After leaving Transylvania, Maria leisurely made her way over to Heltania City. Since she didn’t hear anything from her friends after they messaged her earlier, she thought that they were still doing quests and didn't think there was any urgency to make her way over to the city and decided to just take it easy.
In her carriage, Maria was browsing through the game's forums and saw that a few players had posted the rewards they obtained from the various quests they completed in Heltania City and the various towns and villages in the area. There were many positive posts about Maria’s nation on the forums and many were recommending players to go there instead of the Lycan Kingdom because of the incredibly extravagant rewards and user facilities in the city, towns and villages.
She searched for news of players that started in the Vanargand Continent and found that many were asking for directions on how to get to Dreyra because they wanted to go do the quests that gave the incredible rewards while other posts talked about the situation on Vanargand and how it was looking pretty bad for the Lycan Kingdom.
Just like with the Dire Empire, the players over on Vanargand would receive quests right after arriving at the Lycan Kingdom's starting city. The quests were more or less the same as the system generated quests on the Dire's side, though the rewards weren't as great. Not only that, but after the players completed the initial quest, they would be forced to pick between two different sides once they entered the Lycan Kingdom's starting city.
Depending on the player's choice, they would support one of the 2 races of the Lycan Kingdom, the lycans or the werewolves. There was some kind of internal strife happening in the Kingdom between the 2 races and this wasn't good, especially since the Dire Empire was encroaching on their lands and waging war against them. To have an internal conflict in their current situation was pretty...dire.
This was why many of the players who decided to stand opposite of Maria were sort of regretting their decisions now. Instead of reaping the amazing benefits that other players were gaining over on the Dreyra Continent, here they were on the Vanargand Continent with an unsure future. Their prospects of completing the Lycan Kingdom's Main Story Quest didn't seem so good, especially when there was an opposing force trying to stop them at all costs.
The Dire were already waging war against the Lycans, and although things have simmered down right now due to the appearance of the players, it looked to be set in stone that the Dire would win once the war restarted again. Although the Lycan Kingdom was able to slow down the advance of the Dire's armies, when the players took a closer look at the two opposing forces, it was very much apparent that the Dire had soldiers that were better equipped for the war. Not only that, but their preparations were extremely thorough.
Maria had been planning this 2nd conquest war for a long time already, so of course her preparations were extremely thorough. She made sure that her armies had plenty of supplies and equipment for their battles along with an extremely secure supply route. This way, her soldiers had nothing to fear about not getting any supplies and could completely put their focus on fighting the lycans and werewolves.
The Lycan Kingdom's forces seemed to be much bigger than the Dire's forces, but the quality of their equipment didn't look so great. Despite not looking too prepared for the war, the lycans and werewolves were able to stand their ground in every skirmish, but this all came at a cost. With every battle they had with the Dire, the more soldiers they would lose, so even though the battles always ended with the Dire's retreat, they were the ones that were actually losing out more than their enemies.
It was a frustrating situation for the Lycan Kingdom because if they didn't fight, they would be conceding to their enemies, but if they did fight, they would be losing soldiers and wasting their supplies.
This situation was something any player within the Lycan Kingdom could get info of if they looked around enough. This was why some of the players in the various guilds that joined the Lycan Kingdom were starting to regret their decisions and questioning the leadership of the people who dragged them over to the side with an uncertain future.
While they were left wallowing at their plight, the players siding with the Dire were having a field day as quests were abundant and so were their rewards. Previously unknown items like the [EXP Boost Card] and the [Item Drop Rate Card], greatly attracted the attention of the entire player base because it was a common consumable item that could be obtained and used by any player which helped them increase the efficiency of their day-to-day grind.
Items that had these kind of effects were usually unique items that were extremely hard to find or required a long questline to obtain. The booster cards, however, could be easily obtained by completing any quest that came from a Dire Empire NPC. The cards lasted between one in-game day to 6 in-game days depending on the quality of the card, but the most important thing was that the effects would run its course only when the players were inside the game.
Once they logged out, the effects would pause until the players returned. This was extremely important because it allowed the players to maximize the cards’ effects. Despite the items having such an incredible effect, they were commonplace throughout the Dire Empire which was really impressive. Any player walking down the street of a Dire city, town, or village would probably have at least one copy of the two cards stashed away in their inventory.
One player even managed to find a repeatable quest that rewarded these booster card items though there was a daily limit to receiving the quest. Each player could only receive the quest 5 times every real-life day, which was 3 in-game days, and it became the first known daily quest that was found in the Dire Empire.
Since the booster cards were pretty valuable, everyone diligently did the quest even if it was a little bit of a hassle, and because it was valuable many players thought that the items couldn’t be traded, but contrary to their expectations, the booster cards were tradable, and since the cards could be traded, many players were already posting on the forums, auction sites, and trading sites, that they would be willing to buy or sell these cards in complete sets–one [EXP Boost Card] and [Item Drop Rate Card] in a single set–for very extravagant prices.
The commotion on the forums that was caused by her preset quest reward items really shocked Maria. She didn't think that her greedy decision which she made just to attract more players to her continent was causing such a stir within the community.
“Everyone’s going crazy over these things because of their effects? What the hell, are the effects that important?”
She couldn’t understand it because just by waiting inside of her Ancient Blood Hall, she could gain an even better EXP buff from it. As for the Item Drop rate effect, she received a permanent 2x drop rate effect as long as she hunted inside of her country. It was because she had these two effects that the system allowed her to give the booster card items that had lesser effects as rewards for the quests her NPC subordinates were issuing to the players.
She took those two effects for granted, but the normal player base would only ever see these effects if they discovered a dungeon or a new hunting area for the first time, while only those extremely lucky few would have an extremely rare item that granted these effects to them.
Maria didn’t think it was a big deal because once those players arrived in her country’s cities and towns, they’d be even more surprised to find out that they could obtain a similar effect that those cards gave if they stayed in the hotels or inns for a few hours.
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"Wait a sec, since a lot of players have already gotten their IDs, how come no one's been talking about the city's hotels and inns yet? Instead, they're all just focused on the booster card items for some reason..."
She forgot that most players wouldn't even visit a hotel or inn because it was such a waste to just rest and do nothing when they could go out on the field and grind for levels and items.
“What are you talking about, Master?” Lilah suddenly asked after overhearing Maria's puzzled mumbling.
“Ah, well, I just received news that the players are all going crazy over the booster card items, but they aren't talking about the city and town's hotels and inns that can give them a similar buff without having to go through the hassle of completing a quest...it sure is weird” Maria replied as she continued looking through the forums.
"I see... Is that bad?"
"Not necessarily."
Looking through the forums, Maria's eyes suddenly widened in shock when she saw that there was actually a post from someone who said that he wanted to buy 10 sets of the booster cards for half a million gold.
“Holy shi–”
“Master, language! Cali’s here!” Lilah quickly interrupted her Master before she could complete her bad sentence.
“Ah! Oh yeah…”
“Anyway, Master… You're talking about the items that grant a temporary boost to EXP rate and item drop rate, yes?”
“Yup.”
“Really? And all the players are making a fuss over that?”
“Mhmm. Weird, right?”
Lilah began rubbing her chin when she heard Maria’s words before eventually speaking up, “...Hmmm, then Master. I think we should make some changes.”
“To what?”
“The prices of the inns and hotels! Don’t they grant a similar effect if you rest in them for some time?”
“Eh? Ahhh!!!” Maria’s eyes widened and she pointed at Lilah with an excited smile on her face like she had discovered a new continent or something. “Lilah, you’re a genius!”
Maria quickly opened up her [Faction Management] system menu and adjusted the prices for the hotels, inns, and a few other places that gave those boosting effects.
“All of the players would probably be willing to stay in the hotels or inns for a few hours before they go out hunting just for these effects, so if I adjust the prices like this–”
“Make it per hour, Master!” Lilah quickly suggested.
“Yes, that’s even better!”
The Master and Familiar both had extremely evil smiles on their faces as they continued their discussion and Cali, who was watching them, began touching her face as she tried to copy their smile. The two obviously didn’t see this, since they were so busy calculating the numbers in their heads and how much richer they were going to be once the players started using the facilities.
“We’ll rake in a whole lot of gold if millions of players do this!” Lilah exclaimed excitedly while Maria started laughing like a villain, “I’m going to be the richest player alive! A~hahahahahaha~!”
"Master, I think you're already the richest player alive!"
"Nahahahaha~!"
The coachman driving Maria’s carriage flinched in horror when he heard her evil laugh echo from within. He hesitated for a moment, but decided not to speak up and just remained quiet as he returned his focus on his driving.
‘I didn’t hear anything, yep. Absolutely nothing…’
He was pretty sure that no one in the Empire had heard this kind of laughter from their Empress before, but if Ash had been there, he’d be able to recognize that laughter. It was his Master’s signature laughter whenever she was about to do something crooked and greedy or whenever one of her extremely ‘unpleasant’ schemes or plans were about to unfold.
After a few adjustments, Maria was finally satisfied, so she closed her [Faction Management] window, but couldn’t stop herself from smiling all the way until she arrived at Heltania City.
Now that they were inside the city, Lilah quickly asked, “Master, we’re here. Will we go to the castle first, or?”
“Let me message Lizzy and the others…they all should have arrived at the city by now, right?”
“Well, it’s been around 3 or 4 hours, Master. Even if they were slow, they should've at least gotten their IDs by now.”
“...Strange, how come they haven't sent me a single message or replied to any of my messages since then?”
It was strange that her friends didn't reply to her, but what was even more strange was the fact that there were so few people roaming inside of her city.
“That’s weird…there aren't a lot of players bustling around...I thought everyone and their mothers were going around completing quests throughout the city? Shouldn't there be more people here?"
"Master, maybe they're still out on the fields trying to complete their quest objectives?"
"Hmmm, I looked through the quest details that were posted on the forums, they're all pretty easy...”
Unfortunately, Maria didn’t know that the ‘easy’ difficulty by her standards was quite different to the regular players. All of the quests she deemed to be ‘easy’ were actually pretty difficult. She just didn't know because she was strong, but even the game's frontline players would struggle with a quest that required them to kill 20 or 30 level 200-250 monsters.
However, that wasn't the only difficulty that they had to face. Due to the limited number of monsters on the fields and the overabundance of players who were hunting them, the quests took longer for them to complete simply because the monsters' respawn rate couldn't keep up with the players' killing rate.
Due to this problem, Guilds had even begun dividing up the hunting grounds to allow their own players to complete the quests while kicking out and keeping non-affiliated players away, but despite already fulfilling the requirement to obtain an ID, most of the players didn't even linger too long inside of the city once they got there.
There were a bunch of players who had already gained access into the city, but after finding all of the quests inside, they quickly left to go complete them and some had even returned to the villages that they had left to go back and complete all of the available quests there. Many players and guilds even went the extra mile to go to the other villages to see if they could complete the quests over there as well.
This revelation really shocked Maria. Instead of rushing towards the cities and towns, they were all still busy trying to complete every single quest from all the 4 starting villages that Maria had prepared for them. The players that had arrived in Heltania had only roughly explored the place to find quests before leaving after hearing that you could also accept and complete the quests from the other starting villages.
“...I can’t believe it, they’re all still in the villages…” She mumbled to herself in disbelief.
It was complete madness in the areas around the starting villages as players were crowding around them and destroying any monster that had spawned. Even her friends were still busy completing the quests in the 4 villages. She had arranged for the system to generate anywhere between 15 or 20 quests in each of the villages to add a little diversity for the players, but she didn’t think that the freaks were going to try and complete them all. That was around 60-80 quests in total from all the villages!
“Wow, now I feel pretty stupid for trying to be so 'diverse'..."
"It’s too late for regrets, Master…"
"I guess I’ll just go to the village where Lizzy and the others are at. Thankfully, they're supposedly at the 'last' village...”