“Adventurer, can you help me gather Penicillium Mushrooms. I need ten of them for my grandma. Thank you.” I smiled at the young adventurer. He was around fifteen years old and I had to say that he looked quite naïve. Grandma? He didn’t even see my grandma yet he believed me. What would he be called if not naïve?

He was not the only one though. Today, he was probably the twentieth that I asked to gather Penicillium Mushrooms for my ‘grandma’. Logically speaking, I had two hundred mushrooms already. Would my ‘grandma’ need a lot of mushrooms? If I were them, I probably thought that my ‘grandma’ was such a glutton for eating so much mushroom!

Cough, anyway, having foolish adventurers did everything was a nice thing, huh? I only needed several coppers for ten Penicillium Mushrooms. Well, it was higher than if they sold the mushrooms at the NPC store, but only one copper higher. In exchange, however, I could create a lot of EXP Potion! Yes, EXP Potion!

Penicillium Mushroom was one of three ingredients for making EXP Potion. The other two were Agaricus Mushroom and Lucidom Mushroom. Yep, all from mushroom family. And I trusted the two subordinates of mine to gather those two mushrooms.

EXP Potion, or previously named as power-enhancing Potion, was to increase the level in the new system. Yes, a new system. Previously, if you wanted to get stronger, you had to train your body by doing physical training. Or if you were a Mage, you had to understand the basic rules of this Realm and trained to manipulate your Mana to manipulate the basic rules of this Realm. Now, however, you could get stronger by leveling up. And to level up, you only needed to get the experience that you could obtain by killing other living beings (plants and vegetations were included!) or by completing quests given by the NPC, or should I say, the original denizens of this world. Another method to get experience was by consuming EXP-increasing potions like what I was going to make right now.

I should explain from the beginning?

Alright, alright. Let’s start from the beginning. Actually, three days ago, after the introduction that mentioned that I was a Demon Lord, the last boss of this world, there was a tutorial for us, the NPC. It was said that ‘Players’ from another world would come to help this world to defeat the last Demon Lord that had revived for some reasons.

In the tutorial, we learned how to give EXP to each adventurer and the rules of giving EXP. We couldn’t give them a million EXP just for gathering mushrooms, right? So, there were rules about giving EXP and other rewards for quests.

Besides that, there were other rules but basically, the NPCs were supposed to support the adventurers, the Players, in their adventure. And speaking of NPCs, we were actually NPCs too, since we were the original denizens of this world. So, naturally, we could give quests and do what NPCs could do.

After knowing this basic information, we went out of the forest, and now, we were in the closest village from the forest, called the Newbie Village. Yep, it was definitely not called this in the past, but now, it was called Newbie Village. So, we gave them quests according to their level…

Right, level. Like I said before, to get stronger, we only needed to level up, unlike previously where we had to train hard. Even NPCs could level up by killing monsters. This system was fair for both Players and NPCs. The difference, perhaps that Players would be revived whenever they died, with the cost of their EXP while NPCs would die permanently. After all, it was a game for them.

Yes, a game. Besides the level up system, there was a stats system too. Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Vitality, Intelligence, and Will was the basic stats in this new system. Even NPCs had this kind of system too. Alright, let’s look at my stats now.

Name Fanarie D. Darriskha Age 13 (?) Race Human (?) Class Novice Witch Level 1 STR 5 AGI 6 DEX 8 INT 8 VIT 6 WIL 7 Innate Talent Charisma

I didn’t know why my age and race had question marks… well, actually I knew. My age couldn’t be determined as even I didn’t know how old I was. As for my race… I wasn’t sure that I was human. So, they only mentioned that I was thirteen years old human based on my appearances. As for Class, right now, I was a Novice Witch, but when I reached level 20, I could change to another Class. I wondered why my Class was not a Demon Lord but rather, a Witch…

Moving on. My stats were definitely on the lower side. Even my Intelligence, the main point for a Witch, was only eight-point… no wonder I couldn’t use higher-tiered Spell. Based on my understanding, the average stats for human was ten points. So, all my stats were definitely below average, which made me want to cry.

That was the reason why I wanted to create a lot of EXP Potion because, with my pitiful stats, it would be impossible for me to kill even the weakest monster in this world. Even the Players whose stats were higher than me could be killed by monsters if they were reckless. Since I didn’t want to die, I wouldn’t try killing monsters.

Innate talent? Even I didn’t know what it was. Perhaps the system praised me because I was beautiful and gorgeous? Charisma was not because of physical appearances? Well, I never saw an ugly person as a charismatic person though...

Cough, anyway, that was how this new system was. After gaining an understanding of this new system, Brian, Briana, and I planned on strengthening ourselves first. Speaking of which, the world was unfair. Even though the two of them lost their power too, their basic stats were higher than the Players, with the average of their stats were around fifteen points. Hmph, naturally, I would use them as my meat shield!

“Were you thinking something rude?” Briana asked while looking at me suspiciously. I coughed to clear my throat and tried to keep my face expressionless when I heard her asking me that question. It was better for me not to respond to something like that.

“Oh, my subordinates, you have come! How many mushrooms did you get?” I shifted the topic as soon as I saw them coming to me. Briana was glaring at me while Brian was smiling awkwardly as if he caught me thinking something rude about them yet he didn’t want to expose me.

“Who is your subordinate!?” The silly Goddess hit my head and honestly, it was really painful, as her strength was quite high. As expected of a Goddess who was a brute as well. For unknown reasons, she hit me once again on the head… did all the Gods and the Goddesses had the ability to read my inner thoughts?

“Idiot, your face tells us everything you think! Anyway, here’s your mushrooms, we got twenty of each mushroom.” Briana said proudly.

“Only twenty?” I asked in disappointment. I meant, the two of them went to gather the mushrooms by themselves for almost a day, yet their yield was only a tenth of my yield. It was really disappointing, yet she dared to show a proud face like that? She was truly shameless.

Learning from my experience, before the brute Goddess hit me again, I stepped back and dodged her iron fist. Although I tried my best, it seemed it was quite difficult to keep a poker face. Did my expression really change so much that even the silly Goddess notice my inner thought just by reading my expression?

“Don’t you dare run away! Tell me, how many mushrooms do you get!? I don’t believe you can get more than us!” The silly Goddess dug her own pitfall. I really pitied her, so I shook my head helplessly and pointed at the mushrooms that I had gathered.

“…”

“…impossible. That… that’s more than a hundred. Where do you rob them?” The silly Goddess seemed like she couldn’t accept the fact that I gathered a lot of mushrooms, huh? As for her twin, he kept silent ever since the beginning.

“…do you think mushrooms are money that you can rob from a bank? I have my own method to gather them. Now, please don’t disturb me as I’m going to make EXP Potion. Oh, if you have free time to loiter about in front of my door, I suggest you to gather more mushrooms again as we need as much as we can gather.” After saying it, I closed the door, ignoring what that silly Goddess said after hearing what I said. Also, I didn’t slam the door, alright? I just closed it casually. If that silly Goddess didn’t try to follow me enter my room, her nose wouldn’t be hit by the door when I closed it earlier!

Cough, anyway, since the disturbance had been dealt with, I could focus on concocting EXP Potion. Even though I didn’t have the Skill to create EXP Potion, but it seemed I didn’t need to put my Skill Points to learn how to concoct EXP Potion as I already knew how to do it. I tried concocting normal red potion earlier, with the materials I could buy in the shop a villager opened and I could make it without even the need to use any Skills.

I wouldn’t describe how to cook the EXP Potion, as it was quite simple. With a simple pot, boiled water, and boiled all the ingredients for fifteen minutes, I would get the EXP Potion. As for how much water needed for how many mushrooms, well, that was a trade secret, naturally. I didn’t want anyone to find this method early, as it would damage my benefits quite a bit.

From this batch of EXP Potion, I made fifteen bottles. It was not that I couldn’t make twenty bottles or more, as a single mushroom for each type could be used for two or three bottles if I was lucky. The reason why I didn’t create more was… well, it was because of the lack of funding. Yep, the lack of funding.

Even though it was just a game world for the ‘Players’ from another world, it was a real-world for me and the other NPCs living here. As it was the real world, how could I pay the ‘Players’ without money? Sure, giving only EXP to them would be enough, but I didn’t want to do just that. I had my reasons.

As for money… you all knew that I was transported out of my lair without my consent abruptly, right? So, I didn’t bring any money (not that I had any though). Luckily, near the lake where we were teleported, I found some familiar herbs that could be sold for some money to the villagers, so I harvested them and that became all my money to pay the adventurers and to buy the necessary materials for making the EXP Potion such as pots, ladle, and the bottles. Also, I rented this house from the villagers, so I almost used all my money for this batch of EXP Potion.

As for the two supposedly Gods, they did absolutely nothing but followed me and even slept in my rented house without paying the rent at all. So, it should be normal for me to call them my subordinates, right?

Now I made fifteen bottles of the EXP Potions, I would give them three bottles each, four bottles for me, and the rest would be sold for the next batch funding. Since I needed around 5-6 copper for each bottle… should I sell each bottle for ten copper coins? No, I was sure that I would be able to sell one bottle for fifteen or even more… ugh, I was really bad at planning business. Well, whatever, I would sell for fifteen each and see how the market reacted!