[Brynhildr Fort]

Shortly after activating the skill, Hecate appeared in the entrance of the Guild Building.

She looked at the crowds around and found that there had been no important changes during her absence, except that there were fewer Players roaming around. Even the names Emilia, Rena-cchi, and KA✰ZU on her friend list were listed as offline.

This is understandable, since it was the end-term exam period where most of the Players who had not finished their studies and had to focus on passing their exams, especially high school students. Failing would mean that they will most likely held back a grade, or if they are in their third year then they will not be able to get into the university of their choice.

But suddenly Hecate noticed something.

"Oh, Emi and Rena are online."

The two grayed names on her friend list have become green simultaneously. This means that just now both of them logged in to play even though they would face exams a few days later.

Those online today are mostly Players who are already university students where exams are less restrictive or those who have joined the society. If there are high school students who are online, it means they are confident about passing or don't care about their exam results.

'Are they confident in their studies and sure they can pass the exams successfully?'

But after thinking about it some more, she remembered that Rena-cchi had already taken a special curriculum course, so she could advance to the university section straight away without needing to take an exam.

Hecate wasn't sure about Emilia, but she didn't seem stupid, so she was definitely confident about her passing.

"It's none of my business anyway."

She then accessed the Guild Treasury Exchange from her Guild Interface.

It was then that Hecate discovered that during her absence until now, her GCP had increased so much, reaching 24 million. She wasn't too surprised by this, because she already knew that most of her GCP came from Leon and Astrid.

Both of them are quite generous every time they give a reward so that her GCP accumulates so much over time.

There are also GCPs that many guildmates give as pocket money.

At first, the guildmates who sent Hecate pocket money were mostly aunts and uncles who seemed to think of her as their little sister, daughter or something like that. But for some reason, now even many guild members she doesn't know and have never met are also sending her money as well.

Each of those pocket money may not be much, but if many people give her the pocket money regularly, over time the amount will certainly become large.

'It's just like having lots of sugar daddies and sugar mommies...'

When she saw the GCP transaction log, Hecate had mixed feelings.

The reason why her guildmates sent her money was most likely because of her cuteness! (Narcissism)

Even though it wasn't intentional, she felt like she was prostituting her cuteness. She understand very much that her cuteness was somewhat lethal. There weren't many people in the guild who could resist petting her head.

'I didn't do anything illegal, so there shouldn't be any problems, right?'

Hecate shakes her head.

Anyway, it wasn't like she could control the behavior of her guildmates whether they send her money or not, and she had no reason to refuse the free stuff that was given to her.

It was ironic that some of those kind-hearted guildmates were brutally blasted by her Mana Explosion not long ago.

What a sinful loli...

'I shouldn't waste any more time and finish this quickly.'

Hecate closed the transaction log and started selling some of the loot obtained from yesterday's hunt. Of course, she didn't bring all the loot with her, as her inventory wasn't enough to store them all.

She set the price of each looted item as high as possible according to the guild's market price.

"According to calculations, these are worth around 350k each, and these ones should be 750k each..."

Once finished, she pressed the confirm button.

Since the Adult Velis were Lv140+ monsters, and Archdoras as well as Archmigas were Lv170+ monsters, their unprocessed carcasses was priced far more expensive than the loot from other high-level monsters. But, the main reason why she priced them so expensive was of course because of their enormous size.

Each of these carcasses could fill an entire room if dispelled from its shrunken state. With such a large size, their meat can definitely fill hundreds of people. Not to mention spider venom, blood, fur, carapace, and other materials that can be harvested.

There was no need to worry about whether the loot wouldn't be sold, because sooner or later, someone would definitely exchange those unprocessed carcasses to process them into materials and resell them.

With that done, now her inventory has become a little more spacious.

Hecate then spent 3 million GCP to exchange 108 Save-Crystals and several types of metal ore, which would later be used to build her workshop in her newly acquired territory. As for the remaining GCP, she directly exchanged it for Gold coins.

After that, she closed the window.

'Now that this is over, let's see what Astrid has to say.'

With that said, Hecate opened the Private Message window.

♠♠♠

 

[Ornus Town]

On the third floor of a building in the center of the town, Astrid sat in a lounge chair while enjoying tea.

She was only wearing casual clothes, not her usual proud white armor. Her horns and strong tail that are characteristic features of the Werburg Draconid race are absent. They had all been made to disappear by one of her racial skills called Transformation: Human, which was unlocked after completing several difficult chain quests.

Currently, her gaze was fixed on the transparent window in front of her, which displayed various information about the territory she managed.

Construction went smoothly and the original Ornus Village had now been upgraded to Ornus Town.

The tents has been replaced by proper buildings, the population has exceeded 2000 people, and the collected mana was enough to meet the daily consumption of Safety Barrier.

This Safety Barrier has been upgraded to Lv3, which can prevent monsters at or below Lv99 from entering the town. It was enough to stop Tier 1 and Tier 2 monsters, but still couldn't stop Tier 3 monsters that had reached Lv100 and above.

'Fortunately, there weren't many monsters that reached such a level outside dungeons.'

Meanwhile, the Teleportation Gate has been installed and now the town has its own Town Scroll.

There were some Players visiting the city, although the number was still small at the moment. But she believes that as time goes by, the number of players who come will increase.

From the statistic shown in the Territory Management window, the "Economy" aspect has stabilized, while the "Security", "Culture", "Hygiene" and other aspects are still in the improvement stage.

The development was so rapid, a few days ago this place was just a decrepit village, but now it has turned into a small town.

“Very good, now the statistics are starting to show good numbers.”

Overall, Astrid was very satisfied with this result.

It was just that, the "Satisfaction" and "Loyalty" of the original residents were somewhat low.

Maybe it was because Astrid casually brought in slaves and turned them into residents regardless of race and origin, without caring about the risk of cultural and ideological clashes.

"Those old fashioned people, what should I do about them?"

Astrid was somewhat conflicted in her heart.

Those original residents were arrogant and kept making trouble with the new residents for any petty reason. No matter what she does, the circumstances in which they reconciled with the new residents doesn't seem possible.

But thankfully, the impact was not too big because those original residents were now can be considered a minority.

'Maybe I was too hasty... I should have waited a few weeks and let the residents integrate first.'

It seemed that this rapid development was too much for the original residents to bear.

They hadn't yet cultivated feelings and relationships with the newcomers, but in a very short time the newcomers outnumbered them by 10 times. Moreover, the slave status and the races of the newcomers wasn't very good in their eyes.

Now, because their number had become a minority, it would be not strange for them to think that perhaps their status as original residents would be switched with those slaves.

She could only sigh and let time slowly fix everything.

While Astrid contemplated on her mind, she suddenly received a PM from Hecate.

This PM came just on time.

It just so happened that Astrid wanted to hear other people's opinions on this matter. Maybe discussing with other people will give her inspiration to solve this problem.

And so, she got up from her chair and called her secretary.

The secretary, a female Human in her 20s, was naturally a Native as well as the old village leader's daughter. This person had been recruited to help Astrid run the town in her absence.

"Fiela, please take care of the rest, I'm going back to the base now."

"I understand."

With that said, Astrid activated the Return Base skill, and appeared in the Brynhildr Fort.

As soon as the teleportation light has subsided, she walked towards the lounge in the Guild Building. When she opened the door to the lounge, Emilia and Rena-cchi were already sitting on the sofa.

"Welcome back, Astrid." (Hecate)

As well as Hecate, who was being cuddled and sitting on Rena-cchi's lap.