For the first few days after Maria launched her first full-scale attack on the other vampires of the Blood Continent, she and her army continued to conquer the lands, unabated and unchallenged. The Vampires on the outer areas were all weak compared to her forces so they were relatively easy to handle but once word of her attack spread across the lands, the other vampires immediately began to rally together to try and defend against her unstoppable army.
Finally, the quest that she issued in her faction was going to be put to use, so now the adventurers, mercenaries, and free warriors would be able to have an active role in the conquest. The contribution quests were all generated randomly by the system but they were all of great relevance, no matter how little or seemingly inconsequential the objectives were.
Maria’s army no longer spearheaded the war but instead, it was her citizens that were participating in the war through the quests that were spearheading it. They actively killed their enemies, took down objectives, secured supply routes, and sabotaged the enemies’ plans by being proactive in their completion of the quests. It was kind of funny because, from the way the NPCs were acting, they were no different from the players right at this moment.
Everything was going as planned and although the war was progressing rather slowly now, it was fine since Maria still needed time to consolidate her rule and power over the lands that she had already conquered. She needed to establish her authority in these newly conquered areas and reinforce their defenses so that her enemies wouldn’t be able to easily retake them or even try to.
Maria was good at fighting, but planning like this was still something she needed to learn from Ash, her second-in-command. She let her vampire subordinate deal with all of the battle strategies and quest distributions so that their forces could quickly secure objectives. She only observed on the side and gave her approval after she fully understood Ash’s strategy and plans. She was learning all she could from Ash because if looked at a different perspective, Ash’s planning, scheming, and strategizing was a life skill that could be used outside of the game and with this very experienced vampire that was thousands of years old, Maria needed to learn all she can from him.
“Hmm, I like your plans, Ash.”
“Thank you, my Queen. I humbly receive your praise.”
“Hm, I’m learning a lot from all of this so keep it up. Remember that you have full control of this but remember to take in Carmilla’s council and don’t screw anything up. You know that I have zero tolerance for failure.”
“Yes, my Queen.”
“I’ll forgive you for screwing up just one more time but after that, you’ll have to face my wrath, got it?”
“Yes!”
Maria was referring to Ash’s previous screw-up where he had lost a lot of her territory when she was gone. Even if he had rectified his mistake, it was still a mistake and she hoped that it would be the last one he’d ever make. Taking over the Blood Continent was an ambition that Maria wanted to be fulfilled before any players arrived on her planet. Failure was not an option so to prevent failure, mistakes weren’t allowed. She didn’t care at how fast a pace Ash conducted this conquest war as long as he didn’t make any mistakes.
At the moment, Maria wasn’t in the comfort of her castle back in Heltania City. Right now, she was in a frontline fortress city in the central plains of the Blood Continent called Bloodwing Fortress. This fortress was previously in the hands of a Marquis rank Vampire named Vlad, but he was actually one of Carmilla’s subordinates so his entire lands were quickly incorporated into Maria’s nation. No one knew about Carmilla’s affiliation with the Dire and they wanted to keep it that way. Her lands were close to the Vampire’s Capital where the Blood Lord resided.
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Right now, she was a trump card that they would spring once they were ready to knock on the Blood Lord’s front door and kill him. Despite being on the frontlines, Maria hadn’t participated in any of the battles as of yet. She let her subordinates and soldiers do the fighting but this didn’t mean that she wasn’t earning any EXP. The enemies and monsters that her armies’ soldiers killed would give her a bit of EXP and although individually, it wasn’t much, the number of kills more than enough gave her EXP bar a few jumps and she had actually risen by 3 levels since then.
Not only that, but every time an NPC completed a contribution quest, she would also receive a bit of EXP as well. To other players, this was a very lucrative way of leveling up but not so much for her who needed so much EXP to gain even a single level. It was already great that after all of the killing and quest completing, she had gained 3 additional levels. If this was any other player, they would have gained 10 or 20 levels by now.
“Master, I wonder…if I could have a little bit of fun too?”
Maria turned her head to the side to look at the person who had just spoken up, Raiju, the evil thunder spirit that she had contracted with and was now her servant.
“...hasn’t a majority of your powers been released?”
“Hm? Y-Yes, of course, Master…why do you ask?”
“Why do I ask? Then let me ask you this―why would you want to have some ‘fun’ with all these canon fodders?”
“Hn?!”
Raiju had a confused look on her face when Maria posed that question to her. She shrugged and replied, “I don’t know? I mean, my powers are slowly being unsealed so I want to let loose a bit―W-Wait, i-is that wrong, M-Master?”
The thunder spirit ended her line with a question after thinking that she had done something wrong. No matter how powerful the thunder spirit was, she was still bound by the Servant-Master contract that Maria had forced upon her so she didn’t dare to be so rude. Maria leaned back on her chair and propped her head up with an arm before thinking for a bit.
‘Raiju’s status as a divine spirit is undoubtedly on another scale. Stats-wise, she’s incomparably stronger than Me, Ash, and even Carmilla, combined…she’s bound to be stronger than even the Blood Lord, Siegfried. It’d be a little boring if I let her battle the Blood Lord since it’ll likely be over in only a few minutes…’
She looked back towards Raiju who was still on her knees, prostrating before her because the spirit thought she had done something wrong but Maria could see that the divine spirit was a little fidgety.
“You’re bored, I get it…I’ll let you have your fun, I guess,” Maria then turned towards Ash and called out to him, “Ash!”
“Yes, my Queen?”
“Give Raiju something to do. She’s very powerful so you can give her something hard to do, however, don’t give her a task like killing any of the higher-class vampires. I want to leave those to my armies and let them grow a little.”
“Right away, my Queen.”
Ash glanced for a while at the map before he thought of an idea. Right now, the Dire was only conquering one side of the continent but the other half was still left untouched. He rubbed his chin before nodding, “Miss Raiju, I have the perfect area for you to have your ‘fun’ in.”
“Oh?!”
He then explained his plan to both Maria and Raiju. Maria contemplated it for a moment before nodding her head and agreeing to let Raiju take care of the other half of the continent. However, she wouldn’t be going alone. Maria assigned Lilah, Alexa, and the elite company of her army to accompany them on their mission. She wasn’t going to let Raiju hog all of the EXP for herself.
Maria wanted to develop Alexa and her elite soldiers so they would be going with Raiju on this seemingly impossible mission where their small company would be conquering the other half of the continent by themselves. The problem of the vampires reconquering the lands wasn’t something Maria was going to worry about because she had given Raiju and her group permission to be indiscriminate and just delete everything in their sight that wasn’t of importance. With something to do, Raiju was elated and her favorability towards her master rose a few points and this caused Maria to smile.
Once she reached 100 points, Maria would gain another fanatic subordinate. It sounded a bit off if someone else heard this but Maria welcomed it because this meant she commanded absolute loyalty from them and she’d rather have that than any number of subordinates that could betray her at any time. After seeing Raiju’s group off, Maria returned to her dwelling before ordering Ash to continue with the war.