Royal Realm

A new waypoint appeared on my map as soon as I exited the hall, directing me towards my residence.

"You have received an official quest! Check the quests tab for more details."

DEEP piped up from the corner of my view, unsurprisingly. I pulled up the tab, certain that it would simply be a repeated version of what I had just been told by the council.

Storyline Quest (Repeatable, Auto-Accepted): The Growth of Roses

Task - Fully take control over a region with the following qualities: Former Wild Growth.

Reward - Region Level * 100 Experience, Lottery Ticket: (Region Level 1-10) Bronze Ticket, (Region Level 11-20) Silver Ticket, (Region Level 21-30) Gold Ticket…

The lottery ticket rewards went all the way up to "(Region Level 91-100) Divine Ticket", and I couldn't even begin to imagine what rewards came from a lottery of that caliber.

I had kept walking as I read the quest, and by the time I finished looking through the ticket types I had reached my destination. A small but well-kept and expensive-looking house stood before me, the marble that seemed to be a Rose family trademark lining the entrance and foundation. The door was already open, so I just headed inside.

"Sammy, come to your room and help me pack!"

A woman's voice drifted to the front of the house, and I just followed the next guiding arrow to appear. It led me up a set of stairs and to the back of the house, where I found an absolutely massive master bedroom. Peeking inside, I spotted an adjacent walk-in closet that was basically a full room, which appeared to be my destination. A middle-aged woman stood inside, with cascading black hair even longer than mine and an ornate gown that trailed behind her. She was leaning over a wooden trunk, folding clothing and placing it gently inside. She looked up at me, and smiled.

"I missed you, dear, though I'm sure your father already told you that. I'm almost finished putting together your clothing, wait just a moment and we'll go through everything else."

I returned her smile and nodded, watching her fold a pair of fine black pants into the c.h.e.s.t, before pushing it shut.

"Alright, I'll leave this here for the guards to carry, neither of us can lift it after all."

She tugged on the crate's lid to make sure that it was properly latched, then turned to me. Before I could react she firmly gripped my shoulders and spun me around, marching me over to the bed in the main bedroom.

"Sit!"

I complied, a confused look on my face.

~This is my mother… right?~

She hopped on the bed behind me, beginning to remove the braids and twists from my hair as she spoke.

"I need to teach you how to take care of your hair, since Elion and the girls can't follow you into battle. Don't you dare cut it, either, lest you bring dishonor to your father and I. You can bear the extra hassle, I'm sure."

She stood me up, and my now completely straight hair fell down my back, stopping only once it brushed the floor.

~It's even longer than I thought! How am I supposed to deal with this if I can't even cut it?~

A flash of color exploded behind me, and I turned around sharply - my mother smiled at me, a red leather-bound book now in her hand that hadn't been there before.

"You always react to my space magic, I thought you would have been used to it by now."

She began flipping through the book page my page, showing me a few things every so often.

"Take this with you, and make sure you learn everything in it as quickly as possible so you're ready for anything. I'll show you the basics now, but I expect you to have mastered every part of this book the next time we meet!"

I leaned over to glimpse the title of the book on its spine.

'From Beginner to Master - A Comprehensive Hair Care and Styling Skill Book'.

~Oh lord…~

"Now, let's begin…"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

>>>Congratulations, you have unlocked [Skill: Hair Care and Styling], competency level: Novice.

~Great, my first new skill is totally useless…~

The relevant knowledge suddenly appeared in my mind, and I knew that I would have access to the basic styles my mother had shown me whenever I needed them. My hair was now up in a ponytail, though that had only returned its length to my knees, and it was still far too unwieldy for my tastes, but it would have to do for now.

"Young master, we'll carry your belongings out to the carriage, join us as soon as you are ready to leave."

A young man around my age stood in the doorway, wearing a fine black suit. He was flanked by two maids, also around the same age. The three of them hefted the large c.h.e.s.t onto their shoulders, carrying it down the stairs and out the door.

"Good luck, my child, and don't forget to visit your mother sometimes."

My mother embraced me from behind, leaning around to plant a kiss on my cheek before releasing me. We smiled to each other, and I tucked the skill book under my arm, walking out of the room and down the stairs. A finely constructed carriage sat outside the front door, led by two snow white horses. The young man sat in the driver's seat, and the two maids stood on either side of the carriage door, bowing to me. As I approached, they stretched out their hands to help me step into the carriage.

"Thank you."

Grasping one of their hands, I hoisted myself into the carriage, sitting down on one of the fine fabric benches within. The two maids followed me inside, and two status bars appeared in my view as they sat down opposite me.

Nyna (Maid)

Health: 100/100

Ryna (Maid)

Health: 100/100

Suddenly remembering that I needed to eat dinner with my mom in the real world, I willed my information screen to show me the time outside of the game.

7:30 PM

~Sh*t, I played right through dinner!~

As the carriage began to move, I willed the system to begin logging out.

>>>Logout confirmed. Disconnecting from server.

>>>Unloading models and environment.

>>>Logout sequence complete. Shutting down.

The inside of the carriage faded away, and my plain bedroom returned. As the headset retracted back into its receptacle, I bolted out of my bed, running to the kitchen. A single pink sticky note awaited me on the kitchen counter.

"Sammy,

I had to head to work, dinner's in the oven. Hopefully it should still be warm, I didn't want to interrupt your game on the first day. Please make sure you put your dishes in the dishwasher before you go back to your game.

-Mom"

~Welp, at least I still get to eat.~

I pulled open the oven door, and slid a pizza tray out and onto the counter. Even in the era of total automation we still had manual cooking appliances, since my mom didn't want to entirely let go of doing things herself. If we were in a rush we could always order delivery, since drones and automated vehicles made food orders take a matter of minutes. Chowing down on the slices she had left for me, I flipped through messages on my phone.

| MajorDomo | > Yo, you guys better add me in game, same tag as always.

| TallTale | > Same here, I'm running Rogue so we can PK early.

| Okkult | > Healer reporting in.

| VeryAngryChicken | > KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL

| Mr. Mundane | > …

| TiredGod | > *sigh*

This was my main friend group in games, so we were all obviously hyped to get together in game. I was sort of surprised that they weren't all grinding away in game at that very moment, but I couldn't really comment since I wasn't either.

| DeepFreeze (You) | > Yo, races and classes? We'll have to wait to meet up if we aren't in the same main cities, right?

| MajorDomo | > Human Knight.

| VeryAngryChicken | > HALF-TITAN FIGHTER

| Okkult | > Dryad Healer.

| Mr. Mundane | > Dwarf Tinkerer.

| TallTale | > Sea Elf Rogue.

| TiredGod | > ...Fairy Mage.

| DeepFreeze (You) | > …

| DeepFreeze (You) | > Well @TiredGod and I had the exact same idea, so we're together, but everyone else will have to meet up later. TiredGod, I'll add you ingame and send you a location, I took the Royal Blood trait and got a territory quest.

| Okkult | > !!!

| VeryAngryChicken | > DAMNNN

| MajorDomo | > @DeepFreeze Do you have any clue how lucky you got?

…

~No, no I don't.~

| DeepFreeze (You) | > Couldn't literally anyone just take Royal Blood and get a territory quest?

| Mr. Mundane | > …

| Mr. Mundane | > Boi

| DeepFreeze (You) | > ??

| MajorDomo | > @DeepFreeze traits are randomly generated, a bunch of people out east spent the last couple hours running odds for getting each trait, and Royal Blood has only appeared once in like 100,000 character creations.

| DeepFreeze | > Weren't traits supposed to have no in-game effect? I thought they were just flavor.

| VeryAngryChicken | > HA

| VeryAngryChicken | > HA

| VeryAngryChicken | > HA

| Okkult | > Every trait is theoretically balanced, but they open up opportunities differently depending on what you pick.

| TallTale | > I managed to snag Criminal, for instance, so I'm working my way up in a local den of thieves.

| TiredGod | > How long did you spend scrolling through the traits list to spot Royal Blood anyway? It's like they wanted us to miss things, they made one trait so indistinct from another in the menu.

| DeepFreeze | > ...I chose everything randomly

| Mr. Mundane | > …

| TallTale | > ...

| VeryAngryChicken | > ...

| Okkult | > ...

| MajorDomo | > ...

| TiredGod | > …

At that point the chat blew up in rage at my apparent luck, so I finished up my pizza and headed back to my room. With a simple button push I was headed back into the game.

>>>Loading Assets...… Complete.

>>>Connecting to Server...… Complete.

>>>Spawning Character...… Complete.

Welcome to the Royal Realm.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

My eyes opened, and I was back in the carriage. Both of my maids were staring out the windows idly, watching the scenery go by. I remained silent, contemplating my plan of attack for my mission, and nothing happened for several minutes.

"M-Master!"

One of the maids, Nyna according to her status bar, nearly fell out of her seat when she finally noticed me. Ryna also jumped slightly, but Nyna's reaction reduced her own somewhat.

"Oh, Young Master, welcome back. Your father asked me to give you a box once we were on our way, he didn't tell me what it was though. It's under your seat, I wasn't certain when you would return."

I reached down under the bench, taking hold of a small white box. It was a flawless cube of pure white, with no visible imperfections of any sort. It didn't appear to have any seams either, so I saw no clear way of opening it.

"DEEP, do you know how to open this box?"

The AI most likely knew - whether it would tell me or not was a different story.

"That's not openable. It's not a container, it's an item. You can read an item's description by putting it into your inventory!"

~That was far more helpful than I expected.~

I opened my inventory and focused on adding the weird box to the first slot of my inventory. It vanished from my hand, and appeared in the top left slot of my inventory screen, spinning slowly in the center of the slot.

"Items in your inventory don't weigh you down at all, but you only get 20 inventory slots - anything else you'll have to physically carry, so choose wisely!"

With DEEP's obligatory tutorial blurb out of the way, I checked the box's description.

< City Heart >

Description: A rare item that creates an Encampment (Level 0 City) at the location in which it is used. User is designated as Owner of the Encampment, and is granted access to the Encampment's Management Screen. Consumable, 1 Use.

~Hot Damn. How much did this thing cost? I'm starting to believe the whole 1 in 100,000 thing…~

I quickly closed the inventory screen, as if someone might snatch it from my UI somehow. As if on queue, the carriage suddenly stopped, and I heard my butler disembark. He came around and opened the door, and I caught sight of his status bar.

Daen (Butler)

Health: 200/200

"Young Master, the one-way teleport is charging, please brace yourself."

Daen bowed, and shut the door as quickly as he had opened it.

~Teleportation? I suppose that explains why we were headed to take control of a new region by carriage…~

A green glow began to build outside of the carriage windows, and I could hear the nervous whinnies of the twin horses at the front. It grew in intensity, growing almost blinding in brightness, until the only thing visible was a neon green.

And then it disappeared suddenly, leaving behind an entirely different view of our surroundings. What had previously been a sprawling city now appeared to be a broad grassland, flanked by a dark forest at the edge of my view.

>>>Region Discovered! Type: Receded Wild Growth. Would you like to name this region? (Yes/No)

~Yes!~

>>>Please choose a name, not exceeding 5 words in length.

"Rosebed."