*DING*
You have discovered the Blood Continent, Dreyra!
*DING*
You have entered the nation of Blood, Death, and Darkness, the Dire!
“Woah, so this is Dreyra, huh?”
“That means we’re in Maria’s territory now… I can’t believe she owns this entire continent…”
“The intro video, everyone watched it, right? She’s the queen of a nation tied to the planet’s Main Scenario Quest. Can you believe it?”
“It’s unbelievable, but we’re talking about THAT Maria aren’t we? She’s proven time and again that anything is possible in the game.”
“How did our boss even become friends with her?”
The group of players that disembarked from the massive ship called the Red Ogre at the port city of Oceanus within the Dire and were talking about Maria was the group of people that Maria had invited using an Imperial Decree. They consisted of the group of players that were part of Sky’s Adventurer Party, Lilith’s party, Maria’s brothers, Mikael and Gerald, along with Gerald’s guildmates from his guild, the Citadel, which he had selected to join him on the voyage to Dreyra.
After stepping off the gangway and getting onto the pier, Gerald stretched his sore body that had been confined into the room inside of the massive battleship, the Red Ogre, for the past few days.
“Dang, I never knew just how good it feels to actually have ample moving space to stretch my arms and legs!”
Mikael walked up next to him and said, “You can’t blame the crew for confining us inside of those cramped rooms. At least it’s better than sleeping in the crewmate quarters and on a hammock…”
“Yeah, but couldn’t they make the rooms bigger considering the size of that ship?”
Gerald turned to look at the ship that was towering over them on the side. The size was extremely massive, even bigger than the Man-o’-War class ships in real life. It resembled more of a modern day carrier-class warship.
“...She definitely made a carrier-class warship, didn’t she?”
“The ironworks look a bit crude, but that definitely is a carrier-class warship…”
“Dang…”
“Our sister really has gotten far in her life inside the game. Hahaha.”
Mikael chuckled before walking away. Gerald nodded at his brother’s words before turning to his guildmates and signaling them to follow him. Everyone was admiring the large battleship, but it was no longer the time for that. They needed to quickly follow the officer that Maria had assigned to them who would direct them towards their next quest objective.
The summons that everyone in the group received had turned into a compulsory quest so they couldn’t dally at the pier any longer since the NPC that was guiding them was already on the move. The group quickly chased after the NPC and they arrived at a large building that had a sign that read, ‘Bloodwing Transportation’.
The NPC that brought them here quickly turned to everyone and said, “Please take the carriages that've been provided for everyone and move to Tyran City. From there, take the Teleportation Gate to Heltania City where Her Majesty, the Empress, is waiting for you all.”
Gerald heard the NPC’s instructions and leaned towards his brother and whispered, “That’s strange. Weren’t we supposed to meet Mary at the capital?”
“Just follow the instructions for now. I’m guessing Mary decided to move the meeting place somewhere closer and more convenient.”
“I guess. No use questioning it now,” Gerald replied with a shrug before continuing, “We both know just how eccentric our sister is. She’ll change things up as she wants even if it’s at the last second as long as it’s convenient for her.”
Mikael chuckled before saying, “That’s just how she is. Let’s go. I don’t want to keep our sister waiting any longer than she needs to. She’s also very impatient, remember?”
“Yeah…”
The NPC ushered everyone into the Bloodwing Transportation building and they all filled in the forms that were needed before the transportation company’s staff began assigning them to the carriages that had been prepared for them beforehand. There were still only a few players in Oceanus City since it was a port city which was further away from everywhere else, so their arrival didn’t attract too much attention though the large battleship that was moored in the harbor did.
The small number of players that were in the port city were paying too much attention to the battleship rather than the group of players that had disembarked from it, but they did notice the large company of carriages that were exiting the city. This didn’t go unnoticed to them, but they only thought that it was some kind of merchant NPC event or something along those lines, so they didn’t pay too much attention to it.
The players that decided to reside in the Dire had gotten used to seeing large companies of carriages moving in and out of the cities and large towns transporting goods from one place to another. They thought that it was just another one of these events so they didn’t pay too much mind to it though the players that regarded themselves as mercenaries wanted to see what was up.
The companies that ran those transportation services employed both NPCs and players to escort their merchandise, but it was odd that there wasn’t a commission posted for this, which the mercenary roleplaying players in the city were confused about.
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The entourage quickly arrived in Tyran City a few hours later and from there, they quickly took the teleportation gate which was quite expensive to use under the watchful eyes of many players in the city and walked out of the teleportation gate in Heltania City. Gerald was really surprised when he saw the city that was named after his family and exclaimed, “Woah, this city…It…It looks so out of place!”
“In this fantasy world setting, it sure does…To think I’d see a modern city in the game. Mary sure is doing an amusing job, huh?” Mikael replied, greatly amused at seeing the city that their sister had built and named after their family. “Heltania City…it sure has a nice ring to it.”
After arriving in Heltania, the group began splitting up as others went to meet with their friends or go hunting and exploring in the surrounding areas. Only Gerald and Mikael’s group were guided towards the large castle located at the center of the city.
The castle looked extremely out of place in the modern setting of the city, but that didn’t matter because once they were inside, the entire place looked extremely modern which was contrary to its outward appearance. They were led to the throne room by one of the castle’s NPCs and…it was empty.
“Where’s our little sister?” Gerald asked, quite confused after looking around and seeing that Maria wasn’t anywhere inside.
Mikael stopped the NPC who was about to close the door behind them and asked, “Excuse me, but where is your Empress? We were supposed to meet her here.”
“Please forgive me. I was informed only to bring you here. The Empress’s whereabouts are unknown to me, but Her Majesty did leave a message that she will meet with you all here. Please be patient and wait for Her Majesty, I’m sure she’ll arrive soon.”
“Okay.”
The door was shut and the group was left alone inside of the throne room. There were a few chairs placed at the sides of the hall, so a few of them decided to go over and sit there while the others decided to look around the place.
“You guys better not touch anything. Knowing my sister, she’ll probably get upset if she finds something out of place,” Gerald warned his guildmates.
“Yes, guild master.”
“We’re just looking, guild master. We won’t touch anything.”
It wasn’t until about an hour later did Maria finally arrive in the throne hall. She had just finished resting up after exiting the Underworld and nearly forgot about her meeting with her two brothers if not for the fact that they had been messaging her since earlier. She arrived in the throne hall in a rather spectacular manner. There was a terrace on the side and she flew over to the castle as fast as she could, so she entered the hall in a flustered manner after busting open the side doors while still in her Nephalem Form.
“Sorry to keep you two waiting. I was hunting with the girls earlier and we went a bit far!” Maria said after seeing her two brothers.
“Y-Yeah…”
“Hmmmm.”
Gerald was a little surprised to see his younger sister while Mikael eyed her with an evaluating look. When she noticed this, Maria frowned and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Well…were you always like this? I remember you being different…” Gerald replied with a skeptical look as he walked around his sister and appraised her avatar’s looks.
“Huh?”
Maria looked at herself and thought that nothing was wrong before realizing that her Nephalem form was something new that nobody had seen before. She normally kept herself in a semi-battleform that resembled herself before her Second Awakening with a few minor changes in detail, but in her fluster earlier, she had transformed into her complete battleform so that she could arrive at the castle much sooner since she was the one who was tardy for her meeting with her brothers.
“Ah, sorry. I forgot that no one has seen this form except for Amanda, Emi, and Lizzy.”
She quickly reverted back to her normal form and her transformation shocked her two brothers. With her white hair and black wings gone along with her other Nephalem features such as her blazing halo, blackened sclera, and the purplish markings on her dark gray-skinned body which came as a result of her transformation, Maria now looked no different from an ordinary human girl after reverting to her base form.
In fact, she looked almost like her real life self except that her hair was black and her pupils were red.
“You could change forms like that? Since when?” Gerald asked in shock.
“Since 2 real-life months ago,” Maria quickly answered her brother before saying, “Anyway, enough about me. I’m glad the both of you are here now! There’s a lot of things that I want to talk to you two about!”
“Okay, but before we go any further, you mind explaining who that child is in your arms?” Mikael said as he pointed at Cali who was snoozing in Maria’s embrace.
“Oh, this? This is–”
“Unn…Mama?”
Hearing the word that came out of the little child’s mouth, Gerald and Mikael had rather shocked looks on their faces.
“?!”
“!!!”
“Hm? What is it, baby~?”
“!!!”
“Huh?!!”
Lizzy had already informed them that Maria now had a child, but the two brothers only thought that she was just pulling their leg and making stuff up. Or, she was talking about a child, but in a different context. Now that they finally saw the child with their very own eyes, they were shocked and in disbelief. The kid looked no older than 7 and she was the spitting image of their little sister when she was around that age. Their reactions would've been worse if they hadn't been previously informed, but still, they wanted to just pull her over to the side and have a quiet 'talk' with her about the kid.