After a thorough walloping, the dungeon boss now lay in the sand with just one HP and with just enough golden and black armour to cover the important places.
“Monster, do you have any last words before I finish you off?”
“Yes, my name is Vega, and I will defeat you and the fools at the castle who force us to suffer over and over again!”
“Nonsense!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make you suffer as I have then.. hahaha!”
Swish…
“God damnit, I am surrounded by crazy women and maidens. Rain, what the hell was that about suffering over and over again… Wait, don’t tell me—”
And with that the boss was defeated and the screen turned off.
Yes, Arthur, that was how it was going to be. It is as you imagine. In some ways this place was some kind of hell. Vega was the first enemy NPC with a mind and feelings of its own, but much more than that she is immortal. How can we justify this expensive fact, I don’t know nor care. Justifications always come after action. New boss NPCs are going to be immortal but cannot level up, or in other words there is continuity in her consciousness and memories every time she dies and gets respawned. This doesn’t however mean that it doesn’t hurt for them to be physically hurt, as otherwise there would be no incentive to act. The plan is for the NPC to improve her strategies rather than level, and eventually if she becomes better to be given charge of a more advanced dungeon where her level would be boosted too.
The ultimate goal is to have an AI NPC faction which improves itself, so that this will reduce the pressure on Castle Academy to produce stronger enemies, and also to counter the influence of the existence of beings beyond the logic of the game such as the White Dragon Knight Frame.
This is a risky move, because there is the possibility that the enemy NPC faction could go against Castle Academy. However, this does not necessarily need to be so, as long as I can make all these artificial and imaginary factions dance on the palm of my hand.
The votes for the Champion Elections were out.
“They have more votes than us, of course they’d get the best pick. This is not fair.”
“Did they, Peter? Or is it just that they think they did. It’s true that the Elites have Arthur Pendragon, the NPC who gave Vega her finishing blow, but Lain created the conditions for victory in that match.”
The selection for each side’s champion was over. Before the battle to choose the true champion took place, there was a lunch break, because of this all of the players in the Senate logged off one after the other.
“Aren’t you going to log off?”
“Yes, Peter. I will log off after you. It’s just that I have a little thing to take care of.”
Peter yawned.
“Alright. See you later then. Come to think of it, I have never seen you log out of Albion online. Make sure you take proper breaks. Same for you, Celestina-chan.”
“Thank you, for worrying about me and Raphael.”
“Haha. That’s no big deal. Also, don’t look so down about us not getting the Champion we wanted. My wife always says things work themselves out, and she’s been right so far, even if some of Francoise’s beliefs are mystical nonsense. It’s all psychological. Raphael, make sure to look after her…both in and out the game.”
Saying so, he logged out using the screen only visible to him. He was engulfed by a harmless white flame before the white flame itself disappeared taking him with it.
Now there were only me, Rina and Celestina.
“Are Lain and Arthur going to be okay?”
Celestina held back some tears from her large eyes as she turned towards. What a good girl, even though Lain teased her all the time, she was still worried about her friend. Then again this only reflected the training material and characters that I trained her model on.
“Yes, they are going to be fine. If a bit worse for wear but make no mistake. I am not going to let them die just to satisfy Chamberlain’s curiosity.”
As a child I never broke any of my toys out of anger, but I wouldn’t mind breaking other children’s toys as revenge. I am petty like that and I knew that I was.
