Everyone was extremely excited to hear about the EXP buff the island gave when you moved deeper into it's inner areas, but things didn’t end there. Elizabeth continued on to explain that the buff would increase from 200 percent to 300 percent when you moved from the outer layer to the inner layer of the island, and then it would increase once more to 400 percent when you arrived at the areas that she liked to call the 'core areas'.
Lastly, it was possible for the buff to increase to 500 percent, but the area where this buff appeared was completely unspecified. You could be in the outer layer zone of the island and receive this effect or you could be in the inner layer zone or core areas. The 500 percent buff appeared completely at random and it would always change areas every 1 hour with no indicator of where it would go next or when it even appeared.
One would have to truly be lucky to find the 500 percent buff area, so instead of going around the island on a wild goose chase, it was better to just stick to one place and hope that the buff would come to them.
Naturally, Elizabeth also explained that in each of the 4 areas she described, the monsters’ level and CP would increase to match the difficulty of each area. The outer layer zone that had the 200 percent buff was the easiest and safest place to grind monsters, but she reminded everyone that it was only easy and safe as compared to the other places.
The island was still extremely dangerous and caution was necessary if they wanted to enjoy seeing their levels rise as they stayed on the island, because since there was a buff, there was also naturally a penalty.
Dying on the island would completely reset all of the EXP and levels you gained on the island to the state it was 24 hours prior to you dying. The island had a daily ‘save point’ and if that penalty wasn’t bad enough you would also drop an item upon death. You could naturally retrieve the item, but most of the monsters on the island hoarded the valuables away, so once you died, it was unlikely that you would be able to find the item again unless you found their lair and killed all of the monsters there.
Due to those penalties, Elizabeth greatly emphasized that the players should play safely and smartly, so that they wouldn’t lose anything while they were on the island. This island could either be a treasure island or a cursed island for any of the players that visited it. For now, it was still closed to the public and only those that Maria invited would be able to find the island, so the players present had to wisely use this opportunity where they could monopolize all of the island’s benefits before the island went public.
Once Elizabeth divulged all of the information she had found about the island, she let Maria take the floor.
“Alright, since everyone’s heard all the information Elizabeth has found, we can all enter the island now!” Maria said.
“Nice!”
“Let’s do this!”
Just before letting them go, she stopped them for a moment before saying, “Wait, before everyone goes, I want you all to promise me that you will NOT tell anyone else about this island. I’ve prepared an NDA for all of you to show that I’m being very serious about this.”
“Hm?”
“Oh?”
“You all don’t need to sign it. I’m just telling you that I’m being very serious about this request as it pertains to my Empire’s secrets. If it becomes known that one of you spilled something…I’ll have my nation hunt you down until you’re back to level one~”
Maria said this with a cute smile on her face, but everyone present knew that she meant what she had said. She wasn’t even going to spare any of her friends or her brothers if they did something, though the punishment for them was definitely much lighter.
Their punishment would be akin to a slap on the wrist, but if anyone else in the group said anything to anyone else, she wasn’t going to hesitate to hunt them down and make sure that their lives in Unitale became miserable to the point where they’d delete their account.
Maria valued integrity and trust. She had graciously opened up the island to her friends and allowed them to bring people with them when she could’ve just monopolized it all to herself. She was being gracious here, so the least everyone else could do was listen to her small request.
This island held one of the Dire’s most important secrets at the moment, so she wasn’t going to be lenient to those that broke this small agreement with her. Although she didn’t need a formal written promise and only wanted to hear a verbal one, she had recorded everything so she could remember who had come with her to the island.
Maria really wasn’t going to spare the person that spilled the secret of the island. She was certainly a nice person, but if someone was going to take her words for granted and be an asshole, then she’d similarly respond in kind to their behavior by bringing out her atrocious side.
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When she said she was going to do something, this meant that she was really serious, especially if it was about doling out punishment. Emily, Gerald, Lizzy, and Mikael told their friends and guild mates that Maria was being really serious about what she said and if they stupidly broke the promise, they wouldn’t be able to help them escape Maria’s wrath.
At that point, they’d have to try and survive on their own because there was no way they would be able to help them. Trying to convince Maria to stop punishing someone for disrespecting her trust was something they simply wouldn’t be able to do.
All of those that Gerald and Lizzy brought to the island were elites of their guild and they didn’t want any of them to become one of Maria’s targets because it meant that they’d lose a precious guild member that they had invested time and money on bringing up.
It would be a devastating blow to any of their guilds, but they wouldn’t be able to stop Maria unless they prepared to go to war with her and lose all decorum with the Dire. Not only that, but since they knew each other IRL, they’d have to face her wrath in the real world as well.
Maria wouldn’t do anything to them in real life, but that was the scary part. Not doing anything was even worse than actually doing something, because her silent condemnation would be a form of mental torture for them. Thankfully, however, all of the players that they had brought with them to the island were loyal to their guilds and were people with integrity.
No one among them was a spy for another guild or organization, and to show this, they not only made a verbal agreement but they also asked Maria if they could sign the digital NDA that she made using the system, so if they broke their promise, then the system would dole out the punishment and make it known who did.
After that, they wouldn’t be able to hide themselves even if they tried, because Maria would receive the notification of who broke the agreement as soon as the agreement was broken. Maria was surprised by their sincerity and she started scratching her cheek nervously as she said, “Well, I was only threatening everyone with the NDA. I never really made one, so there’s no such thing…since you’re all being very sincere, I will just take your words for it. Since I’m trusting you, please don’t break my trust!”
She smiled at everyone before declaring that they could all now break into their own groups and start exploring the island.
“Oh yeah, keep this in mind, but neither me nor my subordinates have completely explored this island as it was only recently that we discovered it and laid claim to the island. There might be some things we haven’t found out yet about the island, so please be cautious and share any of the information you’ve found that wasn’t previously mentioned in the briefing to everyone else. Thanks~”
With those parting words, Maria led her group past the island's treeline after they double checked to make sure that all of their preparations were ready. Most of them thought that because this was in the buffer zone, not many monsters would be around, but unfortunately, they were completely wrong.
Just as they stepped past the tree line, they saw many pairs of ominous yellow eyes turn to their direction before loud roars ensued in the next instant as monsters began pouring at them from all directions.
“W-What the hell?!”
“Uwaaagghhh!!!”
"There's so many of them!"
"D-Do we run back?!"
Everyone in Maria’s group was caught off guard, including Mikael, as this was their first time experiencing a monster rush. Maria, however, remained calm and stood firmly in front of the group with a confident smile on her face as she turned towards them and said, “Don’t worry, I got this!”
She didn’t even transform into her Nephalem form, nor did she have Cali change into her weapon form. She instead took out her Zantetsu-R and activated its mimicry ability and copied her Calamity’s skill, [Calamity Cleave].
Her sword was engulfed with a flaming aura blade in the next instant and she struck out at the incoming monsters with a few sword slashes, sending out multiple flaming sword waves at them which consecutively exploded the moment they struck the frontmost monster and the monsters behind it.
She had increased the skill’s output by fueling it with her aura, so the explosions were quite big. It caused all of the charging monsters to be thrown back, completely stopping the entire monster rush.
Maria then holstered her sword behind her back before taking out her staff and grimoire before telling the rest of her party, “Get into formation, everyone. Let’s start hunting~”