Chapter 73: Players discuss dedicating the greatest victory to His Majesty the King...
As Easter's resolve hardened, little did he know that his players were secretly plotting something, preparing to deliver a big surprise to him.
Currently, the players have the upper hand in the war against the Kingdom of Ramon, the Kingdom of Rivia, and several other small countries. They have a significant advantage and can take them down in less than ten days. The situation looks very promising. However, at this crucial moment, the players have encountered some problems.
At the start of the war, players were undoubtedly full of enthusiasm, but as the battle dragged on, they gradually became weary. Nobody likes doing the same repetitive work day after day, especially since they were playing a game. Playing games is meant to relax, and nobody wants to turn a game into a job. Moreover, this game offers much more than just the war option; there are many other aspects to enjoy.
If you want to grind monsters and level up, you can choose to go to the monster map. There are two main maps for grinding monsters: the ocean and the land. Most players prefer to go to the ocean because you might encounter mermaids. Many players go there specifically to see mermaids. Compared to mermaids, the land map seems slightly less appealing.
For players who don't enjoy combat, there are many options to choose from: building, gathering, planting, raising animals, crafting... There's nothing this world can't do if you can imagine it.
The situation in the capital city of Esther is not so obvious yet, but the port of Manhattan, which was the first to be built, is now more than halfway through construction after a large number of players joined. It is conceivable how many players are left who have devoted themselves to the war.
You can't blame this game for offering too many choices, since its initial selling point was its high degree of freedom.
The only saving grace is that although the number of players has decreased, their quality is incomparable. Players are leveling up higher and higher, while soldiers from other countries are getting more and more tired and in worse condition. Under these circumstances, the players still maintain a huge advantage.
The players were plotting to give Easter a gift—a real gift, not a fright disguised as a surprise.
The story begins with a player named [Mo Wujie], who possesses exceptional language talent. After he barely managed to learn the language of the Luomanjier Continent, things spiraled out of control.
He broke the system that required players to communicate with the natives, allowing them to learn a great deal, including a deeper understanding of the region.
Players have maps and know how many countries are in the region, and can calculate exactly how many countries have joined the war, but they don't know the deeper intricacies. After Mo Wujie came along, everything changed. They gained a deeper understanding of the entanglements between countries, and they shifted from relying solely on force to using strategy.
What the players want to give to Ister is the rest of the territory excluding the Sinclair Empire's territory; in other words, they want to conquer all the small countries and incorporate their territories into the Kingdom of Felix.
The players dared to have such ambitions mainly because of the geographical location of this place. It is mountainous and close to the sea. Most importantly, it is near the dangerous Misty Mountains. Several small countries are enclosed in one place, with their territories divided by mountains and rivers. It would not be a big problem to occupy them all.
Don't let this description fool you into thinking the land is small. In reality, it covers an area of at least five million square kilometers, which is quite large.
The above are the objective reasons. The subjective reason is that, for the players, now that the game has truly begun, simply conquering a few countries hastily does not align with their mindset.
Moreover, only three countries did not participate in this war. Given their one-sided situation, adding the three non-participating countries to the mix makes it seem like a piece of cake.
The key question now is, what justification should they use to launch this war?
“I’m thinking, is this a bad thing?” Cai Cai said, who had come out of the kitchen for the first time. “We can understand the attacks from other countries, but if we initiate a war, then…” His small movements revealed his unease and anxiety. If he were still in human form, one could see the deep lines between his eyebrows.
Some short-tempered players might argue that this is just a game, and the players' interests should be the priority. Of course, players should be able to do what they want, so why make so many unnecessary considerations? However… they have an inexplicable feeling. When they see the explicit rule against killing NPCs, they realize that this game is different. Players who can't accept this have already quit. Those who have persisted know the special nature of this game. As CaiCai said, they have to consider things more carefully.
“That’s true,” Guagua scratched his head, “but the theme of this game is to conquer the world and unify the continent, right? It’s impossible for us to always have a perfectly justified reason to attack. The situation we’re facing now is one we’ll have to face again sooner or later. We can’t just stop every time, can we? What’s the point of playing then?”
"Should we discuss this with the King?" Meimei suggested a feasible approach.
"No, no, we promised to give Zai Zai a surprise, how can we rely on Zai Zai?" Yun Mu was the first to jump out and refuse.
"Then what do you suggest we do?" Guagua asked.
“We’re gathered here to come up with a feasible idea, not to argue with each other and end up with nothing.” Liang Jingjing was speechless. She thought everyone should have some idea in mind, otherwise the meeting would be meaningless.
"Actually, I think we might be overthinking things," said Suibianla. "There's a saying, 'the trend of the times.' Maybe we won't even need to lift a finger; they'll surrender on their own."
“That’s not impossible,” Ruobu Kao Digua echoed first, then added, “But that’s the ideal situation. More often than not, people are unwilling to give up until the very last moment.”
"Hey sweet potato buddy, do you have any ideas?" Guaguagua asked, not as good as roasted sweet potato.
“I have a somewhat immature idea,” said Ru Bu Kao Di Gua, who didn’t refuse and continued following up on Gua Gua Gua’s question, “The number of our players is a huge threat to any faction. We don’t necessarily have to fight with real weapons. Besieging a city with a large army can create fear in people’s minds.”
“Psychological warfare,” Matsushita Yuki said. “That’s good. Even if they have objections, we can say we’re not going to attack them. After all, there are monsters everywhere on the continent now, so we have plenty of reasons.”
"Is that settled then?" Butterfly asked. "Won't there be enough players?"
This land has a total of thirteen small countries. Nine of them form an alliance to fight against the Kingdom of Felix, while the remaining three are on the sidelines. There are enough players, and their strength is just right. They can easily fight head-on with their own strength, but it might be difficult to achieve the ideal situation that Roasted Sweet Potato described.
“We can defeat the nine countries first, and then attack the other three,” Mo Wu explained. “There’s no need to rush.” After thinking for a moment, he slowly said, “Given the early development of this game, if we unify this region, we will face more difficulties. And I suspect that the most likely outcome is a surge in monsters.”
The first ten players to enter the game exchanged glances. To be honest, Mo Wujie's guess was quite possible.
From the very beginning, the game's difficulty has been somewhat unbalanced. It's not so much that it's somewhat unbalanced, but rather that it's obvious. If it weren't for the increase in the number of players, relying solely on individual player abilities, players would be at a disadvantage in the war against humans, let alone fighting monsters.
In the fight against monsters, players have never gained the upper hand. Each time, a group of players would gang up on a few monsters. If the situation wasn't properly assessed and the number of monsters was too large, the players might not be able to return. In such cases, the players could barely hold off the monsters' attacks because of their immortality. As for numerical superiority, forget about it. Whether in the past or present, the number of players has never been greater than the number of monsters.
Just as Mo Wujie suspected, they want the players to die!
They shouldn't be thinking about unifying this region for now; what they should be thinking about is how to protect the Kingdom of Felix and prevent it from falling.
"Sigh~!" A huge sigh came abruptly at the end. Everyone looked around and realized that everyone had sighed. Their beady eyes met, and they suddenly burst out laughing.
"What's there to be afraid of?" Yun Mu asked. "Don't you even think about how many people there are on Blue Star? We don't even need many, just a hundred or two hundred million players, and we can crush the monsters to the ground." She said proudly and smugly, "And the popularity of the game 'Rise of Kings' will be far beyond a hundred or two hundred million players after the server opens. Not to mention the overseas servers, the game's background and the acceptance rate on overseas servers will definitely not be low."
"So when will the server open?" the quacks wailed, they needed help.
“Don’t even talk about launching the server yet,” Liang Jingjing slumped into her chair. “The official open beta hasn’t even started yet.”
“Don’t rush,” said Ruobu Roasted Sweet Potato. “His Majesty the King is a man of great foresight; he will surely consider things more comprehensively than we do.”
“With Zai Zai here,” Yun Mu said without any worry. “Zai Zai will find a way.”
Mo Wu asked, puzzled. What had he missed? It seemed that whenever their only faction NPC was mentioned, he and the other ten were on completely different wavelengths.
"Could you explain the reason to me?" Mo Wujie wasn't a very curious person, but it seemed like everyone else knew, and he was the only one kept in the dark, which was really unpleasant.
"Brother Mo Wujie, this is something that can only be understood intuitively and cannot be explained in words," Guaguagua said mysteriously. None of them had ever voiced their inner thoughts, and it was even less likely that they would explain it to Mo Wujie at this moment.
Mo Wujie wasn't stupid; he suddenly realized something, but he didn't say anything and changed the subject, "How about we start a thread on the forum? Something this interesting would probably attract a lot of players."
At this point, there were really fewer players involved in the war.
“Sure,” Meimei said. “Let’s recruit more players and end this long-running war sooner so we can start building.”
“No matter how interesting a war is, it will eventually get boring if there are too many,” said Guagua. “If you fool more players, it will be easier to fight.”
"We will present our greatest victory to His Majesty the King," Yunmu said with a smile.
The discussions concluded, and with the promotional appeals, the players displayed the same enthusiasm they had at the beginning of the war.
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