First War Read online

  A Japanese man with dirty blonde hair and glasses stood up and bowed slightly before sitting down once more.

  “Next up is Vince Manrow, his character is an elf lord with the unique Holytree seed that he had planted becoming a very valued member among the elven people. His character is called Gwen Holytree, the last name responds to the seed the elf has within their bodies.”

  Vince waved when his name was called and he was introduced like all the others.

  “Now we have our only female lord, Sam Jolie. Her character is a Demon lord of the imp variety. Her player name is Ulra, and she was originally #3, she jumped back to #40 after a month of work.”

  Sam happily waved “Hi guys!” she exclaimed.

  “Lastly we have Lucas Rollin, his character is also a demon lord of the imp variety. His character name is Akor, he was originally #1 and is currently #30 but his best rank has been #50. He is the first lord to build a town and is the only lord to leave the tutorial without leveling up beyond level 5.” the host finished.

  Lucas just raised his hand in a small wave but didn’t react further.

  “Well, let’s get to it then.” the host said with a smile. “First off, welcome to the show.” He said.

  “Thanks! It’s great to be here!” Sam said first.

  “Well like all the other players we have some questions prepared that we hope you all can answer.” He said taking out a small stack of pre-written questions prepared by the show directors. “Well first off, what do you think of the ranking for the worst lords?” He asked.

  Sam, Vince and Madison instantly made some strange expressions and Sam made the first reply, “Well that is mostly an incentive to make lords work better right? No one wants to remain in that kind of ranking.” She replied.

  “Yeah, I think it's that as well.” Vince said.

  “Agreed.” Madison replied.

  The host looked at the two remaining lords.

  Sasori raised a brow, "I think that it is a way to isolate weaker players.” He said.

  It was the turn of the host to make a confused expression, “How so?” he asked.

  “Would anyone want to start out in the kingdom of a player in the worst ranking?” Sasori asked.

  “Ah, I get it.” The host nodded understanding and looked at Lucas.

  He had a gloomy aura to him and clearly didn’t want attention but he was also bluntly honest when he spoke, something he would not change about himself, "It’s a bias ranking made to fill the egos of the top rankers.” He said simply.

  “OHHH!” the crowd suddenly exclaimed and clapped while laughing.

  The players and top lords frowned, the host still had his business smile on his face. “Care to elaborate?” he asked.

  “Yeah, in my own case, why am I in the worst rankings when I probably have the best demon town? I recently took a break and looked at countless lord videos including the demon lords and I am quite sure that my territory has the highest development ranking in research but I am on the lowest rankings.” Lucas said.

  "It’s because your minions are weakass and shitty.” one of the top lords said.

  This lord was the top demon lord and was from the vampire race. He followed the most generic demon lord path, he lived in the badlands and he accepted the trade for minions. He didn’t accept a god because his research was crappy and most of his items and research came from stealing bits and pieces from small tribes which are rare since the badland demons are much dumber compared to the ones in the mountains surrounding Lucas.

  Lucas looked back at the player who was quite confident, rich looking and well dressed. "It is better to have weak but intelligent minions instead of mindless raging cannibals.” He replied.

  “Okay okay!” the host said breaking up anything before arguments began.

  “Next question…” he said and changed the sheet, “This is the same question I asked the other lord’s, Why did you accept or reject to change the advisor for a minion race?” He asked.

  Sam snorted, “Why would I throw away a trained army general for a batch of Tier 1 hatchlings I will have to train myself?” Sam asked.

  Vince replied with even more disdain for this feature, "I don’t like taking orders from other people.” He said.

  “Wow!” The host exclaimed, “Don’t you fear the kings and lords?” he asked the two.

  “Why should I?” the two said in sync.

  Sam took the initiative, “There were systems to prevent the outside forces from damaging us if we were careful. For one, the number of population inside the tutorial zone limited their activities and with a bit of strategy you could beat them.” Sam said.

  “For me, the elves were just more aggressive but not overly hostile. At most, they limited my hunting because elves have a lower birth rate so they don’t like to kill their own kind.” Vince said.

  "I see, so you both researched the system that much.” The host replied surprised and looked at the other thing.

  Next Madison answered, “The king I was placed closest to before being warped was an asshole and had a corrupt government so I didn’t bother joining.” He said.

  No one questioned him about that.

  "I want to follow my own path of gameplay.” Sasori said.

  “Which is?” the host asked.

  “That is for me to know and everyone to find out.” He said bluntly.

  Some people in the crowd laughed and clapped but the lord's snorted.

  Finally it was Lucas’s turn again.

  The host looked at him again, “And you Lucas?” he asked.

  "I just didn’t like the devils that came. They were annoying.” He said.

  Sam began to laugh and clapped and drew the crowd but that answer actually peeved one of the lords.

  “What is so bad about swallowing your pride for greater benefits?” he asked.

  “Doing that is for people who can swallow their pride.” Lucas said but after a small pause, he turned back “Or cowards who get easily intimidated.”

  “What was that!?” The lords stood up at once.

  “Woah! Woah! Calm down everyone!” The host said.

  Before the security could come the other lord just held his hand up and sat down but he had a scowl on his face. Lucas just looked at him while Sam was grinning.

  She leaned in while covering the mic and whispering, “You really are annoyed, huh? Why?” She asked.

  “This entire thing is annoying. This is propaganda to bump up the best players while using us as examples to avoid our game play style.” he replied in a whisper back.

  “Alright, everyone just calm down we don’t want anything serious to happen.” The host tried to calm the two groups.

  “Hey, I have a question for Lucas.” The rich looking lord player said.

  Lucas looked at him while he sneered, “What would it take for you to tell me your location so that I could get the free piece of land from all the lords that are out for your head?” He asked with a sneer.

  “Ooo!” The crowd exclaimed.

  Of course what he was talking about was the bounty the demon lords placed out for Lucas when he picked Pyarus.

  “You’re a real creep.” Sam said bluntly.

  "I wasn’t talking to you.” he said.

  “Alright we will take a small commercial break, we'll be right back!” the host said.

  Ding!

  The cameras turned off and the tension in the air instantly swelled as the security walked out and stood between the groups. The two lord groups were made to separate further.

  “Alright you all, no more of this. I don’t want this to end in some bar fight or anything.” The host said.

  “He started it!” One of the top lords said pointing at Lucas.

  "I just spoke the truth.” Lucas replied.

  “Enough!” The host said. “No more!” he said one final time before letting the background workers fix his makeup and hair and sat down.

  “And we are back in 5… 4… 3…”

  D
ing!

  When the count ended the light showing on air turned on.

  “Welcome back, we are back with the players from [Magic Life] and have just finished a question with the players in the ranking of Lords likely to fail. We will continue with the next question.” The host lifted up the card, “What is your ideology for your development process?” he asked.

  Surprisingly Lucas replied first, “My ideology is to build a foundation through researching skills and buildings so that I can possess skilled minions over powerful mindless minions.”

  “Oh, so that is what you were doing during your time in the tutorial.” The host said.

  “Of course, this is also part of my game play style.” he replied.

  The voice of one of the top lords came as soon as he finished, “That is stupid, you are a demon and you want to set up a nation like the humans? You’re a demon, not a human!” The rich lord said.

  “Why is it stupid? It is just another method to play the game? Also, what do you mean ‘you’re a demon’ just because I play with the demon race I have to be like all mindless demons and slaughter to grow? Isn’t that the same as saying that if you are human you are required to be righteous and humane but how many righteous people do we actually know who are truly righteous and not faking it? I prefer to play like myself than just randomly kill and slaughter without thinking because of the general view of the race I was given.” He said.

  At once the crowd began to applaud his speech, and it even surprised him that he got such a reaction.

  The face of the lord grew darker, and he narrowed his eyes.

  The host had the crowd quiet down and the other lords explained their own ideology and gameplay style.

  There weren’t as many interruptions during their turn like with Lucas, clearly the one who tried to insult him was the main instigator.

  “Alright, next question. Why did you pick the god that you picked?” he asked.

  "I followed Lucas’s example after he picked.” Sam said.

  Lucas rolled his eyes, "I feel that having a god which improves the mental abilities of the demon race is much more valuable than a god which improves their combat abilities because it would increase the efficiency of my subjects and minions.” he said.

  “That is a promising thought process but are you sure it will have an effect on the demon races?” the host asked.

  “Why wouldn’t it? Why would there be a system if it didn’t take effect otherwise? My biggest goal is to change the ‘curse’ on demons where they can only get exp through killing and get rid of the last hit kill feature cursing demons. If I can make demons at least have a similar leveling system as the other sentient beings by changing their most basic mental patterns then it would be considered a success.” Lucas said.

  “You are fighting against the waves.” The rich lord said.

  “So what if I am, this is how I want to play the game.” Lucas replied.

  The man growled in anger and went quiet.

  Tension between the two was clear and so dense that you could cut it.

  The others soon followed off with their answers. Unlike Lucas and Sam who wanted to awaken a good demon god, the others already had good domain gods, so they didn’t have the same struggles.

  “Well we will be going to a commercial break, when we return, a few of our guests will be playing a few games so stay tuned.” The show went off air.

  He sighed and stood up, “So who is interested?” he asked.

  “Are we required to remain on the show to watch?” Lucas suddenly asked.

  Everyone looked at him and the host raised a brow, “Well no…” he said.

  “Then I shall excuse myself. I have already done what was asked and answered the interview questions so I will go home.” he said and nodded to the group he was part of and stood up and left.

  The host had a very confused expression and scratched his head before pulling his phone and calling Edna.

  “Yeah just let him be.” She said simply.

  "Is it okay?” The host asked.

  "It’s fine, the boy isn’t social to begin with so just the amount he said is already pretty good. Actually he got quite a good reception because of the conflict he had with the other players so don’t worry about it.” She said.

  “Okay.” The host said shutting off the call and turned to the rest, “So who is interested in playing?”

  ***

  Returning home, Lucas sighed in relief because of the stress at having to speak and be stared at by so many people. Living such a shut in life didn’t really make him very social after all.

  He got a small snack, just a few fruits and jumped into the game.

  He appeared in his throne room. He found that there was nothing new, but he looked at the map and chuckled.

  The adventurer guild was swarming with players. Because there were quests that the guild handed out everyone gathered there to get something to do.

  Demons weren’t like humans who had many quests open throughout the town. If they were in a system town, then maybe but they were in a player town. The number of intelligent demons who could generate a quest was low like any small village.

  The quests sent out were mostly resource hunting quests. Hunting animals and so on.

  Akor checked the missions and was interested by the type of monsters that were discovered in the surroundings.

  The first one invaded the demon wood farms and were called black squirrels. They were black colored flying squirrels that attack from the air but they couldn’t glide that long. They mostly jumped from above and landed on the target to scratch them and run away. They were a plague for those gathering demon sap and wood. This animal is the bottom of the food chain like rabbits and are level 1-3.

  Next is the mountain fox, these are like red foxes that appear near human towns but they live in mountain areas and mostly hunt rodents like the squirrels and small birds. They are level 2-5 and their fur, teeth and tail are worth good coin.

  The players had begun to craft using random stone and wood they could gather and the claws and fangs would be good material.

  Of course Akor knew this, and he saw a money making opportunity. There were tailor skills already so with the influx of players who were appearing and hunting if he could open up a shop they could sell the stuff and it would radically improve his economic situation.

  The next creature was the hairy mountain goat, these he knew about and had already tamed and bred a number of them. They were from level 3-6 and he was hoping to use them as mounts.

  Above that was a major predator, a mountain cougar. They were from level 5-8 and were a meter long felines with a lot of muscle and power backed by fierce hunting instincts. They are scarce but that makes their pelt, bones, claws and fangs all the more rare.

  Finally, the hairy ox. These are mountain bovine which live in small herds of around 10. They are all above level 10 and are very powerful creatures, especially if the herd charges. Until now they had been avoided because no one can kill them due to them running in groups and protecting each other.

  These were the creatures near Sanity of course, it did not include the wolves Akor caught and had been breeding to make them into fast mounts.

  Although he was not fond of being an aggressive player, he knew about the basic classes and their merits. Cavalry was called the king of the middle ages. They were the strongest among the warriors because their power was increased by the speed of their mounts.

  After getting up to date with the territory he began to do some work. First off he checked the amount of money he had.

  Of course there wasn’t a huge amount but injecting money into the player base would definitely improve the condition of the city.

  He did as he planned previously, he set up a shop to sell smithed weapons and another he set another to buy materials and sell armor.

  Of course the armor was still not available, and the skill was very low so for the moment he needed to inject money in the shop and regain the money on th
e weapons. There was also crafting service which would help train the skills quicker.

  He gathered some minions and subordinates and placed them in the shops and smithy to begin producing. A merchant was put in charge of the shop as his own but under Akor’s rule so he had to turn in part of the profit.

  When it was done, he went to check with Valring and found she had finished upgrading the skills he had obtained. They were no longer on old rotting paper and were on regular clean paper. The skills were also more complete, and it was clear the level cap had risen.

  This level cap was for minions and not players. He needed to upgrade skills constantly to make sure the skill cap didn’t hinder his minions.

  “Are all the skills upgraded?” Akor asked.

  “My Lord, it is done!” She said excited.

  “So what effect does it have?” He asked.

  Valring grinned, “Our soldiers can reach level 20 in the skills you have obtained. We must search for more or else the skills will remain limited at level 10 and it will limit our strength.” She said.

  "Is it common to find these research scrolls in villages?” he asked.

  “Well normally no but from the fact that so many appeared, maybe your presence, my Lord, influenced them to be more intelligent compared to common demons.” She said.

  "I see. That is good because it goes with my plans.” He said.

  “Really, that is great! We should attack more villages!” She said excited but Akor shook his head.

  “Before that, I want to deal with one thing first.” he said.

  She was confused but when she saw Akor turn and walk towards the stairs, she followed behind him curious what his next objective was.

  The location Akor went to was the ranch which had the hairy mountain goats.

  He made a minion call captains and commanders of his army and soon they lined up. Among them was also a group of minogida warriors.

  “We have come Master!” One of the commanders saluted.

  “Good.” Akor nodded. He turned and looked at the ranch, “Do you see those?” he asked.