After Dylan’s group left, Alice’s group showed up as well, eager to take on a good hunt and earn some extra cash.
Once they’d chosen their mission, the group set off, leaving only Lohan, Lisa, Alice, Dylan, and the fairies at the base.
Instead of discussing important matters regarding the guild, Lisa, Alice, and Dylan spent most of their time chatting about trivial things, tips for Dylan who had just arrived in the Open World, and interesting things they’d encountered.
Lohan kept his distance from this conversation, only adding the occasional comment as they talked, giving them space, after all, his rapport with Lisa’s two friends wasn’t all that strong.
While they chatted, Lohan took the opportunity to perform the biomass injection test on Elle as well. Although she couldn’t handle as much biomass as Pip, she also had a good tolerance for it and received a nice power boost from a single session.
After an hour, Alice and Dylan decided to go on a hunt together, leaving Lohan and Lisa at the base.
"So, how are you feeling?" Lohan rolled over to Lisa and asked curiously, noticing she was more excited than usual.
"I’m happy, really happy to finally be able to see them again. It’s been over a year since I’ve seen them in person, and even though the characters in Elysium look a little different from how people really look, I still felt like our trio had finally reunited." She replied, and then continued. "And I’m happy too that you got along with them. I was a little worried about how that would play out, if there would be any awkwardness between you, but even with that fool trying to ruin everything, in the end you and Dylan handled the situation really well."
Lohan saw that she was genuinely concerned and smiled. "I was a little worried too, to be honest, but Dylan is really nice and outgoing, so it’s hard not to like him."
Lisa smiled at that and nodded in agreement.
With everything settled at the guild base, Lohan and Lisa finally headed out to hunt together again, ready for some intense grinding to level up.
Now that they had passed Level 11, the experience required for each level was insane. While the experience gained from each monster also increased with each level, the amount by which it increased wasn’t nearly as much as the experience needed to level up.
So if they kept up the same intensity of hunting monsters of the same level as themselves, the time it took to level up would constantly increase.
Unless they hunted higher-level monsters, which was exactly their goal.
xXx
While the Astralis groups scattered across the Mythlorien Forest to hunt, the cities of Elysium were receiving an ever-increasing influx of Players.
Not only had the advanced groups reached Level 11 in the past month and come to the Open World, but independent groups of ordinary Players were already reaching that level and arriving in these cities.
The vast majority of these groups, consisting of Human Race players, ended up in smaller human cities scattered across the vast world, but some players with Special Races gained access to cities of those races by venturing into the Open World.
Players of the Elf and Half-Elf races were sent to cities like Thalendor or other Elven capitals around the world; Players of the Dwarf, Werewolf, Gnome, and Beastman races, each with a special race, had the possibility of being sent to a corresponding city dominated by their own race.
This was a great convenience for these players, as they could avoid being sent to places that treated them as inferior creatures.
The problem was that some players formed groups with beings of other races in the Newbie Villages, or had real-world friends added and went to their cities regardless of the compatibility of the race they possessed and the place they ended up.
After all, even though an Uncommon Race was, as the name suggests, uncommon, 1 in 10 people with an Uncommon Base had an Uncommon Race, which made Players with such a base far more common than imagined.
As a result, a large influx of players with different races began to slowly populate human cities with elves, or dwarf cities with werewolves, increasing this chaos more and more as more players came from the Newbie Villages.
What began with just a few isolated cases grew steadily over the days, and unlike the people of this world, who feared committing crimes or illegal acts, these people who appeared out of nowhere were completely unrestrained.
Even if they were caught doing something illegal, they did not fear the death penalty, since even after death they could still return to life in a temple of the Goddess, as if with almost no consequences.
Thalendor wasn’t being heavily affected by this yet, since the number of Players there was much smaller than in other places, but such a strange situation was causing problems not only for the people of this world but also for Players who were trying to gain influence in the cities of this world.
In Aethelgard, the tension in Isaac Vance’s office was heavy.
He held a glass of wine of high quality by Elysium’s human standards, but the taste seemed bitter as he watched, through the window of his luxurious inn, a group of "human" Players shouting and arguing with a city guard.
They acted with an irritating arrogance, showing no respect for the millennia-old hierarchy that the local nobles held so dear.
For Isaac, seeing these independent and unruly Players was like watching a virus spread through an infrastructure he had spent weeks trying to penetrate.
He had invested millions of credits to succeed, forcing himself to learn the inefficient and flowery writing style of the nobles of Aethelgard just to be accepted into their circle.
A sharp knock on the door interrupted his thoughts.
Lord Randolph Whitfield, the nobleman who was the linchpin of Isaac’s plans to establish the official Vance Guild in human territory, entered the room unannounced, and his expression was not that of a satisfied ally.
"Sir Newton... or should I call you the ’Envoy of the Goddess’?" Randolph began, his voice laced with sarcasm that Isaac detected easily. "The court is in an uproar. Yesterday, a group of ’otherworlders’ tried to bribe the High Priest at the Temple of the Goddess Astraea after being caught red-handed stealing from a potion shop... and when the guards drew their swords, they simply laughed and threw themselves onto the blades, knowing they’d be back in a few hours."
Randolph approached Isaac’s table, looking with disdain at the papers the young Master Vance had worked so hard to fill out.
"You claim to come from an advanced civilization, yet you act like unstable children who fear neither death nor dishonor," the nobleman continued, narrowing his eyes. "How can I entrust any of you with the Seal of Sovereignty for a Guild, when your kind treat our reality as a mere game board with no consequences? The trust I placed in your ’nobility’ is draining away as quickly as the blood of my guards at the hands of your soldiers... I don’t know how the Goddess granted immortality to these people."
Isaac felt Mana coursing hot through his chest, an instinctive reaction of fury he struggled to suppress.
Internally, he cursed every Player who had received a helmet and now acted like an irrational animal in the cities. In Isaac’s mind, regardless of whether they came from the Upper Zone or the Lower Zone, these people were the "disposable trash" that was ruining his work.
"Lord Randolph, I assure you that my organization, the Vance Guild, values professionalism and organization above all else," Isaac replied, using the calmest, most aristocratic tone of voice he possessed, despite wanting to incinerate the nobleman for the affront. "We are not like the rabble you see on the streets. We are generals and leaders in our original world, but these people are not under my control."
Randolph did not seem convinced. He turned his back and walked to the door.
"Words are cheap when the city’s air is saturated with the scent of the ’Stellar Gathering’ of your insubordinate dead," Randolph declared. "Until I see proof that your group can control this ’plague’ of powerful and unstable beings, negotiations regarding Aethelgard’s commercial districts are suspended."
When the door closed, Isaac hurled the crystal goblet against the wall, watching the red wine run like blood over the expensive tapestry.
His fury was not only directed at Randolph, but at the very system of Elysium that had allowed billions of unqualified people to enter.
"Martha!" Isaac shouted.
The sensually beautiful woman entered immediately, noticing the shards of glass on the floor and the twisted aura her boss was exuding.
"Young Master?" she asked, keeping her head down.
"Forget about Leveling for today," Isaac ordered, his cold eyes glaring at those useless fools outside. "If the nobles are starting to treat us like trash because of these rowdy Players, we need to change our approach. Find out who’s leading the independent groups on the outskirts of Aethelgard. If we can’t convince them to behave, we’ll send a few fools back to Level 1 and see what happens if anyone keeps dying after that!"
Despite his anger, Isaac had realized from Randolph’s comment that, indirectly, the authority to deal with these Players would be in his hands from that point on, and with that authority, various ways to increase the Vance Guild’s influence over these Players would be at his disposal.
’Very well, vermin. Either you surrender to the Vance Guild, or you will all be eliminated and wiped out until you can no longer leave the Church!’ He thought with cold eyes.