When the first wave of players arrived on Vanhal, they either arrived on one of the planet's two continents. The Blood Continent, Dreyra, or the Twilight Continent, Vanargand.
For most of the frontline pioneering players who were teleporting to the 3rd Planet, they wanted to arrive at a location that was far from Maria’s reach. Most of the players understood that instead of being in an area ruled by a player, it was better if they were in a neutral area that was ruled by NPCs instead. No one knew what Maria’s intentions were for the players, but they had solid reason to believe that it wouldn’t be anything good.
As the first player to even be on the planet, Maria had built up a large and powerful advantage in the form of being one of the 2 powers that ruled over the planet. This kind of advantage could easily be shaken by the presence of the players and, if she was smart, Maria wouldn’t just let the players do as they pleased within her sphere of influence, lest they have designs on her position and topple her Empire.
There were a few people who had thoughts of doing this because, in their minds, they thought that since Maria was able to take one of the positions of power on the planet, why couldn’t they?
They had designs not only for Maria’s position, but also the Lycan King’s position. These people didn’t think it was going to be easy to topple one of the planet’s powers, but they were naïve to believe that they could do it just because Maria was able to.
There were many factors that allowed Maria to take over the Blood Faction of Dreyra, one of them being her NPC champion, Ash. Without him acknowledging Maria as his master, she wouldn't have been able to legitimately claim the Blood Throne and rule over the vampires and the continent of Dreyra as the Blood Empress.
If killing Maria or the Lycan King to usurp their throne was enough for the players to become one of the powers on Vanhal, then they were extremely wrong. Of course, they could try making their own factions, but it was highly doubtful Maria or the Lycan King would tolerate a threat such as that to remain present in their lands. Maria was only lucky to smoothly take over the Blood Continent due to the Blood Lord’s unfortunate condition, which was certainly fortunate for her.
If the Blood Lord had been well, Maria doubted that things would have progressed so swimmingly for her. She didn’t know what happened to the players that appeared on the Twilight Continent where the Lycan King was in power, but the players that arrived on her Blood Continent all appeared in her first-ever city, Heltania City.
*DING*
Congratulations! You have arrived on Vanhal, the planet of Sin and Darkness! Two major powers fight for the planet’s hegemony and it is up to you to support one of them or–at your own risk–support neither.
On one hand, the Vampires are the nobles of the night who relish bloody battles and extravagant banquets to sate their thirst for fresh blood, while their monster compatriots worship the Blood Empress who is known to them as the Mother of Monsters as if she was a divine being. On the other hand, Lycans and werewolves are brutal warriors who enjoy going wild on the battlefield with their frenzy battle lust and they have enslaved many other races on their continent to be used for their personal entertainment. However, there seems to be some tension going on between the two ruling sub-factions of the Lycan Kingdom, the Lycans and the werewolves.
The two superpowers are currently at war with each other ever since the newly crowned Blood Empress decided to unite the planet under one rule–her rule. She has already conquered the Dreyra Continent and has now set her sights on the Vanargand Continent. The invasion has already begun and the Lycan Kingdom is just managing to keep level with their enemies' aggressive assaults.
The war has already begun and while one side fights for freedom and the other fights for unification, a pair of eyes watches on as the two forces fight…
*DING*
You have arrived at Heltania City, Fons et Origo of the Dire on the Dreyra Continent!
When the players arrived, they all appeared on a field just outside of Heltania City, the city where Maria first started her quest to take over the Dreyra Continent. Coincidentally, the area they arrived at was also the place where Maria first landed when she had just arrived on Vanhal. It was close to the city now only because the city had expanded from the small broken village it previously used to be, to become the metropolis it is today.
All of the players were surprised because what they saw before them was a city with mithril-plated concrete walls that stretched a few stories high. Even with the walls obscuring most of the city, the players could still make out some of the skyscrapers that were behind the city walls. When they peered through the city's large open gates, what they saw was a modern-looking city that looked extremely out of place with the game's fantasy setting. It was really amazing.
“Is that…a skyscraper?”
A few of the players immediately began moving towards the city, since it seemed to be the planet’s starting city on the Dreyra Continent. When they were about to head in, the city’s guards blocked them from entering and declared loudly, “State your business!”
This was the first time any of the players were treated like this, so they stopped in place because they didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t like they could just ignore the guard’s question because he seemed poised to strike if they didn’t answer him.
“State your business, outsider!” The guard asked once again.
One of the braver and more collected player of the bunch stepped out and said, “We’re here to enter the city!”
“...If you wish to enter the city, then please show your identification card!”
All of the players were caught in a dilemma when they heard this. As newcomers to the planet, they obviously didn’t have an identification card. One of the players tried to show a physical form of their status screen to the guard but was rejected since that wasn’t an ID.
On Gaia, the players could just randomly enter cities without being barred or questioned by the guards, so this was a first for them. They didn’t know what to do, but one of the more perceptive players stepped forward and asked the guard, “Sir, I don’t have an ID card, but what can I do to get it?”
“I expected as much. You look like a foreigner who has never been here!”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“We’ve been receiving a lot of immigrants lately, so it’s not like we’ve never come across outsiders like you before. If you want an ID issued, go to one of these villages and get a recommendation from the village chief. Return when you have one and we’ll issue an ID card for you.”
*DING*
You have received the quest: Identity Crisis!
Quest: Identity Crisis Rank: C Description: Arriving on the new planet, you are someone without any identification! You cannot enter any city or town unless you have one! Luckily, you can still enter the small villages! Help out with the villagers’ requests until you finally receive a [Recommendation Letter] from the village chief! Objective 1: Follow the map to one of the four villages and find the village chief!
Objective 2: Introduce yourself to the village chief and complete the tasks they give you! Duration: N/A Reward: Village Chief's Recommendation Letter, 1 Gold, 1.5 EXP Boost Card (3-days), 1.5 Item Drop Rate Card (3-days) Failure: N/A
After issuing the quest, the guard returned to his post and the player who received the quest immediately opened up his map and followed it to one of the 4 nearby villages the guard had indicated. He also checked on the reward and saw that on top of receiving the [Recommendation Letter], he would also receive a gold coin, and 2 temporary buff cards, the [1.5 EXP Boost Card (3-days)] and the [1.5 Item Drop Rate Card (3-days)].
“What the heck? There’s actually an item like this?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Once this player looked through the quest description, he became visibly excited and dashed away to go complete his quest. The rest of the players saw what he did and quickly moved to go receive the quest from the guard and see what the previous player was so hyped up about. After receiving the quest from the guard, the rest of the players looked through the quest description and similarly exclaimed just like he did.
“Damn, something this good right from the get-go?! ”
“I wonder if we can get more of these buff cards later on…”
“I’m going to Vilethorn Village! Anyone want to tag along?”
“Looking for a party to move to Headrock Village!”
“Buying [EXP Boost Card]! Buying [Item Drop Rate Card]! Name your price!”
“Idiot, we just got the quest! No one has it!”
The system had auto-generated this quest for the newly arrived players as it was following what Maria did when she first started up Heltania City and accepted immigrants from other vampire areas into hers. She put the immigrants to work first before giving them partial citizenship in the form of an ID card. The system was now copying her but the difference was that, unlike the NPCs that Maria issued the request to and only received an ID card, the players would be receiving a pretty good reward for their labor on top of that.
All the NPCs got from Maria back then was an ID and a sack of silver coins. It wasn’t like Maria didn’t want to be generous or anything, it was just at the time she didn’t have the money to give out any extravagant rewards. Now, of course, it was entirely different. Her nation, the Dire, was practically generating so much gold coins that it basically made her the game’s goddess of wealth.
Naturally, she was spending quite a bit as well, so it balanced things out. However, even after calculating the expenditure to keep her nation running and continuously improving, there was still a massive amount of gold left for her to use for herself if she wanted.
Maria, however, didn't touch a single coin and only took a small 2% percent of it away every in-game month to add to her personal funds as she had always done. Although it was only 2%, it was still in the millions and most of the time, she immediately spent the money to upgrade her armies' equipment, to fund a leveling expedition for her soldiers, or to upgrade and maintain the facilities in the instance dungeon she was personally managing.
Since she was always spending the gold she received from the stipend of her money-printing nation, the amount of gold she had on hand was usually very little and they were the results of her going around hunting in the field whenever she had some time.
Maria was already spending quite a lot, but after receiving a system prompt just a few minutes ago, there was going to be even more coins coming out of her nation's pocket on top of the current expenditure. The prompt she received from the system just as the players arrived on the continent and the first one accepted the auto-generated system quest, informed her that she could set the reward preset of the system generated quests that were affiliated with her nation.
She was allowed to pick between 4 option. The 1st option was low, 2nd was average–which was recommended, 3rd was high, and finally, the 4th option was grand. Each option required her to spend some of her nation's gold each time a reward was given out. It wasn't much actually. The 1st option required only 10 bronze while the 2nd option required 50 bronze, the third option required 75 bronze, and the last option required 1 silver.
After doing some mental calculations, Maria chose the 3rd option, the reward preset that used 75 bronze of her nation's capital. This was why the quest rewards from the quests the players on her continent just received, [Identity Crisis], was so extravagant. Once they completed the quest, the system would deduct 75 bronze from the Dire's treasury before giving out the quest rewards. This was something that happened every time a player completed the quest or any quest that was system generated and was affiliated with her nation.
Maria was literally paying out of her nation's own pockets to reward the players for completing random quests that were affiliated with her nation. Naturally, these quests didn't have too much impact on the planet's Main Storyline Quest as they were just miscellaneous quests, however, players could receive some hints about the Main Storyline Quest if they were lucky enough to find a quest that had some information about it.
She didn't know if these system generated quests was a good thing or not, but after waiting for a few hours and reading through the forums, she saw posts about the incredible quest rewards the players on Dreyra were receiving and this attracted more and more players to go to her continent instead of her rival continent, Vanargand.
Since the rewards were rather extravagant, this made players that finally got their IDs to go exploring the city and the nearby towns and villages in search of NPC quest givers. They naturally found quite a few, and this bled a little bit more of the Dire's wealth. Thankfully, up until now, no repeatable quests have yet to appear.
For now, the only quests that were found were normal quests that everyone could accept and complete. The quests did shave off quite a bit of money from her nation's pockets whenever a player completed them, but at the very least, it was only a one-time thing for each player. However, let's say that one of the quests generated was a repeatable quest instead of a normal one. Players could complete this quest over and over again because of the good rewards and this would bleed Maria's nation dry of gold coins within a matter of a few in-game months or even weeks.
Maria was a little worried that something like that might happen in the future, but after waiting a bit and seeing that there was actually an influx of gold coming into her nation's treasury instead of it decreasing, she just laughed and hoped that there might be some of those repeatable quests that actually appear. With so many players coming to her continent, this meant that their money had effectively become Maria's money since it was now circulating in the economic market of her nation.
Players were always shopping for consumables, new equipment and weapons, repairing their gear after hunts, and doing a variety of things to entertain themselves inside of her nation's cities, towns, and villages, and all of this required them to spend their hard-earned gold. When they spent their gold, where would it go? Well, the answer was obvious, right into Maria's very own pockets. The players were literally rotating their gold inside of her nation and this caused Maria to hum in delight because their wealth had become her wealth.
In the future, when more players were able to enter planet Vanhal and go to her continent, there would be more wealth flowing into her pockets. Even if the system was taking gold away from her treasury to reward the players, the gold they got from hunting and the quest rewards would still go back to her when they spent it in the various establishments and shops within her nation.
She would take the gold back in the form of taxes that her NPC citizens had to pay since these NPCs were the ones who were running the establishments and shops that those players spent their money on. The NPCs would also be spending the money they earned from the players to buy various things for their livelihoods, and that moeny would naturally flow back into Maria's treasury. This was such an awesome cycle that left Maria laughing at the absurdity of it, but this was just reality of capitalism.
Maria didn't need to worry about the system taking her money anymore and instead, she even upped the preset to the last option, the Grand preset, which took 1 silver coin away every time a system generated quest affiliated with the Dire was completed by any of the players. If the reward was even better, this would attract more players to her nation, and Maria was all for it.
'Heh, the more the better, right?' Maria thought as she started chuckling deviously to herself. It eventually turned into an evil laugh as she said out loud, "Hahaha, these convenient moneybags–ahem, I mean players–are just contributing more to the development and prosperity of the Dire! They should be happy! I guess the players' arrival isn't all that bad for us!"
Speaking about Maria, she was currently still in Transylvania, which was quite far away from where the players were, and she had just received a message from her best friend, Lizzy, that she and her Fallen Angels guildmates had arrived safely on Vanhal and while some had landed on Vanargand, most of them were at Dreyra just like her.
Maria was preparing to go meet them but, unfortunately, she was being held up a bit by Ash and all her other subordinates who came to her to report about the players’ activities on the planet within the past few hours since they've arrived.
“Your Majesty, we have a few things to report about the players' activities! I believe this will be important and you need to hear them...”
"Fine, fine. Let's just get the meeting started. I want to go see my friends right after~"