Surviving The Fourth Calamity

Chapter 242: Chapter 56 Duke and Duchess?

How could Hill not harbor resentment towards those players who wanted to kill him? But he knew that aside from resentment, there was nothing he could do.

In the eyes of those high and mighty deities, Hill wasn’t dead, just a bit frightened, and some compensation was deemed sufficient.

Even when it came to William, who was considered to have quite good character, Hill’s status was such that he could lend a hand in times of trouble, but it wasn’t high enough to earn William’s special regard.

The incompleteness of the world’s rules meant that no one’s past or present life could be clearly discerned by the gods.

The so-called prophecies could only be made under very perfect conditions of various rules.

Even now that the God of Time and Space had become the master of The River of Time and Space, They were unable to clearly see the true history of this world.

They could only see the lives of Their own followers.

Mages, even if they respect a certain deity, seldom truly devote themselves to faith. The feeling of opening one’s soul is uncomfortable enough, but what if it’s the God of Time and Space? To have even one’s infantile dark history seen, what kind of feeling would that be?

Even if the God of Time and Space is very upright, just the thought that not a single secret can be kept gives mages pain.

Thus, while many mages respect the God of Time and Space, hardly any truly believe. Even Carl and Miller, two Legendary Mages who aspire for the auxiliaries’ qualifications of the God of Time and Space, have not yet accepted the baptism.

The two of them are still struggling; if there is even a slight hope, they would not want to fully commit themselves, as it’s too embarrassing.

As for that Legendary Knight, he had already committed his faith, but being a member of the Saral Royal Family, such a choice was to be expected.

In Hill’s case, as long as he didn’t openly acknowledge to William his origins, there would be no karma binding him, and his past would not be laid bare.

Hill had once considered whether the jewelry might give away secrets to Lina; upon reflection, he recalled that Melanie had only mentioned to Lina that Hill had made beautiful jewelry for her, noting his taste seemed a bit girlish.

It was probably due to vanity that Melanie didn’t say much more; after all, there was a difference between her own creations and those drawn by her son.

Hill didn’t think there was anything wrong with a girl’s bit of vanity, but now it seemed to have been a great help.

But to William, he might just be a suspected descendant of a time-traveler, worth watching, but not worth too much investment.

So, the players who attacked Hill merely shifted factions, becoming outlaws with red names, and couldn’t play the game for a while, at most having to spend a lot of time on faction dailies before they could happily play again.

What could Hill do? He could only vent in secret, as frustrating as it was. With the world consciousness needing players, that was all he could do.

And what could they, mere mortals, do against the gods, anyway?

Hill couldn’t even make it too obvious, for Fran hadn’t been in such a hurry to become Legendary last year.

What Adrian seemed to say for his sake, for the Fran line, the legacy of an Alchemist Master was enough to make countless people willing to send their talented children for selection.

By choosing King’s Academy, working again under the King of Saral, they wanted to avoid another incident like Hill’s. Hill understood the implications in Adrian’s words; they weren’t just protecting him, after all, Fran and Adrian’s lives also needed to be secured.

But at least half of the reason was still Hill.

If the attack had happened now, William would certainly have issued more stringent orders to protect Hill.

The deed was done. To ease the worries of his maternal grandfather and Uncle Adrian, Hill could only swallow his pride.

But now, even if players wanted to increase their friendliness in Hill’s territory, there was no way.

After all this time, there were probably only a few hundred individual players with reputations above friendly.

They were people who had slowly built up their reputation by wanting to settle in Hill Town or buy something.

Previously, the inability to purchase high-level alchemy products and potions didn’t really affect most individual players—they wouldn’t have bought such expensive items anyway.

But now, when there was an opportunity to contract high-level magical beasts, they lacked access.

As others roared by with powerful magical beasts, one could only slowly nurture low-rank magical beasts or their cubs. Many wouldn’t ponder if they could earn the recognition of a high-level magical beast.

Most people would simply feel that because of the doomsday, they lost an opportunity to obtain a high-level magical beast.

Hill just hoped that as few individual players as possible would be willing to join those families during the doomsday. When those families held activities, he hoped the individual players wouldn’t want to participate.

With an increasingly bad reputation and fewer gains than others, players would start leaving those families, barring the die-hard supporters.

As the sky grew darker, Hill picked up the Contract Paper and stood up to walk to the door and position himself.

”Those ready to sign contracts with magical beasts can now come to me,” Hill called out.

Soon, someone with a large stag stood before Hill.

Hill glanced at the stag, recognizing it instantly—it had been in his valley for a long time, always curious, the first to rush up and gawk at anything happening. It was only natural for it to choose to form a contract with the Undead to be able to go out and play.