After walking through the teleportation gate, Maria and the others swiftly arrived at Transylvania, the capital of the Dire. When Gerald, Mikael, and the others exited the teleportation building, they all gawked at the scene that they saw in front of them for a moment. Even though Maria had warned them to not be surprised when they saw the city and they even said that they wouldn't be surprised, they were still surprised in the end.

"W-What the heck?"

"I-I take back what I just said earlier..."

"Woah..."

The Transylvania teleportation building had been purposefully built on top of a hill that was overlooking a large portion of the city from District Baobahn, the district in between district Dracul and district Victoria, so Gerald and the others were able to see the large second district of Maria’s capital city.

District Baobahn still had a lot of construction work being done in it, but most of the district had been completed according to the plans that Maria made. The vampires living in the second district and those that had been kicked out of the first district were able to live prosperously here. The ones that had been kicked out of District Dracul had been a bit difficult at first, but after seeing that the conditions they lived in were much better than before, they all stopped opposing Maria’s order and began to live normally.

Maria was putting proper effort in managing her city and all of the residents saw this, so they slowly became more loyal to her by the day as their satisfaction levels continued to rise. After all, living under her rule was much better than when they were living under the previous Blood Lord’s rule.

Without waiting for her two brothers and their friends, Maria descended from the hill that housed the Teleportation building and went into the district. After seeing her go, the others quickly followed after her. It would be quite bad if they lost her and got lost in the large city, but they didn’t know that this was only a part of Maria’s mega capital city.

District Baobahn was bustling with activity and Gerald’s group was constantly eyeing the place and they didn’t forget to quickly check on any of the items that were being sold inside of the stores they passed by.

“Gerald, the items being sold in the shops are extremely high quality! The potions are a few grades better than the ones we have on hand!”

“I just walked into that armor shop earlier. They’re selling Unique-grade armor sets!”

While everyone had their attention scattered all over the place, they made sure that they didn’t lose track of Maria who was heading in the direction of the huge wall they saw earlier from the hill. Mikael wondered what the wall was for so he had been following after Maria very closely and when they arrived at Wall Dracul that was still being repaired because the damage Maria’s army had done to it in the previous war was quite severe, he quickly asked, “Mary, are we going outside of the city?”

Maria turned to look at her brother with a confused face and replied, “Outside? What do you mean? We’re just heading over to the first district. That’s where you guys will be staying.”

“T-The first district? Th-Then what’s this place?”

“This is the second district, District Baobahn. It’s where all the ordinary residents live. I live in my palace in the first district, District Dracul. That’s also where you guys will be staying since you're nobles of my nation!”

“...Just how big is this city?” Mikael wondered out loud.

Maria shrugged and answered, “It’s pretty big. There’s 3 districts actually. This district is the second largest. The largest district is definitely the third district but there’s mostly just plantations, pastures, and ponds there since it’s the place where we grow our food.”

“3?!”

“If you want, I’ll tell one of my subordinates to give you a tour around all three of Transylvania’s districts, but for now, just follow me. All of you should get settled in first!”

Gerald and Mikael had been wondering what was beyond those huge walls earlier. They thought that it was the outside world, but they were completely wrong. It was actually just a barricade to separate the city’s humongous districts. When Maria and the group arrived at the gates leading to District Dracul, a few carriages were already there waiting for them.

Maria turned back and saw that not everyone was with them as a few were still looking around the city district, so she turned to her brother and said, “Big brother! Tell the others to get over here already! They can go on a tour around the city later!”

“I already messaged Gerald. The rest of them should be here in a bit.”

“Tsk, maybe I should’ve just had the carriages pick us up at the bottom of the hill!”

Mikael walked over to Maria and patted her on the head before saying, “Have a little patience. They’re all just extremely excited to take a look around the city you built. Quite frankly, none of it is new since we see it a lot in the real world, but since this is inside of the game, it’s become quite…a novelty, I guess.”

Maria sighed and said, “Novelty, huh? You haven’t seen what a true novelty looks like!”

“Oh?”

“Heltania Undercity, that’s where the true novelty lies!”

“Undercity?”

“O-Oops!”

It was too late, she slipped up already and now she piqued her older brother’s interest.

“Tell me, what’s this Undercity, hmm?”

“Y-You’ll see it later! For now, just stay here in Transylvania since it’s where I need you the most, big brother!”

“It sounds very interesting, but I’ll listen to you…” Mikael said before noticing a group walking towards them in the corner of his eye and pointed, “There’s Gerald and the others.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Hm.”

Once everyone reconvened at the gates, they all boarded the carriages waiting for them and moved to District Dracul. When they arrived on the other side of the wall, everyone was truly shocked this time. Unlike District Baobahn, District Dracul had large modern buildings and even a few skyscrapers. There was still a bit of construction in the district as the remodeling and reconstruction still wasn’t finished.

The plans she made for the city would take at least a few more months to complete, but that was only because it was inside of the game. If the scale of the construction work was taken out to the real world, it would take at least a few years to complete, not just months. While they were moving on the carriage, Gerald, Mikael, and the others noticed that some of the buildings, including the skyscrapers, had a victorian-style motif to their outward design.

Maria wanted to keep a little bit of fantasy in the city so she made sure that the vampire-motifs that brought the city its unique atmosphere weren't completely erased. It made things a bit harder for the vampire dwarves and the other construction workers, but they were able to fulfill Maria’s wish which pleased her to no end. When they arrived at the central square of District Baobahn, they passed by a large fountain that had a statue in the middle of it that was decorated with many precious jewels.

“Pfft, is that you, Mary?!” Gerald yelled in question as he pointed out of the carriage window towards the statue in the middle of the fountain while holding in his laughter.

Maria didn’t know what he was talking about but when she looked out of the carriage window and saw the statue, she began to blush intensely.

“S-So what?!” She fired back at her brother in embarrassment.

“Hahahaha!”

“Stop laughing!”

“I-It’s just so funny! I didn’t think of you as the narcissistic type!” Gerald replied as he poked fun at his sister.

Maria growled at him and said, “E-Even I didn’t know that was there! M-M-My subordinates probably did something unnecessary again!”

“Sure~”

“It’s the truth! Stop making fun of me! Besides, that statue looks way better than your ugly mug!”

“Hey, this face also belongs to you! We’re siblings!”

“Nah, no way! My face looks way better than yours!”

Mikael just watched the two of them poking fun at each other and shook his head with a smile.

“It’s been quite some time since all three of us have gotten together. We should do something like this more often, whether it be inside of the game or in real life,” He said to his two siblings.

Maria and Gerald looked at their brother and stopped their arguing. Gerald was the first to say something and Maria followed suit.

“Yeah, that’s true. We’ve just been busy with real life stuff.”

“When we’re free, we always just log into the game so…”

“Haha, don’t worry. I’m not forcing any of you. I’m just saying we should do this more when we have the time.”

After a while longer, the carriage finally arrived at Maria’s Palace which she named, the Heltania Imperial Palace. When Gerald and his guildmates entered through the courtyard, they felt as if the place was rather familiar until one of Gerald’s guildmates suddenly realized why it was so familiar and questioned, “This…isn’t this the dungeon, the Imperial Palace?”

“Wait, what?”

“N-Now that you said that…it really does look alike…”

“It’s not just alike, it’s the same! This really is the Instance Dungeon, the Imperial Palace!”

They all looked over at Maria who was greeting her subordinates in the middle of the palace’s courtyard and the Citadel players soon noticed the large Undead that was among the NPCs that were greeting Maria and exclaimed in shock, “That’s the Undead King!”

Maria looked back at them with a confused look on her face since she heard them call out to Morte for some reason.

“Master?” Morte spoke up with a deathly rasp.

“It’s nothing Morte," Maria said to her undead familiar before turning to Ash and saying, "Anyway, you all go back to your stations. There will be 2 additional people living in the castle with us and I’ll be showing them to their chambers later. For now, we’re going to the great hall. Have the servants and chef prepare a meal for us all. I’m starving since I didn’t eat anything after leaving the Undercity.”

“At once, Your Majesty,” Ash stepped forward and replied before turning to look at Calen, Morte, and all the other undead and vampire guards along with the servants who were there to welcome their Empress.

Ash didn't need to say anything since everyone already heard their Empress speak. His glance was just the signal that they all had permission to leave and return to their duties. They all bowed their heads first before leaving, the guards went back to their stations while the servants went to complete Maria's request.

Maria turned to the others that came with her and said, “Let’s head to the Great Hall. We can eat there and my subordinates here will explain to everyone the more detailed version of the offer I gave earlier!”

“Sure, but before that, I think you have a little explaining to do,” Gerald said as he eyed Morte who was towering over Maria despite being on one knee and the other Imperial Palace Instance Dungeon bosses that were kneeling behind his sister in reverence. The boss monsters were naturally part of Maria's Imperial Guard, so whenever she came back to the palace, their task changed from patrolling the grounds to protecting and escorting their Empress.

Maria looked back at her brother and asked, "What do you mean?"

"Explain THAT! That right there!"

"Huh?"