On the voyage to the island, everyone was having a pretty good time on the ship. The players that didn’t know each other were mingling with one another and forming connections. The only person who was sitting alone was Maria. She was currently deep in thought as she was looking at her [Prison Break] quest description window.
This quest had been sitting in her [Quest] window for a long time now, and it was currently her only long-term, ongoing quest. Maria would naturally take quests whenever she went out to hunt in the field to maximize her EXP gain, but they were only her daily quests and some repeatable quests. They didn’t give much in terms of rewards, but since they were easy to complete, they gave a lot of EXP and gold. The former reward was more important for her than the latter, since she was extremely rich in the game.
If one were to tally all of her wealth in the game, Maria’s wealth could rival the amount a medium-sized company was worth in the real world and that wealth she had was slowly growing as she created more and more avenues where she could obtain and earn more gold inside of the game.
EXP was what she really needed. Getting to level 250 was her current priority because she wanted to quickly complete the [Prison Break] quest and rescue Paimon from the Ziggurat as soon as possible. She had already sent Raiju out to the Divine Realm–wherever it was–to scout for information, especially information regarding the Ziggurat and the gods of Eur.
After rescuing Paimon, she planned on taking revenge on those gods after she herself became a god in the future. The grudge between her and those gods was something that couldn’t just be written off easily. They were the ones that had forced her off of the planet and they were also the ones who sent Mobius, their chosen hero, to go capture her and send her to the Ziggurat.
If it wasn’t for Paimon’s sacrifice, Maria would be in an entirely different situation right now. Instead of being the Dire’s Empress, she would be a prisoner to the gods and could likely have her account ruined because of it. There were many instances in the game where a person’s account was ruined because they chose the wrong option for a quest and screwed themselves over. However, those kinds of gameplay-changing decisions weren’t limited to just quests.
Some relationships you have in the game could also affect your gameplay. For instance, if you had an amicable relationship with a certain NPC, you could enjoy a lot of benefits and whatnot just from being on good terms with them and, in contrast, if you had a bad relationship with them, then that NPC could send bounty hunters or even their own soldier to hinder your progress in the game.
You could also have made a decision that put a blessing or a curse on yourself, which was precisely what Maria did. Consuming a Sin Devil would essentially make you the next Sin Devil, so upon consuming Greed's Soul, Maria had become the next Devil of Greed, an existence the gods of Eur absolutely detested which was why they tried capturing and imprisoning her
Maria naturally didn't see things from the gods' perspective. All she saw was a consumable item that gave her a rather decent power upgrade very early in the game when she was struggling because of her unforgiving leveling conditions. In her eyes, Greed's Soul was a blessing, not a curse. Fortunately, she had met Ash who was practically her ticket off of the planet, otherwise, she would've been taken away by the gods sooner or later and because of her decision to eat Greed's Soul, likely ruined her account.
Starting over was easy since all she needed to do was delete her old account and start anew, but all of her advantages she had obtained coincidentally or luckily from very early on in the game, would've disappeared and she might've been stuck playing as a normal angel race player, not the current Dire Empress who had hegemony over an entire continent of a main story planet.
Anyway, the point was that every decision a player made in the game directly affected their lives in the game. It was why Unitale was known to everyone around the world as a ‘second life’. If one was lucky, they'd be able to become a powerhouse like Maria overnight and soar to the heavens, or if they were unluckily, become a mediocre player with a ruined or remade account and would have had to crawl on the Earth and struggle for a long period of time before they managed to get up on their feet and start walking.
Of course, there was nothing wrong with mediocrity. Every person playing the game had their own kind of playstyle. If they wanted to live a life of mediocrity and just enjoy the game as it is, there was nothing preventing them from doing just that. However, most players who dived into the game wanted to do something more with this second life that they had obtained. To them, mediocrity was something that they just couldn't accept, especially since in their real-lives, they may be just that and this 'second life' was their chance to finally soar into the skies and experience what it was like to be the hero of their own story.
Maria was one of those people though in her case, she already had a golden spoon to begin with. However, she acknowledged that what she had obtained wasn't because of her own doing. She was just lucky enough to have been born into a good family, but in the game, she had risen to where she was all on her own, through her own efforts and with some help along the way.
Knowing that her second life was always being targeted by those gods who were so hell-bent on trying to ruin her–and they nearly succeeded that one time if not for her mentor–Maria wasn't just going to wait around and let her life be ruined. She planned on retaliating by hunting them down and eliminating them who were a threat to her life.
At the moment, she still wasn't strong enough. In order to challenge a god, she herself needed to become one. She didn't know when she'd finally be able to reach that stage, so thinking about it put her in a grim mood and why there was such a heavy atmosphere around her which made her a bit unapproachable right now.
Many of the players that didn’t know her wanted to try and talk to her, but the way she was right now didn’t permit that. Maria was practically a celebrity inside of the game–perhaps the biggest one–and it wasn’t every day that one could meet a celebrity, so the players who wanted to talk to her felt a little regretful though they were tactful enough not to bother her when her mood didn't seem so good.
Lizzy noticed that her best friend wasn’t in the greatest of moods, so she approached her and asked, “Hey, Mary, is something wrong?”
“Huh?”
Maria didn’t notice that her face was a little grave at the moment, so when she heard Lizzy’s question, she didn’t understand it and replied with a confused look.
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“What do you mean?”
“Just so you know, you’re all doom and gloom right now and it’s written all over your face. Tell me, what happened?”
“Oh! I’m sorry…” She replied with a goofy grin on her face as the atmosphere around her lightened up.
“Don’t be. Just tell me, what’s giving you trouble?”
Maria started smiling as she scratched her head and said, “It’s about my quest.”
“Hm?”
“I need to get to level 250 to start it and I need to do it as soon as possible since it’s really important.”
“So important that you’re making such a grave face?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, we’ll be power-leveling on the island for the next few days, so we should be able to pull your level up by a few levels at least. Don’t be so gloomy and come join us! Your brother is starting a barbecue over there~” Lizzy said as she pointed to where everyone was currently gathering.
Some people were looking over to them with either a worried or wondering expression because she had been isolating herself from the start. Seeing how she was bringing the atmosphere on the ship down, Maria had to adjust herself or else she could ruin this fun time. It’s not everyday that she could enjoy something like this. Lately, most of her time in the game was spent working behind a desk all day because there was so much paperwork and fieldwork to do when running a massive empire. It got to the point where she sometimes just wanted to burn everything down and run away though her rational side always stopped her from giving in to her impulses.
If it wasn't for her Imperial Guards, Shadow Puppets, and Undead Armies going around killing monsters while she was working, Maria wouldn't have been able to grind for EXP, but even then the amount she got was very small because she was away from all of the battles. That's why she needed to cherish moments like these where she was finally away from her palace and out on the field hunting for monsters.
Ever since her friends and family finally arrived on Vanhal, more of these occasions started appearing for her, but she shouldn't take them for granted. Who knows, maybe tomorrow her tedious routine might restart again and she'd be back working at her desk like before. She smiled, quietly thanking the people around her, before walking with Lizzy back to the group of people on the ship's deck.
“A barbecue on a ship… I guess it’s appropriate since it’s like we’re on a cruise ship right now, huh?”
“Yup, now hurry up and let’s go!”
“Ah, wait! I’m gonna go and get Cali. She’s currently resting in my private quarters with Alexa.”
“Alexa? Oh! Is that the little sister vampire that you’ve always been boasting about?”
“Yup! Let me go and get them so they can join too! Alexa isn’t really too good with ships since she gets seasick, but I’m sure she’s fine now. She only gets seasick when the voyage starts.”
“Alright, make sure you come back quickly before all the food’s gone!”
Maria left the deck and quickly went to grab Alexa and Cali. When they returned to the deck, Alexa wasn’t sick anymore, though her face was still a little pale. It wasn’t the usual pale that would come from her natural vampire skin, but a greenish, sickly pale.
“Ugh, I’m sorry, Big Sis…” Alexa said with a downcast expression.
Maria patted her back and cast a [Heal] spell on her as she soothed, “Don’t worry, since you’re fine now, we’ll be able to eat some barbecue on the deck with everyone else.”
“Okay…”
“I don’t think I’ve introduced you to our big brothers yet, have I? This is a good occasion for you to meet your big brothers~”
“N-No, you haven’t, big sis, but I’ve previously acquainted myself with them since I’ve run into them a few times in the palace, though each encounter was always brief since I was nervous…”
“Oh, okay, then this time, it’ll be a proper greeting!”
Cali was currently sleeping soundly in Maria’s arms right now. When she was asleep like this, nothing–not even the loud noise of the ship’s engine or a party–could wake her up. Maria didn’t want to leave her in the cabin, so she brought her along and decided to just enjoy her time on the deck while holding her. This little daughter of hers was always able to bring a little bit of peace into her heart and mind whenever she felt troubled, so she patted her gently before making her way back to the group of rambunctious players.
“Phew, I shouldn’t worry too much about Paimon. Paipai was stronger than me and I highly suspect that he’s a demigod, so he should be fine…but if he’s a demigod, then that means Mobius is also a demigod–a powerful one at that…”
When her thoughts got to there, a gloomy expression returned to her face, though it didn’t last long because someone flicked her on her forehead and caused her to cry out in surprise.
“Ouch!”
“What’s with the gloomy look?”
After looking up, Maria noticed that it was her big brother, Mikael. He saw her disappear earlier, thinking that she was going to isolate herself in her room because something was troubling her. He didn’t want to seem too meddling, so he hadn’t approached her earlier on the deck but he couldn’t help himself after seeing her ‘run away’ all of a sudden.
Lizzy naturally stopped him and told him that she was only going to get her baby and her little sister, so he waited on the deck, but when he saw that troubled look on his sister’s face appear again, he couldn’t just sit back anymore and decided to ask what was going on.
“Come on, you’re probably hungry and that’s why you’re in a bad mood. You were always like this when you were a kid.”
“Ugh, big brother…that hurt.”
“It hurts because you weren’t paying attention, there’s no way a player at my level with stats like mine could possibly hurt you,” Mikael said with a laugh as he patted his sister’s head.
“...Well, I guess I’m hungry…”
“Hmph, I thought as much. Let’s go, before Gerald does something crazy…”
A second later, a small explosion was heard on the deck and it came from the grill that Gerald had set up with his friends. Mikael began rubbing the bridge of his nose before saying, “Tsk, I knew it.”
“You kinda jinxed yourself this time, big brother~”
“We should hurry, he might burn down the entire ship at this rate…”
There was now a bright smile on Maria’s face. She knew that she could always count on her family and friends to cheer her up whenever she felt a little down. Mikael obviously knew that there was something else that was bothering his sister and not just food, but he decided not to ask her at the last second since it seemed like something only she herself could resolve. Instead of meddling, Mikael decided to just cheer her up and root for her silently.