"Lord Carl, I hope I didn't disturb you by contacting you so suddenly, ow?"
Sophia, who was currently on Vengeful Blood's side, was still using her Silly Cat avatar.
Until now, she had managed to keep her true identity hidden from Vengeful Blood by constantly drinking shapeshifting potions.
After this, however, keeping up the act might beco much harder. Vengeful Blood had taken advantage of the mass reshuffle in the City of Glory to bring Sophia back to her own Netherworld Village.
"You should know that with a data capacity like mine, splitting my consciousness into tens of thousands of separate threads is nothing difficult."
Carl tossed a shapeshifting potion to Sophia, letting her return to her original form before speaking with him.
"Ptooie, ptooie."
After changing back into a human, Sophia spat out several mouthfuls of cat hair.
"So, what happened on your end? Hasn't Vengeful Blood been enjoying herself quite a bit lately?"
Carl glanced over Vengeful Blood's recent activity log. She had spent nearly all her ti grinding the Trial of Glory and climbing the rankings.
With the Abyssal Knights leading a lineup of powerful Pokémon, Vengeful Blood's ranking speed was no different from being launched up the leaderboard.
She was now a serious contender for the Trial of Glory championship.
"Well, Lady Vengeful Blood is having fun, but she seems to be growing more and more dissatisfied with the City of Glory. The reason is..."
Sophia began explaining what she had seen. She had been following Vengeful Blood around in her Silly Cat form, helping her climb the rankings.
Because of that, Sophia could tell that although Vengeful Blood was enjoying the Trial of Glory,
And although she had plenty to do every day, gathering materials one day and planning which Pokémon to catch and test the next,
There was still one thing that deeply bothered her, despite how much fun the Pokémon DLC had brought to the Trial of Glory.
"It's because of her anonymous identity, isn't it? Even if she wins the Trial of Glory championship, she can't claim the title as the leader of the Do Alliance," Carl said, imdiately identifying Vengeful Blood's greatest concern.
"Yes!"
Sophia nodded quickly.
"After Lady Vengeful Blood settled in Netherworld Village, she gathered a group of people and seed ready to move against the City of Glory! Lord Carl, can you stop her? She's put so much effort into Oath. If she gets restricted because of one impulsive decision..."
"I can't stop her. Besides, I don't think the Oath operators can keep this under control anymore," Carl said.
"Can't keep it under control?"
While Sophia was still trying to understand what he ant, Carl showed her a group chat interface that Crimson Night had shared with him.
The title was:
"Community Campaign to Unlock the City of Glory Pokémon DLC!"
Players were far more resourceful than Carl had imagined.
Perhaps most of them had no idea about the conflict between Oath and Netherworld Village.
Even so, the additional Pokémon gaplay had caught the attention of a massive number of players.
Then they discovered sothing important. If they wanted to catch these Pokémon, they could only do so inside certain players' Open Worlds.
As a result, the sa question began appearing across various Oath discussion communities and forum posts.
"How do I unlock the hidden pet-catching feature in my Open World?"
Although most players did not understand the underlying chanics, a few clever ones soon figured sothing out.
As long as enough people gathered at the gates of the City of Glory and demanded that the Pokémon feature be unlocked, catchable Pokémon would begin appearing inside the city.
They did not know the exact logic behind it, but the players' initiative was terrifying.
Before long, they had ford nurous groups dedicated to pressuring the ga into unlocking the Pokémon DLC.
Crimson Night reacted quickly as well.
Using her influence, she created several large groups in rapid succession, and now she could direct those players wherever she wanted.
"I'm afraid Vengeful Blood realized this too. That's probably why she gathered mbers from her guild to test the waters. Don't worry, nothing serious will happen. Although that Saintess usually acts a little silly..."
Carl paused for a mont.
"She has indeed made the Oath operators realize that the players might actually revolt against them."
As Carl spoke, he imdiately brought Sophia along to watch the spectacle.
anwhile, on the surface, Vengeful Blood stood at the gates of the City of Glory as the leader of the Do Alliance.
Behind her stood a large crowd of guild mbers.
Although none of them had openly admitted to one another that they were villagers, every player standing there knew the truth.
They were all villagers.
"Macchiato, you and the others. Step forward," Vengeful Blood said to a group of villager players led by Macchiato.
"Uh... are the guards really not going to attack ?"
Macchiato was still sowhat afraid of walking openly into the city.
A few hours earlier, she had followed a massive crowd into Crimson Night's Open World capital.
But that ti, there had been tens of thousands of people around her.
Now, there were only a dozen or so villager players standing by her side.
"They're welco to try," Vengeful Blood said.
She crossed her arms and stared coldly at the soldiers guarding the gate.
"..."
Macchiato carefully walked up to the two city guards.
As expected, the guards instantly raised their spears.
"Forbidden One!"
But the mont the guards lifted their weapons, Vengeful Blood and the Do Alliance players behind her drew theirs as well.
In an instant, the atmosphere grew so tense it seed to freeze solid.
Carl, who was watching from afar, thought the Do Alliance was about to officially go to war with the City of Glory's defenders.
Then, at that mont,
"Wait!"
The guard captain, played by Migard of the Hunter Knights Order, stepped forward and addressed the crowd.
"Noble Saviors! From this day onward, the City of Glory's ban on Forbidden Ones is hereby abolished! The forr City Lord, who attempted to persecute the Saviors, has already been dealt with!"
"No matter what form you Saviors take when visiting the City of Glory, please feel free to enjoy every facility within the city."
"Furthermore, we will issue a formal apology to every Savior who was hard in the past!"
Faced with overwhelming pressure from the player base, the operators had chosen to back down completely.
To Carl, this was not surprising.
After all, Pokémon's influence had spread at a terrifying rate.
It was not only because of the iconic monts from the first Pokémon League. A huge number of players had been captivated by the Pokémon's adorable appearances simply by visiting Crimson Night's Open World.
More importantly, people were less afraid of missing out than they were of being treated unfairly.
Why did other players' Open Worlds get a pet-catching feature for no apparent reason, while theirs did not?
Carl glanced at the current online trends.
The operators had already been flooded with tens of thousands of comnts demanding the full release of the Pokémon feature.
Even if the Oath operators were extrely unwilling, they had no choice but to back down, open the City of Glory, and allow the Pokémon gaplay to enter the Open Worlds of players who wanted it.
Of course, Pokémon still had many areas that needed optimization.
And judging from Migard's cheerful attitude, Carl knew the Empire and the operators must have prepared plenty of traps for him inside the City of Glory.
Otherwise, they would never have surrendered ground so easily.
In any case, the City of Glory could now be considered fallen as of today.
As for how far that fall would go, Carl would have to see what the Oath operators' so-called concession truly involved.
(To be continued.)
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