Chapter 785

Game of the World Tree

【 THE LAW OF TRUE FRAGRANCE 】

—

“So? What do you think of Chosen City?”

“Pretty amazing, it’s even better than I imagined. Though the map area feels a little too huge. I spent ages walking before finally finding this place.”

“Hahaha, of course! This is the largest city in the entire Elven Forest, after all. Its total population is over two hundred thousand!”

“Really? But looking around, i think its more than that, probably? It feels like there are people everywhere on the streets…”

“Hah, that’s because today is the day the public beta opened once more. More than a million new players joined all at once, so naturally it’s crowded… Though, Cousin, your luck’s pretty good. I heard the spawn locations for newcomers this time were completely random. Some people even got sent as far as Florence City. Spawning inside a city is fine, but if you get into the wilderness, that’s going to be a nightmare…”

“The wilderness? Don’t tell me it’s really like what the videos said, where you have to walk dozens of kilometers through the forest just to get back to the city?”

“Well, that depends on your luck. But… this is the core region of the Elven Forest, and quite a lot of smaller guilds have scattered outposts throughout the outer woods. So as long as you can find a road, you can usually follow it to one of those outposts. From there, you can take a carriage at the station back to the main city.”

“Exactly! After all, Elven Kingdom is known as the most ridiculously massive open-world game in history! Forget everything else, even Chosen City itself is just a single coordinate point on the currently available overworld map. And that’s not even counting places outside the main map, like the Shattered Divine Kingdom, the Ouros Demirealm, the Wasteland of Desolation, and other maps…”

“Ohhh! This game’s worldbuilding really is grand…”

“It’s more than grand. It’s an epic.”

Four Seasons sat on the steps together with Yeye and Nana, chatting while waiting for the trophy ceremony.

Their team tournament journey had already come to an end, but there was still one final individual championship match left. The rewards would only be distributed after all the competitions concluded.

And as the conversation continued, Four Seasons gradually came to understand why so many veteran players in the city were clamoring to recruit newcomers into their guilds today.

“Recruiting people? Heh… Honestly, it’s a good thing you didn’t join any, Cousin. They call it recruiting, but lemme tell you, they’re really just looking for laborers! Didn’t the devs announced that they were once more letting players build several new cities? Well you see… that’s got all the medium and small guilds itching to make one.”

“Having your own city to govern is the dream of a lot of guilds. The reason the Seven Major Guilds have always dominated the leaderboards is mainly because every single one of them has their own city…”

“But building a city from the scratch isn’t exactly easy and it takes a massive workforce, so a lot of those small and medium-sized guilds started targeting the newcomers instead…”

After hearing Yeye’s explanation, Four Seasons paused for a moment.

“Wait—isn’t that basically scamming newbies?”

“I wouldn’t really call it a scam. The benefits they offer are actually pretty good. If the application really gets approved, it’ll eventually become a proper city anyway. Houses in a main city district… heh, Cousin, getting in early is definitely worth it. Forget those small guilds, I’m already planning to buy a house in the central district once a new city is completed.”

Yeye laughed.

“Buying a house? But from the screenshots on your phone, didn’t you already have a three-story villa?”

Four Seasons sounded surprised.

“It’s an investment! We’re talking about a new city here. I heard the hidden quest portal to the Mindel Realm is also located there. If that place really develops, the growth potential will definitely be enormous. Once the land value rises, I can simply flip the property later and easily earn millions of contribution points. And even if I don’t sell it, having another personal base isn’t a bad thing either.”

Nana added from the side.

Four Seasons: “…”

The more he listened… the more it sounded like the two of them had started speculating in real estate inside a game.

Tsk…

Elven Kingdom truly did seem fundamentally different from other games.

Still, the more he listened, the more complicated his feelings became.

Good heavens, he was already a miserable corporate slave fresh out of graduation, and now even inside a game he still couldn’t escape the issue of housing…

This world was simply too cruel.

Thinking of this, Four Seasons let out a sigh.

He glanced strangely at the excited Yeye and Nana as they enthusiastically discussed their plans. He seriously suspected that if anyone destroyed their in-game houses, the two of them would probably fight to the death on the spot…

The group continued chatting casually, and through Yeye and Nana’s explanations, Four Seasons gradually learned more and more about the game.

Truthfully speaking, the reason he had become interested in this game in the first place was because every time he met this younger cousin of his in real life, the latter would always relentlessly recommend it to him.

Moreover, he had long since heard of the great reputation of Elven Kingdom online.

A revolutionary masterpiece, a fully immersive virtual reality game with one hundred percent realism, and so on and so forth. His ears were practically growing calluses from hearing it all by this point.

But once something becomes popular, it inevitably attracts a group of superficial fans, or in gaming terms, “cloud players.”

Usually that wasn’t a problem.

But in any large crowd, all sorts of people exist.

There were always some individuals who insisted on forcing their opinions into every possible occasion, whether appropriate or not, which eventually could become somewhat irritating instead.

And coincidentally, Four Seasons was the type of person who was somewhat rebellious deep down. What he hated most were exactly those kinds of people.

As a result, his impression of Elven Kingdom had naturally worsened as well.

This was despite the fact that open-world RPGs were originally his favorite genre.

Still, other people were other people, while his cousin was his cousin.

Even though he disliked the topic internally, after hearing his cousin recommend it so many times, the game had inevitably left a deep impression on him.

Then, during some of his casual browsing online one day, Four Seasons happened to come across a video for Elven Kingdom.

And just like that… his interest was piqued.

At first, the source of that interest was naturally the goddess who appeared in that fleeting glimpse.

Even now, he still could not forget the shock of that single glance.

Aside from suddenly realizing the origin of all those popular memes online, what he felt even more strongly was amazement:

The character model in the game… was far more beautiful than the meme versions ever showed.

Curiosity was the beginning of falling in too deep.

He searched further and finally learned that the famous “Evé the Goddess,” well known across the internet, was actually the faction leader of the Elves within Elven Kingdom.

He also finally understood why, whenever someone mentioned Elven Kingdom in a video, a massive crowd would immediately flood the comments with “Praise the Goddess.”

Good heavens…

With a character so beautiful it practically violated the rules, if he had known earlier, he would have been spamming it too.

After that, Four Seasons replaced both his phone wallpaper and computer desktop background…

It could only be said that the Law of True Fragrance ¹ existed everywhere.

As he learned more about the game, his curiosity toward Elven Kingdom grew even stronger.

That was why, taking advantage of this newly opened registration period, he gritted his teeth and bought an access slot while it was discounted.

And after entering the game, Elven Kingdom brought him even more surprises than he had imagined.

He had always loved open-world role-playing games to begin with. After entering the game, merely wandering through the dazzling Chosen City had already left him deeply excited, to the point where he could hardly wait to level up and explore the broader world beyond.

Adventuring through ancient ruins, hunting in forests, fighting alongside companions on battlefields as mercenaries, or walking beneath the setting sun with long shadows trailing behind them while laughing and chatting on the way back to town with their spoils…

And finally sitting in a tavern, drinking and talking while listening to a bard’s performance…

Just imagining it was enough to make him excited.

Oh, right.

There was also the game’s fourfold thought acceleration feature.

He had always assumed that part was exaggerated marketing, but after logging in and experiencing it personally, he became completely thrilled.

“Leveling up? Heh! Cousin, no need to rush. There are plenty of shortcuts in Elven Kingdom but having stronger players carry you while grinding monsters is the fastest method. Coincidentally, the Church of Life recently issued a task to clear monsters around the Northwestern Grand Canyon. Once the awards ceremony is over, we’ll head there. If we’re lucky, we might even run into Big Sister!”

“Big Sister? Who exactly is Big Sister you’re talking about? I feel like I’ve heard lots of people mention her…”

“Uh, she’s a really popular NPC in Elven Kingdom, one of the Goddess’s Envoys. Big Sister Zero is incredibly strong, cool, and reliable, plus she’s very protective of her own people. Especially when doing missions with players, she always goes out of her way to protect them, so everyone started calling her that.”

“I see.”

As the three chatted, the battle in the arena finally came to an end as well.

Four Seasons glanced over and saw that the victor was a female player with the username “Jasmine underneath the Moon.” The audience erupted into cheers far louder and more enthusiastic than when Yeye and Nana had won.

“Who’s that? She seems really popular.”

He asked curiously.

“That’s Big Sister Jasmine. She’s one of the top players in the guild, Heart of Nature, a powerhouse ranked in the top ten of the combat leaderboard. Her nickname is Valkyrie.”

Nana explained, her eyes full of admiration.

“Alright, enough talking. We need to go receive our rewards.”

Yeye stood up from his seat.

Then he dusted off his clothes together with Nana and walked toward the center of the arena.

Meanwhile, Four Seasons stretched out a finger and could not resist poking the ground. Looking at the clearly visible dust sticking to his fingertip, he clicked his tongue in amazement.

“Tsk, this really is incredibly realistic…”

As he spoke, he hesitated briefly before experimentally putting the finger into his mouth.

“Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey…”

༺⟐༻

The prizes for victory were two divine-grade weapons.

One was a mithril longsword enchanted with ice-element spell, while the other was a staff blessed by the Goddess herself.

Yeye and Nana both appeared extremely excited.

Curious, Four Seasons borrowed the longsword for a closer look. The moment it entered his hand, he felt its heavy weight and distinct metallic texture.

Meanwhile, the magnificent magical engravings along the blade gave it an added sense of splendor and mystery.

Following Yeye’s instructions, he attempted to channel the magical power within his body into the sword. And as mana flowed into it, under Four Seasons’s excited, thrilled, and curious gaze, strands of frost gradually spread across the blade, releasing an icy mist…

Realistic, novel, fascinating.

At that moment, an inexplicable thought arose in Four Seasons’s mind:

If magic truly existed in the real world…

Then perhaps this was exactly what it would look like.

After playing with the sword for a while, he returned it.

“Let’s go. It’s just about noon, so we’ll grab something to eat. This afternoon we’ll teleport to Winterhold City and head toward the canyon.”

Yeye said.

Four Seasons nodded lightly.

Although the other party was his younger cousin, inside the game he himself was the complete newbie.

At times like this, properly clinging to his cousin’s thigh was the right choice.

With the competition completely concluded, the three followed the flow of people out of the arena.

At the entrance, the player selling tickets was still enthusiastically chatting with the female NPC beside him.

“Miss Dales, what kind of things do you usually enjoy? Music? I like music too. How about we go listen to a concert together in Mapleleaf City next time?”

“Miss Dales, has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like Lady Aurora? Though… I actually think you’re even prettier!”

“Miss Dales, do you have someone you like?”

Four Seasons: “…”

Listening to the ticket seller’s ingratiating tone, he could not help turning his head to glance at him, only to meet the other player’s eyes directly.

The ticket-selling player froze slightly.

Four Seasons had not expected to suddenly meet the other party’s gaze either.

He rubbed his nose awkwardly, then gave a friendly smile before withdrawing his eyes.

Picking up his pace, he left together with Yeye and Nana, chatting and laughing as they walked away.

Only the ticket seller remained standing there in a daze.

“Damn…”

“So he really does know those big-shot players participating in the tournament…”

༺⟐༻

“So… here in Elven Kingdom, NPCs can actually be romanced too?”

After leaving the arena, Four Seasons could not help asking as he recalled the conversation he had just overheard.

“Of course they can. Though… in the game, we usually don’t use the word ‘romanced’ or ‘capture.’ We prefer to call it pursuing them.”

Yeye replied while walking.

“Pursuing?”

Four Seasons’s expression turned rather strange.

“That makes it sound like you’re chasing real people…”

He rubbed his nose.

“Real people? Cousin, if you spend enough time in the game, you’ll realize that the NPCs here are far more lovable than real people.”

Yeye laughed.

“Hm?”

Nana shot him a dangerous look from the side.

“Uh… Nana, you’re very lovable too.”

Yeye coughed dryly.

“Hmph!”

Nana crossed her arms and looked away.

Under Four Seasons’s teasing and meaningful gaze, Yeye’s face instantly turned bright red.

He coughed lightly and hurriedly changed the subject.

“Cough, anyway, to me, the NPCs here are more than just your typical NPCs.”

As he spoke, his gaze softened warmly.

“As part of the Elven Forest, I prefer to call them family, or friends.”

“You really do love this place.”

Four Seasons could not help remarking.

“Cousin, sooner or later, you will too.”

Yeye said with a smile.

As he spoke, he looked into the distance.

The streets were crowded with bustling people, players chatting and laughing together.

NPCs were mixed among them as well, smiling as they walked side by side with the players.

Without deliberately checking one’s username, it was impossible to distinguish who was a player and who was an NPC.

The midday sun was not harsh at all. Instead, it felt increasingly warm and comforting upon the skin.

Thin winding clouds clung to the azure heavens, sweeping past birds in flight before the birds finally disappeared into the clouds.

A gentle breeze brushed through the towering trees lining both sides of the road, causing the leaves to rustle softly in whispers. One adorable elemental fairy after another danced gracefully through the air, beautiful and dreamlike.

The lively noise of the crowd drifted closer and farther away, faint yet continuous, mixed with laughter. Accompanied by soft background music that seemed to drift from the entrance of another world itself, the atmosphere stretched on endlessly…

At noon, melodious bell chimes slowly rang out from the direction of the Temple of Life, one toll after another, startling a flock of white doves into flight from the central plaza.

Yeye’s smile grew even gentler.

A world like this…

Who could possibly not love it?

¹ I already explained it before, but for those who have forgotten, the “Law of True Fragrance” is a Chinese phrase that refers to a situation where a person initially rejects, mocks, or insists they will never do something, only to later become completely obsessed with it.

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