Project Overworld

- "What happened?!" Mariachi asked to his fellow comrades.

They all felt a huge shockwave spreading throughout the forest, and this had been worrying them for the past few minutes.

However, it seemed like there was no other shockwave being emitted and the group of anti-civilization was now trying to find out what was at the origin of the explosion.

However, it was not long until one of the members of their group came running into the large area they had been thinning out between the trees.

- "Chief, there's a forest fire that's spreading towards our position."

'Wait, what? Already? Did the police of Midgard set up this fire to get us out of this forest?' Mariachi tried to determine.

- "We still have a few members scattered throughout the area. Try and find them, we're getting out in the open. Ready your weapons!" He shouted.

He then started leading the group towards the opposite direction of the fire. However, just a few moment later they were stopped in their tracks as another explosion thundered nearby.

This one happened in the direction they were headed in.

- "What the hell is this all about?!" Mariachi exulted as he was losing his cool. "Scouts, spread across all directions and report on the situation! Now!" He roared.

However, the fire had already spread a bit too much within the forest. They were surrounded by huge walls of intense heat.

Even the scouts were not of any help since they were could not see anything past the smoke and the forest fire.

- "Let's go north, there shouldn't be any wild fire around there!" He ordered. This would be getting them really far away from their objective, but they had no choice whatsoever.

Only, this decision has been taken too late and the forest easily caught up to the group.

In a matter of minutes, there were no more player hidden within the forest and only the burnt remains of the forest as well as a thick cloud of smofe were left behind.

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- "Sean, reporting from the forest where a supposedly terrorist group has been eliminating the whole investigation team after an informer warned them about a suspicious gathering. An explosion recently shook the whole forest after an unidentified flying object crashed down there. There are still no informations about the mysterious terrorist group nor about the strange flying object, although some members of the police are leaning towards the possibility of a missile being launched from the north. A large forest fire is currently devastating the area and the group of firefighters that had been preventively deployed there are now trying their best to extinguish it. I will keep hitting you up with the latest..."

Just as he was saying those words, another explosion blew up in the forest.

Seing this, Keith's smile enlarged even further. 'Hehehe...' He thought. 'I've pulled a sneaky on ya!'

In fact, there were two smaller sized warhead being dispatched on the rocket. The first one was supposed to be released while the missile was still flying in the air and had a delay system installed into it.

The second one was meant to stay onto the missile until the end and explode right away after reaching the ground.

Both of them would be dispatched in areas Keith assumed surrounding the terrorists, or at least the center of the forest. This also meant that the fire would be spreading about twice as fast since there were two different points of origin.

What was happening right now was within the thoroughly calculated plans of Keith. And this is mostly why he was worried about putting an end to the forest.

However, making a bunch of trees grow in this game was a lot faster than in real life. It would only require as much a few months of time for the forest to grow back. Maybe not as much as the original size, but most of it nonetheless.

After making sure no terrorist came out of the forest for the following hour, Keith finally closed the livestream window that was opened on his computer and put his virtual reality headset onto his head.

'Okay, here we go again. I've got a space station module to finish.' He thought.

_______________

After getting a strange message from Keith, Amber dispatched a team to investigate the forest he talked about.

She did not really sweat over it as she had a few matters to take care in real life and forgot about this whole situation a few minutes later.

However, only an hour later she was bombarded with messages coming from the members of the municipal team. Only then did she realize the seriousness of the situation.

They explained to her that the investigation team has been killed immediately upon entering the forest.

'Well, looks like my little day off will be cut short.' She thought for herself. She was still within the city center and would not have direct access to her for at least another hour, so she decided to give authority to another fellow member of the municipal team.

She also instructed on dispatching part of the police force there.

She then opened back the conversation she has had with Keith and asked him if he had any more informations about the situation. After all, he was the one who initially threw his suspicion on this particular forest.

Since she got no answers, she put her phone into her satchel and went on with doing her errands.

Once she got back home, she immediatelly connected to Project Overworld to have a full report on the situation. Apparently, two explosions took place within the forest and the firefighters were trying their best to contain the fire from overflowing the area.

- "What the hell is this all about? Is the situation of the terrorists' base destruction happening again?" She thought out loud. "Dispatch even more of our firefighters, we need to investigate the area as soon as possible." She ordered one of her subordinates.

The fire lasted for a lot more than just a few hours. She had time to go to sleep and the next day there were still some areas being taking care of.

However, it was sufficient for an investigation team to go there and gather as many clues as possible.

Only a few burnt paper were left here and there, but they were so eaten by the fire that if was impossible to see what they were referring to.

Though, just like that time when the terrorist's hideout got destroyed, a quite large amount of player respawned there. They all gave their own take on the situation, but the only thing they knew is that they were preparing to invade both Midgard and Niflheim.

Whenever she tried to find their leader, most of them played dumb while the a few dared to explain that he was not there.

'Mhhh... He must have placed his spawnpoint elsewhere in case something like that happened.' Amber concluded.

The little interrogation session went on for a few minutes until she got bored. It was the second time she was met with this kind of situation and she had a mixed feeling about this. She was both worried that this kind of attack could be taking place in so many parts of Yggdrasil while being elated that this new group of terrorist eradicated before they could do any harm to their beloved cities.

'Are we really getting protected by some benevolent spirit or what?' She thought. However, this time, she had some more clues about this benevolent spirit.

In fact, she has been quite suspicious of Keith since has been warning her about those 'strange movements' within the forest. How was he able to find out this kind of behaviour? Did he also know about the whereabouts of the first terrorists' base?

There were many questions she wanted to ask, but there were two more clues she had to consider beforehand. Retracing the comments and posts he had published on the forums, she found out that he had been participating in conversations related to the first terrorist attack.

He has actually been quite diligent in invalidating false rumors to spread.

He also made a post on the forums about the suspicious gathering in the forest before contacting her.

But then again, there was that strange post left on the forums by an anonymous player warning about the eventuallity of a forest fire. This player was certainly part of the group who started developing missile to take down the terrorists.

However, she found it hard to believe that there has been two different informants about this whole situation and that they had both been right with their informations.

That was why, she was having a little feeling that Keith was behind all this. After all, he has always been ahead of its time since she knew him.

This was also part of the reason why the New Dawn guild had lasted for so long until the new influx of players swept away this dark era from Project Overworld.

'Keith, we shall have a little conversation about your responsability in both of these missile attacks.' She promised to herself.