Maria made her way to the village where Lizzy and the others were doing the last batch of quests from the villages. This time, on foot. She was in her normal Nephalem form that no one had ever seen before where her appearance was just like a human. Not even her stream’s viewers had seen this form as she would normally be in her battle form because she wanted to keep her other forms a secret from everyone.
Her battle form was obviously very recognizable thanks to the multiple black wings on her back which had basically become her trademark, so anyone who saw it would be able to immediately tell that it was her. For safe measure, she and Cali were also wearing a robe with a hood that covered their faces, since their faces were another thing that could give away Maria’s true identity if anyone saw them.
Lilah guided her to the village and on the way, she saw that all of the nearby hunting grounds leading up to the village were completely occupied by the players. She even felt the slightest bit of pity towards the monsters that had just spawned on the hunting grounds but were immediately jumped by so many players and killed almost immediately.
After the monsters spawned and were all killed, the players went back to waiting again and now that she looked at the state of things directly, they were in a really bad state. The spawning rate of the hunting grounds couldn’t keep up with the rate players killed the monsters. This was probably the first time since the launch of Unitale that such a thing has happened, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it, so Maria just put it at the back of her mind and continued walking.
“I can’t change the quests anymore and adding a new quest that’s directed to a different hunting ground isn’t going to help. The players will just go over there and this will all happen again…”
Now that it came down to this, Maria was starting to regret selecting the reward preset that put those booster cards into the quest rewards, but it was too late for that now. It might impact her cities and towns' hotel and inn businesses, but it would only be temporary.
She had already looked through all the auto-generated quests that were available at the moment, and saw that only the ones from the villages all had those booster cards set as guaranteed rewards. In the cities and towns, only a few quests gave those rewards and further down the line, this was likely going to be the trend.
The booster cards were going to appear less and less frequently as quest rewards, so Maria didn't have to worry about her hotels and inns not being used in the future. They were definitely going to be used once the amount of cards decreased as time passed by. It was also likely that in the future, the value of those booster cards will rise a bit more than they were worth right now because only newly arrived people on the Dreyra Continent could obtain them.
“Ah, maybe the item drop rate one will increase substantially in value. The hotels and inns don’t give that buff unless you stay in it for 1 entire in-game day. I doubt players will be patient enough to wait that long...”
When she finally arrived at Wildgrove Village, the village Lizzy and the rest of her friends along with their guild, Fallen Angels, were currently hunting around, she stopped at the entrance because she noticed that the inside of the village was completely packed with players.
“What the heck…there are so many people…”
Most of the players inside the village had guild insignias on them and Maria caught sight of the Fallen Angels insignia on a party of players who were just about to head out.
Maria turned to Lilah and said, “Lilah, let’s follow them. Lizzy said that the guild have already divided the hunting grounds up between themselves, so I’m sure they’ll be heading to where Lizzy and the rest of the Fallen Angels are at.”
“Okay, Master,” Lilah replied.
“Let’s follow them from afar though. I don’t want them thinking that we’re looking for trouble or anything.”
“I’ll track them from the skies then. Master, all you need to do is follow my instructions. Let’s not get lost again, okay?”
“H-Hey, we don’t get lost all the time!”
“...Really, Master?”
“Ugh…”
Maria had a guilty and sulky look on her face when Lilah put her on the spot like that. She couldn’t deny what Lilah said because every time she went out on her own without a guide, or didn’t listen to the words of the guide her subordinates assigned to her, she would always get lost.
With Lilah leading the way, Maria was able to arrive at the area where the Fallen Angels had marked as their hunting grounds. She could see that in the distance, a few players from the guild were currently confronting a group of players from another guild. It was the usual territory dispute and although as interesting as it looked, Maria had to ignore it as she quickly notified Lizzy that she had arrived and was waiting nearby dressed in a black robe.
Unfortunately for her, the players that were from another guild were wearing black robes as well, but unlike hers, they were just plain black robes with no decorations on them. Maria’s black robe was embroidered with her nation’s insignia on the back while the rest had beautiful embroidery of red and gold colors. The same was for Cali’s robes, so despite trying to go incognito, the players she passed by all noticed her, but they all thought she was an NPC since they couldn’t use [Inspect] on her.
A few of the players did try to approach her but the aura she was unconsciously exuding as the [Blood Empress] dissuaded anyone from getting too close. They feared that they might be attacked the moment they tried talking to her. That probably would’ve happened since Maria was so focused on talking with Lilah that if anyone approached her, they would practically be sneaking up on her and if they startled her, she would immediately respond with an attack as she didn’t like being startled.
Even in real life she would do this. If any of her brothers, or even friends scared her, her fist would be the first to move before her scream came out. Lizzy and Gerald were frequent offenders and the number of times she had accidentally hit Lizzy was too numerous to count and she would always feel bad whenever she hit her, but as for her brother, well… Maria always thought that Gerald deserved it, so she felt no remorse when hitting him.
Actually, it was because of her brother, Gerald, that Maria grew up not liking it when anyone tried to jump-scare her or startle her out of nowhere. Maria had been minding her own business and waiting for her friends to pick her up when, suddenly, someone tapped her on her shoulder and said, “Hey, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with–”
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An aura-covered fist immediately flew towards the head of the person who touched her and it sent the guy flying away, which was followed by Maria’s scream.
“KYAAA!!!”
When she looked behind her, she saw that it was a group of players wearing black robes and they all had astonished looks on their faces. Maria looked over to the side and saw that the person she had hit had their head embedded into a tree a few meters away. Due to her scream, the Fallen Angels guild members that were confronting the other group of black-robed players in the distance looked over and noticed the group that Maria was with.
When they saw the large group, the Fallen Angels players immediately knew that those guys didn’t come with good intentions. They immediately notified Lizzy and the other executives of the guild but when the black-robed players noticed this, they immediately let go of all decorum and began attacking.
“Attack! We’re taking over this area!”
“Stop them! We have to wait for reinforcements!”
Once the chaos started happening over on that side, the black-robed players that were on Maria’s side immediately pulled out their weapons and the one at the front yelled, “So you were a spy!”
“Wait, what?”
When they looked at Maria’s fancy robe again, they finally noticed the difference and the player at the front ordered, “Everyone, attack her! After that, we’ll go help out the others! And someone, pick up the team leader!”
“H-Hold on a minute!”
Everything was developing way too fast and Maria didn’t know what to do, but with the players rushing over to her with weapons drawn, the only thing Maria could do was fight back.
“Cali!”
“Yes, Mama!”
Cali’s body began to shine and in the next instant, she transformed into Maria’s trusted partner, Calamity. Seeing a large demonic ax materialize next to her, the players rushing at her hesitated for only a moment before they continued their charge.
“You guys are asking for it!”
Maria grabbed Calamity and activated [Calamity Cleave Alpha]. She lashed out with a wide swing that sent out an aura wave straight at the hostile players, dealing a substantial amount of damage to everyone it hit, before she jumped up and slammed her ax into the earth, unleashing shockwaves that spread around and dealt even more damage to the enemy players.
The first strike wasn’t all that powerful but the shockwaves of the second strike was. The skill's effect launched away a few players and some had their HP fall straight into the red.
“Wh-What the hell?!”
“Careful! This bitch is strong!”
“Spread out! Don’t get hit by her AOE!”
From her earlier scream, the players could tell that the person underneath the robe was a woman and when Maria heard someone’s comment that referred to her as a bitch, she was immediately pissed off.
“Hah, did you just call me a bitch?”
“M-Master, calm down!”
“You’re all dead!”
Maria didn’t waste another breath to say anything more and immediately changed her weapon into its second form, the Reaper’s Scythe. She activated [Calamity Cleave Beta] and dashed towards the enemy players and when she arrived at the nearest player, she slashed him with her aura-wrapped scythe, sending out a wide aura wave that flew out in front of her for 30-meters.
Some of the players had managed to get back up and regrouped with their allies but that was a bad move for them. Since they were all grouped up, the wide aura wave struck plenty of them who couldn't dodge in time and every time Maria's aura wave hit someone, it would split into smaller waves that struck those around them, dealing even more damage and killing those that were already low on HP from being struck by her first attack.
She still had 2 charges left of her [Calamity Cleave Beta], so she quickly flashed over to the flanks of the group with speed incomprehensible to the players and sent out the remaining aura waves from there. When the 3 aura waves coincidentally struck each other, they collided and let loose an explosion of smaller aura waves that devastated the group of players who were late to react due to Maria’s near-teleportation-like speeds.
Most of the players that were struck by her [Calamity Cleave Alpha] had died from the first slash of her [Calamity Cleave Beta], but for those at the back, they had the misfortune of dying by a hundred cuts of her [Calamity Cleave Beta]’s aura waves.
“...I didn’t know it could do that. How interesting~”
The mob of players that had survived her 2 attacks were astonished by her combat ability. It was then that people began questioning if the person they were fighting was even a player or not. Her power was just too devastating and it eclipsed anything that the black-robed players had ever seen before. It was as if the person in front of them was a boss monster.
Even in her normal form, Maria could still exhibit combat ability that was close to when she was in her battle form. All of this was thanks to the Amplification Towers’ effects, which increased all of her battle parameters and it made her seem like she was a very powerful NPC or boss monster. If the players were already scared of her now, then they’d be even more devastated when she was in her battle form. In her battle form, she would be tens of times even more powerful than she was right now.
One of the more curious players quickly used [Inspect] and noticed that they couldn’t inspect her stats. This guy then exclaimed, “T-This isn’t a player! I can’t use [Inspect] on her! She’s an NPC or a boss monster!”
“W-What?”
“Dammit, no wonder she’s so powerful! Retreat! Everyone retreat!”
“Why did she have to wear a black robe like us? This is so unlucky!”
“Shut up and just retreat! She’s already aggroed on us! If we stay any longer, she might start attacking again!”
The mob of black-robed players began running away and Maria couldn’t help but notice that one of the players had a silver-colored wing insignia embroidered on the cuff of their robe.
“So, they’re part of a guild, huh? I wonder which one…If I ever meet with any of those idiots, I’ll make sure to beat them into the ground again. Hmph!”