The First Mission
「Mission Notice」
「Main Quest: The Demon Beast of the Mist」
「Number of Participants: All Members」
「Main Objectives: Assist in the raid against the Hakugei」
「Rewards: 1000 points, 1x Random Reward Box 」
「Secondary Quest: The Gourmet Eater」
「Main Objectives: Kill Lye Batenkaitos」
「Secondary Objectives: Prevent anyone's name from being eaten in the span of the quest」
「Rewards: 1x Random Template 」
Manaka was startled at the sudden long string of messages that started flooding the chat.
Everyone else momentarily went quiet as they allowed the prompt to fully sink in. If this wasn't proof enough, it certainly cleared their doubts entirely, i.e,. as to the "purpose" of this group chat's existence. Whoever the creator was, it must have intended for something more other than simply to connect individuals from across different realities.
Moreover, disregarding the word "Kill" in the notice, this revelation was actually somewhat reassuring. At least it changed their perception of the chat group and how it was too good to be true, considering now that they know it can ask them to do certain tasks.
Yet, arguably, comes another set of problem.
Even though Manaka had no doubts about the other members, when it comes to herself is another story altogether.
She was weak, and this weakness was made more glaringly obvious with a demon lord in their midst. Perhaps it was her just thinking too much, but if her opinions were anything to by, Manaka thought it was appropriate to measure the difficulty of these quests in accordance to Maou as a demon lord, and with the assumption that his true strength would serve as the baseline, otherwise she felt like these tasks would be too easy for them. Plus, it wouldn't hurt to be more cautious. She would much rather err on the side of caution than to end up biting more than she can chew.
「Gintoki Sakata: Oi, oi, oi, are you serious? Are you guys seeing this right now?」
「Tatsuya Shiba: Yes, and it appears as though that manual was true.」
「Sadao Maou: Eh, a manual? There was something like that?」
「Tatsuya Shiba: Indeed. You can view it through your private messages.」
「Teresa: Now that you mentioned it, I do recall seeing a document attached to the invitation.」
「Tatsuya Shiba: Everyone, I would advise you to read through the instructions before anything else.」
With Tatsuya's instruction, Manaka swiftly went over and tapped the mail icon, prompting another screen to appear. There were two rows of unread messages, and each of them had a red exclamation mark as to indicate their importance. After swallowing down her wnxiety, she decided to start reading from the bottom one to top, which read:
「General Information」
「 • Multiversal Chat Group is a trans-universal messaging app that bridges the gap between realities and connects individuals in a seamless fashion. Members are allowed the opportunity to discuss and exchange information between one another that might prove beneficial to them.
• Periodically, the Chat Group will send commissions that members could actively participate in. However, the number of required participants may very depending on the difficulty and nature of the task. Once assigned, the chosen participants can no longer decline. Additionally, the currently assigned task must be accomplished before another one can be issued. It is therefore advised for members to assign a working group to fulfill its requirements as soon as possible.
• With that said, tasks do not have a set time limit.
• Missions takes place in a set universe, and active participants will be sent over to that world in order to accomplish the provided task. In some cases, a mission may occur within the world of an existing member. Should the case may be, that person does not add up to the count of participants.
• While a mission is currently active, time will freeze for everyone except for the participants and the world where the mission takes place.
• The admin of the chat group is allowed to hand out one invitation per mission. Said invitation is impossible to revoke unless the invitee declines the invitation themself.
• Rewards are always distributed to every members regardless of their participation unless otherwise specified.
• Log-in bonuses are given as incentive for member's continued activity.」
「Administrator Privileges」
「• The administrator is vested with the ability to manage, moderate, and full control of other membership. It is in fact advised for the administrator to hand out decisions as they see fit.
• The administrator can specify upgrades for the chat group with each milestone. It should be noted that these upgrades are unlocked through the number of existing membership. Please invite as much member as possible.
• The administrator is required to participate on every task and is therefore excluded from the count of participants.
• The administrator will receive supplementary benefits for every task. However, these additional rewards are generated randomly.」
Manaka squinted her eyes again as her vision fell on the administrator privileges. These privileges didn't seem at all like it'd give benefits as much as it was a disadvantage, if not, an outright burden for someone like her. This also meant that she has no choice to back down from missions, even if it's supposedly against her wishes. Thankfully, the manual did not provide a specific time limit, which means that they don't necessarily have to rush through with each mission and can have as much time needed to do their preparations.
Although Manaka wasn't for certain if any amount of preparation could actually help her...
But going back to the missions, she was relieved to know that time will be frozen while a mission is underway. This saves her a lot of trouble from explaining with her brother each time that it happens. The last thing she wanted was to go on a mission and take an extended period over there, only to come back to her own reality labelled as a missing person.
If there was a silver lining, then it's definitely the supplementary rewards. Despite nothing of the sorts having been mentioned, Manaka could easily guess that it must be some means granted by the group chat to provide them with more power. And with these additional benefits, she was less likely to fall behind in terms of progress, though, the part about the gambling aspect didn't sound very appealing to her. Manaka wasn't fond of leaving her prospects up to chance.
「Sadao Maou: I just finished reading through the manual.」
「Sadao Maou: Did everyone finish as well?」
「Gintoki Sakata: Too long; didn't read.」
「Teresa: I did. Though it would've been more appreciated if it told us more exactly about these other worlds.」
「Tatsuya Shiba: It is unfortunate, but this is better than nothing. At the very least, we don't have any reason to fulfill missions as quickly as possible. That alone gives us more leeway to do our thorough preparations.」
「Manaka Emiya: Un, I must concur with Tatsuya-san. We can take our time with important decisions.」
「Sadao Maou: But Hakugei, huh. I know it says something about it being a demonic beast, but I never heard that kind of creature in Ente Isla.」
「Teresa: Same goes for me as well.」
「Sadao Maou: So there's really whole worlds outs there.」
「Manaka Emiya: Speaking of, I do remember onii-chan once read a book about an isekai.」
「Sadao Maou: You know something about it?」
「Manaka Emiya: I think so, yeah. Though it was a book someone left behind in the archery club, so he had to return it the following day. But if I remember correctly, the title was---」
「---Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World.」
A/N: Apologies. I was supposed to released this chapter last friday, but I realized I've been procrastinating too much and found out the deadline for my university requirements were almost due. Needless to say, had to do those first. And then right when I got some time free the other day, that's when I had the sudden urge to write a meme fanfic about Anya lol. I will be writing both this fanfic and that one simultaneously, though, of course this series takes precedence.
Anyways, since I've been seeing the same question, next chapter will give a better overview of Manaka's world before proceeding with the first mission.