Maxwell

I ran my hand through my hair at Kaga’s tease. I had been exhausted the last few days and with the battle over for the time being, I had slept like a rock through the night. It was strange to think that my mind was just a digital file on some alien ship’s hard drive. The act of sleep had felt rejuvenating all the same.

Thanking the chef after they set a tray of food down in front of me, I dug in without pause. I might be ones and zeros, but my digital stomach was still saying that I was hungry. The chefs’ skills had been going up by the day. The time period might be set to some magical medieval era, but thankfully, the food was a bit better than that. That, and thank god that dark elves weren’t vegetarians. I had no problem with that lifestyle, but personally I loved to eat meat.

While I ate breakfast, I went through the rewards for the battle again.

Congratulations! Your nation: Alflona, has successfully fought off an attack by the Goblin nation: Eblos. Your Military rank has increased by two. Three-month morale bonus awarded. Training soldiers is vastly more effective during this time. Experience Bonus to all players and NPCs in Alflona. Reduced equipment durability loss for one week.

Unlocked World Recognition: News of the Alflona’s victory is beginning to spread throughout the game world, leading to NPCs and other players recognizing their accomplishment and treating them with respect or admiration. Current status: Rumor.

Diplomatic Influence – Newcomer: Other nations might listen to you more seriously if they have heard of your rumor.

Unlocked Skill: Battle Tactics – Able to recognize the flow of battle easier. NPCs are more willing to follow your orders in battle.

Some good gains if you asked me. I wasn’t sure I cared for the World Recognition one, but that just came with the territory. At the very least, I knew I was on Eblos’s radar. Seeing the military buff, it might be good to grow the City-State’s military while it was active. I had plenty of enemies after all.

I noticed Sasha as I was about halfway through my meal and waved her over as I dismissed the screens again. The guild leader smiled before she joined me. “Good morning. I wanted to thank you again for all the hard work you’ve put in the last few weeks. You and your guild.”

“I’m not sure that’s appropriate. We are getting paid after all.”

I chuckled. “You can do something for a paycheck and still receive praise.” I finished off my oatmeal, or something that was similar to it, before I sighed. “Speaking of payment. I wanted to set up your guild hall today if you have some free time. We can’t have you staying in tents forever.”

Sasha brightened up. “For that, of course I do.”

“Good. Once you finish you’re meal, meet me on the edge of town.” I placed down a silver coin on the table that vanished instantly. The food provided by mess hall was technically free at the moment, but you could tip the cooks and staff. Sasha had explained during a recent meal that NPC cooks leveled up by both continuously making food items and income that they generate. If no one tipped them, they would grow slower.

I made my way over to the edge of town while taking in the sights. It was remarkable how fast the town had grown. It was only about three months old and already boasted a population of three thousand give or take. Because we had taken the time to plan things out, the budding city had clean lines and straight roads unlike towns that grew over the years. Though, this was just another reminder that we were in a game. When you could build a building in seconds as long as you had the resources, it made planning a lot easier.

As I walked through the streets, I enjoyed the vide that my town of Alflona gave off. Since my chosen architecture was Magi-Work, there were a lot of black steel and magically glowing stone walls. Runes were a common sight on most of the buildings. If you had a magic based class such as mage or sorcerer, you could easily sense the mana in the air.

Near the edge of town, the City Wall came into view. Black steel pillars with metal walkways stretched along my territory. Dense Purple energy served as the main defense of the wall as it extended between the pillars. I knew from experience that they could take a beating and I had spent resources to upgrade them since Aurora’s last attack.

Thinking of the vampire, I looked toward the southeast of my territory. Sticking out like a thorn on a rose bush, Aurora’s tower pierced the sky. I knew from the few times that I’d observed it that the tower was mostly empty. She had created it simply to spite me. I took a deep breath to calm down and quickly looked away from the eyesore. What to do about Aurora was one of the questions that kept me up most nights with anxiety.

To the north, I heard the sounds of logging and mining. I honestly had no choice in the matter. To expand south was simply too dangerous. Miners and Golems were hard at work extracting the metal that both Razz and I needed to fuel the expansion of our cities. While his town was close to Aurora’s dungeon as well, he was far enough away that as long as they made a conscious effort, the pair shouldn’t impede each other’s territory.

“Did you wait long?” Sasha called as I was lost in my thoughts.

“Nope. Was just thinking.”

“Ah. The dangers of free time,” Sasha remarked patting me on the shoulder. “IF you’re taking input on locations, I’d love a place on the mountainside. You can never go wrong with a good view.”

I closed my eyes and went through my various teleport location memories. When I found one that I thought was suitable, I reached out grabbing Sasha’s arm then teleported us to a clearing on the side of the mountain to the north. The clearing had enough space for a large house of a dozen rooms or so. If you included space that could be added by digging into the mountain it would make for a suitable location.

“What do you think?” I asked, opening my eyes after we arrived.

Sasha remained quiet as she took a look around. I walked to the edge of the cliff. The town was just a few minutes away, but this area was still in my territory. There was also no mineral nodes nearby that I knew of, at least, none that didn’t require carving deep into the mountain to find.

“Getting up and down will be a problem,” Sasha remarked joining me at the edge of the cliff.

Glancing down, I saw that it was true that it would require great climbing skill. “If you think long term, we can have a path made. Plus, don’t guild members have the ability to teleport to their guild houses once every few hours?”

“They do, once they have a Temporal Lodestone installed. They cost a pretty penny.”

That name sounded familiar. I quickly opened my rune craft book. I found it under the level four section. “I can make one once I reach level four with my runecrafting.”

Sasha dropped back into her thinking mode. I waited for her. Even if she didn’t want this spot, there was plenty of lots that I could offer her guild. Finally, she seemed to come to a decision. “I’ll take it. The guild can work on their climbing skill for a while.”

I laughed at that. “I hope you don’t get ousted as Guild Leader.”

Sasha looked over the edge again. “I’m pretty sure that I can have the system make a decent staircase to about the halfway point. I’ll have to rely on you guys for the rest.”

“No problem. It is nice when the system can do something that would have taken weeks in the real world.”

“No kidding. Alright. I’ll take this place as per our agreement. If you don’t need me, let’s head back.”

“Actually, I was hoping I could get your input on another matter.”

Sasha raised her eyebrow but nodded. “What’s up?”

“I have to give out plots of land to roughly thirty players. Since I stated in their contract that they have to be used for housing, I’m not too worried about them suddenly building a castle or business that might steal from our people in the middle of my city, but I don’t want to put them too far away in case it rubs them the wrong way. Six months isn’t that long of a time in the grand scheme of things.”

“I see your dilemma.” Sasha tapped her foot as she thought then snapped her fingers. “Put them near your biggest problem.”

“Put them near Aurora?” I asked trying not to let my mouth gap open. “Why would I risk doing that?”

“Think about it. Players are like gods in this world. Even low-level ones. I can tell you right now that they are going to trick out their homes like no tomorrow. If Aurora ever does decide to attack you, you’ll have virtual wall of supped up homes that can take down dungeon bosses.”

“Player homes can reach that level?”

Sasha nodded. “It’s a bit crazy honestly. I know of a mage player that has a house in the middle of a desert. Damn thing’s nearly a dungeon in its own right.” She shook her head as if plagued by a bad memory. “I’m not saying it will happen overnight, but trust me. If you have a crazed vampire sending less than intelligent monsters at your town, then having players in between them and you will make a load of difference.”

I was glad that I asked her. I was planning on putting them out of the way toward the more underdeveloped section of my north expanse but had been worried that would affect the city’s overall growth. “Thanks!” I grabbed her shoulder and quickly teleported us back to town.

“That skill is too much of a cheat,” Sasha commented as she walked away.

“Well that’s two problems taken care of,” I muttered to myself. I pulled open the city menu and made the allocations. I would be fetching the players tomorrow as per our agreement. If they didn’t show up, then the agreement was void. Just all part of the deal.

I turned on my heel and headed for the Command Center. There was still a nightmare number of issues to deal with following the battle with the goblin forces. I had just sat down when I got a friend message from Razz.

“Check your map. We captured another forty squares. I want to see how quickly the system updates.”

“Alright, give me a second.” I walked over to the war map. As Razz said, there was a new chunk of land added to my territory. He was using the defeat of the goblin forces to push further north. It would only be a matter of time before we hit another village or town that belonged to Eblos. The question was what we were going to do when we did. “Yep. Its showing.”

“Good. It looks like claiming territory is easy enough.” Razz sent back.

“Don’t go too crazy.” I got a laugh emoji in response to my message. I walked back over to my desk and got to work with the paperwork. First, I went through all the items that we collected from the goblin army. Because I worried that we would get flak from her, I already set aside a number of gears and items to send to Aurora later tonight. Hopefully, she would take it as a sign that I wanted to put an end to this war before it got out of hand.