The whole place remained silent and Galliard's smile turned into a nervous one. He could understand why everyone was too startled to speak.
He was, after all, a big name in the world of gaming. Being a retired big-shot professional gamer and the creator of one of the greatest games ever, this much was expected.
Most of the people here had never seen Galliard in person until this very day.
"Well come on, speak! You surely aren't going to stand there all day." A voice Mikel couldn't pinpoint shouted from the fifty-large crowd.
"My apologies," Galliard cleared his throat. His expression quickly turned serious. "After we are done here, and at my command, you all will be transported into my game; Beltimus online."
There was silence as most of them didn't fully understand what he had just said, but Galliard ignored them and kept on talking.
"As some of you have already noticed, everyone in this room is ranked among the top fifty in Beltimus online. As the best of the best, you have been given the privilege to become beta testers for something I've been working on for a very long time." A wide smile formed on Galliard's face as he said those words. One could tell that he was very excited.
Silence still prevailed in the white room for a while until someone finally said something.
"What do you mean by 'we will be transported into the game'?" A woman at the front asked with a confused expression.
"I mean exactly what those words mean."
"But how? That shouldn't be possible." The confused expression on the woman's face intensified.
"You gained access to this room by being sucked into your monitor and still, being transported into a game sounds like a far stretch?"
"So wait, let me get this straight; you forcibly adopted us through the weirdest way known to humanity just to test out a game?" Another person spoke up.
"Indeed."
"What made you think that if you had used legal methods of reaching out to us to do something like this, we would have said no? I mean we all would jump at an opportunity to be a beta tester for our favorite game, right?" The person turned to the others and they all agreed with his words. "You could've just sent an email or something."
"I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have worked." Galliard smiled.
"No, it would've. Everyone here just confirmed."
"That's because they don't know that unlike how their characters die and respawn if they die in this game, they die. And I mean for reals."
"Sorry... what?!"
"I'm sure you heard me."
The next thing that occurred in the room was the loud shouts of the gamers fueled by anger and displeasure. They rained curses and death threats at Galliard but he just stood there smiling.
One of the gamers ran over to Galliard in anger with the intention of beating the hell out of him, but when he got closer to him, an invisible force threw him back to the others who slowly fell silent as they saw him land with a loud thud.
"If any of you have the same idea, I suggest you kill them before they manifest physically or you'll end up like him... or possibly worse." Galliard pointed at the man on the ground who groaned in pain.
Mikel looked at Vincent who had a blank expression on his face as he watched everything unfold. He turned to Mikel after he noticed the latter was staring at him and shook his head.
This was bad.
"Now that I've made that clear, I'll just inform you of a few things you need to know before—"
"Hey, look man, I don't know what's going on but I don't want any part of it." A tall man who stood at the back shouted, interrupting Galliard's speech.
"What do you mean by you don't understand what's going on? I just explained everything," Galliard chuckled.
"I don't care, bro, just let me out! I don't want any part of this!"
"I'm afraid the choice isn't yours to make."
"Look dude, I don't want this!" The man walked backward slowly and the look of unparalleled fear on his face hinted that he was about to throw a tantrum.
He kept shouting and panicking.
Galliard sighed and with a snap of his finger, no words were heard from the man again.
His mouth was still moving and he kept flailing his arms and legs as he ran around in panic, but no sound could be heard from him.
Everyone looked back at Galliard with a mix of surprised and fearful expressions.
"I have a lot of control over what happens in this space," Galliard explained.
"Right now, you all are nothing but data in a server. You see, the human body is made up of countless atoms as well as everything around us. Now, these atoms can be manipulated under certain conditions. Due to technological advancements, a way to create these conditions has been— why am I even explaining this? You wouldn't understand a word that leaves my mouth, so let's get back to the important stuff."
"I know most of you are scared, and you should be. But don't worry, there is a way to leave the game— all you have to do is complete it; kill the necromancer. It has been done before so how hard could it possibly be?" Galliard laughed.
"Anyway, the game is exactly as it was before. There are a few changes here and there though, like an upgrade in NPC and player interaction, the way skills are learned and manifested, and of course, the fact that y'all will be in the game," Galliard laughed again but stopped when he saw no one was having it.
"What are we going to do?" Mikel turned to Vincent.
"It seems there's no way around this one; we'll have to play along if we want to survive," Vincent replied.
"I don't feel comfortable about all this," Mikel grimaced as he folded his arms.
He hated the fact that he was being used as a plaything in a madman's quest for entertainment.
"Neither do I or the other forty-eight people here," Vincent said. "But don't worry, you defeated the necromancer once so it shouldn't be hard to do again. And not to mention that with my help, it'll go a lot quicker."
"True," Mikel smiled and Vincent smiled back. "Still though, this will be a whole lot different than the game."
"Yeah, which means we'll have to take it more seriously."
Mikel and Vincent talked a little bit more until one of their guild members called the latter's attention and he left to meet him.
"Alright, I'm hoping that the information has sunk in now, so let's move on." A panel appeared in front of Galliard and when he tapped on it, a large number ten appeared above them.
"When the countdown starts and ends, you all will be transported to different places in Beltimus which will be your start point. I'm sure you already know what to do from there, so good luck... and try not to die too early."
With those words, the countdown began...
10..
9..
8..
7..
Everyone was clamoring and talking amongst themselves as they watched the numbers reduce on the countdown. Some of them were scared, many others were still in denial, while few were tensed up and saw no other way to handle this situation than to face it head-on.
Mikel looked and spotted Vincent having a conversation with the other high-ranking members of KOK that made it here. Vincent turned to Mikel before looking up to see that they only had a few seconds left.
He then nodded at Mikel with a resolute expression and Mikel nodded back.
3..
2..
1..
****
"Eh? Why am I still here?"