soon as I had ordered them to."
"Well…" Kuzu yawned angrily, "these are Onogi-san's men, there are not your men."
"Onogi, Onogi, Onogi," Uragi banged his chair's armrest, "just who the heck is this person?"
"Why are you always on the edge?" Kuzu stood straight. "It looks like you do not read the world announcements, do you?"
Uragi frowned, "world announcements? Huh?" Soon, he realized. "Wait." He shook his head, "you mean… t- the Emperor Onogi?"
Flash, flash, switch, switch.
Numerous flashing and switching noises entered the empty hall and soon chattering followed, which echoed through the hall.
Kuzu glanced at the time. "Time up." He got up from his throne and looked down at his men who were busy talking to each other.
Uragi's mouth was left open when he saw almost a hundred men appear in a flash and at the exact moment. No, the number exceeded a hundred.
"Silence!" Kuzu shouted, "Gigi, step forward." From the crowd, a man clad in a dark visible battle suit stepped forward and stood in front of Kuzu. "Take a seat," Kuzu ordered.
Gigi nodded his thick head and sat beside Uragi. Kuzu cleared his throat and looked at his men.
"You have all gathered here today on my orders, due to the absence of Onogi-san." Everyone stayed silent, "Let me jump directly to the point…"
Kuzu opened the video clip from the Lab Dungeon. It started playing behind him. Everyone watched curiously till they saw Onogi's face.
"This Clone Dungeon," Kuzu started, "was conquered by our enemies this morning." The muttering started again, "Watch closely as our enemy," Kuzu lifted his hand at the screen with a tight frown, "as our enemy made a mess of our Onogi-san's clone."
Many angry noises erupted from the crowd. The video clip of Kamiya stabbing the shit out of Onogi's clone played on repeat. "It was disrespecting. It was truly humiliating when our enemy raided our dungeon on the same day of our battle and did this to Onogi-san!"
"Kill them!" A player shouted, followed by a few others.
"Those who disrespect Onogi-sama shall perish!"
"Exactly!" Kuzu tapped the head of his throne as he walked behind it. "And that is what we have gathered here today for. To kill our enemy."
Everyone held their horses and stayed silent as Kuzu spoke, "Do you all want to avenge Onogi-san?" Kuzu continued, "Do you want to destroy our enemy?!"
"Yeah!!!!!" The loud screams broke through the army of players. Uragi covered his ears.
The players lifted their weapons high in the air– guns, swords, bows, and every other weapon except wands. They all screamed at the top of their lungs and Kuzu grinned at the sight.
Kuzu went under his jacket and pulled out a short sword, "Lift your weapons and prepare for the battle!" He raised his blade to encourage his men even more.
The trio had been inside the Lab Dungeon, plotting their strategy, for more than half an hour now. They were sitting in the lab, on the folding chairs as Kamiya told them his strategy.
After another half an hour, Kamiya got up from the chair followed by Reon and Hitori, "We are clear, right?" Kamiya asked once again.
"Yeah, we are."
"I might need you to revise that once again for me—"
"It is fine. I will." Kamiya nodded at Reon, she smiled.
Hitori stretched his arms, "alright then," he yawned, "I need a break. We have a huge battle…"
"Our first battle together,"
"That might turn into a war… you know," Reon still sounded nervous.
"Hah," Hitori scoffed, "Kamiya has already declared a war!" He chuckled.
"Man… leave me. I was, I was just… I was—"
"No, we can understand." Hitori laughed again, "'it is a fucking war!'"
"Hitori…"
He suddenly stopped laughing, "No, but seriously, Kamiya…" Hitori adjusted his cloak, "this might turn into a serious war which would not just be limited to the gaming world."
Kamiya looked down at the floor, "It all started in the real world, Hitori…" he said, "it will have to end in the real world."
Kamiya sighed, "Do not worry though, I would not drag you all. This started with me and will end with me only."
'We are already involved in this.' Hitori wanted to say that but he did not.
"Do not hesitate to ask for help though… we all know, this might be a life and death situation."
Reon stepped forward, "Uh… yeah… actually, worse." She glanced at Hitori, "Onogi and his men are no ordinary people. They will hunt Kamiya even if he hides on the deepest floor of hell or the tallest mountain of heaven."
"I know…" Kamiya groaned.
"They might send people for you during school hours," she continued, "he would not assassinate you because—"
"Onogi likes to play with his prey before killing them… I know…" Reon gulped and stayed silent.
The awkward silence was building, "That is for another time, we still have a week before the school starts." Hitori changed the topic, "Let us just log out, eat something, cool our minds, and prepare ourselves for the upcoming battle. Yeah?" Hitori glanced at both of them.
"Yeah."
"Yes… Hitori-san… yeah."
"Good."
Hitori opened his screen and logged out. Reon did the same, Kamiya was the last one to log out.
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