Elf Kingdom: Game of the World Tree-Chapter 53 - : You must have no friends, right?
Chapter 53: Chapter 53: You must have no friends, right?
Editor: Henyee Translations
“`html
The beta testers formed three major guilds.
One was led by Li Mu and Demacia, called the “Heart of Nature” guild, which also had the largest number of members, totaling more than 180 players.
The president of the “Heart of Nature” was Li Mu; however, Li Mu did not impose mandatory requirements on the guild members, so it was considered a semi-casual guild.
Another was led by Gugubird and Little Xian Miao, called the “Mengmeng Committee” guild, with Little Xian Miao as the president. Nearly half of its members were female players, with more than 50 members, and it specialized in leisure and life.
They were also the main force behind the construction of Elf Town.
...
The last one was the “First Legion” guild, established by Fried Tomato, with more than 40 members, primarily focused on combat, loving outdoor adventures, and were all hardcore players.
Even though the Goddess didn’t really like the player Fried Tomato, after her previous warning, he had toned it down quite a bit.
Moreover, this guy worked quite diligently and showed considerable respect toward NPCs. The teammates he led were almost all heavy grinder players, providing the Goddess with substantial feedback.
So, Her divine greatness decided not to worry about this guy and just observe the results.
Besides, although Li Mu was quite capable, the Goddess felt he was sometimes too laid-back, and establishing a competitor for him might unleash his potential.
Additionally, other than them, there were some wanderers who hadn’t joined any guilds. The most famous among them was the top player server-wide—Box Lunch.
This cool-headed ace pulled together a few players to form an adventure team, roaming the wild every day, making experience points fly up and being revered by many players as a big shot.
Even Li Mu looked at him with newfound respect.
However, rather than grind monsters, what Li Mu now wanted to know more was when he might finally make some discoveries in the ruins.
He glanced at the time displayed on the system interface, contemplated for a moment, and said to Demacia,
“We’ll search for another hour. If we still come up empty, we’ll head back for now.”
“Head back? Got it!”
Demacia’s face instantly lit up with a wide smile,
“Hehe, I heard there’s a bonfire party at Feilengcui tonight. If we head back early, we can join in the fun!”
After the first day of the game, players of “Elf Kingdom” got into the habit of regularly holding bonfire parties.
The scenery of Elf Forest was just too beautiful, and throwing a party in this primeval forest offered a rare camping experience distant from worldly cares.
Everyone would eat berries and, taking advantage of the Holy Daughter being unaware, secretly grill food, laugh together, play around, and chat happily… It was simply too much fun.
A bonfire party?
Li Mu’s eyes brightened.
If he wasn’t mistaken, this party was to celebrate the rebuilding of the temple at Feilengcui.
The previous temple had been severely damaged, and over the past two days, Gugubird had been leading her construction team to repair the temple, reportedly as one of the Goddess’s tasks.
Now, it should be almost fully restored and ready to house the idol.
Thinking of this, he nodded,
“Alright, we’ll head back in an hour and, by the way, ask Alice to see if we can get any information about Feilengcui from her.”
That said, Li Mu pushed aside a pile of debris in front of him and continued the exploration.
“Alice!”
Demacia’s eyes lit up, his expression suddenly turning mysterious.
New novel chapters are published on freewёbn૦νeɭ.com.
He leaned toward Li Mu’s ear with a sly smile and said,
“I say, Brother Mu, have you figured out the punishment mechanics in this game?”
Hearing his words, Li Mu raised an eyebrow and said,
“This game simulates reality highly, so as long as you act according to the rules of reality, you generally won’t be penalized.”
As he spoke, he glanced at Demacia in surprise,
“You haven’t been up to something again, have you?”
“No, no…”
Demacia chuckled awkwardly, then said,
“It’s just that since that time the red name alarm triggered, I was a bit curious and privately tried a few experiments with some players.”
“Experiments?”
“Exactly, it’s the red name mechanism! We tried it, and it seems like this mechanism is based on a player’s ‘malice’ and the degree of harm to other players to determine the red name. Moreover, it can be eliminated with contribution points. And this punishment appears to be graded. According to our speculations, killing someone might result in severe punishment, possibly even getting banned…”
Demacia said.
“Is that so… So serious?”
Li Mu was a bit startled, feeling puzzled.
He suddenly remembered that a couple of days ago, it seemed the system briefly flashed a message about Demacia turning red-named, followed shortly by another message about his repentance and reform, so that’s what it was all about…
This guy was really bored out of his mind.
Li Mu felt both amused and exasperated.
However, if it had been the old him, he probably would have been looking for bugs everywhere like Demacia too.
Now as the game went on, Li Mu grew more and more fond of this game, and gradually, he completely forgot about finding bugs.
“Not only that!”
Demacia’s expression turned serious,
“We even tested on the NPCs and found that we couldn’t attack them!”
Hearing Demacia’s words, Li Mu gave him a look,
“Isn’t that only natural? If we could attack NPCs, the game would be chaos.”
“No, I mean, when we tried to attack an NPC, we would lose control of our bodies for a moment until the thought was gone, and then we’d regain control. For now, our attempts have only been with Miss and the big guy…”
Demacia shook his head and said.
Li Mu: …
“Did you… attempt to attack Alice and Berserker?”
His mouth twitched slightly.
Demacia scratched his head,
“I just wanted to test it out, and then found out that it seemed like we couldn’t attack them.”
Li Mu: …
“You should be thankful you couldn’t attack them; otherwise, I think you’d be pounded back to level 1 by now.”
He looked at Demacia speechlessly.
“Well, well… Anyway, even if my rapport with them can’t be salvaged, I just wanted to try… I still have a few perfect revives left…”
Demacia said awkwardly.
Li Mu: …
Not being able to attack NPCs was actually a setting made by the Goddess.
Her initial plan was to use the red name mechanism to restrict players from attacking NPCs, but after some thought, she felt that was still too insecure, so she simply prohibited players from attacking NPCs altogether.
More accurately, players couldn’t attack those who belonged to Her believers.
When players developed the intent to attack natural believers, they would lose control of their bodies.
The reason the Goddess could do this was that there was a channel in Her Divine Space connecting players and believers, allowing some micromanagement system settings. When a player generated hostility towards a believer, it would pre-emptively terminate their conscious control over the body.
As for other intelligent beings aside from believers, there was no solution for them.
If other indigenous beings close to the Goddess appeared in the future but didn’t belong to the natural believers, the Goddess would have to rely on strict punishment systems to restrain players.
As for why player-versus-player attacks weren’t restricted… there was a reason for that too.
The relationships between players weren’t as straightforward as those between players and NPCs. Forcibly ensuring peace among players wasn’t always a good thing.
Players who had conflicts had plenty of ways to sabotage each other, and enforced peace also meant no punitive system.
Rather than that, it would be better to implement a red name system, and if players caused too much trouble, just ban them, removing unstable factors.
There was a slight flavor of entrapment *in* this approach.
As for those who were able to repent, they were given a chance to amend, and perhaps pay a fine while at it.
Yes, the Goddess felt she was quite magnanimous.
Not only that, unrestricted player-versus-player attacks allowed players to fully showcase various cunning tactics.
For instance, schemes involving feigned injury, sacrificial gameplay, and so on…
…
Having heard Demacia’s probing experiences, Li Mu patted his shoulder helplessly,
“Demacia.”
“Hmm?”
Demacia looked at Li Mu with bright eyes,
“What’s up, Brother Mu?”
Li Mu gave him a look, his voice tinged with melancholy,
“You must have very few friends in reality, right?”
Demacia looked shocked,
“How did you know?!”
Li Mu: …
He didn’t answer; instead, he shook his head helplessly, sighed, and continued walking forward.
Demacia, awkwardly rubbing his nose, followed behind closely.
However, just after taking two steps, he stumbled over something and almost fell flat.
“Whoa, what was that?”
He cursed and instinctively used his torch to light up the area, revealing a broken stone slab covered in strange writings.
“What’s this?”
He curiously picked up the stone slab.
