Azimuth: The Elden Throne

Finished!

Enjoy :)

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[Opening...]

[Quests ->...]

[Golden age]

[Resko's past]

[Mineral Chain Part 2]

[Blood and Iron]

[Material gathering 3]

[Training part 2]

[Heretics!]

[Rise of the Southern Wall Corps]

[Lone Saint]

[Royal Ancestry]

[The Origin of Hatred]

(I went through 200 chapters to ensure I didn't skip any Quests, but in case I did, please...)

"Hmm..."

'These are how most of my Quests looked post-Babylon. The ones I had, got, and updated in the days immediately following its closure.'

'There were many updates to them as I did quite a few things before and after the event.'

'Mineral Chain advanced when I inspected the mines and sent the Agents to explore them. It was enough for me to advance the Quest and reach its next stage.'

'The rewards were manageable and nothing unexpected, but since this is a Chain Quest, the rewards are likely all accumulating at the end of the path, although even if there were none, I still have the greater goal of supplying Resko with materials for the future.'

'Material gathering is the same. Thanks to the players bringing me the items they hunted, and with a little bit of hunting on my end, I finished Part 2 of this Quest, and now Adamante is as busy as she could get, I'll likely won't be getting the chance for Part 4 anytime soon, so I'll ignore it for the next few weeks.'

'Well... They're not exactly parts but more of individual fetch Quests but it's all the same anyway.'

'As for Training, it was originally something Testros gave me to accustom my muscles and build familiarity with the Southern Corp's style; now, Sarferato inherited it.'

'Due to his brutal teaching methods, I progressed rather quickly and once I passed a certain threshold of Stats, it became part 2, albeit soon, I can see it becoming part 3...'

'Still, I got many more during these ten days...'

[An Ancient Inheritance]

[Alchemist's Secret Desires]

[Revenge of the Old Crow]

[The First City]

[The Passage of Time]

[Relic of the Founding Fathers]

[A Gift from the Thankful Sister]

[Supressed Talent]

[An Old Lady's Necklace]

[Blade of flowing Sapphires]

[A single Pot to feed 1000]

[...]

Dale kept scrolling through his Quests, eventually reaching his most recent ones at the bottom, mainly consisting of small miscellaneous Quests he could complete within a day.

Still, he needed to do them all to grow closer to the Villagers and gain experience, potentially stumbling onto greater secrets.

So he didn't bother rereading them. Instead, he focused on the main Quests he received:

'There's quite a few of them... My QuestLog is finally looking like the one I had before I regressed.'

'To go over them quickly... The first Quest, An Ancient Inheritance, continues Tina's previous Quests, which ended with the ritual that transformed my body.'

'To summarize its details, Tina has reached a bottleneck in her studies and needs to speed things up, and although there's no shortcut to mastering knowledge, there are ways to cut corners if you know where to look and which books to study.'

'This Quest is about going to the Wall and recovering all relevant documents on Witchcraft... It's probably one of the most dangerous Quests I possess since the Wall is such an unknown of an area.'

'The Quest can be completed like most others, the more I gather and bring back, the better. However, Tina is mostly interested in the diaries and main books her aunt possessed. The rest is a bonus.'

'Until I can gather them, Tina is limited to what she can do to me as she's still trying to figure out the chances in my body and devise proper training methods for it.'

'She's honest, but it's a bit disheartening... To think I would be disappointed not to feel excruciating pain...'

Dale cringed, moving on.

'An Alchemist's Secret Desires is the continuation of Yumi's Questline post Herb Chain Part 1 and 2.'

Dale touched the back of his head, exhaling in mild stress.

'Strangely enough, I was supposed to perform the last part before this Quest popped up, but Yumi had a moment of enlightenment and advanced in her potion-craft Skill, likely bypassing the need for another Quest.'

'This enlightenment came when I handed her the Golden Dew, which was done several weeks later in the past timeline... Mostly due to my incompetence.'

'I only completed Part 3 a few weeks later, after I gathered everything I needed from the forest, but now, I'm already in the subsequent Quest.'

'I still think I'll need to gather those materials so Yumi can advance her research; however, it's great to see another example of Quests being made as I discover new things and not pre-determined things.'

'It seems my actions had a far greater impact on everyone's lives than I originally expected... So far, so good, though.'

'Now... While the title of the Quest may seem... Suggestive, it isn't anything like that.'

'Yumi has spent a lot of time working for the sake of others, she does love Alchemy, but no matter how much someone loves their hobby or work, they can't just love one thing only...'

'Yumi has other interests, things she was never able to do, see, or experience due to her past trauma and lack of a proper childhood due to her parent's passing, so this is what this Quest is about.'

'Help her experience the things she couldn't so she can move on. And also to help her grow as a person rather than a direct growth in her skills.'

'Show her around and something...'

'Mental stability is just as important as a person's Skill.'

"Hm... Now that I think about it... Isn't this Quest just telling me to take her on Dates?... Cough!..."

Dale got slightly embarrassed as he thought about a distinctive detail; it was great he was alone...

'There is also "that" aspect... Love and all that...'

'It's clear Yumi's Quests are slowly becoming more and more... Personal. And from other players' experiences worldwide, I already know there's a need to be familiar with an NPC before he/she can issue you Quests and the like.'

'The Intimacy System is still mostly unknown, but some players have already unlocked it and are exploring its secrets, some sharing their finds, others keeping it for themselves.'

'I don't care much about the Standard player experience, but I'll still read the forums for a perspective on it. I am acting as an NPC, after all...'

'In the end, what truly matters to me is how other HardCore players interact and react to this part of the System.'

'The reason I never felt held back by this System is that my Intimacy with everyone is overwhelmingly high to the point I just need to talk my way through their words, and I'll get my Quests.'

'It seems a bit manipulative, but sometimes, the Quests just fall onto my lap; that was how I found most of them anyway.'

'Some other Quests, on the other hand, I felt something was wrong and pursued them on my own.'

'The problem is... I'm not good with these things at all...And above all...'

"I feel like I'm in a Dating sim pursuing five Questlines at once..." He said with some exasperation as he touched his forehead

Dale already knew a few girls with more than four Intimacy Hearts with him, which he stipulated to be something akin to an unrequited Love, about a step beyond or equal to infatuation.

In the end, people feel and display emotions in different matters, so a slight crush to one will look and feel completely different to another...

But if we count most of the young female villagers around 14 to their late 20s, they are still single and hopefully faithful... The number of girls with around one or two hearts skyrockets...

If one takes that as a mild interest in him, then all's good, but isn't that about the same as having a small crowd of fangirls with a crush on him?

He usually tried not to think about such things as he feared his every action, even when he wasn't trying to play around, seemed to increase the intimacy of everyone around him.

Then again, Dale liked to listen and be compassionate, which came off as being mature.

Coupled with his tall, strong build and past achievements, he was quite the love interest to most girls.

Although listening was mostly so he could pay attention to story details and possible Quest hints, it came as him being attentive and kind, a trait both young and old appreciated in him.

David liked to say he was playing with the maiden's heart and that he would be smitten by the Gods for his transgressions one day.

Dale liked to retort that he wasn't doing it on purpose, which David only replied with:

That's even worse.

...

'Sigh... Anyhow, for the next two Quests... Revenge of the Old Crow and The First City, those Quests came from Sarferato and his son, respectively.'

'Sarferato's Quest has a cleargoal,revenge. But on whom? An old foe of his, a creature he could not kill as it fled right before his eyes.'

'Caught between pursuing it and running back to the Wall, Sarferato chose to return in haste, only to realize it had been too late.'

'Sometimes he wondered that, had he never clashed with it and returned in haste, if he would've been able to change the tide of the War.'

'His role in the defense was to cut down the Demon's charge by striking them from behind, which he succeeded.'

'Originally, he was meant to perform that with the help of the Navy by the shores, but they vanished completely, which only exacerbated his time of return.'

'With his elite force, they returned quickly from the distant shores to the Wall, but it was far too late by then...'

'As for his son, the Quest is about the mysteries of the first city, the settlement the people of the past built before the Southern Corps was even a thing.'

'The city atop the stump of the Ancient Tree holds secrets worth reaching out for and understanding... It could be a clue towards Quests relating to the ancient Elves and more.'

'... Moving on... The Passage of Time. Qrubin's Quest of "self-

discovery".'

'Right now, amidst his Lichdoom, Qrubin is beginning to ponder over his future or complete lack of one.'

'With the news his daughter is still alive, being well over her 90s by now, he's beginning to consider many things, if it was the right thing to just let go and vanish from the world.'

'This was a Quest that surfaced not from him but from my own observations of the Lich, this was a Quest I didn't possess in the Future, and it's likely a Quest that only appears because I possess those memories.'

'A Quest the future me would've done... This is what this Quest is meant to be.'

'Another hint towards the true nature of Quests, proof Quests can manifest merely from accumulating information about something, which I already knew was possible, but I feel this Quest only exists because I wished for it.'

'I'm technically an NPC, but I was never able to create Quests like this, the System was always very clear about it... But here it is, this conveniently timed Quest that tackles the issue I've been trying to solve...'

'This Quest will likely lead to a future where Qrubin can either somehow reconcile with his past, maintain his conscience post-Lichdoom, or maybe even revert the process.'

'I'm not expecting a perfect "they lived happily ever after" ending, a bittersweet one will suffice.'

'More than anyone, Qrubin is the closest to his end, and maybe, instead of salvation, the best I can do for him is to grant him some kind of mercy...'

'I would love to save Qrubin, but more often than not, in these kinds of stories, when the old wizard is about to die, he'll find a student to carry on his legacy before passing away.'

'There's not much an old Wizard can accomplish, so it's usually the idea that he'll pass on the mantle to someone else... The problem is that I don't wish to benefit from his death his just that...'

'It is a dark thought to have, but it's something to keep in mind.'

Dale looked at the faint sunlight beaming between the tree leaves and continued thinking after shaking off the nasty feeling in his tongue.

'Relic of the Founding Fathers... Winthrope's Quest.'

'It's a fetch-type Quest to find the relics that represent each of the founding houses of Resko.'

'According to some records he found, there are indications that the previous founding families of Resko left the city under an agreement or even under pressure beyond the mere interest for self-preservation.'

'Regardless of those reasons, there is evidence they may have left their family symbols behind, the original ones, their main heirlooms that prove their bloodline, and so on.'

'For Nobles, such symbols hold extreme importance, and Winthrope believes that properly storing them could further increase their legitimacy in the eyes of other Nobility and hence, facilitate our future struggles, even potentially guaranteeing some allies in upcoming conflicts.'

'Once again, Dale wasn't worried about Nobility, much less what they thought about them. However, Winthrope assured those symbols held unique properties tied to each of the founding families. Which was one of the reasons they had to remain behind.'

'How the two remaining families convinced the others to leave those heirlooms behind was beyond Dale, but it was another mystery to solve in the upcoming tides.'

'Gathering them together would not only satisfy Winthrope and all of his ideals, but it would also be a matter of security for the City that was slowly being rebuilt and restored.'

'As such, I can't leave them alone... But finding all will be a bother. I never even started going after them in my past life.'

'I have some ideas for where some of them may be, but getting there will take a while...'

His eyes darted from top to bottom. There were still so many Quests left to go over...

Just when would he finish them all?

/Hustle.../

"Hm?"

As he was about to proceed to his next Quest, the bushes beside him trembled...

Something was there, prowling, waiting to...

/JUMP!/

Before he had the time to think, something jumped from the bushes!

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Notes