"My liege, half your troops are in critical condition, you must tend to their injuries and ensure they go to the hospital immediately," said Uriel. "Send the injured to the hospital right away," replied Eden , but then she paused to ask "how do we transport them?" A beam of light then hit the injured troops and they were transported right away. Eden looked up and asked, "Why didn't you tell me you could transport us?"
"I can only transport the injured to the hospital immediately, but for traveling, I need to use an item, like the centaur dropped that was just defeated, it's on the report." Uriel responded and handed a scroll to Eden to point out the list of items dropped. There was a teleportation bottle on the list among other things. Eden looked over the scroll and noticed the power level on the centaur was more than the power level of all her troops combined. She noticed an uncategorized buff with the power level of null. Eden thought to herself, that must be Uriel. I didn't know if my guide could be killed, but I took a gamble that the system requires an immortal AI to go with me to record all my whereabouts, then again Uriel wasn't supposed to be here. I wonder if others have discovered this already. Either way I should probably keep this quiet before the administrators become aware and set additional rules. She scanned for experience points and saw twenty five thousand experience points added to her arsenal. At the very bottom it showed the loot from the boss. A box of stones for armor, thousands of coins for first reward and kill, a bow. Eden handed the scroll back to Uriel and said "Uriel, destroy this." The scroll turned into ashes right away.
"My liege, how did you know the minotaur would be defeated?" asked Arthur. Eden paused before answering. She wondered if this was a script or it was an admin asking her through Arthur. After debating and thinking it would be too soon for them to see anything odd, she replied, "I didn't, I took a gamble on it."
Eden gave a breath of relief before she asked for a troop count and health stats. She then requested Uriel to give him a health stat of himself too. She noticed that Uriel had no damage which made her smile because Uriel can be her trump card during battle.
They kept hunting monsters until Uriel pointed out that Eden's stamina was almost fully depleted. Eden then looked at the map they had explored and marked it. "How long before we return to the village?" She asked Uriel as she walked towards Thunder. "You will have to regain some stamina before we can move back. Traveling also takes up stamina." replied Uriel as he showed Eden's condition and her armies. Eden then flashed a smirk on her face. She walked to her troops and pricked each one that wasn't injured including herself. "Send all the injured to the hospital. In a flash, everyone was back in the village hospital except Thunder. Eden frowned, I was sure that Thunder would be with me too since he is my travel companion. Uriel spoke up as if reading her thoughts, "Thunder is back in the stables, he can't be in the hospital, but will teleport to the stables."
Later that evening, Eden sat in her study looking over her reports and thinking about how to allocate the experience points. On her desk was able to pull up multiple screens at once that would float in the air. Unlike when she travels, she has to open one screen at a time and go back. She decided to start doing the math so that the points were distributed in a power pyramid shape. In war we send out the foot soldiers first. I need to divide them into different types before our next outing; calvary, archers, ground and siege. After reviewing her charts, training grounds and her troop count, She made her decision on how many troops will be in every squad. She went to sleep still thinking of how many more troops she can afford to recruit and still make progress on the castle reinforcements.
Eden woke up after 4 hours of sleep thinking of everything she needed to get done assuming that other players were already ahead of her. This was a power game after all, the strongest ones rule and make up the rules. She checked the current stats of the castle and troops. Looks like I need to split my forces and send them to the academy, then rotate them after each new level. She saw the cost of sending half her army to the academy. It was almost all of the earnings from the prior day's work. With a sigh she said, "whomever has the money to fund war wins I guess." Then she took a deep breath before summoning Uriel to his office. "My liege, how may I serve you," said Uriel as he bowed. "I prefer Chief-Commander or just Commander and I want you to take half the army and send them to the academy. Have them return only when they surpass 10 levels with the other knight commanders. The rest of the troops will alternate after every level they reach." Eden said without looking up from her documents. "I also need to hire more troops at the basic tier level that will replace the amount of troops in the academy." "Yes my liege." responded Uriel as he walked out the office.
Uriel was in the study room the entire time last night, standing behind the curtain. Eden had to ask him to wait outside of the room because he needed to think without being distracted by being constantly watched. Eden thought, "It's an uneasy feeling being watched like that. As long as the creators don't interrupt me as I'm trying to also figure out a way back. Then I think I can overlook the creepiness."
After going over the numbers, Eden decided he needed to use Uriel during every boss battle to get ahead faster. A few more bosses won't be noticed Eden thought. It's probably too low for it to matter at the moment. She had already noticed the improvement of the troops from yesterday. Eden and her army ended the night fatigued. She did the same thing as she did the first time. The entire army was transported to the hospital.
"My liege hospital has reached its max capacity. Please expand your hospital," said Uriel. Eden looked at the report and noticed a squad of 20 missing. Then said "activate, expand the hospital. Where is my squad now?"
Uriel replied "They could not be transported and are marked as deserters."
Then Eden asked, "Can I recover them now?"
Uriel answered,"You can only recover a percent of your deserters using a loyalty horn that is found in the market"
Eden furrowed her eyes and asked,"how often can I use the horn?"
Uriel responded, "Each horn can only be used once."
Eden let out a sigh and stated, "Uriel, I need to hire the same amount of troops we did this morning"
Uriel replied,"Yes my liege"
Then with a serious tone Eden ordered,"Uriel, have them go to the academy at once"
Uriel answered, "Yes my liege"
My numbers are not balanced out anymore, but this is expected as more troops get lost by war or raids. Now I need to check the bulletin to see who has the highest power in the ranks and how to join an alliance. Eden made her way to the market to look at the rankings. As expected, there's already a few alliances and some powerful players, now that I have an idea of who is out there I can plan. Eden went through the information of each alliance and stopped at Dark Warriors. It's not the most powerful, but its intro sounds reasonable. Eden submitted her application and was accepted. Then soon a popup screen showed messages between the alliance members. There was barely any conversation on how to get organized or plan. The leader kept posting, "everyone has to get stronger." Eden placed his notifications in silence. She thought, "perhaps I should stay silent for now and see where I can go next if this doesn't work out."
Eden returned to her quarters and took a bath. She was thinking that perhaps expanding her army would give her the appearance of being strong, but for how long? She was just about to get some rest before she noticed fire outside his window.
"My liege, our city is under attack," She heard Uriel yell through the door.
"Where are the troops on guard?" asked Eden as she got up.
"They were too weak to defend" answered Uriel as he opened the door.
"What are they sending against my ground?" asked Eden .
"Calvary my liege" replied Uriel as he pointed at the horses.
"Of all the troop types" said Eden as he snapped his fingers.
Eden quickly checked her arsenal and found a shield item to cast over her city and used it right away. The force field expanded from her room and blasted the enemy back and outside her territory.
"How many dead?" Eden asked.
"None my liege" replied Uriel.
"How is that possible?" asked Eden, bewildered.
"You expanded your hospital, the hospital can hold the capacity of your current army" responded Uriel.
"Battle report" demanded Eden so she could see for herself.
A scroll appeared in Eden 's hands. Attacker was from Alliance For The Good by Barlas. His power level was ten times hers. Only 30% of resources were taken before they got blasted. Eden looked over at the fire being put out by the rest of the villagers and mumbled, Just wait, Barlas.