Julius was once again sitting at the table, drinking his black coffee and watching a Hall of Fame video on his old laptop.
"Unbelievable..." The video he was watching was the same one Eleonor recorded during their last hunt together, and to Julius' surprise, the video had been an absolute hit.
"She's really good at editing!" Julius was impressed by how well the video turned out.
At the beginning of the video, Eleonor had chosen a tense song, something that perfectly matched the dark forest ahead of them. Furthermore, the tense music, combined with the eerie atmosphere of the forest, made viewers feel an uneasy premonition about the adventure, making Julius and the others appear as brave adventurers.
"I'm even getting scared of the forest." Even though he knew what was coming next, Julius still felt nervous. "That just shows how well it's been edited!"
But it wasn't just at the beginning that Julius felt immersed in the video. As time went on, he began to realize just how well the video had been edited.
The fights, though practically one-sided, with Julius easily defeating all the enemies, had epic soundtracks to keep viewers excited.
To make it even better, when the battle started to become more tedious, a suspenseful track began to play exactly when the group reached the second part of the forest, a place they hadn't ventured into yet.
That was the final part of the video, but Eleonor edited it in such a way that made people crave more, wanting to discover why the forest was trying to keep outsiders out.
"Unbelievable..." Once again, Julius was amazed by the work, thinking that anything better than this would be almost professional.
"She really isn't just a girl who likes to complain!"
Julius stopped watching the video and looked at the official page he had created himself. Since he wanted to become a professional gamer, it was necessary, but what Julius hadn't expected was the immediate success the first video would have.
With just one video, Julius had gained over 10,000 followers!
To be more precise: 11,341 followers.
"Even though I don't have any paid followers yet, I think these numbers for a beginner must be really good!" Julius wasn't sure how his social media performance was doing, since he didn't have any personal social media accounts...
Except for the famous Y, which he used to keep up with important news!
Even with these incredible numbers, what amazed Julius even more was the number of views the video had received.
"Over 100,000 people watched..." He couldn't help but be astonished by such a number. It's worth mentioning that when Julius first used Hall of Fame, he did some basic research on videos, just to see what it was like.
The view counts for videos of other games were infinitely lower than those of [The Gates], but even for [The Gates], 100k views wasn't so easy to achieve.
Normally, the videos had between 50-70k views, which made Julius' video of hunting several wolves end up in the site's trending videos!
"If I'm not mistaken, she posted the video a few hours ago... if it keeps growing like this, I'll hit 1 million views!" Julius was blown away just imagining such a scene.
"This game is truly amazing!" He couldn't help but thank the incredible development team for creating such a fantastic game!
It really was a love-hate relationship...
"We have to seize this opportunity! This video brought massive visibility to my profile, but I need to make sure I record more good content!" Julius was now convinced that he would head to the next area of the forest!
He could feel that the adventure and exploration there would be even better!
With that, his adventurous side was getting really excited!
After a long day of work, Julius returned to [The Gates].
As soon as he entered the game, he filled his lungs with that fresh air.
"Today, it felt like the real world was even dirtier!" He started thinking that all of this was nothing more than an attempt by the developers to make players addicted to [The Gates].
It was becoming harder and harder to breathe in the real world.
Every place seemed like a landfill, it had become so unbearable.
Entering the game was becoming mandatory for Julius.
At least there, he could breathe peacefully.
Looking around, Julius didn't see any other players, leaving him alone in the village. But that was normal since it was just dawn in [The Gates].
It had become normal for players to log out during the night and only return during the day.
The "Demonic Carnage," as it was called, was the first night players spent inside the game, and it traumatized much of the community. That's why the survivors didn't dare stay logged in at night, since the lack of [Samsara Coins] was something everyone knew about.
No one wanted to go through what the victims of the Demonic Carnage went through. Because of that, it had become an unwritten rule not to enter before dawn.
And to prove this rule, as soon as the morning rays began to shine right after Julius logged in, light particles began forming the humanoid figures of the players.
It didn't take long for Julius to meet up with Eleonor and the others.
"So, what did you think of my video!?" With excitement clearly in her voice, Eleonor asked Julius as soon as she saw him.
"Honestly, it turned out much better than I imagined. I never expected it to get 500,000 views in just a few hours!" Julius couldn't hide his excitement either, it felt like he could already see himself as a professional player.
Every moment, he was getting closer to his goal.
"Right!? I was also surprised when I saw the views growing every second! In the end, I really am a better editor than I thought!" Eleonor puffed out her chest with pride for her accomplishments.
"Uh-huh." This time, Julius didn't have a second thought against those words. 'She really did a great job.'
He even reconsidered the percentage she would get in the future from everything he earned through [The Gates], thinking it wasn't so bad after all.
But that thought lasted only a second before he remembered the terms of the contract.
"Damn leech, trying to take everything from me!"
"Come on, dear. I'd say the actor was also really good! Julius' performance against those wolves was truly impressive." Katharina commented, giving Eleonor a strange look and a scary smile.
'She saw me while editing!?'
Eleonor just felt a chill run down her spine and blushed at that.
"Shut up, idiot!" She quickly ran toward her mother with the intent to silence her.
"What's wrong!? Tyrant really had an impressive performance, don't you agree? You couldn't even take your eyes off him while editing!" Julius and Frans had moved a little further away from the two, as they once again started distancing themselves quickly.
But since they were heading into the forest, neither of them bothered to interfere.
"So, what do you think we'll find in the deeper part of the forest?" Frans asked as the two walked side by side again.
"Honestly, I'm not sure, but I imagine we'll probably have to deal with alpha wolves, similar to that white one." From what the group noticed, the white wolf ran exactly towards the innermost part of the forest, making them wonder if it was there.
"It seemed pretty strong, but somehow it also seemed like it didn't want to go in there." Frans pointed out something the group also noticed. Even though it ran from them, the white wolf seemed quite strong and even had a small pack before Julius and the others defeated it.
"Yeah. It looks like strong opponents are waiting for us there." Tyrant was a bit excited about that, as he was starting to get tired of hunting only wolves.
"Hahahahaha. It's the third day since the game's launch, and the vast majority of players who are left only started hunting wolf-like creatures in their hunting areas now, but here you are wanting even stronger enemies!" Frans wasn't weak either; he wanted to face stronger enemies, but he wasn't nearly as strong as Tyrant yet.
"What can I do? I got lucky with my avatar creation. I ended up with quite a powerful physique." He wasn't trying to be humble or self-deprecating, just stating a fact.
Tyrant got absurdly lucky with character creation, giving him a noticeable advantage right from the start.
"I wouldn't say it's luck, but karma!" Frans repeated the word karma to Julius while laughing, making him let out a small chuckle as well.
"Yeah, I probably saved some important people in my past life." If that's really the case, he'd be pretty annoyed to receive the reward of his actions in a game.
"Why not make me an heir or something right from the start!?" Julius asked anyone who was listening at that moment, but unfortunately, he didn't get an answer.
"Indeed." Frans stopped joking when they reached the border of the inner part of the forest.
The group managed to travel the entire distance without encountering any wolves, which would have been impossible just a day ago.
Ahead of them was the continuation of the forest.
But the grass and colorful flowers slowly lost their color as they approached, turning into something completely black and gray. Also, the trees were visibly decaying, and several crows seemed to be watching the group from the many trees.
Even though everything seemed perfectly fine, without anything obviously wrong, everyone somehow felt that it was somehow fake.
Knowing this, they looked at each other and took one more step toward that eerie landscape.
With that single step, the scenery completely changed, leaving that eerie image behind and revealing something unbelievable.
And at the same time, a blue screen with a message appeared in front of everyone.
[You have entered a parallel world]