29 A Prelude to a New Era

Several days of passed since Astur declared the establishment of the Holy Oulvgar State. When Elizabeth came back to bring the investigation team a sample of the water, Astur had forbidden her from mentioning anything about what was going on to the Kingdom of Virpals investigation team, including to Taurion and Lester. The reason for this was simple, Astur said it wasn't the right time. She plans to invoke a sense of mystery for the group just beyond the central area of the forest. Astur's hopes for this is that a rumour will begin to spread amongst the nearby areas which she wants to use to attract players to the forest. As for the type of rumour that gets spread, Astur doesn't really care, regardless of whether it's good or bad as long as it can spark the player's curiosity is all that matters.

While Astur had been satisfied with recent events, Elizabeth was not. After she returned with the water samples to the investigation team, Elizabeth was immediately besieged with questions, questions that she couldn't answer. She had only been there for the very last few moments of Astur's speech nor did she have a chance to get up close since Astur had one of the Oulvgar near where Elizabeth was to deliver a couple of bottles of water with her message to not let any information leak. All Elizabeth knew was that Astur had declared the establishment of a new state. Of course, Elizabeth isn't an idiot, perhaps a bit naive, but she's no idiot and she did have a general idea of what Astur was doing prior to her arrival. Elizabeth did answer what she felt she could when asked by Taurion, Lester, and Walfrid, although it wasn't much and she was being vague. Seeing her dodge around most of their questions, Taurion and Lester, figured it was Astur who wanted to withhold information, but Walfrid, not being familiar with the way Astur acts, was rather frustrated at Elizabeths obvious and poor attempts to dodge their questions.

Since he wasn't able to get any answers out of Elizabeth, the General decided to recall the investigation team and return to the Town of Dawn. But Taurion and Lester decided to stay behind for a short time to ask about what happened, but Elizabeth didn't give any details and repeated Astur's message about not letting any information leak, not even to the two of them. But before they left to catch up with the rest of the investigation team, Elizabeth did give them a small notice that something big is probably going to happen soon.

The days following the visit from the investigation team and Astur's declaration haven't been kind to Elizabeth. Astur being Astur, decided to make some big changes to the forest again, but beyond the initial planning, she pushed nearly all of her work to Elizabeth. What Astur wants is to turn the central area of the Sea of Trees into a city with her house at the centre. Now if this was all Astur wanted, she could do it without as much effort as blinking, but having a city around her isn't just because she wants a more convenient life. While she does want her surroundings to be more convenient, Astur's main purpose for this is the players that will be arriving soon. Astur wants to bring players to her side with the intent of providing players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for working alongside her in building a faction and a city from the ground up. This is why she pushed her work to Elizabeth, although a good part of it was to slack off, by having Elizabeth handle it, the development of the city will be much slower, giving them time for the beta to start.

Contrary to her expectations, the city's development over the past few days have gone surprisingly well. Utilising the speciality of the various Oulvgar species, Elizabeth has gotten a rudimentary bridge built that connects Astur's island to the rest of the forest. With the beavers taking care of constructing the various frameworks, the monkeys and gorillas put them together, while a large group of otters were responsible for piecing the bridge together. Astur had wanted to cause a couple of totally accidental coincidences, but after seeing how hard the Oulvgar had been working Astur decided to leave them be since she figures they'll probably run into some roadblocks sooner or later.

But Astur's recent actions haven't only affected the forest. From a loose-lipped soldier who was on the investigation team, a rumour began to spread about a Forest Goddess who lives in the Sea of Trees. This rumour quickly made its way to the ears of the Church of Light who currently enjoys its position as the only official religion of Planet Vopal. But it didn't get this position through peaceful means, having forced out any potential threat to its status with military might. In the recent centuries, the Church appears to be a peaceful place on the surface, they haven't truly changed, only becoming more secretive about their violent methods. And much like how the Kingdom of Virpal wanted to know what was happening in the forest, the Church begins work on setting up their own investigation.

At the same time, the municipality of the two towns near the Sea of Trees has convened feeling troubles over how the changes in the forest have affected their businesses. Although the Kingdom has recently sent an investigation team to check things out, neither of the towns, Dawn nor Hadrow, are aware of this. The leaders of both towns are aware that the Kingdom was planning its own investigation, but they feel it would take too long and are discussing amongst themselves about the situation.

In a small conference room are the Mayors of Dawn and Hadrow as well as a few of the town's other officials, like the Branch Manager of Dawn's post office, Harold Delfringer.

"Gathering lumber has become more difficult, leading to a price increase for any woodworking project. Hunter's haven't been able to successfully hunt anything for months now, raising the price of meat. Gatherers don't feel safe anymore when they go to the Sea of Trees, causing another surge in the price of wild herbs. And we're even seeing fewer fish in the river that flows from the forest. The Kingdom was supposed to have sent a team to investigate but we haven't heard anything about this yet. With the recent price increase of these areas, many people aren't able to afford their dinner without our subsidies, but this isn't sustainable for much longer. Waiting around for the investigation from the nobles isn't an option anymore, we need to do something about this ourselves," says the Mayor of Dawn.

"I agree, tax revenue has been going down ever since the reports about the forest began to pour in. We shouldn't wait for the Kingdom's investigation, I say we begin recruiting for our own investigation team. Minister Delfringer, can I ask you to be the leader of this team as one of the strongest residents between our two towns?" asks the Mayor of Hadrow.

"Former Minister, I'm just the humble manager of Dawn's post office now. But I don't mind leading, there's actually something I wanted to check out in the forest anyway so this is a good opportunity," Harold says, thinking back to his meeting with Astur. "This is probably related to her," he thinks as he listens to the others discuss the objectives for their investigation.

At the same time, Astur is currently locked away in her workshop. With the advent of the players coming soon, Astur has been unusually hard at work trying to level herself up again. She knows that one of the most important things for her is to stay ahead of the players. Although it'd be difficult for them to do so, it isn't impossible for a player to try and kill her, and one of the easiest and simplest way to deter such attempts is to be stronger than the players. While she is familiar with the way gamers tend to think, being one herself, this also means she knows just how unpredictable some can be. This is why other than checking up on Elizabeth and the Oulvgar's progress, Astur has only been synthesising new items. While many of them are strange like a variant of the Blast Ball that heals everything it hits, Astur's concern was simply making new items and creating new recipes since that's what gives her the most EXP.

Although it's weaker than levelling her Main Class, levelling her Subclasses require much less EXP. Bringing each of her Subclassses up to level 10, evening out her Class levels and bringing her total level up to 30.

"With this, even if a player picks up the Scholar Subclass, they shouldn't be able to see my stats," Astur thinks as she wipes the sweat off her forehead. Taking a look at the System interface, she sees a small countdown in the corner. Sitting in a nearby chair, Astur says out loud, "just in time."

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