Defying Natural Order With DeoxyriboNucleic Acid

It was just a normal plaza.

In one of the many cities of the game, people were walking through the animated crowd of players. Some stopped here and there, at a player or an NPC's stall, shopping for stuff.

This scene of chaos was a common sight in the game, and often overtook the plaza.

Two young men entered a cafe and sat in a corner, beside the window. They were absorbed in their conversation.

One was short, and had black, messy hair, as well as a red shirt. The other, slightly taller, had brown hair and wore a simple black shirt. They both looked in their twenties.

If some stole a glance at them when they entered, their simple and uninteresting appearance had them quickly forgotten. They had no fancy equipment, and clearly, from their ordinary clothes, no money to spend on cosmetic equipment either.

-Did you hear?

The first leaned forward, stage whispering to his friend seated in front of him.

His friend raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

-Hear what?

Not knowing whether he felt betrayed or happy that he could tell the news, he leaned even further above the table.

-I can't believe you don't know.

-Is it about something in the game?

He nodded.

-Is it about an event?

Seeing his friend shaking his head in rebuttal, he asked:

-About a record?

-Yes!

Seeing his friend's enthusiasm, he asked, on the verge of breaking down:

-Don't tell me this is about HDP again?

The way his friend looked at him was enough of a confirmation.

His friend who had slightly stood up hoping to get crunchy news suddenly sat and felt a renewed interest in what was happening on the other side of the window.

As for his friend, if his quality of Heaven-Defying Paradise fanboy didn't erase all sense of shame from his body, his face would have probably gotten as red as his shirt.

-Whatever!

After a few seconds of silence, he dismissed the claim and got right back on track.

-Did you know they beat the world record of Mushy Forest by a whole minute earlier today?

-Again? Isn't that like their 5th one this month? Do they have unlimited time to train dungeons?

That was really too much, do they even have limits? They're just five! That's more than a record per week! It's well known that many MMO players don't shower, but there's a limit to how much time one should have in a day.

-They're not the 1st guild for nothing!

That was true, but even as the best guild, taking more than half the records of an MMO with millions of players is something incredible.

-No, Master Imperial Shadow is level 21 right now.

At this point, he was used to hearing his friend mentioning Imperial Shadow with the word Master. He did, after all, have a weird obsessional admiration for that player.

The requirements for leveling up were already harsh compared to other games, and only got harsher when the level increased. Most other games of the same type used experience points, but this game used challenges. It meant that time was not the only thing needed to level up. Every level after level 5 was already hard enough to consider the ones overcoming them superhumans. Then what would that make of a man who cleared 21 of these challenges?

-Uh? How fast does he even level up? Is he a NEET or something?

-At the level he's playing at, even his small loot sells, he probably is a pro. A full-time one.

-Eh? Lucky.

Not everyone was able to live off a game. In fact, apart from esport players, this game was probably the only one that had players that could be officially and legally declared pro players.

A few updates back, the game introduced double-way exchange as a way to stabilize the economy. It reduced accumulation as well as ensured things wouldn't go out of hand.

The company managed the price of the currency by using a pool. This pool of money increased and decreased with the transactions made in-game. When someone bought in-game currency with real money, the developers would take a cut and send the rest to the pool, when someone sold in-game currency for real money, the developers would take that money out of the pool.

This process of course siphoned slightly at the pool of money, as the cut taken by the company never came back, but with in-game currency being siphoned as well in-game, in-game currency was more bought than sold, which ensured the pool didn't reduce in size.

With in-game currency having a worth, there of course came many players who wanted to take advantage of the situation. Among them, some are able to live off their in-game gains, thus their denomination as "pro players".

-My theory is that he's playing all day.

His friend sighed. He seemed pretty excited for someone saying something so obvious.

-Isn't that normal for a pro?

-I mean all day as in 24/7. Night included.

-It's true you can play during your sleep, it might actually be possible… But isn't it hard to play in these conditions? Your senses as your mind are dulled, if I remember well, I heard that some players actually lose more than they get by playing like this.

With your senses and reactions dulled, the risks of death were way higher than ordinary.

-That's why I respect him so much. Anyone who can play at such a high level during his sleep is a god that should be worshipped!

The black-shorted man's eyes lost their focus. He was pensive.

That might actually be how strong he was compared to them. The higher levels were similar to unfathomable abysses to ordinary players like them.

That did not mean, though, that he agreed with his friend's ridiculous statement.

[...]

On the other side of the town, comfortably sitting before a standard desk was a man who seemed to be in his mid-twenties. He had inky black hair and a 3 days beard. His clothes were creased around the armpits. It was obvious he was of those who chose work over hygiene.

He had an apathetic look despite the half-empty cup of coffee on his desk. The dark rings under his eyes testified as well to the length of his day.

He was a white-collar worker of Progress, one of the top guilds of Paradise. One year after the release, with the potential revenues of the game, many top guilds became companies of their own, and as such, their Elders became employees as well.

As for our white-collar, he was employed to be a manager. More specifically to manage the raids. You could say he became an Elder. Even though that job was linked to the game, it was actually very far from being a pŀėȧsurė cruise.

He spent most of his time editing documents, spreadsheets and sending and reading messages on a chatting app. He actually only rarely entered the game, and if he did, it was to ascertain some information or do things he couldn't delegate.

Before this game, was anyone ever paid to manage a guild's raids? He didn't know. But there was one thing he knew: after more than 3 months of being a manager, he could be considered experienced.

But despite that, at the current moment, he had a hand to his jaw, frowning. He stared at his computer's screen.

On it was a spreadsheet.

Looking at it, he was mumbling to himself.

-Nothing but trouble. That guild is nothing but trouble.

He paused his mumbling to take a sip from the long-cold coffee.

He clicked to show another document on his screen.

It was a simple document, with a list of points, accompanied by various comments.

He didn't know how many times he read it, and maybe he knew it by heart, but he hoped, this time, he would find some kind of information that could be used. The text was resonating in his mind.

Less than a month after the founding of Heaven-Defying Paradise, they had already beat the record of Death Cave by three minutes and eight seconds.

In the following three months, they had taken records from every other dungeon and even aggressively reclaimed the records when they were beaten.

For six months, they focused on improving existing records instead of creating records in new dungeons.

After the addition of a PVP ranking based on the results in the arena four months prior, two members of Heaven-Defying Paradise took first and second-ranking in the PVP leaderboard.

A month after that, they also took the first rank with the 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 additions to the arena. That brought Heaven-Defying Paradise to the top of the Guild PVP leaderboard. They became the number one guild.

Heaven-Defying Paradise held many records on the PVP side of the game, and, on top of that, beat all the other guilds in the PVE leaderboard. That gave them the overall number one spot, once again.

The man shook his head and smiled wryly. The last bit of information really grabbed his attention.

-Usually, guilds would get most of their PVE points from simply completing dungeons but Heaven-Defying Paradise actually attained the number one spot with a tactic such as this. It's very unnatural.

He said that for no one particular. Just for himself. Thinking out loud is a bad habit that those who work alone tend to acquire.

Suddenly something clicked and he started to recall the rules that dictated the points on the leaderboards as he studied their strategy.

The game awards points for both small and big accomplishments. Normally, there would be no way for such a small guild could match up to guilds with tens of thousands of members that were bringing in points from countless small accomplishments. But the thing with Heaven-Defying Paradise was that it was bringing in points from massive awards and at a rapid rate. Because of that, the game valued their achievements much more. Though of course, if they have no limit as individuals, there is still a limit to how much there is to do.

-That could be helpful in devising a plan.

He made a mental note in his head then continued reviewing the latter part of the document.

Three months ago, the guilds were preparing to catch up with Heaven-Defying Paradise but who would know that out of the blue the game would get a bunch more dungeons.

It would be better if they actually just weren't aware of the pain they were being, but not only are they beating the new dungeons by big margins, they waited until the other guilds succeeded in beating it before beating it again!

-It's like they are farming us.

There was nothing that could be done about it, though. So long as the other guilds kept beating these records, they had to keep beating them too to keep their position in the leaderboard, which in turn helped Heaven-Defying Paradise gain points.

He ran a hand over his scruffy beard. His hand paused as he spotted a note in small text at the end of the doc. The one chance the guilds had was right before him.

The Guild War. The third guild war to be specific.

It was a new type of event run quarterly by the game developers. It didn't last long, and was streamed live on the internet, and even broadcast on some TV channels.

In it, the participating guilds would participate in an epic scale team deathmatch. The guilds were ranked by order of survival, and the returns in terms of points for the leaderboard were higher than what a medium-sized guild could gather in a year. Of course, that was for the first few places. The points gained were lower for each position after the first, and under the top 1000, guilds basically earned more in a dungeon.

In the first guild war, Heaven-Defying Paradise came second, behind the most populous guild, Dawn. There were many other guilds with many more players that had thousands of members, but they still managed to be second place.

In the second guild war, they came out on top using multiple techniques such as kiting and baiting. That allowed them to stay alive but also make the other guilds fight each other.

He hated to admit it but that was truly a great idea. When the game was a free for all, no one would let the opportunity to get another guild out of the fight go, so they led the guilds by the nose.

In the end, their guild didn't place first, but they still managed to get third place.

The fact that they, with so few members and every guild ready to try and take them down, managed to get third place was truly a slap at the face of every major guild.

In fact, beyond Progress, most major guilds started taking more seriously the organization of their structure in battle after this happened.

Progress chose to have several elements manage individual units, and have those formed and aware of the strategy of the guild. They even set up a specific channel for these key individuals among the guild chats, so they are able to communicate efficiently during battle.

From the spying Progress made, they confirmed that though it varies in details, others developed a similar structure to their own.

All of that to take down the "black horse" of the competition.

In a month, there would be the third Guild War. That was the chance they needed.

If Progress took the number 1 spot, so long as Heaven Defying Paradise was out of the top 3, Progress would rise to the first place in the leaderboard.

The man sighed and downed the last of the black coffee. He would need to make a few alliances with the other big guilds that were participating.

The coffee tasted even more bitter as one name popped into his head.

-Dawn…

He would need an alliance with them too.

Knowing who would take the number one spot would come later. First they had to take Heaven Defying Paradise down.