Project Overworld

- "Hit!" Keith exclaimed before heading out of the battlefield. Just like every Sunday, Spacol organized a small competition on one of the games they had reproduced within Project Overworld.

This time around, this tournament took place in the nearby forest and was related to paintball. They organized in two teams of three and the winners got to do a final battle in free for all. Keith was really bad at paintball, actually, and was often one of the fastest eliminated.

However, it seemed like Xena has also been eliminated in the first minutes of this competition and was already watching the event unfold live through images taken by a few cameras.

- "Well, what happened?" Keith inquired. "You're usually always one of the latest to be killed during a paintball event!"

- "Jim just got a lucky shot, that's all." She explained.

- "Haha! He's unbeatable in this game, isn't he?"

- "Yeah... Seems like it."

Although they have been eliminated, it was not done yet for the two competitors. The team winning this round would then proceed to the next phase in order to determine the true winner of the tournament.

Michael joined them a few minutes later with several paint stains on his side.

- "Oof!" Keith exclaimed. "That's a pretty harsh shot right there."

- "Yeah, I couldn't see it coming!"

- "It's looking dire for your team!" Keith continued. Michael and Xena have been matched into the same team, meaning that only Tyler was left to be eliminated for one of the teams to emerge victorious.

As for Keith's team, two of them still remained into the competition. Not to mention the fact that the all time winner of paintball events was part of it, Jim that is. At this point, there was not a lot of surprise over who would be the next one eliminated.

- "So, how is the construction of the 'rocket assembler' going?" Keith asked to the both of them. This week, he has been assigned to the optimization of the resource gathering process so has not been updated on the progress of the other project.

- "The top spoilers are now being attached correctly to the structure." Tyler replied. "Also, we've extanded the raw resources conveyor belt to lead directly into the loader."

Since the main goal of the 'rocket assembler' was to launch resources into the EOSS, they needed to stuff the rocket they were building with materials before closing the top of the structure. That was why, they have made plans for an elevator to route all the needed resources into the rocket without hindering the other assembling processes of the machine.

- "No problems related to it?"

- "Well, we haven't been able to test the elevator yet, so we wouldn't know. However, the conveyor splitter seems to be getting the exact quantity of materials you asked."

- "Nice job!" Keith commented. "By the way, next week, you should be taking care of the construction of the Space Station Launcher 27. We'll be needing it to get some maintenance on the EOSS before we all settle in there." He told his close friend.

- "Sure thing. You expect to be finished by the end of the month?"

- "Yup, totally." Keith nodded. "Since you've mostly completed the resource loader, we only need to assemble the top of the rocket and we should be done. We should be having a complete test in two weeks from now, and if we don't encounter any major problems we should be able to make the last adjustements during the following two weeks."

Xena diverted her attention to the two men to ask : "And what about the main computer? The rocket won't be able to launch by itself for now."

- "Don't worry about that." Keith he reassured her. "The machine taking care of the motherboard is already done. There's still a bit of changes to make there because it doesn't seem to work properly, but nothing to be concerned of."

Another voice came out from behind them : "So it's official? We're installing in space by the start of next month?"

It was Leyla, who apparently got eliminated by Tyler despite their numerical superiority over the enemy.

- "Is Tyler becoming the second Jim?" Keith could not help but remark.

- "Nah, I just got hit by a missed shot... It was intended at Jim at first."

The four of them laughed it off while waiting for the others to determine the winner. Only a few minutes later, Jim came out of the woods totally clean from any stains while Tyler had a really colorful dot on his c.h.e.s.t.

- "Looks like he's as sharp as ever." Keith commented.

Him and Leyla both re-equipped their paintball attires since their team have won the first phase of the competition.

- "Let's go back then!" He exclaimed.

_______________

After the announcement Amber made concerning the construction of Asgard city, a lot of players started activating themselves throughout the four continents currently inhabited. They all wanted to hop onto the first boat to Yggdrasil so they would be able to be there once the city opened its doors.

As for Amber and her municipal team, they focused most of their attention onto the two projects they teased to the population. Asgard was not currently habitable, but the architects taking care of this city along the several thousands workers hired for the occasion already built several casinos and other entertainement centers.

Since they were about to change a lot of things for the future of this game, Amber also wanted to organize more fun and interactive events. For this purpose, she was inspired by several television shows in the 'real world' reworked in her own way to match Project Overworld standards.

From obstacle races to dangerous challenges, her head had no shortage of ideas. Only time could really hinder her plans of making this game attractive to everyone. Inventopia has been a real success in the past, and she wanted to keep making such interesting events that could bring everyone together.

The community of this game was really enjoyable and a new influx of player could be changing it for the worse. That was why, the more plans they made beforehand, the easier they would be able to intervene in case of problems.

Those were the current goals of the municipal team of Yggdrasil.

- "Lilia, how are the architects doing?"

- "They've finished the first movie theather, madam, as well as the third casino."

- "Finished... You mean working an functional?"

- "Not yet, madam, the movie projector prototype we got isn't fully polished. As for the casinos, they are lacking quite a bit of games to be attractive in the long term."

- "Oh, okay." Amber replied, a bit disappointed. "And what about Project : Vanilla?"

- "The team affected to delimiting the area is done, only the construction of the walls themselves remain."

- "Oh! Now that's good news!"

Reassured by the work of her subordinates and other partners, Amber focused back onto the organization of the future events she wanted to host.

'With that, we should be set for several months before people get tired of this game.' She meditated. 'I can't wait for Asgard to open to the public!'

_______________

'Gotcha!' Keith exclaimed in his mind while bringing out his modified paintball gun. This one was equipped with a really large cartridge holding around fifty bullets in total. The gun iteself was also fully automatic and could fire at a rate of two balls per second.

From the start of this round, he managed to sneak up on the location Jim took shelter in and was now about to surprise him with his traficated weapon.

'Mhh.. I can't really see him... Oh, there he is!' He saw the head of Jim briefly sticking out from the stone structure surrounding him.

Looking through the scope of his gun, Keith saw Leyla sneakily approaching the shelter of Jim. She was being really careful and he almost missed her movements if it was not for the bush she agitated on her way. They were all equipped with camouflage suits so they were all really hard to spot within this forest.

However, Jim also seemed to notice her and stuck his head out of his shelter to take aim.

'That's my opportunity!' Keith realized. He was quite bad in aiming with one of those paintball guns, but he could offset his bad skills with better weapons. His actual guns he used to defend himself against other players in Project Overworld also were fully automatic to make sure he could always hit a few bullets on his target.

Keith unloaded his whole cartdrige on the poor young man. Fortunately for him, his reflexes were on point and Jim managed to hide within his structure before being hit by any bullets. Instead, Keith turned the canon of his paintball gun towards the direction of Leyla and eliminated her after just a few seconds.

'Now, how should I do this?' Keith thought after reloading his gun while taking cover behind a tree. He knew he was not as good as Jim was in this game, so could not afford a direct confrontation with him even though he had the weapon advantage.

After thinking about it for a few seconds, Keith's lips stretched into a wry smile as he brought out his secret weapon to win this competition.

'Let's see how this camper reacts to this!'