Vaitrill sat above the colosseum pumping his fist in victory as Urgush managed to defeat and kill his foe with a flashy finisher. “Looks like you owe me. I told you he could defeat your man. Would you like to pay me now or should I have my orc come by your office later to collect?”
His fellow celestial by the name of Pollian let out a grumble and transferred the credits over to Vaitrill. “There, I hope you're happy. How do you even find these people anyways? I swear every century you seem to pick up new talent that puts the rest of us to shame.”
Vaitrill smiled, not bothering to answer his question as he saw the fresh influx of credits on his status screen. He was in such a good mood he would probably give Urgush 5% of these winnings as opposed to the normal 2.5%.
“Well?” Pollian glared at him clearly wanting an answer.
“Who knows, maybe I am just lucky.” He responded non-committedly as he watched the beaten but healthy orc leave the Colosseum. Maybe he would give Urgush 3.5%. That seemed like a good compromise.
“Fine then, keep your secrets. Can't believe my guy just died like that, what an embarrassing waste.” Pollian grumbled as he looked down on the corpse of his assistant currently being dragged away to make room for the next fight.
“Oh don't be too harsh on your man, they're only as good as their leader.” He threw in a quick Jab which earned an extra glare from Pollian as he got up and left the exclusive booth.
Vaitrill relaxed in his chair as he waited for the next match to start, looking up through the colosseum as he did so. It wasn't as grand or big as the Royal Colosseum, only being able to fit a couple million humanoids at full capacity. But they always had matches daily and you were guaranteed at least one good match every day.
Perhaps that was a bit biased on account of him actually owning this colosseum. But he liked to think they had decent quality. The fact that he was consistently making a profit from the building and matches as well as constantly filling up the seats to at least 3/4 full everyday helped reassure him of this.
He flipped open his pamphlet to see what was on today's schedule and whether or not he wanted to stay for the next event. Up next were some criminals fighting various e-grade monsters in hopes of cutting some time off their sentence. Not the most thrilling but it's not like he had anything better to do today and there was a certain bit of fun watching weak lowlifes try to redeem themselves. So he relaxed back in his chair only for him to suddenly become alerted to an item in his storage ring.
Vaitrill swallowed when he realized it was a communication crystal where only one person had access to its frequency and he almost never used it without good cause.
He quickly composed himself and brought out a mirror from his storage ring just to make sure he looked presentable before accepting the call from the communication crystal.
The crystal projected a screen in front of him that only he could see or hear. It revealed a tall, strong, powerful looking man with shining crystal clear eyes, a strong face and a well-groomed beard. However his wings put even his dominating appearance to shame, a powerful set of shimmering white wings that would capture anyone's eyes. His King and the only B-rank in the whole Kingdom.
“Your majesty” He quickly bowed towards him. “To what do I owe the pleasure of you gracing me with your presence.”
There was a moment of silence in which Vaitrill did not look up for fear of offending him until finally his King spoke. “Vaitrill, Earlier today I received a system mandated quest as the ruler of our humble kingdom. Do you happen to know anything about this?”
If Vaitrill wasn't nervous before he certainly was now. A system mandated quest for their whole Kingdom was bound to be big and filled with opportunities. This was all good of course except it sounded like his King seemed to think he would know about it. His mind raced trying to think of anything but came up short so was forced to be honest.
“ I am afraid I do not your majesty. Perhaps if you could give me some details of the quest I might have a better idea?” A system prompt screen suddenly appeared in front of his face.
Border dispute
A recent integrated planet that was an f grade has now been upgraded to C-grade after closer analysis. This planet is on a disputed border between your kingdom and another's. Defeat the opposing side and lay claim to this planet.
Objective: absorb this planet into your kingdom by whatever means.
Reward upon completion: the disputed planet will enter your kingdom once fully integrated, the disputed border will officially become yours, 4 D-grade freshly integrated planets will appear on this border with a 200 year system imposed peace treaty.
Warning! Strong damage to the planet and/or its local populace will result in automatic failure and victory will be awarded to the opposing side.
Vaitrills mouth practically dropped at reading the system Quest. Those rewards were ridiculous! Just claiming a C-grade planet would have been enough given their Kingdom only had nine of them. But to claim it on a border with the Material Republic would give them not only a strong beachhead but also a powerful defense.
But then the system went a step further and offered 4 D-grade planets and a forced peace treaty between them meaning they would have enough time to fully take over all planets and build fortifications and armies. Needless to say whichever side could claim these rewards would have an extremely strong advantage to any future wars. That wasn't even counting all of the potential resources that they could extract from these planets!
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However the thing that made him sweat, that started to make his heart race was the system prompt included flavor text. If the system gave you a screen whether it was for identification, quests, classes, or anything else it usually just gave you information and that was it.
He had heard and read about certain times or certain individuals that prompted flavor text but never seen or experienced it himself. But the general consensus was the same. If you were getting flavor text, that meant the system was paying attention and if the system was paying attention, that meant something big was happening.
“Are you aware of what the system is referring to?” his king spoke, snapping him out of his train of thought.
“Yes your majesty!” He spoke quickly and summarized everything as fast and as accurately as he could. When he finished the king had a less than pleasant expression on his face making Vaitrills swallow.
“You left this operation in charge of one of Jornns families brats? Am I hearing this correctly? What was his name?” He rubbed at his temple in annoyance
“It was Irrant sir” Vaitrill quickly spoke and his King sat back and thought for a second.
“Not even someone important enough that I can recall anything they did.” he mumbled which made Vaitrill fidget a little nervously and he quickly spoke to defend himself.
“Well we all need chances to prove ourselves and I've heard on good authority that Irrant is a strong up-and-comer among the new generations! Some even claim that he bears a striking resemblance to Jornns very own patriarch in his younger years. The skirmish was just to test things but now it shall seem he will be forged in fire. Not to worry your majesty, I guarantee he will not disappoint.”
“See that he doesn't. I am sure I don't need to tell you that this is no longer a skirmish and we are in a full-on war. The Matriel Republic has undoubtedly gotten a similar Quest and are moving as fast as they can. I suggest you do the same. I expect to hear consistent reports every day from now on, am I understood?” He spoke with authority brokering no questions.
“Of course your majesty I shall see to it at once.” The moment he spoke those words the connection shut off. He would have liked to breathe a sigh of relief but instead he took out an emergency teleportation device from his storage ring and teleported himself back to his main office. He could have just flown there but every second wasted could mean a massive difference.
“Urgush! Put me in contact with Irrant right now!” He spoke out a command waiting for the orc to come bursting into his office. It took a couple of moments for him to realize he left the dumb bastard back at the colosseum and nearly cursed his entire bloodline because of it.
He couldn't waste time bringing the blasted orc back here so instead started to rummage through the orcs desk and information crystals trying to find the correct communication crystal that would put him into contact with the damn general.
He badly wished he could have just recalled Irrant but the Jornns family wouldn't allow that now that such a territory had become so important. It would be perfect for them to raise their family status, maybe even claim the planet for their own, and if they failed they had the perfect scapegoat in Vaitrill by just arguing that he didn't give them enough manpower or resources in time. They were all a bunch of selfish bastards and he would make sure to get back at them the first moment he could.
He finally found what he was looking for and snatched the communication crystal, activating it and sending it towards Irrants signal. He started pacing back and forth waiting to be answered, growing increasingly agitated as time wore on.
“Hurry up and answer it you dimwitted twit! This is not the time for petty games and petty squabbles!” He kicked Urgush desk in frustration at having to wait.
Finally somebody answered but instead of seeing Irrants face, he saw the face of a fire giant. Flames licking at his molten skin with burning red eyes staring amusingly. “Ah, Vaitrill. it has been far too long. How are you and your family doing?”
“Rudeus!” He spoke with surprise at seeing his face. “I had not expected to see you with Irrant, did the Jornns patriarch send you?”
“That is correct. General Irrant noticed a massive spike in energy towards the planet and after examining it with his scanners, did his due diligence by contacting his family. I was sent here to offer assistance and guidance to the young master.”
Vaitrill almost laughed at the statement. both from relief and from the absurdity of it. There was no way Irrant sent any kind of request to his family to ask for help; the boy was just too cocky. What had most likely happened was the family monitoring his movements along with the ship's data and upon the readings realized something was happening and sent Rudeus over.
His relief stemmed from the fact that Rudeus was an extremely competent leader that had been working with the Jornns family since before the current patriarch. He had no misgivings in thinking that said patriarch sent him specifically to ensure that Irrant succeeded in the conquest.
Of course he was a little peeved that Irrant would be able to take credit for a massive victory when this should have been something to humiliate him with but seeing as it was now his ass on the line it didn't really matter anymore.
“I am assuming you're contacting General Irrant about the sudden fluctuations of energy on the planet. According to our sensors it is likely becoming a C-grade planet now.”
“Yes that is correct.” Vaitrill said and relayed everything, including the importance of this mission . It wouldn't do him any good with omitting that fact and he knew he could trust Rudeus in controlling Irrant along with being actually competent.
“I will be sending a large military force and diverting resources to you. I trust that you will make good use of them” Vaitrill finally finished.
“I will see to it that General Irrant makes good use of everything. Seeing as how the quest stated one of the victory conditions is claiming the planet. I will have to request that we send in a couple of infiltrators to either claim the planet as their own or ensure that one of the top locals claims the planet and pledges themselves to our Empire.”
This gave Vaitrill pause as while under normal circumstances that would be a great idea. The fact that the system was paying attention could pose a risk as infiltrators technically weren't allowed. However if they could get in unnoticed they would greatly increase their odds and victory.
“Only one.” he said after some careful deliberation “And make sure that they are no higher than a low D grade. Also only send them in when the locals are leaving the tutorials, that should hopefully give them enough cover that the system might not notice.”
Rudeus nodded in understanding “Very well, judging by your slightly nervous demeanor I am assuming you will be asking me to send you in reports every so often?” The fire Giants face smirked a little and Vaitrill almost cursed him out, having momentarily forgotten how unpleasant the giant could be at times.
“Yes, that would be most welcome.” He spoke through gritted teeth and Rudeus nodded in satisfaction.
“Very well, we look forward to your reinforcements.” And cut the connection to their call.
Vaitrill collapsed onto his chair allowing a few seconds of relief to wash over him before finally getting back up. He had a lot of work to do, starting with getting Urgush back as soon as possible, he was going to need help.