Backup was quickly dispatched over to Lizzy's side, but Maria, who was on another planet, was proceeding with the Main Scenario Quest of her own planet, although she wasn't aware of it.
Maria was currently out on the field and leveling up with Alexa, Amara, and Lilah. Due to the event where Alexa killed Baron Russo, she had absorbed the vampire's powers and integrated it with her own.
She had received some levels and was now able to party together with Maria to hunt some of the monsters around Heltania City.
Her faction's territory was being overrun by monsters due to it not being managed by a vampire noble and was neglected for so long. The system had long since issued her a daily faction quest which required her to repeatedly clear out the monsters in her territory.
Also, because she had fully established her city, citizens, or rather refugees from other territories began trickling into her city. Some only passed by while others decided to remain as permanent residents of her territory.
However, there was a limit and the limit was caused the status of her city's security, sanitary, and development stat, which she of course learned after the fact they began suddenly appearing in her city.
The citizens that appeared weren't only limited to those of the vampire race, but some other mystical species such as werewolves, demi-bats, succubi, incubi, and others. However, most of them were still of the vampire race. These other races only appeared on the minor side.
When Maria learned a bit more about the planet, it turns out that there were 3 continents on the planet and each continent was dominated by a singular species. The continent she was on was known as the Blood Continent and it was dominated by vampires.
The other two continents which she didn't bother learning the names of were dominated by the werewolves and succubi. There were some other minor races living on each continent but these 3 major races were the ones that dominated the planet.
She also learned that the werewolves' continent was actually somewhat close to the Blood continent because in the past, the two continents used to be connected while the 3rd continent, the continent dominated by the succubi and their sub-species, was apparently 'lost' as there are no longer any records of its location and the only reason why people know that there's a 3rd continent at all was because the long-living succubi recounted tales of their lost homeland.
Some say that the entire continent had been swallowed by the oceans and sank into its depths while others say it was because of the battle between the gods that took place on the planet in the long distant past which caused the vampire and werewolf continents to be separated into two while the succubi continent had been completely destroyed.
It was a little unfortunate because Maria wanted to go see the continent–or the world, basically–but with so much on her plate right now, she had to push those ideas back for now though the prospect of going on an adventure to find a lost continent was extremely appealing to her. Once things settled down for her, she definitely wanted to go see the werewolf continent first and take a look at what it's like over there though that's something she wanted to do only after she has thoroughly explored the Blood continent.
Maria regretted not being able to completely explore the first planet, Eur. There were a lot of interesting things on that planet but since she became the planet's public enemy, it was impossible for her to go back there and explore it.
The starting planet had the most diverse races on it since there were humans, demons, dragons, angels, devils, and others, which was a given since all of the players had to start somewhere, so with that in mind, Maria believed that there were definitely plenty of interesting things to do on that planet. However, other players still on that planet would think otherwise.
They wanted to explore the universe of the game, which meant that they wanted to get off of the starting planet and go explore other planets as that was something the game company had advertised during the pre-launch campaign of the game. Unfortunately, the players had to wait since it's only after they have completed the starting planet's main scenario, explored at least 2 of the 3 continents on the planet, are they able to hop onto another planet.
The only exception would be the main reward of the first main scenario quest which would grant the guild that cleared the questline the item to create a teleportation gate to another planet. This was a reward for the first guild that completed the first main scenario quest and it would be an incentive for the other guilds to complete the succeeding main scenario quests that followed after.
The players didn't know yet the full rewards and advantages they would gain once they travelled onto another planet, built their strength over there, and started monopolizing all of the rewards, quests, and resources on the planet.
Each planet in Unitale was classified under two categories which are the minor planets and major planets. The reward for the first main scenario quest would be a minor planet, but the potential advantages the guild that possessed this planet could get would later be used on the next major planet that the final main scenario quest of the starting planet would lead the players to after its completion.
The minor planets' resources would be used as chess pieces for the fierce battles of power that the player guilds and organization would wage against each other on the major planets since these planets would have the best resources in the game and it was basically the aim for a guild or organization to dominate at least one major planet.
This information would soon be publicized on an online streaming session that Universal Games would hold in order to disclose more information about the game.
For now, no one knew the preciousness behind the first main scenario's quest rewards which was no one bothered to actually progress far into it. The only exception would be the Fallen Angels guild which wanted the transfer gate so that they could move over to Maria's planet.
Unfortunately for them, the planet given would be a minor planet and not a major one. The planet Maria was currently on was the third major planet of the game. Maria herself didn't know this but for now, she was monopolizing the resources of one of the game's major planets all to herself.
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Once the other players got to her planet, much time would have passed by that her faction would probably indomitable on that planet. Of course, that all remained to be in question because if Maria didn't take advantage of her lead against all of the other players currently playing the game, she would have to face the assault and aggression of those who would want to take over or destroy her faction.
Once again, she was still wanted by the gods of both the light and dark faction. Once the players reached her planet, a bounty would undoubtedly be put on her head and she would be the target of many players who would want to get a quick and 'easy' windfall.
This would still be far into the future so Maria still didn't need to worry so much about it, however, it would do her good if she hastened her progress in all of her quests which would eventually lead her to the planet's first main scenario quest.
Maria was already steadily leveling herself up, but it couldn't compare with the other players in the game. Her current level was 59, almost 60, after all that time she spent grinding in her territory, but the level rankings showed that the top 100 players' levels were already in the 80s.
The level ranking was released by Universe Games after the main scenario quest was finally discovered. There were also other rankings such as pet rankings, weapon rankings, armor rankings, and other stuff, but most of it were empty or had inconsequential gear on it.
It was obvious that no sane player would disclose the information about their prized equipment to the whole world so the weapons, armor, and other such rankings were only filled with sub-par equipment with high levels.
Soon enough however, those rankings would be filled with high quality player made weapons. The blacksmiths and other production classes of the game would soon see the advertising potential of the weapon and armor rankings later on.
It was mostly for the clout and fame, but later once the guilds were firmly established and recruitment became strict, production class players would be able to use these rankings as a way to advertise themselves to the guilds and organizations.
******
Maria and her group had just finished a long grinding session at a field suited for helping Alexa to level up, but they had to quickly do an urgent faction quest just after getting back.
"Ali, quickly take care of that! I'll go lure in the others! Amara, with me!"
"Yes, big sis!"
"Yes, Your Highness."
Alexa and Amara replied together.
A large pack of monsters had suddenly appeared and attacked the grain fields just outside of their city and since Maria still hadn't finished recruiting any NPCs for her army so she had no choice but to personally deal with these monster attacks.
After receiving her orders, Alexa rushed forward with a large black greatsword and she immediately began swinging it at the jackal shaped monster that was currently plundering the grain field.
She focused her assault on only one monster which was debuffed by Lilah while Amara and Maria who were higher in level went to deal with the other monsters attacking the grain field.
They wouldn't kill the monsters however, but only injure them to the point where the monsters' HP bars were low before letting Alexa deal the finishing blow to all of them so she could get the maximum amount of experience points as possible.
Alexa's level had risen to 25 once she absorbed the baron's power and after a few grinding sessions she had risen to level 42, but it still wasn't enough to satisfy Maria.
Maria wanted Alexa's level to be at 50 or more so that she wouldn't face the experience penalty from being in a party with her. The penalty still applied even now, but they made up with that by letting Alexa take all of the last hits.
However, once Alexa's level was within a 10 level range with hers, Maria would no longer have to do this and she'd be able to clear away all of the monsters herself without worrying about the penalty.
The levels of the jackals were only ranged around the mid-50s so Alexa would still get a lot of experience from killing them and her attacks would still be able to damage them because their levels were too far apart.
Also, her weapons and equipment made up for the lack of stats needed to damage the monsters. Thanks to Maria's favor and influence, she was able to request a suit of armor and a strong weapon for her favorite little vampire sister.
Once they finally cleared all of the monsters, Maria was able to get the quest rewards from the system.
Thankfully for her, even the NPCs in her group that participated in the quest all gained the experience points rewards rewarded by the system.
"Alright, that's enough for today. Let's head back," Maria said as she looked around the now ruined grain field.
"...Ash is going to be quite upset..."
"Well, Your Highness...it seems that your attacks was the major cause of the field's damage," Amara said with a giggle.
"I'll just leave it to him to deal with! Besides, if he had hastened the recruitment, we would already be able to deploy guards by now and this wouldn't have happened!" Maria argued in her defense.
Her attacks were quite powerful and her skills and magic spells had plenty of destructive areas of effects so instead of the jackals that dealt more damage to the fields, Maria's skills were the major cause of the destruction though she hadn't intended for it to happen.
Well, who could blame her? The jackals were all in the level 50 range and she had to use her skills to deal with them.
"Big sister, I've leveled up!" Alexa excitedly said.
She ran over to Maria and lowered her head. Maria already knew what she wanted. This cute little vampire wanted to be praised for her efforts and Maria naturally reciprocated it. She patted Alexa's head which earned her a very cute and satisfied smile from her little vampire sister.
"Alright, let's head back. I want to see whether Ash has finished with the recruitment or not!"
"Yes, Your Highness, but what will we do with all these monster corpses?" Amara asked.
"Lilah already went back and asked for a cleanup team to handle it. We can't let these monster corpses go to waste. It can be used for food or materials for our vampire dwarves to create equipment out of!" Maria replied.
"Hmmm... then the monster corpses we left behind earlier would have gone to waste then?"
"Ah, don't worry. We took the most precious materials from it so although we might have wasted a majority of it, we didn't lose out too much since we were able to raise our levels by killing them."
"Okay, but Your Highness, maybe next time we should have a small cleanup team follow us during our hunting sessions so that we won't waste anymore monster materials and we won't have to waste time collecting the materials ourselves," Amara suggested.
"Yeah, maybe we should do that!"
Maria only said perfunctorily. Thanks to the system with just a tap of her hand she could automatically collect all of the available materials from the monsters so she wouldn't need a cleanup team.
However, she didn't want to rebut Amara's thoughtful suggestion since it was made with her well-being and interest in mind. Of course, Maria didn't know yet that manual collection would yield more dropped items, but this didn't matter to her since from before she would just skip out on collecting any items from mob monsters.
When Maria finally made it back to her castle, she was happy to see that a retinue of lightly armed soldiers waiting for her at attention right when she passed through the castle's giant archway and into the castle's courtyard.
"WELCOME BACK, YOUR HIGHNESS!"
"!"
Maria was thrown off by the loud salute and welcome. Ash slowly stepped forward and walked over to Maria and asked, "How is it? Do you like your personal army?"
"Wow! Cool!"
Seeing the amazed and intrigued look on her face, Ash felt proud of himself. However, her next words immediately caused his pale face to pale even further.
"Let's test out how strong they are!" Maria smilingly said as she pulled out her Calamity and began walking over to the soldiers who were now dumbstruck at her words.
"Hehehe~"