No one would’ve thought that the Dire’s Empress, Maria, would be on Vanargand and taking over the outlier territories of the lycans with the guidance of her lycan sympathizers. She made sure not to cause too much destruction in her attacks so that she wouldn’t attract any attention to herself.
Normally, any kind of disturbance would rouse some sort of reaction from the lycans as long as it was in their territory, but the areas Maria attacked were mostly filled with her sympathizers as the outlier territories were quite frankly, extremely poor and not well-maintained.
The Lycan King focused more on developing the lands closer to the lycan capital and didn’t pay much attention to the outlier territories which was why the lycans and werewolves who lived in those regions had been secretly won over by Maria. It made taking over the lands extremely easy since all she needed to do was kill the lycans and werewolves that were loyal to the Lycan King.
Lycans and werewolves were generally the same thing, but they had their differences. Maria learned this from Lucille herself who explained that lycans were those that possessed purer bloodlines than the werewolves. The lycans and werewolves both had the same origin which they referred to as their progenitor, the Wolf God Vanagandr. It wasn’t a coincidence that the continent’s name was Vanargand since the lycans and werewolves named it after their own progenitor.
Vanagandr had two descendants with a mortal woman and one of them had a purer bloodline compared to the other. The one with the purer bloodline and those that descended from them became known as the lycans while the ones that descended from the other one with the 'lesser' bloodline became the werewolves.
The difference between the two was that one of them–the one with the purer bloodline–the Lycans, could transform into their wolf forms any time they wanted while the werewolves could only do it when there was a full moon or a light source that could resemble the moon’s power.
It was pretty obvious which one of them was the superior one, which led to the whole discrimination happening between the lycans and the werewolves in the Lycan Kingdom and although it only happened behind closed doors and not in public, it was still happening and it caused an invisible barrier to appear between the two communities.
The Lycan Kings of old wanted to abolish that discrimination so whenever a lycan took the throne, they were required to have their first mate be a werewolf. The most recent Lycan King, Lycan King Beowulf Godfreed, didn’t really care for old traditions and although he did have a werewolf mate, he only had her because it was required for him to gain the consent of both the lycan and werewolf royalties to ascend the throne.
Everything was good at first, but then Beowulf began taking in a few other mates who were lycans and over time, the treatment of the werewolves only became worse after that.
The descendants of his werewolf mate, and the mate herself, experienced a lot of discrimination and humiliation from the lycan mates and their descendants, which caused the divide between the lycans and the werewolves to grow even larger. The lycan and werewolf communities reflected the actions and behaviors of their leaders, so with how bad the discrimination was in the palace, it was even worse among the nobles and commoners who didn’t know any better–save for a very select few.
Maria came to know all of this because Lucille, who was the leader of Maria’s lycan and werewolf sympathizers, just so happens to be the current Lycan King’s daughter and his first werewolf descendent. She had her fair share of mistreatment in the palace, especially since she was the Lycan King’s first werewolf descendent, so it was not a wonder why she would be against her own father’s rule and was actively helping Maria.
Lucille believed that Maria would be a better ruler and help the lycans and werewolves come together because she had long since noticed that there was a hidden faction within the palace that was trying to sow dissent between the two communities.
Her royal father was actively playing into their hands without him knowing and with her being a werewolf, Godfreed refused to listen to her opinion, though he did put in an effort to try and bring this hidden faction to the light, but after not finding a hint of them at all, he gave up and blamed his own daughter for trying to sow discord within the community.
Maria herself was intrigued by this hidden faction that Lucille kept on going on about since she felt that their influence had previously extended to the vampires though after conquering them, she made sure to stamp out any of those that resisted her or pretended to only follow her.
She could see the status windows of her subordinates so she could accurately find the ones who were truly loyal to her and those that were just pretending to be. Any ‘pretenders’ were immediately removed from their positions and were secretly dealt with.
Maria could believe Lucille’s story because she had definite information about a third party that was trying to cause chaos on Vanhal. It said so in the Main Story Quest along with the planet’s introduction as hints for the players so Maria knew that there was definitely someone eyeing both of the factions on Vanhal.
Most of the player base believed the third hidden faction to be Maria’s faction, but Maria firmly believed that they were wrong. The existence of the Underworld proved it. The third hidden faction of Vanhal definitely resided somewhere in the Underworld and that was why Maria was actively exploring it to uncover their identities.
Matters of the Underworld could be put on hold for now since it was pretty hard to get any gains from it with the place being so vast, so Maria decided that she should at least settle her affairs on the surface before proceeding any further.
After her one day break on the beach, Maria resumed her activities the very next day and made her way to their next objective with Lucille’s guidance. They quickly arrived since the territory that they would be taking over was just next to the one they had been taking a break at.
“Luci, you said that this one would be the hardest to conquer. Mind explaining to me the reason now that we’re here?” Maria asked.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Lucille began giving her explanation and told Maria that the reason she said it would be the hardest territory to conquer was because the person managing it was actually a player.
“A player is managing the territory?” Maria asked in surprise. She didn’t think that there was already a player who had managed to rise up within the ranks of the Lycan Kingdom so fast, so this was quite an unexpected development.
“Yes, an extremely strong one, Your Majesty. He was able to quickly distinguish himself among the nobles and one of them recommended him to my father, the king.”
Lucille emphasized that the player who was managing the territory they were currently aiming to conquer was extremely capable. The player in question excelled in combat and territory management.
He was also apparently a really good leader and a smart tactician as he was able to constantly prevent other hostile forces from attacking his territory. Obviously, those hostile forces were either monster hordes or other players that came with the intent to take over his lands. Hearing that, Maria began tapping her cheek with extreme interest as she began thinking about something, “Hmm…”
“Due to his accomplishments, the player was able to quickly earn my father’s trust and my father rewarded him peerage along with this piece of land which he kept on defending from monsters and outsiders.”
“I see…anything special about this land? I’m sure the player wouldn’t have settled for this place if it didn’t have anything special considering it’s part of the lycan’s outlier territories,” Maria asked.
Lucille nodded with a smile of appreciation and started explaining, “I’m glad Your Majesty was able to understand that. Yes, there is something special about this territory. Although it’s located in the outlier territories, it’s actually a pretty important place since there’s a gold mine in it.”
“A gold mine, huh? Interesting…”
“My royal father doesn’t know this, but the gold mine is actually pretty large and the previous noble who managed the territory kept it a secret because he didn’t like my father.”
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Ahh, that’s funny… And you don’t mind that this person dislikes your father?”
“...Well, I’m not one to talk, Your Majesty, because I also do not like my father. I love him as he is my father, but I dislike him as a ruler.”
“I see.”
“Anyway, the werewolf who previously managed this territory became the player’s advisor, but he’s also one of Your Majesty’s sympathizers. He’s our inside man.”
Maria nodded at Lucille's words and said, “Where are we going to meet up with him? I need more information about the territory before I plan our attack.”
“Very soon, Your Majesty. I already sent word to him that we’ve arrived, but Your Majesty, since it’s a player that we’re facing, I’m sure Your Majesty understands that we can’t employ the same tactics as before, right?”
----------------------------------
Devin was someone from the ‘true’ PK Alliance and, like those who were part of the alliance, he joined it only because he was either scouted by the alliance’s brains, Zhuge Lan, or because he had faced Hecate in single-combat and–like many others–lost to her so tragically despite being extremely confident in their skills and chose to follow her out of her sheer admiration for her abilities.
He was from the former group as he had been scouted by Zhuge Lan. They knew each other in real life and Devin respected Zhuge Lan for his abilities, so when he heard that his friend was now following and serving under someone else, Devin was naturally intrigued to find out just who it was, so he accepted his friend’s invitation to the alliance.
Devin never would’ve expected that his friend’s new master would be someone who even caused him to be respectful towards her after he had lost to her in a pretty convincing manner when he decided to challenge her to a fight. It wasn’t offensive to do this, since many other players in the alliance would challenge the PK Alliance leader to a fight, but they would soundly be destroyed by her whether they came at her by themselves or in groups.
He found Hecate to be a unique individual who was worth following despite her character being somewhat insane. She was so insane that she even decided to purge her own alliance of the rot that was festering inside of it by pitting the regular players against her alliance without any hesitation.
Only those who were part of the true alliance were given a heads up on this and were told to temporarily leave the alliance to go do their own things until they were called upon again. The people who received this notification from Zhuge Lan didn’t really care about the actions Hecate took, since they knew that their leader was literally insane, so Devin and one of his close buddies, Crow, went to join the lycans at Zhuge Lan’s request and the two of them made a name for themselves and quickly climbed up the rankings.
They eventually earned some land for their distinguished accomplishments and thought that they’d be able to relax now that they had completed the goal Zhuge Lan had asked them to achieve, but a few days ago, they heard from him again and were told to keep an eye out for the forces of their master’s enemy, the Dire. Zhuge Lan warned them that the Dire might make a move on the lycans sometime soon, so they needed to keep an eye out and watch themselves.
“Mr. Zhuge’s warning came a few days ago. I wonder why we haven’t heard anything about the Dire yet…” Crow asked.
Devin looked up from his desk and said to his fiend, “No news is good news, but we should still keep our eyes peeled. How about the people we sent to keep watch over the colonies? Any word from them?”
“No, nothing. The colonies have lifted the lockdown though, but no movements that would indicate that they’re going to attack the lycans… could this be a false alarm?”
Devin shook his head and replied, “Zhuge Lan has never been wrong before. Just trust him and continue keeping a lookout.”
“Alright.”
The two were managing the same land, though Devin was the one who managed it on the surface, while Crow managed it from the shadows and with the two of them protecting their land, they believed that even if the Dire came and attacked them, they would be fine.
They acknowledged that Maria was a pretty powerful player since she managed to go head to head with their leader, Hecate, but if she didn’t personally come out to fight, then her forces wouldn’t be able to do anything to their territory because Devin and Crow believed that they were pretty powerful people in their own right. Their confidence wasn’t without reason, but what was about to happen to them was something neither them nor Zhuge Lan could have foresaw.
When the attack came, it was quick and without mercy. A suspicious group of people approached their town and it was clear that it wasn’t with good intentions, since they had their weapons drawn.
“To the bastard who’s managing this land, get the FUCK OUT HERE!”
When Devin heard this booming voice echo through the town, he immediately frowned because it sounded so arrogant.
“Devin.”
“I know…let’s go see who it is.”
“I don’t think it’s those people from the Dire, but I’ve been dying for a little bit of action! Let me fight later.”
“Whatever.”
The two of them quickly went to the entrance of the town and confronted the person who was making a ruckus and they noticed that it was a beautiful, but angry young woman who was floating in the air just above the town gates.
Devin and Crow thought that the girl seemed a bit familiar, but they couldn’t identify her. Maria wasn’t in her Nephilim form, so they couldn't identify her immediately. The Dire’s Empress, Maria, was known to everyone in the world as a player whose character sported multiple pairs of black wings on her back with ashen-colored skin that had weird glowing tattoos all over her body and she wielded a transformable weapon that was normally in the form of a large, demonic axe.
She also always wore a unique black-red colored armor that made her appear as a warrior-class player, even though she was the hidden priest-class, the Dark Priestess. The broken halo on her back was also a big giveaway to her identity, but the girl floating in the air above them and was looking down at them with cold eyes, didn’t have any of those traits.
The only thing that made her feel familiar was her beautiful face, but other than that, the girl looked like an ordinary human-race player who was quite obviously, a mage, since she was flying in the air with no wings. There was a child in her arms which made Devin and Crow raise an eyebrow at her. After failing to use [Inspect] on her, they believed that she was some kind of NPC.
“Are you the player who’s managing this piece of land?” Maria asked after seeing Devin and Crow.
Devin looked up at Maria and replied to her question, “I’m the town’s mayor. What do you want?”
“Pretty arrogant for someone to call out to us like that. Don’t you know that your previous words would have offended someone?” Crow chimed in.
“You and your group are not welcomed here, please leave.”
Maria smirked at them before her smile widened even further after receiving a message from one of her subordinates that was high enough level to use [Inspect] on the two players. She saw that Devin and Crow’s levels were pretty high, being levels 324 and 322 respectively. If placed on the level leaderboards, these two players would definitely stand among the top 20, so they were pretty high up there.
Even without [Inspect], she could already tell that the two of them were pretty powerful players and their levels weren’t just for show, since their equipment quality was pretty good and the way they carried themselves indicated that they were experts.
Since the two of them weren’t backing down, this made Maria a little excited as she lightly smiled and thought, ‘I didn’t think there would be two of them, but no matter… they’re both experienced fighters and with their levels, they’ll be the perfect test subjects…’
Even though Maria was excited, she was then reminded of the previous scene and her anger rose. She hadn’t wanted to cause a scene, but before coming here, she saw something that greatly appalled her and it made her angry, so she and her group quickly rushed over towards the town to send a 'message' to the person managing the place.
Maria raised her hand and conjured a sun before smiling at the two men below her, “Since the two of you willingly delivered yourselves to me. I’ll make this easier for all of us.”