While Misha was strolling through the mall, looking for clothes, Shurka called him on his capsule phone.

Because of the noise, Misha had to log out and got out of the capsule. When she opened her eyes, she found Shurka, Sasha, and Natalie looking at her.

"What are you all doing? I'm in the middle of gaming."

They complained, "We sent you a friend request and private messages, but you didn't reply! We're trying to gather everyone, so we can take an adventure together. Where have you been!?"

"Err, I'm working for some mafia gang, and I'm shopping in the mall."

"What?"

"Well, it's a long story. How are you all doing in-game anyway?"

Sasha ma.s.saged her temples, "I ran into a black slime in the tutorial. Do you know about this?"

"Yeah, I killed it, but it didn't give me memories."

"We killed it as well. Shurka even managed to kill one on her first try."

"Really!?" Misha was surprised, "You are a genius, Shurka!"

Shurka blushed, "I just followed your guidance."

Sasha coughed, "Anyway. We ran into a problem. The game separated players to 20,000 players per one sub-server, and all of us are locked in a different sub. However, we can switch them if we can locate everyone and establish a guild. A guild master can summon guildmates to their server and change it for them. That's why we're looking for you."

Misha was surprised when she learned that everyone got separated, "How many channels are there now?"

"About 10,000 and rising."

"…"

Misha had a pale face. At this rate, the diamond price would increase soon.

As many players joined the game, they would soon find out about the VIP system and VIP shops. The gamers would treat this as a bunch of luxurious items at first, but the moment they connected the story about diamond mining in the hardcore server, the market would explode.

Many players would become aspired to a diamond farming career, so they would invest in their game character by buying diamonds to get ahead. Once it started, diamond prices would sharply increase.

Misha wanted to acquire diamonds for cheap, so she prayed that players would not notice the diamond mining soon.

It was a bleak hope since all the info was already on social media. Many people might have investigated and noticed it, but they kept it quiet.

"What's wrong, Mia?" Shurka was worried as Misha's face paled.

"Nothing. Well, what should we do next?"

Natalie snorted, "We want you to be our guild leader. Go and create a guild for us."

"Hah? Why me?"

"Your freaking level and strength are on the top of the leaderboard. With you becoming our leader, we can use your charisma to draw new members! It's a basic strategy."

"… I thought we only want to play together?"

"It's prestige and reputation! Once we have a guild, people from other guilds will find trouble with us since we'll be their rivals. We have to establish our dominance early, so we can have more time grinding and finding Maou!"

They did not forget the purpose of playing this game, contacting Maou Mia, and bringing him back where he belonged.

.

Misha returned into the game and added Shurka, Sasha, and Natalie in her friend list. She also did not forget to add the obnoxious perverted felionian, Moo, as well.

On the list, she found out about their sub-channel number.

Misha and Moo were on S1, the very first sub server of the game.

Sasha got on S6, Natalie was on S10. As for Shurka, she entered the game later, so her server was S7777.

Since Misha was curious about the leaderboard, she checked the ranking list.

.

**********************************************

>

1. LV.23 (S1) Misha Bloominglilly.

2. LV.21 (S3) Felia Blue

3. LV.20 (S6) Sasha Hummingbird

4. LV.19 (S10) Natalie Arc

5. LV.18 (S2) Maple Rockingheart

6. LV.18 (S555) Lana Gabriel

7. LV.17 (S2) INWTRUE Roman Ba.s.s

8. LV.16 (S3451) Dove Donovan Jester

9. LV.16 (S7777) Shurka Luckyaf

10. LV.16 (S2) INWTRUE Dawson Woompeckar

**********************************************

.

Looking at the ranking list, Misha found many familiar names.

Aside from Sasha, Natalie, and Shurka, Misha knew most of these people.

Lana Gabriel, the daughter of Fleet Admiral Lobmak Gabriel, Mia's nemesis.

Maple Rockingheart, her former sister from the golden generation, who had escaped from Mia's soul s.p.a.ce. Misha and Mia had many things to ask her.

Dove Donovan Jester was once Misha's benefactor. He was also her friend at the elite high-school on earth. The last time Misha checked the rankings during the closed beta, he was one of the top dogs with a cool occupation, Serial Killer.

Roman Ba.s.s had the old name in the beta as Homeless Billionaire. He did not cross paths with Misha, but she recognized him in the ranking since he was in the previous top10 players as well.

Dawson Woompeckar was the perverted guy, Big Crotch. Misha did not know how this guy raised his level so fast, but she respected him nonetheless. Funny enough, both Roman and Dawson added INWTRUE as a prefix of their real name. Misha figured that it might be their clan name in the future.

As for Felia Blue, Misha did not know her, but she knew that this person was also in the close-beta.

Half of these top10 players were beta testers, while the rest had experience in dealing with black slimes in their soul s.p.a.ce.

'I see. So everyone should have killed the black slime. Or else, none of them should have gotten their level so high on the first day.'

After killing the black slime, the players with VIP10 should have gotten to level 15 or 16. Then, the hard part of the game began. Judging from their level, some of them should have managed to find a new quest line or a place to grind their level.

Misha's compet.i.tion spirit ignited. Although she never planned to compete with other pro-gamers or others, it felt good to win the level race.

'First. Get new clothes. Then, buy skills and more grinding!'

Misha walked straight to a cloth shop, which specialized in combat gear and clothing.

When the sales clerk saw the b.l.o.o.d.y Misha and the emblem on her chest, she sweated.

The clerk recognized all emblems around here. Each of them signified which family or organization they came from.

Misha's emblem was a small trailer with a pink smoke, which represented Walter Black.

"h.e.l.lo, dear customer. What would you like me to help you?" The clerk rushed in to service Misha.

"I'm looking for combat gears and combat clothing. Can you recommend something? Oh, and I don't like frilly dresses since it gets in the way of my fighting."

The clerk gulped. He bowed at Misha, "Please give me a moment."

Then, he ran to the staff office. A manager ran out and bowed at Misha.

"Please to meet you, Miss. I will help you with selecting your wares. Please wait here for a moment."

The manager ran back to the staff room and brought back a long gun briefcase, a bullet vest, a black tactical uniform, a pair of combat boots, and gunner gloves.

Misha was impressed by their efficiency. She had not told them her spec yet, but they seemed to understand her purpose very well.

The manager opened the gun case. It was a cla.s.sic AK-47 rifle with three magazines.

"How much for all of these?"

"This would be 5,000 dust, miss."

"Oh? That cheap? I thought it would have cost more."

"Please don't jest, miss. I don't want to be killed by your boss and the G.o.dfather."

"???"

Misha did not understand what the manager meant. Still, since it was so cheap, Misha bought five more sets of gears and guns as spares. Also, she could lend them to other girls in the future.

She put on the gears and took the rifle out. With a strap on the AK-47, she hung it before her as she held the handle in her hands.

Her appearance became more intimidating since she was in a standby position, which could get ready to shoot somebody on the spot.

When she got down to the first floor, a demi-hydra clerk who had bought Misha's meth ran to her.

"Miss Bloominglilly, could I have your time, please?"

Misha stopped her feet, "Huh? What's wrong?"

"Because of your item submission, many families are looking for Master Walter to order his wares. They are placing an order of 500kg right now, and I think there will be more. Could you tell your master to cook more ASAP? Our cargo has run out of stock."

Listened to the request, Misha had an absurd idea. Since 5kg of meth could be sold for 400,000 dust, she could earn 40 million if she cooked it and sold it to the mafias.

However, she could not be greedy. Since she had only learned a basic skill, she could not possibly cook a large batch in a short time.

"Oh, I was planning to go see my master anyway. I'll tell him when I meet him."

"Thank you!"

.

Misha walked out of the mafia center and got out of the slum. When she got to the outskirts area where players were hunting for zombies, they gazed at Misha's gears with astonishment and awe.

One of them approached her and question about the gears, "Miss, how did you get those?"

Misha shrugged, "Shopping."

"Shopping? It must have been expensive. How many dusts did you spend?"

Misha almost blurted out the real price. However, for the sake of the shop's profit, she lied.

"50,000 dust."

"HOLY c.r.a.p! That's expensive!"

"Ha! Good luck finding a good gun in the early game, then."

"…"

The player could not retort. He shrunk back and contemplated his gaming strategy.

Another group of players walked toward Misha. They seemed to overhear the conversation.

The leader of the group had the name "INWTRUE" before his real name, "Nemo Whale."

"Excuse me, Miss. Can you sell your gun to me? I'll pay you with real money."

Misha clicked her tongue. Since she did not need real cash, she shook her head.

"No."

"How much do you want? We are a part of the INWTRUE guild, and we're backed by a n.o.ble family. We can pay you with a million MWD."

"I'm not interested in MWD. If you want the gun this much, I'll sell you for 5,000 diamonds."

Misha declared an overpriced tag, planning to chase him away as he was wasting her time.

The group leader frowned. He opened his game menu and explored the exchange rate.

At the moment, the diamond price plummeted again as the MWG sold another batch of diamonds to maintain their financial power while they were stabilizing their government system.

The price had dropped to 200,000 MWD per diamond, which was still expensive.

The group leader glared at Misha, "Do you really want 500 million MWD for an ancient rifle?"

"I never said anything about wanting MWD. I want only diamonds. If you don't have it, scram! I'm busy!"

"You … Forget it."

The group walked away.

Misha sighed. Since everyone left her alone, she entered the woods, heading back to Walter's trailer location.

.

A minute later, Nemo Whale gathered his friends and followed after Misha.

He whispered to them, "Find her and get her gun."

"Are we really PKing her?"

"No one has done any player-killing in this sub-server yet. But from the news of other servers, dead players dropped everything in their inventory, including their clothes upon death. We can steal her clothes and her weapon."