NOVEL WEB Chapter 20: Neutral Faction
[Quest: The Envoy's Might
The High Priestess Hella has encountered many problems with some of the Dark God Temple's enemies. A young priest candidate for the High God Odin will be on an excursion to the Highlands neutral territory. Kill the priest and his entourage and plunge into despair the High God worshippers and let them know of the Dark God's might!
Slay Priest Candidate Joseph (0/1)
Slay Guard Captain Heather (0/1)
Slay 50 Guards (0/50)
Slay 50 Novice Priests (0/50)
Time limit: 3 days (71:58:29)
Rewards: Random class skill book, random mid-grade pet egg, random Dark God's blessing, 50 Gold coins, +100 Rep, +200 High Priestess Hella's Favor
Failure: -1 Level, -100 favorability with all Dark God NPCs, and -50 Reputation points.
Note: Quest can be shared with up to 5 people]
[Player: Maria, would like to share the quest! ACCEPT/DECLINE]
Once her friends saw the quest, only Lizzy was the one that turned excited. She immediately pressed the accept button and the quest was shared with her.
It was then that she noticed something. Milly, Amanda, and Zack had an awkward expression on their faces.
"Hey, what's up? Why haven't you accepted it yet?" Lizzy asked.
Milly was the one who replied to her question.
"The thing is...we just completed a quest to escort that priest candidate to the neutral territory..."
"Oh! Then this'll be a snap! We won't need to waste time searching for the quest target~"
"..."
The 3 light faction players could only reply awkwardly at Lizzy's enthusiasm.
"Well, this IS a dark faction quest...so there's a small consequence if we light faction players accept it..."
"And that being...?"
"Well, if this was any other quest then we'd probably be good, but it says here we have to kill the priest candidate Joseph...and a whole bunch of other targets..." Amanda replied.
"Which means we'll be making an enemy out of the church...that's okay for you guys, but for us the consequences would be the loss of every friendly relation points and our reputation with the church would fall into the negatives and they'd hunt us 3 down...staying in the NPCs cities is no long viable if we accept the quest..." Milly added with a slight tinge of concern in her tone. If they did accept the quest, then their early game progress might be hindered pretty badly.
"Eh?! It's that bad?!"
"Oh no! We can't have that! Amanda, Milly and Zacky, you don't need to help with the quest if it's like that!" Maria immediately replied.
"S-sorry Mary...even though we really do want to help..." Milly replied.
"Hmmm...We could just play around in the neutral territory..." Amanda said.
"Th-that's right, Sis! We could just stick to the neutral territory!" Zack quipped up. He was a little conflicted earlier as well. The boy really wanted to help his big sis Mary, but the consequences seemed a little severe, at least until his sister reminded him of something.
"Huh?
Milly and the rest were the only ones who were confused.
"Hmhm~ I heard about the neutral territory being just a blank slate during the Beta Test. It was only a place for the light and dark BTs to go and PK with each other, but the official release's neutral territory is a little different!" Amanda said.
"Yup! We did some research about it after all!" Zack added in.
"Wait a minute...despite being BTs...You guys didn't bother researching any further and just jumped straight into the game, huh?"
This caused the only 2 BTs in the party to reply awkwardly.
"Hahaha~"
"Busted..."
Amanda sighed and continued explaining.
"The neutral territory also has NPC cities and towns just like the other factions. Unlike in the Beta where there were only NPC villages and outposts that only had the bare necessary NPC shops."
"So...even if we did make an enemy out of the light faction or if Maria and Lizzy made an enemy out of the dark faction...we'd all be safe if we just hung around the neutral area?" Milly asked.
"Yup! Honestly, this is pretty convenient for us! It's practically catered for players who have friends in opposing factions to meet up and play together without worrying about the NPCs ruining our time~"
Maria was happy hearing this. Now her friends could accept the quest and help her! The quest rewards were also the same except that the light faction players like Amanda and the rest, didn't receive the last 3 rewards, the Dark God's random blessing, reputation points, and the relation points with Hella.
"So, are you guys doing it?" Lizzy asked while waving her [Quest] window around.
"I'm in!" Zack was the first to reply. The other girls also accepted the quest. Right then, the 3 players' name colors changed from red to grey.
Opposing faction players, regardless of whether they were added onto someone's friend list would show in red when on the field. When Milly and the rests' name color changed to grey from Maria and Lizzy's perspective, it meant that the 3 now didn't belong to the light faction, but rather the neutral faction.
"Hmmm...Maybe I should change into the neutral faction as well~" Lizzy pondered.
"Uhh...I can't...it says here that might affiliation is locked with the Dark faction..." Maria had the same idea, but when she saw her [Reputation] window, everything else besides the Dark Faction Reputation was all greyed out.
"Probably has something to do with your class Mary, it's a hidden legacy class after all~" Lizzy replied.
A legacy class was usually given to a player by a high ranking member of a faction. So the player who did receive a legacy class with have their affiliations locked onto the faction that gave them the class.
"Oh! I see!"
"Well, let's get on with it. Milly, Amanda! Take us over to the quest targets! We'll get things done in a jiffy!"
"W-wait, wait, wait! We should go do some leveling first before we go!" Milly immediately suggested.
"Huh? Why?"
"Y-you don't expect us to fight them with our current levels...do you?"
"...what level are our targets?"
"They're all level 20-30! The priest candidate is the lowest, but that's at 20! The guard captain has the highest level which is level 30! The rest range from 23-28...we can't fight them with our levels..."
Maria looked at the party menu and saw everyone's levels.
[Party
1. Lisbet Lv. 16 Warrior (Party Leader)
2. Maria Lv. 7 Dark Priestess (Party Member)
3. Ama Lv. 13 Druid (Party Member
4. Z Lv. 14 Thief (Party Member)
5. Milya Lv. 16 Knight (Party Member)
Loot Distribution: Party Leader]
She then looked around. The monsters she could see were all level 10s and 20s. Maria bet that if they entered a forest they'd be able to find higher level monsters too.
"Alright then, let's grind our levels for a bit! There's a 3 day limit! So we'll grind for 2 days, and complete the quest on the last day!" Lizzy declared.
"Hey! You don't expect us to be playing for the entire day do you?!" Amanda immediately protested.
"Nono~ tomorrow's a weekend so we can play for a bit, right? Besides, we can just sync up our playtimes!"
"Your 'bit' is a whole day!"
"Don't mind the small stuff Ama~"
"Tsk...Well, tomorrow is a weekend...I also don't have any plans, so I guess I'll tag along. BUT! We'll only have a 5-6 hour real time gaming session!"
"Yes, yes~"
Milly raised her hand and asked something that she and Zack were very curious about since earlier.
"So yeah, while you two are already in agreement, hu~ge question I wanna ask! Why's Maria's level only 7?!"