While Beowulf and his confidants were having a discussion about their difficult situation, Maria, on the other hand, was having a small celebration with her friends and subordinates after they had built the perimeter around the Lycan castle.

Now, all of their enemies who hadn’t yet surrendered or been captured were inside the castle.

They had effectively won the war now, so the small celebration they were having was completely warranted. Not to mention, all of her friends and allies were happily talking about the viral video that was going around the internet of her one versus one battle with the boss monster, the Lycan King.

Maria had many solo raids against boss monsters before and she showed them within her streams, but never had she gone toe-to-toe with a boss monster at the level of the Lycan King all on her own before. Usually, she would have her familiars, pets, and champions help her out, but this fight was just her against Beowulf.

Beowulf was a Boss monster that was on the level of a world boss. World Bosses are generally NPCs or monsters that have a large importance in the world’s story that they are set in.

So important that their stats and levels were extremely high with around 6 to 7 HP bars to further boost their survivability. It was no easy feat to defeat a world boss and it would generally take a couple of raid teams consisting of 50 to 60 players on each team to defeat such a boss.

In past raids on World Bosses, it was usually around 5 to 8 teams, so around 250 to 400 players–depending on the difficulty rating.

All these players needed to possess high-end gear as well and be within 5 to 10 levels of the world boss, so the level penalty wouldn’t kick in to diminish the damage and skill effects of the players participating in the world boss raid.

Maria did the impossible and squared off with a World Boss all on her own, lived to tell the tale, and even pushed the boss until it was forced to retreat.

In her own right, Maria could now actually be categorized as a boss monster. Many players that watched the video of her battle against Beowulf or just clips of it believed that she was at the level of a World Boss despite only being a player.

This wasn’t too farfetched because, in the war, Maria could easily face off against hundreds of players and defeat them. Not only that, but she even survived an ambush where she was attacked by numerous high-ranking players.

The only thing that didn’t put her on the level of a World Boss was the immunity to various debuffs that most boss monsters had and, most importantly, the amount of HP she possessed.

Despite her character being overpowered, her HP was on the low side– the extremely low side–even when compared to support class players.

That was because, when compared to normal players, her level was pretty low for someone in the pioneering group–the group that was always at the forefront for any new main story content.

HP is influenced by a player’s VIT stat and their level. Since Maria’s level was about 100 or 150 levels below the average levels of the pioneering group’s player base, she had a much lower HP pool despite her VIT stat outclassing many of the players within this group.

It was extremely hard for her to gain levels, so it wasn’t possible to fix her HP problem any time soon. Luckily, one of her 7 Deadly Sins skills could help her double the amount of HP she had if she leveled it up.

[Sin of Gluttony - Stockpile Lv. 1 (864/2500)

Stores 10% of any excess player resources such as HP, MP, SP, etc. into a sub-realm that can be accessed by the player at any time.

Permanent Passive skill. Cannot be dispelled or negated.]

Each level up would raise the storage amount of her excess resources by 10%, so at level 10–which was the max level–Maria could store 100% of her excess resources in her Gluttony skill.

If it wasn’t for this skill, Maria’s HP wouldn’t have been able to break past the 1 million points milestone that many players had long since surpassed.

Unfortunately for Maria, the skill was extremely hard to level up. Despite owning the skill for quite some time now, it was still at level one and she had not even gained half of the required proficiency points needed to level up the skill to level 2.

Maria wasn’t dismayed, however. It was cool and all to be regarded as a player that was on the same level as a World Boss, but Maria never really cared for labels given to her by the players.

It only gave her fame among the player base, but it didn’t give her character any beneficial stat increases. If it did, then maybe Maria would’ve cared.

Contrary to her lack of care towards the new label the rest of the players playing the game had given to her, Maria’s friends were extremely excited.

“Hey Mary, did you see the forums? It’s completely blown up after the video of you soloing World Boss Beowulf all on your own and forcing him to retreat! Everyone’s calling you a World Boss player now!” Lizzy exclaimed with excitement.

Amanda hummed while she was scrolling through the game’s forum and commented, “Incredible. Literally, the entire first page of the forum only has threads about you, Mary. Your fame is increasing even more so than when you participated in the IGC!”

“...Mary’s practically a celebrity now, huh? I’m friends with a famous person. Cool,” Emily commented with a teasing smirk on her face.

Maria just sighed and said, “Stop teasing me. You guys know that I don’t care about that.”

Gerald tapped his little sister’s head and began ruffling her hair before saying with a chuckle, “You may not care, little sis, but I’m sure father and brother do. You should know that our company’s stocks have been increasing after people found out that you were a Heltania.”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Ugh…”

“Unitale’s economy has become intricately tied to the real world’s economy. The game’s gold currency has practically taken over the cryptocurrency market and, although it’s not the highest in value because Universal Games kept its value fixed despite how much more precious it is compared to other currencies, it’s the most traded within the past year. Real world cash is constantly flowing in and out of the game because businessmen want to invest in it and players are always ready to trade the currency into real world money.”

“And because of that, our family’s company is receiving a lot of attention because of me, right?” Maria spoke up and said as she pushed away her brother who was ruffling her hair.

Gerald nodded and replied, “Yup! Since you’re the young lady of the Heltania family who's a big shot in Unitale–you’re the Empress of a superpower nation for crying out loud–people naturally want to invest in our company in hopes of making a connection with you and dipping their hands within the Dire's vast and still expanding economy.”

“And let’s not forget that she’s also the richest player in the game,” Lizzy added.

“Yup, there’s also that. If you did something with all of that gold you have in your coffers, you could practically change the whole landscape of Unitale’s economic world within an instant.”

"With a snap of your fingers, BAM, you could make the market plummet or raise it to newer heights."

Maria scratched her head and replied, "The two of you are exaggerating. Surely, I can't do that, right?"

"Trust me, honey. You can definitely do that."

"Little sis, you don't know just how much influence you actually possess. It's nigh time that you became aware of that!"

Maria just shrugged at her brother and friend's words and said nonchalantly, “Hm, I never knew I had that much influence.”

“...”

“Oi…”

“Anyway, stop with the celebration and all this real world talk. We’ve got more important things to settle, IN GAME,” Maria said as she gave Ash, who was waiting nearby, a glance.

The vampire quickly stepped forward and said, “My Empress, our forces have completed the encirclement. No one will be able to go in or out of the perimeter surrounding the castle.”

“Good.”

“The werewolves that were inside of the castle have also made it out safely after they bombed the castle’s weapons cache. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to destroy the warehouse that had all of the castle’s food supply.”

“That’s alright. They’ve completed their end of the bargain by destroying one of the warehouses. With their weapons mostly destroyed, it’ll be easier for us to siege the castle,” Maria nodded and said after hearing Ash’s report.

“Then, as per our agreement with them, we’ll take all of their non-combat personnel into our ranks and have a division escort them safely back to our settlements before transporting them to Dreyra.”

“Yes, you may proceed with it,” Maria nodded. “Once we’ve dealt with the last of the Lycan resistance, we can’t have the werewolves stick around them. It’s no doubt that the Lycans probably hate the werewolves even more so now than before, especially after they had essentially betrayed them.”

“Hmph, it’s their own race’s fault for discriminating against their own kind. Lycans and werewolves, what’s the difference between them anyway?” Ash said with a slight hint of disdain in his voice. “They both are descended from the Wolf God and although one side can animorph willingly and the other side can’t, this difference is completely negligible and shouldn’t warrant such discrimination.”

Maria chuckled and said, “That’s just how people are. Even the smallest of differences can lead to conflict and discrimination. The Lycans supposedly have purer bloodlines than the werewolves, but when you cut them open, they still both bleed red. Hehe.”

“Hmph, and they both have blood that tastes awful. Anyway, I’ll send Your Majesty’s orders to Lucille. Her mission is finished and she should go back now. That girl doesn’t need to see the moment when we take down her Kingdom and kill her father.”

“Depending on how things go, we might now even need to kill Beowulf. Although we’ve had our conflicts, I’d rather keep a capable person like him around than kill him. He’s the de facto leader of the Lycans and if he surrenders to me, the rest of them will follow suit.”

Ash didn’t like hearing that, but he had to agree with Maria because her words did make sense. “Yes, Your Majesty. If he does surrender, then there will be no further bloodshed. Though personally, I rather like the thought of chopping off his dog head and mounting it on a wall inside of our palace.”

Maria gave her subordinate a look before replying, “Ash, you have the most peculiar of tastes. I swear.”

“As long as My Empress finds it entertaining~”

“Heh, I don’t hate it though. Having a trophy of my exploits certainly is rather amusing now that I think about it. I think I’ll start collecting trophies for my notable exploits and display them somewhere in the castle for people to see.”

“That is a very good idea, Your Majesty.”

Ash chuckled one last time before dismissing himself and leaving the tent to attend to his other duties. Maria’s brother and friends who were present were listening to their conversation and at the end of it, they all had bewildered expressions on their faces.

At first, the conversation started like a normal battle report but ended on a rather…odd note.

“Mary, when did you become so…peculiar?” Lizzy asked with a strange look on her face.

Maria tilted her head in confusion and asked back, “What do you mean?”

“...Never mind…”

“Okay?”

Gerald was about to tease his sister again for being told that she was peculiar, but thankfully, Emily cut in before him and asked, “Mary, since that werewolf friend of yours has completed her task, are we going to start our siege on the castle now or will we send a messenger to the Lycans and ask them to surrender?”

Maria was immediately intrigued by her friend’s second suggestion and began pondering.

Originally, the siege was supposed to start after the werewolves completed their task and the perimeter around the castle was completed. However, she did say earlier that she would like it if Beowulf just surrendered to her so no more bloodshed would happen and she wouldn’t have to destroy the castle along with all of the Lycans hiding inside of it.

It wasn’t a bad suggestion at all. She had previously said to Ash that Beowulf surrendering to her would just make everything a whole lot easier and Maria liked it if things were easy. This war had gone on long enough. The faster she ended it, the faster she could start doing something else.

Maria needed to give the Lycans the chance to surrender, so sending a messenger to them wasn’t a bad idea.

“Call Ash, tell him that we’re going to send a messenger…and the messenger will be him. If it’s him, it’ll add to the intimidation factor. His presence might increase the chances of them surrendering if we play our cards right.”

“I’ll go and get him, Your Majesty,” Carmilla said before bowing and walking out of the tent to chase after her husband.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Mary? You still remember what he said earlier about wanting Beowulf dead?” Lizzy spoke up and asked.

Maria acknowledged her concern and answered her, “Despite what he said earlier about wanting Beowulf dead, Ash is the best choice to send since his ranking is highest after me. It’ll show that we respect the Lycans to a certain degree despite me not going there personally to ask for their surrender. It’s much better than sending any ordinary soldier because the Lycans may see it as us looking down on them with contempt.”

“Those Lycans do have an unnecessarily high level of pride.”

“Exactly. So sending Ash is good, since we can show them some respect. Also, since Ash is really strong, we won’t need to worry about him dying if he were to be attacked. He can just escape if the negotiations of their surrender go south and they decide that they want to kill him, the messenger, just to spite us.”

Lizzy understood Maria’s logic and agreed with her, “Alright, let’s do it your way. I hope those Lycans do surrender… or else we’re going to have a long siege ahead of us.”

“Yeah… and the longer we take to finish this war, the higher the chances some unknown variable might come up to bite us in the ass while we’re still busy dealing with them. Let’s hope for the best and end this as quickly as possible,” Amanda said, leaving behind some rather foreboding words.