Is this really a Game?!

"Yes, that is exactly why it was dangerous," Paul said as Shadow, Beast, and Laura showed a confused expressions on their faces. As for Reign and the others, they merely glanced at each other.

"Sometimes, humans can be worse than monsters, and it seems that's what he came across," Wolf said as Paul nodded at him.

"There were bodies at the edge of the dome, placed right next to it so that the monsters wouldn't be able to eat them."

"I'm talking about people that were killed by those that now rule the city," Paul said with a solemn expression as everybody suddenly got serious.

"Thanks to the fact that the city is safe and that anybody can become powerful, most of the criminals left the city and started hunting, becoming stronger and stronger while most of the city residents, as well as the police and everybody else, stayed inside in fear."

"It is only later that they started hunting, but it was too late by then, the criminals had become far too strong for them, and it was then that they took over the city."

"Wait, how do you know this, didn't you say you stayed outside the dome?"

"Yes, but I met a young boy while I was there, and he told me everything, I wanted to bring him back, but his family is inside, and if he doesn't bring the gang ruling his part of town enough body parts on time, they will punish his family, his old parents who are ill and his sister who he doesn't want to go out and hunt." Paul sighed as he told the story of the 14-year-old boy he met outside.

He was the one that explained the situation to Paul, and to thank him, Paul hunted down a couple of nearby monsters before giving him the bodies. He wanted to go in and save the boy's family but decided against it as it was far too dangerous.

"I'm not afraid of fighting 2 or even 3 Tier IV combatants, but there is no way to know exactly how many there are in the city."

"The criminals had taken over the city completely, and there are currently 6 of them that are ruling it, each one having a part of the city for themselves."

"The parts are further divided to be ruled by a gang, the gangs that rule the different areas are directly under the one group that is controlling that entire part of the city."

"The boy himself was actually Tier II, and from what he told me, the stronger members of the gang that rule his area are more powerful than him, so I believe that those ruling the city are Tier IV, and the members of the group should probably be at least peak Tier III combatants, with some being Tier IV as well."

Everybody nodded at Paul's words. He had only recently managed to reach the mid-grade of Tier IV and he could certainly fight against multiple low-grade Tier IVs by himself thanks to not only his personal strength but because of the dagger as well.

Thanks to the fact there is a soul of a Saint inside the dagger, they all understood that it was vastly more powerful than anything they had, even Wolf's rank SSS sword paled in comparison, hell, the two couldn't even be compared.

The rankings of the weapons they knew of were actually only for the leveling realm. Once somebody reached the realm of Transcendence, the items stopped being useful completely, only the rank Z items could still have some use and give them some benefits, but even they were weaker than even the worst items that Transcendents could use.

Being a weapon that could probably be utilized by a Saint, the dagger was far more superior, even in its present form which was far from being at its peak.

"You did the right thing, how big is the city?" Reign asked as Paul started thinking.

"Not sure of the size to be honest, but there are about 300 000 people living there, well, there were 300 000 people living there before the game started."

Reign and the others immediately put on solemn expressions on their faces as the number was far bigger than they anticipated. Such a large city was not what they were expecting as that meant that even if they put together all the people from the underground city, Doncaster, as well as the two territories they had allied themselves with, they would probably still have slightly less than half of the population of that city.

The underground city had over 100 000 people present in it, but only a handful of them decided to move to Doncaster, of course, more were arriving each day and Reign was a bit concerned that they might not have space to take them all in in the future.

With the help of the system, however, he had learned that after the barriers between the areas were completely down, he could expand the area of influence his territory had, claiming more land and being able to construct buildings on them.

"We can take care of those gangs, that much probably won't be that difficult, but what about the rest, not only could we potentially get attacked by thousands of people if we enter that city, but we might also make things worse if we just get rid of the leaders, the smaller gangs will definitely not be friendly and will do whatever it takes to assume control again," Wolf said, fully aware that Reign and the others were thinking of going to the city.

The existence of the city was a threat to them as it was relatively close to the second territory they had allied themselves with. A mountain stood between them, which was the main reason why the two territories had never come in contact before, but as people become more powerful, they would definitely do their best to explore the surrounding areas.

The criminals would definitely not be friendly to them as from what Paul had heard from the boy, they were constantly on the lookout for more territories to take over. They had already found a couple of nearby settlements and bases that players had set up, and all of them were taken over by them, those that dared resist were all slaughtered without a shred of mercy.

"So, we can simply hope they don't find us and send everything they got at us, or we can attack them immediately, while they don't even know about our existence." Reign said as he stared at the ceiling.

"If we attack, then it should only be us and a couple of other Tier IVs, bringing too many people won't be beneficial as they have the absolute advantage in numbers."

"Even if most of them turned out to be below Tier I, nobody wants to attack those that were forced to fight against them, that includes us as well," Wolf said with a serious expression as everybody, including Paul, nodded at him.

"So, a preemptive attack on the leaders of the city, at least on those we are certain to have to be killed so that they don't decide to attack us in the future, or simply hoping that it takes them a long time to discover us, I think we all know which option is the better one." Tank said as everybody nodded.

"We should first go and do some reconnaissance, we should know exactly what we are going up against, and if there truly is no other way but to attack them," Wolf said before getting up.

"We can't rule out the possibility that the kid was lying to you, after all, he could be working for one of them and was hoping to scare you off with his words, it's also possible that what he said was true and that they already know about you, did you tell him where you came from?" Wolf asked Paul who shook his head.

"No, but I did tell him to meet me at the same place tomorrow."

"That was the correct thing to do, we can all go tomorrow, we will hide while you go there, if the boy comes alone then we can consider him somewhat trustworthy, but if there are more people, then we will know that he lied, which means that we will have to consider the situation in the city to be very different from what you heard."

Everybody nodded at Wolf's words, even Paul. He did trust the boy he met, but he couldn't be certain that the boy didn't lie at all and was completely honest with him. If they do what Wolf just said, then they would be able to learn just what was going on inside the city easily.

"Rest up, we will go to our ally tonight before departing in the morning."