[Eunjin] was hosting KB broadcasting's current segment, live from the training facility for mages back at the capital. She was wearing a deep blue, flowing female sorcerer’s robe, in stark contrast to the white shirt and black skirt that I normally saw her in when she was on TV in real life.

She spoke while holding a wooden microphone to her mouth, as if it were a real microphone. That had to be KB broadcasting professional protocol, which applied even when she was in game.

“—so don’t forget to wash your hands! In other news—“

Comments were flying by so fast on the live stream I could barely read them fast enough. I logged onto chatroom 17.

So pretty

Sit on my face Eunjin!!!

Eunjin ayayayayaya

…

Yes, she was pretty, but reading these comments made my brain hurt.

Over the next few days of transport to the frontlines, the landscape outside began to change. The lush, grassy plains that dominated the scenery near the capital was turning into dark, foggy marshes and sparsely forested wetlands.

The carriages took a path through questionable terrain, taking a meandering path through the only solid ground in a mire. Even an inexperienced traveler like myself could tell that you needed to be an expert to get through this maze-like swamp.

The forums were lighting up with buzz about the new revelation of lands beyond what was thought to be a natural boundary, consisting of intraversible swampland. Expectations were high.

What breathtaking sceneries lay beyond the edge of the known world? That was the question on everyone's mind.

All the excitement ground to a halt on the seventh day, as an unexpected notification popped up.

[Warning: You have entered the Boglands.]

[The Boglands contain harsh environments and dangerous monsters. Continue at your own discretion.]

[Death penalties will be severe from here on. If you die in this zone, you will be locked from respawning for one month.]

“What the hell is this?”

“I didn’t sign up for this. Let me off!”

One month. An entire month. Dying here was catastrophic. The message was clear—leave, or survive at all costs.

Books nudged me with his elbow, a worried look on his face.

“You got that notification too, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea. Let’s turn back while we still can.”

I shook my head.

“Look outside. It’s already too late to turn back. Let’s say you jumped out right now, what do you do? Walk back to the capital? You wouldn’t last an hour before getting swallowed by the land itself.”

Books wasn’t fully convinced.

“Then I’ll just sprint back past the cutoff point. It’s been less than ten minutes since we passed the boundary, anyway. Won’t take more than an hour on foot—“

Thud.

A soldier from our regiment jumped off from one of the carts ahead, landing in the wet soil below.

“Halt!”

The carriages ground to a sudden halt, as the horses neighed and stomped their feet.

The man was scrambling to get away, but several officers had jumped off and tackled him to the ground. Commander Isaac walked over slowly to the whimpering man. The commander looked down at the man pitifully, before turning to the new recruits on the carriages, preparing to make a statement.

“Let this be an example to you all, at what fate awaits deserters.”

The commander drew his ornate rapier and swung once, beheading the man. Blood dripped down the man’s still prostrated body, as the commander kicked the body over, letting it tumble in the mud.

“The punishment for deserting is death. Let this be the last time I have to do this,” he said to us adamantly.

Satisfied that we all took the lesson to heart, the regiment commander sheathed his rapier and wordlessly walked back to his carriage in the front. Just like that, any thoughts of turning back were extinguished.

We continued on with a heavy heart and a knotted stomach. The road ahead was still long, and filled with an ever increasing feeling of despair.

Several hours of stomach churning uneven roads made me feel like vomiting. I tried to chat with Books at first, but as time wore on even we were getting on each other’s nerves. The gloomy, damp atmosphere of the environment outside certainly didn’t help the mood.

The carriages were separated into four person carts, so we had two other people across from us, a female mage and a male archer. The female mage had a sour look on her face and didn’t make any effort to make small conversation, as she spent most of the ride using the internet and communications function on her screen. The male archer had his legs crossed and was reading a book as well, so an awkward silence filled the carriage.

It was nearing sunset, and a horn signaled that we were stopping for the night. The carriages found a reasonably dry patch of land to camp at, and at the signal of the commander, we started to deboard.

The moment my feet landed on solid ground after hopping off the carriage, I walked several feet to the side and vomited. Vomiting wasn’t a particularly cathartic experience here, because the humid air of the Boglands clung to your skin and lungs in a dreadful way that made you even sicker afterwards.

We set up camp for the night, making several campfires as usual to illuminate the darkness. The sound of wooden utensils and idle chatter made the regiment camp feel like a canteen back in the capital. I looked around and saw several members of the regiment with concentrated looks on their faces, meaning they were probably commenting on forums or recording the uncharted lands.

Books already retired to his tent for the night, citing a horrible headache. Couldn't really fault him for that, since I felt like absolute shit as well. I still felt seasick from all the rocking back and forth on the carriage.

Ours was one of the first four regiments to depart, and news about the death penalty change after crossing the boundary spread like wildfire across the internet, causing numerous players to desert back at the capital.

Deserting at the training camps in the capital was a particularly damning choice to make. It meant that your name was branded as a deserter in the official imperial records, meaning that you could never take another guild request, official quest, apply for a title, or do anything within the capital city without anonymity.

What was originally the hottest new trend instantly changed within public perception. Players who already signed the dwarven expedition contract were stuck in a bad situation with no easy out.

Eunjin announced earlier today that she would still be participating in the expedition, which was to be expected given her position as a professional reporter from KB broadcasting. Actually, the demand for live coverage of the expedition only grew after it was found out that the area was dangerous.

In a sense, it was a good time for me to get some exposure and maybe make some money streaming from the danger zone. Since there was a bit of relaxation time right now, I opened the software and started to create a live stream profile. The most important part of the profile was setting my current location to public, so viewers could see I was in the [Boglands]. After writing down a short bio and setting my name to private, I opened up the streaming software and went live.

Just a few seconds into turning on my stream, I got two viewers. It was clear that viewers online were interested about what was actually going on in the highly publicized Boglands “death zone”, as it was being called now.

Well as it turns out, nothing was really happening at the moment. My viewership dropped to one, before finally hitting zero.

It was gut wrenching seeing the numbers go down. Did they think my stream was that uninteresting? But there was a girl right above me streaming the same thing, with more than a hundred viewers.

Ah, the power of cleavage.

Viewers floated into my stream occasionally, before leaving after they realized that there was nothing much to see besides the bleak landscape. I felt my confidence levels drop every time a new viewer left my stream. Every time it happened, it felt like a personal attack.

“Fuck! Stupid ass viewers.”

Cursing, I turned off my live stream after continuing to see the viewer count fluctuate between four viewers and zero viewers, with a heavy gravitational force towards zero viewers. Watching the viewer count was just bad for my mental health, almost as if my personal self worth was reflected by my audience’s interest.

“Have you guys seen Ryan?”

Several volunteer soldiers at the campfire adjacent to mine were voicing their concern over something.

“He went to take a piss,” answered a middle aged female warrior wearing chainmail and gauntlets.

“Yeah, he said that twenty minutes ago. He should be back by now,” replied the gruff man.

“Go check his tent then.”

The gruff man got up and walked over to the communal tent, throwing aside the linen covering the tent.

“He’s not here.”

The middle aged female warrior stood up.

“Last time I saw him, he was headed behind that rock over there. Come with me, let’s check on him.”

The two volunteer soldiers walked over to the rock in the distance, looking for their friend. Well, it wasn’t really my concern. I yawned and flipped open the forum system, checking the most popular threads.

[Combat class tier list]

I scanned through the post. The OP went into scrupulous detail on all the classes with analysis of their fighting styles, stat distributions, ideal weapon type, and even included spreadsheets on popular or unique classes with recommended equipment.

Arsonist - D tier

Fisherman - F tier

Archer - B tier

Fighter - A tier

Pikeman - B tier

I didn’t agree with his tier listing, since he was rating simpler classes higher than classes that needed a bit of finesse to utilize properly. There was a storm of discussion in the comments section, with players debating if one class beat another in a one-on-one, which classes leveled the fastest, and other topics like which classes looked the best aesthetically.

One player was even arguing that visual appeal should be incorporated into tier consideration.

What a dumbass.

...

Actually, that player was me. Hey, appearance is important! Just ask that [Tiffanee] girl showing off her cleavage with over a hundred viewers.

I went to the next topic.

[Farming location guide (current)]

It was understandable that a farming guide was one of the top threads, since the demand for this kind of info was at an all time high.

The monster coalition world event slowly suffocated the playerbase’s choices of farming locations in affected areas, and so players went out of their way to make detailed guides about places to farm that balanced safety with efficiency.

As expected, the area around Mountain was marked as completely off limits.

[Current world rankings]

[Rick], the orb of light swordsman that released the ten million view Siege of Mountain video, was now 7th place on the global rankings.

Strange. I didn’t see [Spoon] on the top ten list.

Must be an error. How could the dimensional dish washer not be in the top ten?

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!”

I flinched at the sudden scream, looking around with my vision half covered by the forum.

“How do I turn this off?”