Golden Experience

Chapter 197: “Trained”

In the end, I waited for a while, but the Sky Castle did not appear.

Thinking that, I told Lyra about the story of determining the position of the Sky Castle from the timing of the angel attack earlier. However, the response was not favorable.

“What’s the point of figuring it out? Are we going to conquer it? Well, it seems like the players are expecting a showdown between Rare-chan and the Archangel, a monsters’ battle. If we’re going to do it, let’s save it for the end of the event. By then, someone might have roughly determined the location, and it wouldn’t be too late.”

“Who are you calling monster? Well, it’s true. Since the experience points have increased, maybe we should focus on gaining experience points with the players who come to the dungeon, leaving the angels aside.”

“No, how about following the announcement from the management and playing Co-op? They explicitly mentioned it, and I think that might be a ranking criteria.”

Certainly, it’s hard to imagine that the management would make such an announcement without any meaning.

But even if they say cooperation play, what should we do? According to the announcement, it says to cooperate regardless of the race, whether it’s a human species, a monster, NPC, or player, but I have no idea what exactly to do.

“They also said something like regardless of affiliation, but how do you determine affiliation or camp, let alone race?

I guess forgetting ties is not much of a point in cooperating with your normal friends, but then what distinguishes normal adversarial relationships? There’s no such system as a clan or guild, let alone a party.

I don’t know about NPC AI, but I’m pretty sure the law restricted the player’s thoughts from being used for anything other than controlling the game avatar or whatever.”

“I’m not an expert either, but I’m sure there’s nothing you can’t ‘color-code’ from your normal behavior.

It’s a technology that has been around since the olden days, but have you ever heard of behavioral targeting advertising? It’s a technology that uses a person’s search history and the sites they visit to determine their interests and preferences, and then serves them the most appropriate advertisements. It’s the same thing.

It’s legal to log players’ in-game behavior, and there are no restrictions on analyzing it, so I think we have some insight into players’ thoughts without having to read their thoughts directly.”

“Indeed. No wonder then that Deas’ [Miasma] recognized the zombies under Blanc as allies.”

The logs are analyzed to determine the relationship between the players or NPCs at any given time, and then the most appropriate target is selected for the effect.

“Okay, well, I’m going home.”

“… Right. Say hello to Justiz and the gang.”

“I doubt we’ll ever meet in person, though.”

After Lyra left, I had the ants collect the Pure Hearts in the vicinity.

Lyra didn’t pick up any, but maybe she didn’t need them.

Certainly, at the moment, I can’t think of a good use for them, but it’s not something that would be a loss to keep. Even without the [Necromancy] skill, being able to keep a soul attached to a corpse would undoubtedly extend the resurrection reception time. However, in the current situation where I can’t even make resurrection items…

“Extending the resurrection acceptance time…”

By specifications, when a character belonging to someone is defeated, they automatically respawn after one hour. The setting is that the soul is bound to the corpse for one hour, and during that time, respawn cannot occur.

In terms of the game, it’s probably to prevent conflicts with booking of revival skills and items.

Unlike players who can choose whether to respawn, NPCs can only process automatically. If the respawn timing of a follower is random, or if the time until automatic respawn is too short, even if you want to resurrect, you may not be able to. The limit is set to one hour.

Then, if you use a pure heart on the follower of someone who has been defeated, can you extend the time until respawn?

There may be no reason to do that in terms of the game, but it wouldn’t be strange in terms of the setting.

Thinking about the processing like MP automatic recovery earlier, the system seems to be designed to follow the setting as much as possible. The possibility is not nonexistent.

The late Prime Minister of Hiers was said to have used the respawn of his followers to gather information from afar. Whether a player or an NPC, if they are a cautious opponent who checks the respawn position of their followers in advance, they might also estimate the enemy’s movements from the time of the follower’s respawn, or identify the person who killed the follower.

In such a situation, if it were possible to shift that time with this item…

“Well, even so, I don’t think the opportunity to use it will come. Let’s just keep it in mind for now. If we have time, maybe we’ll verify it.”

For now, there’s nothing left to do in Tore Forest.

Somehow, when I look around the square, the first thing that catches my eye is the World Tree that seems to pierce the sky, and next, my attention is drawn to the grand temple that stands in front of it. And guarding the wings of the grand temple are the Amphisbaena and Gargouille.

<Hey, Lyra? Seems like you left something behind?>

<Yeah. I don’t have a designated place to leave it, so can you hold onto it for a while? I’ve trained it, so it should be fine.>

Lyra immediately replied with something suitable.

Well, the term “trained” might be a euphemism for completing the friend registration.

Not a bad expression. I’ll use it.

Anyway, due to Ururu, Ubel, and Abigor, the square has become considerably cramped compared to the beginning. I’ll ask the World Tree to expand it more and make the outer perimeter of the forest a bit larger.

While the Gargouille could increase my amount of followers immediately if I wanted, it’s not something that needs to be done right now, and there’s also the issue of space. Increasing large followers recklessly could lead to trouble.

After finishing the cleanup, it’s time to deal with the continuation of the event.

The issue of angels can be handled easily.

According to the official announcement, only those weak angels are supposed to appear unless something significant happens.

As for the players, so far, it’s only that couple who came to Liebe. They might be observing on the first day and planning to attack the dungeon from the next day.

“Co-op play, though. Well, I never thought about wanting to rank in the event in the first place.”

Since I replied to the system message with a request for anonymity, I am unlikely to have my ranking displayed properly.

“But if, by any chance, the first place is displayed as ‘Anonymous’ or something, players who are seriously working hard might feel frustrated.”

Although it’s not seen much now, there was a time when admission to higher education institutions was tested based solely on academic ability.

At that time, during rehearsals for entrance exams, which people called ‘mock exams’, there were widespread pranks of taking the test with ridiculous names and then placing at the top of the results list. It may not be elegant behavior, but it feels more like a clever prank than a meaningless one. After all, to successfully pull off that prank, you needed to have top-class academic ability nationwide. There must have been considerable effort involved.

“Well, that’s not bad either. Anyway, when the regular second wave comes, let’s clean up the sky over Hiers.”

After observing and making sure there are no problems, if I guard the city of Hiers while visible, no nation will dare to bother Hiers again.

?

“It doesn’t seem to be precisely determined, but the interval is about 5-6 hours, I guess.”

If that’s the case, it’s approximately four hours in real-time.

As a timing for regular global events, it’s not a bad interval.

Originally, only the NPC knights who lived in this world would deal with it, even if they suffered damage to the extent of the destruction of countries and cities, it doesn’t seem likely, and it’s just the right balance for players to join in on a whim.

However, the top players are probably unsatisfied with the current situation.

“I don’t know if it will satisfy you, but let me give you a little buzz.”

Summoning Yoroizaka-san from the capital, I don it after a long time.

Then, taking Ubel and the airborne troops and flying beetles, I took off from Tore Forest.

I will recruit airborne troops from Liebe Great Forest and La Colinne Forest as well.

Each is instructed to aim for a meeting point while dealing with the angels in the sky over Hiers, and the designated meeting place is the capital of Hiers.

A large number of insects take off from the east side of Hiers territory and head for the capital, ravaging the angels along the way, like a swarm of locusts.

We’ll ignore the hearts dropped when defeated. I can’t pick them up one by one, and if needed, I can have the Urban Trading Company buy them. If Hiers Trading Company buys hearts under the pretext of supporting angel victims, merchants who hear about it will come rushing to Hiers. The gold coins exchanged for hearts will flow out of the country, but that will also contribute to the activation of the economy.

I’m also heading towards the capital myself, while dealing with angels along the way.

Although the attack of the angels for this wave ended before the assembly in the capital was completed, for some players, it would have been an opportunity to see the Seventh Calamity, Amphisbaena, and the insects fighting in the sky.

“For the future attacks, it won’t be possible to intercept them one by one from the forest. Shall we make a base in the vacant land?”

Although the sun had already set, it was convenient for me.

During the night, I flew around Hiers, summoned Elder Treants and regular Treants, created some small forests in inconspicuous places, and prepared bases for ants and beetles.

As a result, from the second day onward in the airspace above the former Hiers Kingdom territory, battles between angels and insect-type monsters could be seen almost everywhere.