[Region-Wide Announcement: In one hour, C45 Zone and D41 Zone will merge with C13 Zone. Please prepare.]
As the notification sounded in every C13 Zone player's ears, the chat channel, which had been buzzing with discussions about teaming up to farm monsters and trading supplies, seemed to have had its pause button pressed, falling briefly silent.
But mere seconds later, the entire channel erupted.
"Holy shit! What's going on? Another zone merger?"
"Has the system lost its mind? It didn't even give us advance notice, just dropped an ultimatum on us."
"Bro above, isn't this an hour's advance notice? How can you say there wasn't any?"
"Before, they'd at least give us a day to mentally prepare for a merger. Now we get just one hour. I seriously suspect this damned game won't even give us an hour's warning for future mergers. It'll just mash us all together on the spot."
"Forget how much warning we got. C15 Zone and D87 Zone must be pretty brutal. They've both got fewer than three hundred thousand players left."
"The two zones should have five hundred thousand players combined, right? Once they merge with our C13 Zone, won't our total player count approach or even break a million again?"
"A million-player zone... The last time we had one was when we first arrived."
"Luckily, our C13 Zone is solidly united now. We've got the big shot Never Checks the Fuel Gauge holding the fort, plus the Expedition Alliance, the only alliance in the entire game. If the players from those two zones know how to behave, fine. But if they dare stir up trouble on our turf, they're asking to die."
"Exactly. Our Expedition Alliance alone has thousands of tier three powerhouses now, and countless players at the peak of tier