"I was the first one to notice! Those experience points belong to me!"
"As if that matters! It’s first come, first served!"
"We want experience points too! Now that we’ve caught on, there’s no way we’re letting you monopolize them!"
In the dead of night at Luminous Academy, Cyan was locked in a heated argument with two men inside a deserted, empty classroom.
It went without saying that these two were reincarnators, just like Cyan.
The man with dark brown hair snapping aggressively at Cyan was named Woz Star. The other, a man with glasses who gave off a somewhat high-strung impression, was Torin Mathis.
Cyan ground his teeth as he faced them, literally biting back his irritation as he spoke.
"I get it, so just calm down for a second. If we attract any more rivals, things are going to get messy!"
The two fell silent at Cyan's warning, but their eyes made it clear they had no intention of backing down. Cyan clicked his tongue and considered his next move while under the weight of their combined glares.
(It couldn't be helped, but I was careless. I can't believe I let these guys see me while I was preparing...!)
Word of the riot led by Regen’s criminal organization earlier that day had reached Cyan's ears as well. Realizing this was the start of the character story for Jinba, one of the security force members, he had been surprised by the sudden event but immediately recognized it as a golden opportunity.
Specifically, it was an opportunity to farm experience points.
Painfully aware that their growth was nowhere near keeping up with the progression of the scenario and the rising strength of their enemies, the group was starving for any chance to raise their levels.
Regen, the primary antagonist of this event, was a formidable foe, but Cyan and the others weren't actually after the experience points gained from defeating him. Their true targets were Regen's subordinates—the bonus enemies that would appear only if certain conditions were failed.
In this particular event—the battle against Regen and his syndicate—the difficulty shifted slightly depending on the player's choices.
During the conversation with Jinba the night before, if the player memorized the faces of the criminals and correctly described their features to him, they could launch a surprise attack on the courier transporting the Birdcage where Regen and his crew were hiding. Doing so allowed for a direct transition into the boss fight against Regen himself.
However, if the player failed to identify the courier correctly, the Birdcage could not be destroyed in advance. Instead, Regen and his subordinates would burst out from the sub-space and begin a violent rampage during the Thanksgiving festival.
While there were other minor variations, that was the primary branch in the scenario. Under normal circumstances, an efficient player would have no reason to deliberately fail the Carrier Identification Mission.
But for Cyan and his peers, it was a different story.
The small-fry enemies that appeared alongside Regen weren't particularly powerful. They were easy to defeat and offered a decent amount of experience points—and right now, they were so desperate for growth that even "decent" points were worth dying for.
The moment Cyan sensed that Jinba's event had been triggered, he had immediately begun his preparations to secure as much level gain as possible. He was in the middle of gathering equipment and recovery items when Woz and Torin had stumbled upon him.
Upon seeing Cyan's frantic movements, the two had realized the daytime incident was a game event and demanded a share of the experience point farming. Cyan had resisted fiercely, knowing that their presence would split the gains three ways and ruin his perfect opportunity.
"The experience points from the battle itself aren't even that high! If the three of us split them among all our party members, what we actually get will be a drop in the bucket!"
"I know that! But I’m not about to let you be the only one to profit!"
"As if we’d let you farm experience points all by yourself! If you won't share, we'll do everything in our power to hold you back!"
The "protagonists" were currently engaged in a display of mutual sabotage so intense it made their recent promise to cooperate against Yugo look like a lie. Realizing there was no other way, Cyan ground his teeth and made a final offer.
"Fine. You guys can join the event too. But only the three of us go to the Thanksgiving festival. Leave your party members behind."
To prevent the experience points from being diluted further, they had to minimize the number of participants in the battle. If each of them brought their full party, they would have twelve people to split the rewards between, resulting in the pittance Cyan had feared.
As a desperate compromise, Cyan set the condition that only the three protagonists would participate in the fight. Woz and Torin both seemed to find the logic sound and nodded without further complaint.
"Dammit... there go my extra experience points...!"
"Give it up. You can't expect to get away with being greedy. Be grateful we didn't bring the rest of the group to protest."
"Besides, if things go well, we might be able to earn a bit more in the second battle. I don't know who triggered the event, but let's just be thankful we can hitch a ride and profit from it."
While Cyan grumbled, Woz and Torin looked quite refreshed now that they had successfully negotiated their way into the plan.
Whether they viewed the situation as losing a perfect opportunity or gaining a useful stepping stone for a level-up, one thing was consistent: none of them gave a single thought to the fact that their decision to let the enemy move freely would result in civilian casualties and the loss of any chance to rescue the kidnapped children.
It didn't matter to them how many in-game characters—especially mere "mobs"—were sacrificed. The only thing that mattered was how much they, the protagonists, could gain.
As they set out to trample over the desperate efforts of Yugo and Jinba to protect the town, they did so without a hint of remorse, never once realizing that their own nature was far more wretched than that of the criminal Regen and his ilk.