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[The {Desecrated Shadow King} admires the bloodshed.]

[The Fate of the Damned has been brought by their very actions, or inactions.]

[And so, when you die, there is nobody to blame but yourself.]

[The {Desecrated Shadow King} presence has dissipated.]

The Desecrated Shadow King’s words were always strange; he talked in some sort of riddle, always around what causes people’s curses and suffering.

Unlike the jokester and cynical Unending Crimson, he seemed to be always serious, and it was quite clear seeing how he had even created a cult of incredibly strong assassins to take over the Realms.

Vlad couldn’t quite figure out what his purpose was, aside from… conquest? If he were a King, he guessed that might be one of such things.

But involving criminals to do it felt strange; a King should have some honor as well.

Or perhaps there was no actual pattern with these beings, and they were just as mysterious as they were nonsensical, incarnations of chaos.

But without a doubt, they seemed to be a major antagonistic force in the game’s "story,” as Paul thought, and they might only continue involving themselves with everything as the world progresses.

However, since that Raid in the first days he started playing, the Unending Crimson seems to be nowhere to be seen, and Vlad was quite relieved.

Perhaps he went to annoy or torment another Realm instead, which was better anyway.

The Desecrated Shadow King didn’t seem particularly targeting this one either, as his cult was actually from Ennead.

Meaning that he had already spread his influence greatly in that harsh Realm.

“I suppose it would spread easily when that Realm is even harsher than Obscuritas,” thought Vlad. “If its truly just a desertic world with few oases and ruins, then people must be always suffering. A perfect place for an embodiment of curses and desecration to gain power and influence.”

Even then, that didn’t concern him anymore; he sighed in relief, glaring at the corpse of the werewolf. Unfortunately, the bracelet he had merged with didn’t appear for him to loot and remained fused with the corpse’s body.

“I wonder if I could get anything by eating it with Gluttony,” he considered. “I’ll first store everything and then get out of here; this place seems to be about to collapse.”

He noticed how much the ceiling had collapsed; he will probably fill all these underground caves with dirt and stone, so they won’t be used anymore by criminals.

The sewage system was in another area, and it was sealed from anybody; he had checked it before, and the sewers were clean of bandits, surprisingly enough.

“So this is the last one, right?” wondered Chris, flying to his side. “Are we finally over with the damn criminals?”

"Yeah, I think so,” nodded Vlad as he continued storing all the bodies. “We should probably go loot anything we can first. And then get the hell out of here. I’m using Geomancy right now to hold everything from falling, but it is burning through my Arcana rapidly.”

“Oh shit! Alright, let’s hurry then!” Chris panicked. “Queenie! Hey Queenie! You ok?!”

Chris flew towards Queenie, finding her looking traumatized and paralyzed, sitting over the floor while looking completely grim.

“Ahh… I don’t want to… I don’t want to fight anymore…”

“Come on, it’s a game! Just move your avatar!”

“Queenie, I’ll carry you.”

Camilla gently encompassed Queenie on a bubble made of her telekinetic powers and carried her in midair.

Queenie gasped as she looked around, snapping out of it as she floated.

“Uwaah! W-Wait, don’t carry me like this!”

“It’s fine; if you’re tired, you should rest.”

Camilla was surprisingly reliable for her age; the girl protected those that she deemed valuable and useful after all.

“Well, I forgot to ask, but everyone’s ok?” wondered Vlad. “You were attacked by dozens of specters, so I was worried.”

“We’re fine,” shrugged Chris. “You think we can’t handle a bunch of mobs? To be honest, if you weren’t so quick to kill that dog, I would’ve smacked it down myself!”

“Hahaha! Okay, sure,” laughed Vlad.

“What are you laughing at?!” Chris got bothered. “I’m strong too! Don’t look down on me, nerd! I’ve saved your ass plenty of times already. You should respect me more!”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“A-Ah… You might not be wrong there,” Paul nodded, feeling overwhelmed by Chris reprimands; it was as if his mother was reprimanding him. “Sorry, sorry…”

“Ahh! I found something!” Chris flew ahead and quickly turned into the left corridor. "Oh, they got a bunch of boxes here full of stuff!”

“Really!?”

Vlad ran inside with Camilla right behind him, as the group found a huge room full of wooden boxes with equipment, potions, and credit coins everywhere.

There were also two other rooms filled with the same things. So while the underground held on, they quickly took everything they could, storing it inside the Players Inventories, as Queenie whined, saying she wanted a part for herself, and then they quickly moved back to the surface.

By spending a lot of Arcana, Vlad filled the underground with stones and dirt, finishing the job as he nodded, quickly taking down the abandoned house that had the entrance to the underground.

TRUUUM!

“We’re finally done; let’s go back home for now,” he sighed in relief. “I guess that’s a job well done, eh?”

“Yeah! And we got even more money and goodies,” smiled Chris. “With this, we’re done! Let’s go laze around now! I want to eat sweets!”

“Hah…” Paul looked at Chris completely carefree demeanor; it was as if he had given a complete change from how grumpy he had acted seconds ago.

“Hey…”

“Hey!”

As Chris and Paul continued chatting with Camilla, occasionally talking with them too, they suddenly started hearing an annoying background noise.

“HEY!”

Eventually they glared where it came from.

Queenie.

“Did you just forget I exist?! You’re so cruel! Camilla, please let me go already! I can move on my own!”

The pink-haired demon was quickly freed from Camilla’s telekinetic grasp, almost falling to the ground if it wasn’t because her wings helped her save herself from the humiliation.

“Phew…” she sighed in relief. “Anyways, I’ve worked hard and helped you in that little… or not so little endeavor. It was pretty hard, you know? So I hope I’m accepted now? Can my Guild form an alliance?”

“Sure,” Vlad nodded. “You’re in.”

“Uooohh!” Queenie gasped, celebrating. “Niceeee! You don’t mind if I do livestreams in the territory?!”

“You can, but as long as you’re not bothering the citizens…” Vlad said. “Also don’t bother mother or ask her unreasonable things; you’ll get hit again, and this time she might not go easy on you.”

“W-Wait what? She went easy on me?!” gasped Queenie. “No way… She sent me flying to another damn region of the map!”

“She should be capable of doing more than just that by now,” said Vlad. “Anyways, we’re back.”

Teressa and Insecta walked out of the manor as they noticed their presences arriving, greeting them like two mothers would to their children coming back from school.

But this school was actually slaughtering dozens of monsters and a super evil assassin werewolf… thing.

“Welcome back, my son,” Teressa smiled. “How was everything? I could sense a lot of commotion down below. Did you battle someone powerful? I was about to send Insecta to help you.”

“We’re fine; it was hard but not the hardest battle I’ve had,” said Vlad. “Insecta, what about the crops?”

“Everything’s under control and they’re growing nicely,” nodded Insecta. “We also started adding fertilizer. The plants are growing very fast as well! Usually plants take weeks, months, or sometimes years to get anywhere, but these might only need a couple of days to give some proper food.”

“Oh, that’s perfect then,” nodded Vlad. “Alright, we brought a lot of stuff today as well. Can you help us out with everything, mother?”

“Of course! Show me all the goods you’ve bought, my son!” Teressa was clearly growing greedier.

Like that, Teressa helped out Vlad and Chris calculate and assess all their gains, and of course, they ended up offering half of the earnings to the Territory, this time keeping more than before.

Based on all valuable items that could be sold, Teressa was able to calculate roughly over thirty million credits worth of coins, so the duo kept fifteen million, which they further divided into seven million five hundred thousand credits.

Queenie was left speechless; not even the strongest Players out there who were grinding monsters and selling anything they found every day had reached such absurd levels of money yet!

“Alright then, I shall take this and then sell it to gain more money,” nodded Teressa. “With this, the funds for Elderbridge had improved considerably. I think we could invest some into infrastructure and so on. I was also thinking of employing more mercenaries to protect the trade routes. Even though Argentia is here, he doesn’t go so far away from the walls.”

“Hmm, not a bad idea; have there been attacks recently?” wondered Vlad.

"Yes, I often times get some notifications,” nodded Teressa. “It’s annoying, but the bandits are clearly targeting our roads because they underestimate us… My familiars have detected that there’s large bandit camps to the faraway mountains of the north, which are closer to your brother’s former territory, the Silver Moon Family’s Duchy.”

“So they’re not even dealing with the bandits because they’re on the other side of the mountains, huh?” Vlad sighed. “Well, I could have guessed as much. As long as the bandits don’t attack them, they couldn’t care less. That’ll only make things more complicated later. If they let their group grow so large, eventually they would get pillaged as well.”

“Even more now, with the loss of their Duchess and their Prince, they’re very weak against attacks, as usually members of the Royal Vampire Family are the protectors of each territory…” Teressa said. “We might have to dedicate some money and time to eliminate all the bandits over there before things escalate out of proportions. After all, that territory will be annexed to ours eventually, fufu.”

“Hm, we can’t let some bandits take it,” nodded Vlad, smiling. “Anyways, for now we’re done… I’ll go to my room.”

“Ah yes, but you don’t want to have a meal first?” wondered Teressa. “I made your favorite blood sausage stew!”

“Hm…”

At the end Vlad went to eat anyways, and Chris joined, and then Camilla, of course, and also Queenie, which made Teressa slightly mad after they explained she was now a permanent ally and member of the territory.

“I do admit you’re a useful asset, so I’ll let this slide for now, but I hope you’ll behave from now on,” nodded Teressa. “Nex time, I will not go easy on disrespectful, lowly people like you.”

“L-Lowly people…?” muttered Queenie.

“Why yes, all those that aren’t members of the Vampire Family are obviously lowly people,” Teressa said. “Beneath us, so you better behave with respect when you’re talking to me or my children, understood? We are more benevolent than the other members of our kind, but that doesn’t mean we’ll let others walk all over us.”

“Ah, yes, I understand… sure,” nodded Queenie, thinking Teressa was just insane.

“Sorry about that; my mother is obsessed with these customs,” said Vlad. “Although Camilla and I don’t really mind these things, right?”

"Yeah, I don’t mind,” nodded Camilla.

“A-Ah! But my children, you should force others to respect you a bit better!” Teressa complained.

She had been getting better, but ultimately, things like these were still ingrained in her little head, unfortunately.

Once they were done eating, however, Vlad quickly went to his room, taking out the corpses of several of the monsters they had slain and the werewolf, deciding to use Gluttony to devour them all.

At the end of the week, the Neburian King would free himself from the mountain having fallen over his kingdom, and he had to grow as strong as possible until then.

A great war was slowly creeping in, and he feared it might be even bigger than the first attack…

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