Chapter 47: Audrey’s Out-of-Control Fate

To obtain silver weapons, one had to go to a weapon shop, and the only weapon shop in Balkan City was the Fire Rabbit Forging House.

Hade looked at Herbie and Blaze, his expression incredibly sour.

"You still haven’t cleaned up the mess you made last time."

The mess naturally referred to the Destruction Yamata had caused to the Forging House when it tried to use the Flame for its resurrection. Even now, giant cracks scarred the floor and ceiling.

Of course, the most troublesome part was the residual Eight Fire Curse Poison lingering in the cracks; an ordinary person would die upon a single touch.

"This is an emergency. You can use up all the favors you owe me for this."

Herbie’s face was completely serious, but Hade wasn’t buying it.

"To begin with, I only owed you one favor," Hade said, picking his ear, looking entirely impervious to persuasion.

"Fine, I’ll pay."

"Ho, oh?" Hade’s interest was piqued. Having known this profiteer for so long, he knew she would never pay if she could get it for free, and even if she did pay, she would haggle endlessly.

"100,000 Gold Coins, and you provide your own materials."

Herbie clapped her hands, and the Guard Team from earlier walked in carrying two chests. One contained Gold Coins, and the other contained Silver Coins.

After setting the chests down, the guards left. Before leaving, the Guard Captain patted Blaze on the back, as if trying to pass his Power on to him.

"Paid in full. Use the Silver Coins to forge the weapons."

Hade raised an eyebrow and mimicked Herbie’s gesture, clapping his hands. His apprentices appeared one after another and worked together to carry away the chest full of Silver Coins. However, not a single one paid any attention to the chest of Gold Coins.

"Boy, come over here and give me a hand," Hade said, waving Blaze over.

"Go on, but watch out for him raising the price," Herbie said, giving Blaze a slight push. Blaze had no choice but to go over and help. Meanwhile, Herbie closed the chest of Gold Coins and sat on top of it, watching the busy room. It was hard to tell if she was zoning out or plotting something.

"It’s a Werewolf, isn’t it?"

Hade suddenly asked out of nowhere, but Blaze didn’t find it strange. A Master Blacksmith of Hade’s caliber could easily guess what a material would be used for just by looking at it.

"Yeah, a Werewolf from the Arcadia Territory."

Blaze easily lifted the entire chest of Silver Coins and began pouring them into the massive crucible.

"The Moonlight Worms beneath the fur of Arcadia’s Werewolves can easily melt silver weapons. Rather than silver weapons, you should be preparing nails.

"An excellent Blacksmith must understand the habits of a Monster even better than a Warrior does."

Blaze gave a Silent nod, knowing that Hade was passing down a Blacksmith’s knowledge to him. Even though he hadn’t used the Fire Rabbit Medal, the eccentric master had taken it upon himself to start teaching.

Heating the Silver Coins until they glowed red, hammering and smelting them to remove impurities—every step was methodical and orderly.

After demonstrating a few times, Hade let Blaze take over the hammering, occasionally pointing out a few mistakes. Blaze learned quickly, and Hade soon found himself with nothing to do. He cast a glance at Herbie, who was still sitting quietly on the chest.

"This is my first time seeing that little girl sitting so quietly. Usually, she’s running around non-stop from here to there like her butt is on fire."

"Herbie got some news from the intelligence department of Hermes’ Travel Hat. Something bad has happened in the Arcadia Territory." Blaze rhythmically hammered the silver block, and a rough-surfaced Silver Needle gradually took shape.

"Let’s hear it."

"There is an anomaly in the Arcadia Territory. A group of Werewolves capable of transforming into Human forms have appeared and are maintaining Stealth in the city."

"That is truly terrifying news."

CLANG— 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

The Silver Needle took shape and was plunged into a special liquid to quench, sending up wisps of thick smoke.

"What’s more terrifying is the Witch Hunting initiated by the Deputy Lord using this as an excuse. Foreigners, attracted by the rewards, have started slaughtering Werewolves on a massive scale. The migration of wild Werewolves is just the most insignificant of the consequences."

...

"Um, seniors, a unique quest has been triggered," Rookie Penguin raised his hand weakly, his virtual Penguin head dripping with cold sweat.

"Really?! Which one? The Eternal Queen’s? Or Catherine’s?"

The surrounding veterans all raised their heads. They had painstakingly crafted every single unique quest.

With the mentality of "this is my precious baby and I don’t want anyone else to find it," they had designed extremely harsh trigger conditions that required sheer dumb luck to accept. Yet, deep down, they harbored a tiny bit of hope that someone would actually find them.

Therefore, whenever a unique quest was triggered, they would click their tongues in reluctance, but also sincerely applaud and congratulate the lucky player. Because they were players themselves, they understood what a unique quest meant to a player.

It was somewhat akin to an old father’s displeasure at facing the little bastard who stole his daughter away, while simultaneously sighing at how he himself had once faced such hurdles—a pure, man-to-man mentality of secretly cheering the little bastard on.

"Why are you sweating?" one of them noticed Rookie Penguin’s unusual state.

"The one triggered is Arcadia’s Secret."

"SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! That’s a world quest related to providing players with the Werewolf race option in the Late Stage!"

The group of veterans erupted in a chain reaction, and for a moment, data streams soared with Madness within the virtual space.

"Wasn’t the storyline only supposed to start after Audrey becomes a Lady? How did that person trigger it?!"

The daughter being spirited away wasn’t the one who had already entered society or even become a bit of a spinster, but the one who was still in fucking elementary school!

"The trigger condition is... Audrey revealing that she is an illegitimate daughter. But isn’t she currently active as a Singer? Getting Audrey to reveal this in her current state is hundreds of times harder than after she becomes a Count! Did some super masochistic hopeless romantic manage to woo her?"

"No, they couldn’t have let her find out about the Witch Hunting happening in the Arcadia Territory, right? With her current stats, she can’t resolve this issue, so she revealed her secret when asking for help," Buffalo Programmer said shakily.

Tiger Programmer immediately hoisted him up by the collar and roared.

"Don’t—don’t say something so terrifying! Audrey should be wholeheartedly singing the praises of her dreams right now!"

"Audrey... she seems to have given up on her theater performances."

Rookie Penguin’s single sentence plunged the entire virtual space into a dead silence.

"WHAT!!!"

"Investigate! Quick, find out what happened!"

The virtual ocean of data began Boiling, and the programmers soon found the culprit.

"It’s those bastards from Asasel hunting the performers. Now the NPC performers at the theater are dropping out one after another."

The programmers fell into an even more terrifying silence. With their Intelligence, they instantly guessed what had happened.

After a long time, someone finally spoke.

"...What was the predicted development?"

"Audrey was supposed to showcase her voice in the theater, becoming the emotional pillar for the Arcadians who have suffered greatly from the Witch Hunting. By the time she returned to the territory, the mastermind who caused the Witch Hunting would have already been defeated by the players. She would smoothly become the Lord, lead Arcadia to rise, and open a new Chapter for Arcadia after the players completed the world quest."

Only the sound of the programmers Silently tapping on their keyboards remained in the virtual space.

During development, they had designed the AI’s way of thinking and then left it alone, allowing the data that composed the AI to interact with each other and undergo Transformation and expansion through contact with players. Only in this way would this world be incomparably real, full of randomness and possibilities.

They absolutely never interfered with the thoughts of the NPCs. They only created things called quests based on the predictions from when the character designs were born, which merely served as hints to tell players that they had entered the lives of the NPCs.

Whether it was a Special or unique quest, they were all simply hints.

If a player invested enough emotion into an NPC or this world, they could even trigger quests on their own that the system would recognize as unique or Special.

"The trigger location for Arcadia’s Secret is Balkan City, which is filled with newbie players. They will absolutely not be able to defeat the hidden boss."

If they sought help from other top-tier players, they could beat that boss, but honestly speaking, no one would share an exclusive quest.

"Why don’t we buff the stats of that unreleased Profession, then unlock it for the person who triggered it as a story-limited Profession for the unique plot? This way, they will at least have a chance to kill the boss through special conditions. Then, we can retract the Profession after the quest ends."

One programmer proposed this terrible idea, but astonishingly, no one present could come up with a better solution outside of resorting to a deus ex machina.

"Retracting the Profession doesn’t seem like a good idea. Just reverting the stats back to normal will be fine."

A Werewolf Programmer hit the enter key. A project that had been shelved for the Late Stage—one that was supposed to go online alongside the playable Werewolf race—appeared on the screen.

[Special Profession: Demon Hunter]

[Unlock Conditions: Filthy Blood, Werewolf’s Tears, Ancient Silver Coin with Goddess Head, Moon’s Holy Emblem, Ancient Altar]

"Make sure you remember to nerf the stats afterward!"

"It’s fine. We can just push a minor version update to bring the stats back down."