3 days later after their lock-up period was over and Maria could no longer trap them inside of her jail, Devin and Crow were finally released from prison. During this time, Zhuge Lan was in the middle of his preparations to 'welcome' the Dire's Empress after hearing from his two friends who were working in the Lycan territory that they had been attacked and imprisoned by the Dire Empress herself.
When he received the information through an IRL call from his good friend Devin, it really shocked him since he never would have expected that the Dire Empress had secretly made her way to Vanargand without him even knowing about it. He boasted about having a pretty good information network, but the fact that Maria had managed to get under his radar made him feel that he had lost somehow, so he began working hard to even out the score with her.
“Have you guys been freed?”
“Yes, Zhuge, but what do we do now? Honestly, I don't think we can even deter whatever her plans are with our current level of power, let alone fight her. She…she was the real deal. We couldn’t do anything and she destroyed us in 2 moves–one for each of us…” Devin reported.
Devin had already reported this for the nth time already and he only kept on repeating it because he felt a little despair from fighting such a hopeless battle. Right now, he and Crow had been set free from their imprisonment since the time limit was over and Maria could no longer imprison them again until a certain amount of time had passed, so they could just walk away right now and Maria wouldn't be able to do anything to them.
Devin felt humiliated about being imprisoned like that, but he didn’t voice it out since he wasn’t prepared to pay Maria back for the humiliation he suffered. Crow shared the same sentiment. The two of them obviously weren’t just going to let Maria get away with this, but with their current strength, there was no way they could even touch the hem of her clothes, let alone defeat her.
"Zhuge, how are we going to deal with the Dire's Empress? You saw from the video she's too...overpowered..."
"You let me worry about that. Just come back here quickly before you get further entangled with her."
"...Yes."
When Maria first appeared, Devin had begun recording everything, so he was able to send Zhuge Lan the video of the confrontation. Zhuge Lan didn’t know what else to say after seeing the one-sided battle and the destructive might that Maria displayed.
Even though the evidence was right there, Zhuge Lan still found it hard to believe that a player could reach such a level in their magical prowess. Not even the rank 1 mage-class player in Unitale could display such destructiveness with their spells. At this point, Maria's actual class was no longer the benchmark to determine what type of player she was.
She had obtained some kind of hidden class that let her be a warrior, mage, and priest all at the same time. It felt like a cheat, but there were other players out there that Zhuge Lan knew had a class that encapsulated the abilities of more than one of the game's basic classes.
Anyway, the level of magic prowess that Maria displayed in the video was at the level of a natural disaster and she used that power so easily. This definitely wasn’t a level that any normal mage-class player at this stage of the game could ever possess, but Zhuge Lan was forced to accept the reality that was presented to him because the evidence was right there in front of his eyes.
The person who his master was showing great interest in had to be this unique and powerful. Only an abnormality such as Maria could attract a person who was just as abnormal as his master. As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. Of course, this didn’t mean that Maria and Hecate would team up together or anything, it just meant that they were drawn towards each other due to their similarities.
In fact, Zhuge Lan believed that his master and Maria would always be at odds with one another because only polar opposites attract. If they were of the same polarity, then they’d repel each other instead and this was precisely what they were–at least in Zhuge Lan’s eyes.
Maria’s abilities that were briefly shown in the video would make anyone despair about their odds at confronting her, but for whatever reason, Zhuge Lan felt excited. It wasn’t every day that he was able to meet such an abnormal existence like his master, whether it was in the game or in the real world. He calculated that his odds of defeating Maria in a one-on-one battle to be utterly 0, but he wondered just how he would fare in a battle of wit.
Zhuge Lan couldn’t help but grow excited at the thought, so he started to prepare for a confrontation with Maria because he had a gut feeling that this wasn’t going to be the last time he saw her in Vanargand. He didn’t know what the girl was going to do, but it definitely wasn’t going to be anything normal. She might even come and start some trouble in the war between the player alliance and the PK Alliance on Vanargand with the intention to add even more chaos and exploit that chaos to her advantage.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“I've prepared the perfect gift for you, so please do come and cause some trouble... after all, I have to pay you back for Devin and Crow's humiliation...” Zhuge Lan mumbled to himself mysteriously as he watched the video Devin had sent to him one more time. He had already watched the video countless times since he's received it, but he continued to watch it because he wanted to analyze Maria's abilities in detail.
Zhuge Lan told Crow and Devin to keep their mouths shut about the information that Maria was on the Vanargand continent, especially to their master who was currently obsessed with her because for now, he wanted their master to keep her focus on the war between her PK Alliance and the player alliance.
If she heard that Maria had showed up in the Lycan territory, she might drop whatever she was doing to go search for her and fight her. Zhuge Lan believed that it wasn’t the right moment for his master and Maria to confront each other again since his master was busy, but he believed that they would still have their confrontation since he had a gut feeling that Maria might intervene in the war his master was waging.
“I’ll set up the perfect stage for my master. If the Dire's Empress does come, then everything will be set for master to win, but if she doesn’t, we won’t be losing anything."
Zhuge Lan turned towards the screen showing his friend's face and spoke, “You guys make haste and quickly return to Master's side. You haven't told anyone about the location of the Dire's Empress, right?"
"No, I haven't."
"Good. We're still in the midst of our preparations to welcome her, so we don't need anyone else interfering with our business.”
“Preparations to welcome her? What do you mean?”
“We'll be facing the Dire Empress again soon, so I've been making some preparations on my end. We have to pay her back for the humiliation you and Crow suffered at her hands and the opportunity might come sooner than expected since I believe that she'll soon make a move!”
“...Is that so? Well, the sooner the better I guess, and as much as I hate to say it, I’d appreciate that. With our current strength, I think it’s impossible for us to face her alone.”
‘And it might even be impossible to face her together, but let’s not tell him that,’ Zhuge Lan thought.
With how smart he was, he wasn’t 100 percent certain that the outcome of a confrontation with an abnormality like Maria would proceed within his expectations. It was more likely that everything could go awry, since absolute strength could totally destroy any plan, no matter how perfectly laid out it was. This had happened to him before when he tried confronting his master with schemes and traps until he was convincingly defeated by her due to the absolute strength she possessed.
Despite knowing that his plans might easily be destroyed, Zhuge Lan still went ahead with his preparations as he wasn’t one to shy away from failure. If he was so afraid of failing, then he wouldn’t have decided to follow Hecate and serve as her subordinate just so he could continue to try and defeat her with his formations and schemes.
“Finally, after a few weeks of dealing with Eos and his band of idiots, I’ll have something pleasant to look forward to. I hope my gut feeling is right again this time. After all, I don't want all the presents I've prepared to go to waste~”
In the Dire’s newly conquered territory, the person who was the target of Zhuge Lan’s plans, Maria, suddenly felt a chill run up her spine. She looked around and didn’t notice anyone spying on her, so she shrugged off the odd feeling that suddenly overwhelmed her earlier and went about her business again.
“Lilah, how’s the state of the territories we’ve conquered?” Maria asked.
Lilah was looking through some things and replied to her, “They’re definitely much better than when we first acquired them, but their conditions are still bad. We’ll need to invest a lot of resources to build them up.”
“Do whatever you need to do, Lilah. Just give Ash a call and have him send some people and more resources over here.”
“Okay, Master…but what will you be doing?”
Maria smiled at her and replied, “Before Ash can start nagging at me, I’m going to go have some fun.”
“...As I thought, just make sure to bring Alexa and Raiju with you, okay? I’m not sure, but I think you might need them.”
“Well, if you say so, then I guess I will. They were both upset that they didn’t have much to do since our ‘hostile takeover’ ended so quickly and smoothly…”
“Yes, so please take them off my hands,” Lilah said as she had about enough trying to deal with them and their boredom.
“Hehe, you got it.”