Maxwell

I rubbed my face as I tried to collect myself. Eblos had declared war on us. While I could understand that, we weren’t the ones that killed their inquisition. It was Aurora. Shouldn’t most of their anger be directed at her? I groaned as I leaned back in the chair. Either it was a scheme by the vampire, or they assumed since they died on their way here, it must be our fault.

Pulling myself together as best as I could, I looked to Razz. “How long do you think we have?”

Razz got up then waved me over to a war map. Our settlements and a bit of the surroundings were detailed on the table making it easier to understand the geography compared to a map through the game system. It helped that the table was magical letting him manipulate it to a degree.

He grabbed a wooden pointer and moved it north into a greyed-out area that only had a few details past that it was part of the Great Forest. The Goblin capital sits roughly fifteen hundred kilometers to the north. If we figure time to gather the army, equip them, and gather supplies to support it, then we have perhaps three weeks. This is a game that has a certain degree of realism. Whether that fact buys us some time, or screws us in the end, we’ll have to see. Personally, I never got to witness anything of that level yet.”

I studied the map trying to find something that might give us an advantage. The only problem was that there was just too much unknown to really make a move. The forest didn’t exactly have roads and highways. The army could march from any direction, take any path. With an army of over ten thousand soldiers, any sort of obstacle put in their path could be removed in a matter of hours.

“Three weeks. No doubt there will be advanced parties and scouts bothering us even sooner,” I remarked leaning on the table. I had hoped to have more time to bolster, well, everything before the goblins made another move.

“Yep. Not only that, but other players might get involved. This sort of thing is probably worth a lot of ass-kissing points with the goblin king.”

I groaned for an all-new reason. “And might I ask how many players does the goblin nation of Eblos have?”

Razz shrugged. “Before the game went batshit crazy? Around four or five thousand. Goblin culture… is hard to be a part of long term.” I thought about the mounted skulls outside. If the capital was similar, it had to be a pungent place to live. No doubt now that they were stuck in this place twenty-four seven, even the more devotee of players would be looking to move to greener pastures.

I perked up at that. “Hey! Do you think we might be able to entice them to abandon the kingdom?” I asked excitedly. “I mean, an army of ten thousand will be hard to deal with, but if we put our heads together, we should be able to deal with it. The players, though, are the curve ball, the mystery box, the stranger on the street. If we can convince even a few of them to drop Eblos for us, then we increase our odds.”

Razz stroked his long goblin ears. A habit I hadn’t seen yet. To be fair, I had never seen the man actually take more than a few moments to think anything through. I was glad to see that he was actually developing as a person. If this Razz had been around a few weeks ago, he might not have led his army into a cave full of death against Aurora.

The goblin finally snapped out of it. “It is as good a chance as any. The question will be on how we contact them.”

“I actually have an idea about that,” I replied, then reached into my bag. Razz had just mentioned that this was a game with a certain degree of realism, but at the end of the day it was a game. And from what I’ve seen, the aliens hadn’t changed anything about it yet. I emptied my coin bag onto the war table then grinned at Razz. “We’ll send a realm message.”

“Of course! If they get a message explaining our situation, they might decide to help us out.” Razz gave me a fang riddled grin as he drew his sword. “Since we’re at war anyway, we might as well expand our borders a bit in the process.”

That was an idea as well! We didn’t have to wait for the army to get to us. We could just as easily send our guerilla parties to cut down their numbers. While I only knew of one person that operated well enough at night, Kaga might have some ideas that we could use. There was also the chance that she might turn tail and run for the hills.

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Ten thousand goblins weren’t a small number to sneeze at. It would be best if I offered her and the Jade Collective the option to teleport somewhere else. We already knew that death wasn’t a one and done thing in this world, but if Razz spoke the truth, then it was excruciatingly painful. No one should have to suffer through that without a choice.

I realized that Razz was still staring at me with pent up excitement. Since we were at war, then we might as well make the most of it. That was how I was dealing with the situation with Aurora. I held out my fist for him to bump. “The Great Forest of Alflona has a nice ring to it.”

Razz laughed loudly then bumped my fist with his. “We can work on the name later. For now, we have an army to raise.”

I shook my head. “No. The first thing we have to do—” I let my sentence hang as I pulled up the screen from last night. With a click, I established the City-State of Alflona. I had been pretty serious this whole time, but the world was telling me to crank into overdrive. So, I would do just that.

~~~

“You guys didn’t have to come along,” I said as we entered the clearing. My gaze moved up despite myself as I took in the tower. The structure was big and flamboyant, though something told me that it served little to no actual purpose for its existence other than to spite me. It was in view from the town even with the structure nearly twenty kilometers away.

“Nonsense! This was my idea,” Razz remarked a bit more jubilant than I would expect him to be considering this dungeon had kicked his ass more than a few times in the last few weeks. Since he was my vassal, all that might fall on my shoulders, but only barely.

“I refuse to let you go somewhere like this by yourself,” Rowena commented. Her tail was prickly, showing just how on guard she was. Aurora might be temperamental, but she had proven that she was at least open to talks when I came here before.

“Thanks guys,” I reached out and clapped them on the shoulders. “Having you two with me, makes walking into the demon’s mouth much easier. Too bad Kaga couldn’t come, I was hoping to have her scout for us.” She had found all of the traps back in Nature’s Grotto, it would have been nice to have her at least peek on Aurora’s security.

The three of us came to a stop as the demonic wolf from my first visit strode out from the base of the tower. Aurora along with the man that had leveled a section of my town’s wall nearly on his own soon came out as well. At least we didn’t have to figure out a way to get her attention.

Compared to when I first saw her, the aura of death rolling off her was much denser. I knew it in the back of my head, but sure enough, she had been leveling up just like us. Given that neither of us could actually die, I had to wonder just where this conflict was going.

We were already well into her aura. It was several times larger than before. Her demonic energy was causing my skin to tingle, but it was manageable… for now. When we were just over five meters away, we came to a stop. “Good evening, or should I say good morning?” I said as the sun had set almost an hour ago.

“Good evening will suffice,” Aurora said with a flip of her hand. “I was human just like you once. No reason to pick at something that doesn’t matter.”

“I see.” I had thought about what to say the entire trip over, but still found myself speechless. Correction, I knew what I wanted to say, but… I really didn’t want to say it. Steeling myself, I took a deep breath. “Aurora. We are at each other’s throats. We both know that our forces grow by the day.” I pointed behind her at the dungeon entrance. “I’m sure you have quite the sinister army tucked away in those halls you’re just waiting to unleash on me once my protection finally fades.”

“You have no idea,” Aurora muttered but my elven ears picked up. Though, when I looked at her face, something told me that I was meant to hear it. At a louder level, she said. “And? You’ve come to face them all on your own with your goblin war hound and girlfriend?”

I tried to suppress my rising anger, but I was sure it was still showing on my face. I coughed to clear the air. “Yes… I’m sure you’d love that. Too bad, we can’t actually die in this world. Just like when it was a game, we simply respawn.”

“Ever hear of spawn camping?” Aurora asked, licking her fangs. A shiver went up my back. She might really do something as evil as that. The thought of being forced to die and respawn without a moment’s rest. That was horrifying.

“I’d like to hope even you are not that twisted.” Rowena growled at her.

Aurora gave her a wink. “We’ll see. Now that we’ve successfully traded taunts like proper television show characters, oh wait,” she looked at Razz with a sinister grin, “have you heard of a bath? It would do you well. There, that’s better. What do you want with me?”

“I might smell of the hard work that I’ve done for my people, but at least, I don’t reek of the grim reaper,” Razz shot back.

I held up my hand in front of him since I felt like he was close to lunging at Aurora. “Listen. I’m going to level with you. A goblin force of ten thousand plus has been set against us. While we’re the main target, there are players in the force. If we’re going to burn, then I’ll do everything in my power to make sure they learn about your dungeon. I’m sure you’d love goblins showing up to harvest your loot every single day without rest.”

Aurora glared at me. Unlike before, I could tell that she really meant it this time. “What do you want?”