Chapter 134

▪️Clues about the Underground World

The largest beastmen stronghold near the Elven Forest finally had been destroyed.

This also means that the southern region of the forest had been completely reclaimed by Evé, and the main external passage to the southeast had been opened due to this. Meanwhile, the elves living within the forest could no longer threatened by orcs or any other sentient races.

As to where those fleeing orcs will eventually end up, that is not Eve's concern at the moment.

Most likely, their destination is in the south, where the rest of the orcs lairs are located.

Evé knows that destroying the caverock tribe is just the beginning. The message she conveyed to Uller before killing his Godwarden, was practically a declaration of war.

However, the message she conveyed will probably be misconstrued and would take on a different interpretation.

The hunter god will definitely not give up easily, and it is likely that the war with his faction would intensity in the future.

It is very likely going to be a full scale, racial war between the elves against Uller's forces!

War begets Death.

Death begets Power.

And accumulating a little power at a time is a fool's errand.

It may sound malevolent, but Evé can easily profit off warfare by absorbing massive amounts of lifeforce amidst large-scale conflicts and bloodshed.

Of course, it would be even better if she could attract some well-known prominent figures to participate in such wars so that they could become her fertilizer in nourishing the Elven Forest.

Before this racial war occurs, what Evé needs to do is to further enhance the players' overall strength and make elven forest an impenetrable bastion capable of withstanding any attacks it may incur in the future.

At the same time, she also need to send out more native elves as seekers to convince those scattered clan members to return to their motherland.

The Rageblaze Clan have already stabilized their situation, with their lives gradually returning to normal, as they slowly adapted to the existence of the Chosen Ones and the task-administration system.

This was a good sign, at least proving Evé that her schemes are not wrong.

Therefore, after the players completed the task of destroying the Caverock stronghold, Evé once again ordered the old priest Samuel to choose some natives in aiding him to continue his task of finding the scattered clan members.

The players' first campaign were a good experience for these indigenous young elves.

Knowing this, many young Rageblaze clansmen enthusiastically signed up, almost all following Samuel, which led to him being scolded by Philothea.

In addition, Evé also ordered the black dragon Meryer return to his old dilapidated castle back in the Dark Mountains.

The southeast exit of the elven forest is still very important choke-point, and its strategic significance is enormous especially in the impending war against Uller.

Someone really needs to guard it and Meryer is a good choice for this task.

After all, this area was originally his home to begin with, and this cheeky guy was quite powerful as well. Evé felt at ease leaving this location to him since this black dragon had an agreement with her and is now in servitude to her.

It was a win-win situation for the both of them.

Meryer will gain more freedom and get to have this entire location for himself while she gets to have a dragon as a guard.

However, contrary to her expectations, it seemed her decision had made the dragon dissatisfied instead.

"No! I don't want to stay there!"

"There's nothing left in there! No roasted meat, honey, or friends! No funny long-eared folks either to serve and give massages to this Lord!"

"Ruaah!! I want to stay here in the Elven Forest!"

The little black dragon rolled on the ground like a spoiled husky, completely disregarding the dignity inherent to the dragons.

Eve: ...

This cheeky guy... has completely forgotten that he was originally a captive and has now been completely domesticated into a pet, hasn't it?

"...I'll create a teleportation array, so you can return to the forest from time to time. Also, I shall give you the ability to assign tasks to the chosen ones under the condition that you accept my faith. How about it? There will still be many chosen ones willing to serve you even if you stay here."

Eve tempted.

"Really? Can I assign them tasks?"

The little black dragon's eyes lit up with expectations and after thinking about it, he muttered in a low voice,

"Then this lord will reluctantly believe in your faith then."

After that, Meryer properly stood up and bowed slightly towards the direction of Elven forest's inner area. The black dragon then stated in a tone of excitement as his voice began speaking in his native dragon tongue,

"Praise thy nature, praise thine life, and praise thou grand ancient tree...Yggdrasill!"

Obviously this little guy is not an elf, so he didn't mention her proper epithet. But he seems to have a great admiration for the old world tree and added this title specifically instead.

On Eve's celestial domain within her mindscape, another small glittering star had formed, symbolizing Meryer's faith. She then felt a startling volume of power surging into her own divinity across the void the moment Meryer finished speaking.

However, what's surprising was that despite Meryer being only a shallow believer, the faith output she can receive from him was almost the same amount as that of fanatical believer!

This greatly intrigued Evé, and also made her understand why the gods are all very interested in converting these dragons into their religions.

Even with just shallow faith, these dragons can still provide so much power of faith. The potential of spreading religion upon the dragonkind is indeed quite terrifying and can make any faith-based gods salivate in greed.

Of course... dragons are very proud creatures and it's hard for them to become devout believers to any deity.

Even those who believe in some gods are often only practicing their faith on a superficial manner for their own personal gains or spiritual needs.

Nevertheless, after considering it, Evé still decided to give Meryer a blue-rank task-administration rights similar to that of a fanatical NPC believer.

And after gaining the ability to issue tasks, Meryer immediately became ecstatic.

In recent days, he had observed how some native elves were giving these so called 'chosen ones' various tasks.

Although he cannot see the system, the players' enthusiasm and unparalleled joy when accepting tasks make Meryer envious.

After all, even though his saliva may be an excellent magical material, it is still not as attractive to players in comparison to experience and contribution points.

As for his dragon blood and scales... well, whoever mentions these things will automatically get beaten up by him.

Henceforth, there are fewer and fewer players coming to serve Meryer partly due to the elves of the Rageblaze clan becoming more familiar with the NPC Task-System.

This made Meryer very dissatisfied for a while.

But now it's different,

He can now also issue some tasks!

Immediately, the little black dragon flew up, muttering to himself as he flew,

"Ruaah—!!! Now these long-eared folks can work hard for this Lord! Well... let's order them to repair my old castle first! Then find treasures as well as roasting meat and massages everyday!"

Evé began to think about the next direction in regards to the development of the players after arranging the guarding duties of Meryer.

Continuing on with the infrastructure projects are a necessary, and the overall quality of life of the players needed further expansion as well, especially in regards to the source of their daily food consumption.

These players have insatiable appetites, and as a direct result of this, it's now hard to even find small to medium animals within the habitable zone.

The remaining animals left were either unappetizing or inedible. She plans to mitigate the situation by implementing some sort of sustainable farming and designating Alice to oversee this whole endeavor.

Furthermore, there's also a lot that needs to be rectified, like the sanitation within the town or the waterworks facilities and waste disposal but Evé reminded herself that she doesn't need to micromanage every aspects of their lives, since in doing so might potentially stifle the growth of the players if she spoon-fed them with solutions in every problem that arises.

Sometimes it best to leave these minor issues to be solved by the players and natives themselves.

She instead, only needs to focus on the main storyline and major sidequests.

Evé then thought of the elven ruins that the players have been desperately searching for...Rivendell!

"The gods has always been slow to react primarily due to the difficulties of crossing over to this world. Uller's next move should not happen anytime soon, hence during this time, I can deal with the matters regarding Rivendell."

According to Alice, Rivendell is connected to the underground world and contain many monsters. Perhaps this elven ruins can further improve the players' overall strength and even provide her with some abundant source of lifeforce as well.

"I heard that the underground world is very chaotic, and gods rarely interfere with the matters involving this place. Perchance I can indulge eating to my heart's content."

Evé softly chuckled before adding,

"Oh and there's also that issue regarding the player named, Boxlunch. If I remembered correctly, he should have been caught by some humans and is likely to become a key piece of a sidequest."

"I wonder how the players have been exploring these days, and if they've found any important clues about Rivendell at all..."

Thinking about this, Evé sank into her mindscape and connected to the game's backend system before entering the term "Rivendell" into the information search bar..

This was one of the administrative function that she created, sort of like a search engine that can scan all the memories of each players.

Once searched, all relevant information related to "Rivendell" discovered by players would appear in Eve's consciousness, allowing her to quickly gather intel in a matter of seconds.

After inputting "Rivendell," Evé thought for a moment and also typed in "underground world."

Rivendell is connected to the underground world, so there should be a correlation between these two.

Evé received a lot of search results in a instant!

As it turned out, the campaign to destroy the orc stronghold had a significant impact on players' terrain exploration, and many players who initially chose to search for Rivendell temporarily gave up.

However, there were still some few players that persisted.

But as expected, according to the search results, even the players who persisted in searching the ruins had still not yet found the exact location of Rivendell.

However, when looking at the results regarding the 'underground world' Evé noticed something different...

"Hm? Some players seem to have been discussing this... Huh?! They found a clue to the underground world?"

"Oh? Is this...Boxlunch's team?"