Sayooshi learned a lot of information from the Divine Mortality Wiki while he was researching on his computer. Most of it was informative and useful for him to keep in mind for the future. However, some of the things he learned about, actually bothered him. He was even frustrated by it a few times. Not because the information itself was annoying but because this new information forced Sayooshi to reconsider the foundations of some concepts that he was already in the process of constructing in the back of his mind since yesterday. And now those concepts seem even more stupider and unrealistic than when he was initially envisioning them. So, Sayooshi forced himself to drop those concepts and restart with an even cleaner canvas. At the very least, the new information he learned which frustrated him did not contradict the doodle drawings and mind reviews he was constructing earlier, when he was using his ingame Netnote tool.

And while Sayooshi did not immediately perceive it this way, later on in time, he would eventually realize that despite the “problems” he ran into during the early stages of his nation building process, those problems were actually beneficial to experience and overcome.

Before stepping away from his computer, Sayooshi examined some of the key notes he took during the past hour:

A Player Government is a social institution built within the Overworld which embodies a community founded by Players. The institution is interactable by both AI and Player characters. It can influence or be influenced by the people, creatures, economies, guilds, organizations, events, geography, resources, religions, other factions, and various other miscellaneous mechanisms from the Overworld. For a Player Government to be founded, it requires one of these before establishment and recognition: Full control of at least one settlement and multiple zones surrounding it, a single or multiple guild(s) or organization(s) with a total of at least 500 Player individuals, or a volunteer population of 2,000 NPCs. Including a 100,000 gold coin patronage to any deity. Functions of a Player Government include: diplomatic relations, hierarchical positions, administrative assignment, income/expense methods and procedures, legal ownership of territory and potential objects and items, NPC management, resource extraction ability and authority, settlement management, dungeon and other enemy mob responsibilities, law creations or destructions and modifications, expansion and conflict responsibilities, economic obligations or procedures, demographic conditions, and various other determinations and actions available within the government/society/state. (Safe to say there are many options to consider, but simply templates do exist for a risk-free choice in stylizing a Player-Government)

Sayooshi was satisfied with the amount of new information he learned about today from the internet. So, he stopped using his PC and went back to playing Divine Mortality by putting on his VR headset again while grabbing his keyboard and VR controllers with him while he reclined on his bed.

The first thing he saw ingame was that his Netnote tab was still open. The white background rectangular box was also still full of his mini sketches and doodled notes he took down while thinking about the conditions of the other nations in the Overworld.

Now to answer my second question for today, with whose help am I going to create this Player Government with?

Obviously, I should involve myself with other people who are going o share the same aspirations as I do…but, at the same time, those types of Players might be the most troublesome to deal with. Since they’ll push their visions over mine. I know that I said that eventually this whole Player Government thing will be diluted from my input because it’ll be a shared community amongst other Players. Yet, I can’t have someone who is equally obsessive like I am to enter this project early on. I at least know that I’m fairly annoying to deal with, so if there was someone else like me then I’d almost certainly get into fights with them over the most pointless things. And-

“Sayoooooshi? Sayooooooshi? Or is it pronounced as Say-o-shee?”

“I’ve been saying “Sah-osh-eye the entire time. No idea.”

“I’ll try that then, Mister Sah-osh-eye?”

“Don’t waste your breath, that idiot has been AFK probably for over an hour by now. Why even bother logging in?”

“Nope, he definitely should be on right now. I noticed him logging in a while ago and then eventually he was set on ‘Away’ status. But I checked again soon after meeting you and his status turned bright green! So, he must be on now.”

“So that’s why you dragged me over here with you right after you spotted me today?”

“Yup! I thought “wow what a coincidence, we’re all playing right now. This is like fate!””

“Mhmm, sure thing Krafty…then again, maybe you are right. I was also afk until just now.”

“See? … Alright then one more attempt. Sayoooosheee? Saaayooooosheee?”

Krafty and RemixHorizon stood directly in front of Sayooshi’s player character. They were the only characters who were still outside in the market square.

Sayooshi initially remained quiet because he was a little too shocked to react to the two people, he met yesterday standing in front of him. Not only did these two still bothered to communicate with him again, but they also physically managed to find him and are now trying to get his attention. For a loser person who used to be annoying as he was, Sayooshi’s heart skipped a beat in amazement and happiness.

Sayooshi shouted excitedly “I’m here!”

“I can’t believe it, you were right Krafty” remarked RemixHorizon in an inconsequential tone

“I believed in you!” arbitrarily cried out Krafty, out of very unnecessary dramatic joy

The began conversing about their day so far. Sayooshi expressed his surprise for both RemixHorizon and Krafty coming out of their way to meet them, he asked them why. Krafty replied “obviously because I promised to help you with that Player Government thing of yours” and RemixHorizon said that they were dragged into it but might as well hang around them for a while since they’ve got “nothing better to do”.

The three walked away from the emptied midnight market square and moved towards the center of Kurajur, which was slightly more active and a brighter part in the city at this hour. The Trades Quarter, where they were at, is shaped like a curved rectangular vertical strip of neighborhoods and markets situated outside and around the main parts of Kurajur. So, in order for them to reach the center, they first needed to walk down several outdoor stone stairways and then back up (over a valley) to the bottom side of one of the three mountains which define Kurajur. Then they entered an alley before finally arriving to a special type of store, one that generally serves richer NPC customers. A café.

Krafty was the one who led them here. Because yesterday, after Sayooshi and RemixHorizon logged out, Krafty had met his friend May who was “slightly disappointed and very aware” of Krafty’s “lack of discipline” in owning up to his side of the bargain. Since it was almost a week ago since Krafty lost a bet to May, and the winner (May) got to choose the losing conditions for the loser. Which forced Krafty to act like a roleplaying maniac at any given moment whenever May told him to. Yesterday, he finally stopped doing it even though he was supposed to because it was clearly bothering RemixHorizon and Sayooshi, but also because Krafty wanted to learn more about Sayooshi’s plans for a Player Government. Luckily for Krafty, May forgave his “digression” and basically ended the effects of the losing conditions because it was already almost a week since Krafty lost and so almost enough time had passed for Krafty’s torture to finally end.

Thanks to Krafty’s yesterday meeting with May who met him personally, she introduced to him this fancy medium sized café near the center of Kurajur. The interior design style of the AI-run café was not cozy, unlike the general atmosphere throughout all of Kurajur because of the ‘cold’ winter night outside right now. Instead, it was a fancy room decorated with plants that have been kept fresh by magic and a light green wallpaper with fancy white patterned trimmings on the corners.

“My friend May isn’t a very girly person, trust me. But I guess even she sometimes has feminine tastes.”

“I like it. It’s fancy but not too extravagant. Reminds me of a manor house I was at once in Graypine.” Sayooshi said

“It’s alright, but too bright. I think I stick out like a sore thumb with my ninja-like clothing” replied RemixHorizon

The three aimlessly wandered around the whole room, checking it out corner to corner. Very usual behavior for any Player in a video game. But RemixHorizon thought about this motion for a moment and thought how weird it must be for someone to do something like this in real life. Maybe even the NPCs find us weird?

An audible voice was heard, “WELCOME! Divine Spirits! Please please, right this way.”

A Luminian gentleman appeared from the second-floor stairwell behind the counter. On his shoulder sat a small round-faced puppy dog. And the rest of his body was covered in almost all fur product fabric. Despite the lack of variation of colors in his clothing, ranging from light brown to dark brown, he also wore multiple types of colorful jewelry on his fingers, neck, hands, and even on his ears.

An option appeared for the screens of Sayooshi, RemixHorizon, and Kraftyy

[Would you like to begin a conversation?]

They all selected [Yes]

They had met the owner of the café. He was a Luminian nobleman from the Free Counties who had established a fairly renowned café shop here in Sonder. He explained what the café was, turns out it isn’t an actual coffee shop. While the coffee item does exist in Divine Mortality, it’s largely reserved to only the very southern portions of the Overworld. This was instead a shop that operated like a café, but without the coffee. “Good enough for me” said RemixHorizon, which Krafty agreed with. And while all three of them could freely voice chat or text chat with one another, they all could simultaneously go through the dialogue options with the Luminian nobleman. All of them happened to all ask [Why is a nobleman operating a café by himself] and he replied with affirming them that he isn’t operating it alone and that he opened it up for a change of pace in his life. If they were in a middle of a dungeon or doing some sort of quest and/or activity (especially activities which requires Players to operate in groupings) then they would need to all take turns (or forfeit speaking) with one another when in a dialogue conversation with one or more AI.

After they each finished their conversations with the Luminian nobleman, he went to the back of the counter and started preparing a tea-like drink infused with last summer’s herbs and magical powder from certain crystalized stones from the mountains up north. Whether or not any of them would ever drink mashed up crystal sediments in a powder-like substance in real life didn’t matter since it was a virtual dinner party basically.

RemixHorizon dared not reveal their ‘weak sides’ to potential enemies, but they really wanted to express how much they liked the cute puppy on the nobleman’s shoulders and the over aesthetic of the shop. Krafty also enjoyed the atmosphere and the appearance of the shop. While it was Sayooshi who spent most of the time talking while Krafty paid attention and RemixHorizon half listened to Sayooshi while also looking out the window down the alleyway which had an occasional passerby. RemixHorizon also stayed around, even though constantly telling themselves that they weren’t invested in a weirdo’s obsession over Player Governments, even the phrase started to sicken her.

But there was also a specific reason to why RemixHorizon was fine waiting around a little while longer. Before Sayooshi and Krafty got into deeper levels of discussion, Sayooshi mentioned a random quest he received by a Dwarf NPC called Rori Fletcher whose shop was supposedly unfairly closing down due to the authorities in Kurajur suspecting him as a traitor. That quest caught the attention of both RemixHorizon and Krafty since it was something new and unique for them to experience.

Unlike most other MMORPGs, Divine Mortality has almost too many “unique” quests. Yet, many of them actually follow a series of autogenerated events based on available data from inside the Overworld which determines whether a quest will sometimes go into ‘production’ or not. And then if those quests are accepted for ‘production’ and are finished with it, then they will become available for ‘release’. Once that happens, they’ll then attach themselves to the best-suited template for ‘final packaging’ and then the eventual ‘release’ of the quest into the Overworld. Templates are the actual quests which are manually crafted by the developers, but they leave in blank spaces for the autogenerated data to fill in for the templates, as templates are designed specifically to provide certain requirements before ‘release’. These aren’t the only types of quests, but they are a majority type. Eventually those quests seemingly spawn at random or at in fitting scenarios in the Overworld during real-time or after server maintenance finishes, depending on how large the quest is.

Anyways, this quest was given by Rori Fletcher to Sayooshi. But it could easily be shared with other Players who are part of a same Party or Group, which all three of them decided to become a part of right at that moment.

For the rest of their time at the café, Sayooshi told Krafty and Remix about his thoughts in the past couple hours. Describing the similarities and differences of the AI nations and Player Governments, which AI nations were to be wary of, what kind of government types their nation shouldn’t be. But while RemixHorizon didn’t pay too much attention to Sayooshi’s ‘concepts’, Krafty did. And he instantly found the problem which Sayooshi kept maneuvering around the whole time, trying to answer but not ever finding a satisfying way to describe it.

“So, Sayooshi, did you ever find out what kind of country you want to create?”

“Yeah, definitely. Of course, I did. Not like an absolute monarchy because that would be ridiculous or attempt to replicate a real-world government because that would be too difficult. Also, find another direction at how a Player Government should operate, different from the Republic of Adentu-“

“Oh, jeez Sayooshi, I don’t think you’ve answered me question…”

“What do you mean?”

“I agree with you that we shouldn’t do anything too difficult or radial, like using glitches to gimmick our way for a new country…yet I’m sorry but I still don’t think you’ve figured out what kind of country you want to create.”

“I’m pretty sure I did. This has literally been on my mind the whole day since I logged in. I still haven’t explored the second main question for today, but the first one is literally just “what kind of country I want to create” and it’s something that could work inside of Divine Mortality but not something like the Republic of Adventurers.”

“You’re right I guess; I don’t really know myself. This isn’t my expertise. I’ve got a few friends who are experts, but you wouldn’t like them. They are real roleplayers.”

“Actually, I’m willing to handle roleplayers but…I think it would be more fun to rely on ourselves.” I want to save myself the hassle of dealing with another person like myself

“Oh cool, that’s a pretty answer! Well anyways, Sayooshi. It sounds to me you’ve only been focusing on what this future country shouldn’t be, but what about how it should be?”

…

Damnit he’s right. I’ve been thinking that I made progress today. And I really did. I learned a lot from seriously staring through all those Divine Mortality wiki pages. Yet, I am still missing the literal first step in this whole nation building project. This shouldn’t be so hard…but it is!

“How it should be” huh…

…

“Krafty, thank you so much for catching my imperfection. If it weren’t for you, I might’ve wasted a whole week thinking about useless things. I believe my problem has been about me trying to differentiate real-world politics and those of the Overworld’s. I’m surprised that I’m having so much difficulty with that, but it seems to be true…”

“Aww! I didn’t really do that much hehe. After all, countries aren’t something you could just instantly make up in your mind, right?”

…

“KRAFTY!”

“w-wh-WHAT?”

“I THINK I LOVE YOU!”

“Li-lik-like this? N-n-no, I-I mean…SORRY SAYOOSHI BUT I’M NOT-“

“I FIGURED IT OUT!”

“OH. Um. What did you figure you?!”

“We need to make up an actual country!”

Why did I even bother trying to imagine how my Player Government should be like, if there isn’t any place for it to exist in the first place? That’s why it’s been so difficult for me the past couple hours. I already knew it…but I underestimated it.

The first step is obvious…. it’s the SECOND step! More people!

The real eyes of RemixHorizon sat lowered down in weariness, half closed and lazy. Their ingame character had their chin resting on the palm of her hand curiously looking outside the window she was sitting next to. They slowly turned their head away from observing the picturesque snowy cobble alleyway under a midnight’s winter sky, and instead began to glance in uncomfortable amazement at the two weirdos sitting next to her freaking out about two separate things.

“Duh… of course you need to make a country. What did you think the point of the last few chapters were even about?”

RemixedHorizon sighed…