Chapter 20: Tamed Players

"That goblin looks a little suspicious."

Inside the Undead Territory.

The players watched the goblin blacksmith conversing with the Domain Lord, a strange gleam flickering in their eyes.

When working through side quests, talking to all manner of NPCs was absolutely crucial — a great deal of information was hidden within those conversations.

The Undead Archmage had gone out for no apparent reason and come back with a goblin in tow...

Something was clearly off.

Of course, they hadn't even finished the prerequisite quests yet, so whatever ideas they had would have to stay tucked away for now. Once they were fully drawn into the side-quest storyline, perhaps they could try making contact.

"Why are these guys still staring at me?"

The goblin, busy setting up the smithy, was quietly observing the adventurers in return.

It had no idea what these people meant by staring at it like that, and it was feeling very uneasy.

The goblin blacksmith vaguely remembered the day the chieftain died. A close friend had rushed over in the dead of night to deliver the news, weeping uncontrollably.

[Those damned adventurers had disguised themselves as women, lured the chieftain out, then dropped the disguise and swarmed him all at once — hurling all manner of potions at him. The poor old fellow didn't even get a word out before he was instantly dismembered.]

[The remaining goblins were kidnapped one by one, enslaved, and sold by the adventurers to distant human mines. The once-mighty goblin territory was wiped off the map overnight without so much as a hair left behind.]

Upon hearing this, the goblin blacksmith had been completely stunned.

What utterly despicable behavior!

And that damned Undead Domain Lord was cooperating with these adventurers, groveling before them — an absolute disgrace to all monsters!

Huh?

Just as the goblin was fuming with indignation, it suddenly noticed something.

Things didn't quite match what it had imagined.

The image it had conjured — of the Undead Domain Lord cowering submissively — was nowhere to be seen. On the contrary, it was the adventurers who wore expressions of fawning delight, like dogs wagging their tails, holding out all manner of supplies with both hands and rushing to present them.

"Lord Xia Er, here are the items on the list — every single one, nothing missing!"

"Me too! Here are ten strands of level-20 monster souls!"

"Loyalty!"

What the fuck was going on?

Watching this scene, the goblin's entire worldview shattered once again.

Weren't these adventurers supposed to be even more shameless than hyenas?

How had it come to this?

Xia Er hadn't noticed the goblin's utterly bewildered expression — and even if he had, he wouldn't have bothered explaining.

After collecting all the materials with a composed, serious demeanor, Xia Er gave a nod of approval. "Follow me."

The same dim underground chamber as before.

The same cryptic, blood-red magic circle.

After having the players drip their blood into it, Xia Er kept a perfectly straight face and launched into his practiced spiel once more: "This magic circle, passed down from ancient times, has been damaged. It will require ten strands of level-30 monster souls to repair."

"Once that's done, it will provide you with guidance."

The adventurers left the territory with faces full of excitement.

Avril, who had been silently watching everything from the side, stepped into the underground chamber.

She looked at the magic circle, her expression serious. "Lord Xia Er, what exactly is this thing? Does our territory truly have some kind of hidden history?"

Xia Er looked at Avril like she was an idiot. "Of course it's fake."

"I drew this magic circle in three minutes. If I don't spin some kind of story, how am I supposed to make these guys think they've stumbled onto something big?"

Avril: ……

Seeing how excited those adventurers had been, Avril had actually thought it was all real — and it turned out to be completely made up!

"Have you memorized the talking points I gave you at the meeting earlier?"

In response to the question, Avril nodded. "I can't say too much about this matter — the waters run too deep. You'll have to figure it out yourself. Those who know, know..."

"Good. Keep it up. Just sprinkle a tiny bit of useless information into a lot of meaningless chatter. The important thing is to maintain an air of mystery around the territory."

Xia Er had set the conditions for activating the magic circle quite high — it wasn't something that could be accomplished in a short time.

Once this quest was over, he would officially draw the players into the "side-quest storyline" he had fabricated. By then, those scheming troublemakers would certainly be snooping around the territory for information.

Maintaining the air of mystery was essential.

"Here are the items listed on your inventory. Some may not have arrived yet — go ahead and distribute what's here to the other subordinates to boost their strength."

After handing over the storage bag, Xia Er returned to his study and opened his personal panel.

He was currently level thirty-five.

Ever since the last time he had killed that job-advanced player to complete his character image transformation, Xia Er had refrained from attacking the players who came to trigger the hidden quest — all in order to maintain his persona — which meant his level had barely budged.

To address this problem, he had decisively asked the players to collect monster souls for him.

After receiving one batch of the players' hard-earned spoils, Xia Er now had ten strands of level-20 monster souls.

He took them out of the storage bag and channeled a trace of magic power into them.

The souls, previously blank and listless, stirred at the touch of his awareness and began to wail. Dark miasma seeped from their forms — the manifestation of the resentment they had carried at the moment of death.

It was quite clear.

Having fallen into the hands of those utterly inhumane players, these poor creatures had died miserably — and were far from at peace with it.

"My poor kindred..."

"It's alright. I will avenge you. Please lend me your strength."

With that, Xia Er closed his eyes, shoved all the souls into his mouth at once, and refined them in a moment!

[EXP +900]

[EXP +600]

[EXP +600]

As the system notifications appeared, Xia Er's stagnant experience bar began to tick upward, slowly creeping toward level thirty-six.

[Your level has increased to 36.]

[Skill Point +1]

After absorbing all ten strands of souls, his level had finally, barely, gone up by one.

Staring at the experience bar that had inched forward just the tiniest bit, Xia Er couldn't help but mutter, "The higher the level, the less experience low-level souls give..."

But that was fine — as long as the skill point came through.

From his previous skill allocations, Xia Er had already discovered that when a skill was leveled up to Lv3, a Specialization option would unlock.

Each specialization could trigger a qualitative transformation in the skill.

Right now, his remaining skills — [Dark Veil] and [Ember Fire] — were both at Lv2, each just one skill point away.

After some deliberation, Xia Er decided to put the point into Ember Fire.

After all, it was currently his only high-damage skill.

[Skill Point consumed.]

[Skill: Ember Fire Lv2 → Lv3]

[Description: MP cost increased by 300. Maximum locked-on targets increased from 5 to 10. Damage slightly increased.]

[Specialization [Magical Flame] unlocked.]