LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 35: Preferential Treatment
Maria logged back in to the game the next day after she had finished all her chores, not like she had many to begin with.
The first thing she did when she logged back in was to summon her familiar, Lilah.
"[Summon: Lilah]"
A small magic formation appeared in front of Maria and Lilah popped out of it.
"Greetings, Master. I see you're doing well today~"
"Yup! Let's continue hunting?"
Just as Maria was about to pull out her Calamity, Lilah immediately stopped her.
"Wait a minute, Master."
"Hm?"
"Didn't you say yesterday that we'd be taking a look at the priestess class skills with somebody named Hella?"
"Ohh yeah, thanks for reminding me! Let's head back to Enoch then, we'll meet up with Hella and learn the class skills. I should also check out the library and learn the [Linguistics] skill and go to the city's magic tower to try and get [Magic Comprehension]!"
Maria and Lilah took off into the air the next second. Their timing was just about right, if they had taken off any later then they'd be subjected to other players surrounding them.
"Noooo! Why? Just when I finally got through the forest...why are you heading back now?" A certain demonkin player screamed in frustration.
It wasn't until another 2-3 minutes that a group of players broke out of the tree line and met up with the player.
"Kris, where is she?" The person who spoke was the same person that Kris had called boss.
"She...she..."
"What? Spill it already!"
"...she took off..."
"What? Took off? To where?!"
"...I think she might be heading back to the city...I overheard her talking about it with her pet..."
"Pet? She already has one?!"
"Y-yeah..."
"Damn...I thought only those 4 players were lucky enough to get a pet this early...looks like she has one as well..."
The group of players who had appeared was the same group who had been wiped by the field boss, Direwolf Andar. The player named Kris had successfully tailed Maria all the way past the forest and arrived at the Lukor Plains.
He also bore witness to the extreme sight of Maria taking down monsters double her level and how easily she had dealt with all those monsters.
Kris had recorded it all and sent it to his boss. His boss, who was called Briar, had repeatedly watched the video and had grown even more determined to rope in this rare genius.
Just as he was about to go out and find her that night, Maria had logged off. They waited until morning before the girl had logged back in so when he received news from Kris, who was in-game since dawn, about the girl logging back in, Briar had immediately jumped into the game despite having just walked out of the shower.
Then he was met with the unfortunate news of the girl flying off back to the city. He felt that flying was a cheat, but this further strengthened his resolve to rope the girl in to his guild.
"We head back to the city! Hurry, we must make it there before that girl goes off to who-knows-where!"
"But boss! What happens if she only made a quick trip back and she suddenly returns here again?" Kris asked.
"Then you wait here! We'll head back first, but in the case we don't meet up with her and she comes back here, you are to make contact with her!"
"Uhh okay... but what happens if she ignores me?"
"Just TRY and make contact with her you idiot! Is that too much to ask?! It's not like I'm asking you to rope her in or anything!"
"N-no boss..."
"Good, we'll be off then. You stay put and contact me if anything happens..."
"Yes..."
Kris was once again left alone. He lamented his misfortune because now he had to wait an unknown amount of time for the girl to return, if she would return for that matter. Since he was alone, there was no way for him to grind his levels with the monsters located on the plains or inside the forest...
Briar and his party immediately made their way back towards the city. He cursed the developers since they didn't provide any teleportation scrolls for the game. The party had to travel all the way back to the city on foot.
At this stage of the game, City Return Scrolls still weren't very widespread among the players. In fact, that kind of item wasn't widespread anywhere since you couldn't buy it from the NPCs. At least, that was the case during the Beta Test.
The players in Unitale had to physically get from one place to another if they were out traveling to leveling areas or anywhere else in the open world. The only teleportation in the game were the inter-city, town, village, or outpost teleports.
Field to town or city teleports wasn't something the NPCs provided service for. The players themselves had to create scrolls for those kinds of teleportation.
During the beta, there were only 2 known players who had risen their [Magic Comprehension], [Spatial Magic], and [Inscription] skills high enough to create these teleportation scrolls.
One of them happened to be Lizzy's gaming friend. So in the foreseeable future, Maria would at least be able to snag herself a couple of these scrolls.
*****
Back at the city, Maria had just touched down in front of the Dark God's Temple. She immediately entered by pushing open the double doors leading into the temple. However, she had underestimated her strength and had accidentally slammed both doors open.
BANG
"...Oops?"
"Master..." Lilah facepalmed.
Her entrance was really rowdy and everyone in the temple turned to face her questioningly. Maria noticed that there were actually a decent amount of players inside of the temple today.
The players had all grown to higher levels and had successfully completed their job change quests so it was a given.
Maria straightforwardly walked towards the crowd of people and couldn't help but frown seeing how many people there were.
"Humu...looks like I'll be waiting for a while..."
Unlike in other games, the NPCs in Unitale could only interact with a player one at a time. It was a little annoying, but Universal Games wanted to make it as realistic as possible thus led to the long queue of players lining up to talk to the NPCs.
There were many complaints on the forums, but Universal Games' only response was that it was just how to game was developed. Changing things now wouldn't be plausible, but they did answer to the players' plea by announcing to the community about a small patch where they'd add more class instructors, shop clerks, and other NPCs for better ease of interaction, later this month.
But since the update was for later this month, the NPCs were still being swarmed by players right now.
Maria found a quiet spot to sit, but her conspicuous entrance had already attracted the eyes of the players inside the temple. Not to mention that she was recently a hot topic on the forums for being the only player with a unique race and also the fact that she was the player in the Promotion Video.
However, there was now another attraction and that was the flying fairy whizzing in the air around the girl.
"She's got a pet?"
"I thought only those 4 lucky players were the ones who got pets this early...3 of them are light faction players while there was only 1 from our dark faction..."
"This makes two then."
"Wanna try asking her where she got the pet?"
"Why don't you go?"
"No way, did you see what happened to the players that tried to approach her last time?"
The players took another look at Maria and saw that she was happily interacting with her pet. She was giggling and smiling, making her seem very approachable. However, the videos posted on the forums suggested otherwise.
"Urk...she seems all bubbly, but she doesn't actually like to interact with people, huh?"
"I know right... I mean, if not, then why'd she attack and PK all those players?"
"You guys are just being prejudiced! If you watched the video correctly, you could obviously see that some of the players were harassing her and she only retaliated in kind!"
"She seems nice!"
As the players began murmuring to each other about whether or not they'd approach and make conversation with Maria, a beautiful lady had already made her way over to the girl.
"Hey, I don't think you'd wanna do that!" A player called out.
"Shut it man! That's the High Priestess! You better not act impolite or she'll kick you out of the temple!"
"Oh shit!"
The person who was making her way over to Maria was indeed High Priestess Hella. The NPC instructor had long since noticed the girl when she had entered. After all, Maria had basically smashed through the doors and directly announced her presence in such a rambunctious way.
"Lady Envoy, you have come," Hella said as she bowed down to the girl.
"Eh? Oh! Miss Hella, are you finished talking to everyone else?" Maria replied with a smile when she noticed Hella appearing in front of her. She was having a good time talking with Lilah that she didn't notice Hella approaching.
"Oh my, your attention is most unneeded of such persons with little importance. You are the Dark God's Envoy, so you have top priority when you enter our Temple."
"Really? Well, okay then~" Maria answered while totally not understanding what she meant by that. She was a player as well, so she viewed everyone the same.
Their exchange was witnessed by the players and they couldn't help but gawk at the superior-subordinate manner of speech the two held.
High Priestess Hella, a person of obviously high pedigree, had bowed down in reverence to a player. Even when the girl had spoken back to her in such an impolite and casual manner, Hella only smiled warmly at her and didn't burst out in anger.
Normally, when a player spoke casually and without respect to an NPC of Hella's caliber, they'd just outright get angry and kick the player out of the place or just downright ignored them while also deducting favorability points with them.
It was a first for any player to see an NPC act so reverentially towards a player.
"Lady Envoy, what may I be of service for you today?"
"I wanted to see all the available class skills~ I already have [Cure] and [Heal] so are there anything else for me to learn?"
"Yes, let me show you."
A system window appeared in front of Maria and when she took a look at the long list of skills she could learn, she gawked at it for a good 5 seconds before exclaiming, "Wh-what is all this?!"