Universe Tales: Virtual Log of the Fallen One

Chapter 86: Expansion

After soaking in the bathtub for a little bit longer, Maria promptly got out after feeling a bit dizzy from the heat.

She dried herself and her 2 maids began dressing her right after. Maria didn't think she'd be given such treatment because even back in the real world she'd normally dress herself, however, it looks like she'd have to get used to it inside the game.

She didn't know how, but every outfit that the maids brought her was always different from the one before it. She kept on getting new clothes without her knowing it but it wasn't like she would complain about receiving high-quality free stuff.

After she properly got dressed, Maria headed towards her study within the castle which was the place she used to complete her administrative duties for her territory and faction.

Ash was already inside and waiting for her when she arrived. She sat behind the large wooden desk and quickly asked the vampire, "What is it, Ash? I'm pretty sure I've finished dealing with all the reports and documents for today, right?"

"Yes, you have, my Lady," Ash replied.

"Then what is it? Tell me before I go make my rounds around the city."

"Yes, well, there's a pressing issue that we must address, my Lady, and that is concerning the increasing amount of individuals who are migrating into our territory."

"Mhm, well that's a rather major issue indeed. We can't accept just everyone, right?"

"Yes, we have to filter out all those that may hold malicious intent or just came to spy on our faction."

"You take care of that."

At her words, Ash immediately replied, "I already have, my Lady."

"Good."

Hearing her praise which he hardly ever received, Ash smiled a little before saying, "The more pressing issue is the increasing amount of people flooding into our territory and how many of them we've accepted as citizens after going through a strict screening. We should begin expanding our territory now, my Lady."

Maria picked up a report on her table that Ash had already prepared, skimmed through it, and nodded, "Mhm, you're right. We can't confine ourselves to just this city. Since our army has grown, maybe we can have some of our more trustworthy people establish some towns and villages within the current boundaries of our faction's territory."

"Yes, that's the best course of action for us, right now. Once we've expanded our army a bit more, we can consider expanding our borders."

Maria nodded and said, "Let's do that then. Just make sure we don't encroach on any other vampire nobles' territory. I don't want to attract any negative attention until after we're overwhelmingly strong enough to directly conquer them without any difficulties."

"Yes, my Lady. I'll start sending scouts to the surrounding area. Many things have changed since I've last been here and so have the distributions between the vampires' lands. I'll give you a report soon, my Lady."

The discussion was finally over so Maria no longer had to act so seriously. She stretched back and leaned into her chair after hearing Ash's words. The vampire had to look away when she did that.

Maria's maids had fitted her in clothes that accentuated her curves and the womanly areas of her body. Ash cleared his throat and excused himself from the room, but before he stepped out, he asked, "My Lady, I almost forgot, but I've prepared a comprehensive report on some of the vampires who I believe are trustworthy enough for us to ally with."

"Hm?"

"I'm not sure how their allegiances and standings have changed throughout the years, but once we've made contact with them, we should consider looking into whether we can ally with them or not."

Maria nodded and picked up the other stack of documents to the side. She didn't want to look at this particular stack at first because she thought it was more work, but thankfully, it was only just a report from Ash that held the vampires that they could ally with and she could take into her faction.

Allying was only the ice-breaking method and Maria's end goal was always to have her allies subordinate themselves to her. If they weren't under her command then they were against her, or potentially could be.

"I'll take a look at it later, but just tell me the ones that I really should look out for. I'm not going through each of these and memorizing all of them."

Ash nodded and said a few names, "Duke Tepes and Duchess Bathory, these 2 are the only ones I can fully trust that will never support Vampire Lord Siegfried."

"Just these two?"

"Well, there's also Duchess Bathory's younger Countess Bathory, but she's a little questionable."

"I'll look into those 3's information, but you should consider updating your outdated information before we start moving."

"Yes, of course, my Lady."

"You can go now, Ash. I'll inspect the army's training later and then I'll go make my rounds around the city."

Ash bowed and then left the room.

Maria found the documents regarding the 3 vampires that Ash mentioned earlier and placed them aside in a different pile. She then opened up her faction's system window and looked at the progress.

[Dire (Player Faction)

Leader: Maria

Members: Players: 1, NPC: 9,683

Affiliated Places:

Heltania City

Blood Plains

Blood Iron Mines]

She tapped on the city and a window of Heltania City's stats appeared.

[Heltania City

Rank: C

Population: 9,683/10,000

Commerce: 30/50

Military: 33/50

Social: 35/50

Security: 25/50

Happiness: 31/50

Available Buildings:

Warehouse: 1,000 stones, 500 Redstone bricks, ...

House: S: 500 stones, 500 lumber. M: 1000 stones, 750 lumber, ...

...

...

Upgrade available once Happiness stat has reached 50 and population is maxed]

Her city's system window was quite long and comprehensive, but Maria only focused on the important things. She could upgrade her city once she fulfilled the requirements. She needed to do this to expand her city so that it could accommodate more citizens, but she could also distribute her citizens among offshoot towns and villages just in case she still couldn't achieve the required stats for the upgrade.

Right now, her city's commerce, military, social, and security stats weren't even close to the required amount. The happiness stat was the average of all 4 stats added together so she was still far away from being able to upgrade the city.

The only good thing was that her city's population was almost at maximum value. Only when it was maxed out would she be able to create a town and divert half of her population over to it. As a C-ranked city, she could only establish 2 towns using that as a center and from those 2 towns, she could establish 2 more villages.

Of course, there was still the town in the late Baron Russo's territory which could be upgraded into a city at any time once she occupied it. The town was still the 'capital' of the late baron's territory so once she fulfilled a few requirements after taking it over, the upgrade to a city would be immediately available.

The only reason she still hadn't occupied it was because she was already busy managing one city. If she needed to manage two...Maria didn't even want to think about that.

It'd be torturous for her although somewhere deep down she actually wanted to go occupy it already. Ash was the one who dissuaded her and after a while, she was quite thankful that he did.

For now, she was content with managing only her first city, Heltania City. Once she found an assistant that was just as skillful as Ash or even more, only then would she consider occupying the other city.

For now, expanding her territory into 2 additional towns and villages was her urgent goal. Her main goal was still to increase the stats of her main city to the maximum amount so that she could upgrade it.

Once she upgraded her city and expanded her army, only then would she start looking at expanding her territory's borders.

"Ugh...it's so much work..." Maria groaned but it wasn't like she was going to complain about it.

She began reading through the files that Ash left for her before going out of the castle and taking a stroll around the city. The streets were bustling now even when it was daytime so she took to the skies rather than walk on the streets.

A small number of her citizens weren't vampires, but the majority of them were. The reason why her vampire citizens could now walk about in the daylight was that the Blood Fountain in her castle had been upgraded and strengthened by Ash.

Maria hadn't once taken a look at the fountain after the first time she saw it, so she didn't know too much about it and left its management all to Ash. It was a good thing that she left its management to her subordinate because if she didn't, then this bustling scene before her wouldn't have been possible.

The citizens all saw their queen making her rounds in the skies and couldn't help but stare up in admiration. Maybe it was because of Maria's modern mindset and modern-day way of managing a city, the people were very much content with her as their ruler and protector.

She cared about all her citizens' welfare so the streets and buildings were always clean, the area was patrolled by soldiers, and the walls surrounding the city always had soldiers on them. This gave the citizens a good sense of protection and their health was always high.

Maria also didnt tax the citizens or merchants too much so they were able to prosper. She didn't know how the NPC system worked in the game, but the NPCs acted like normal human beings. The NPCs and merchants were content with her and this spread through rumors and hearsay among those merchants and those nomadic NPCs.

When others from different territories heard about it, they naturally came over to see what it was like for themselves. Once these new NPCs saw the living conditions and overall prosperity of the people, they naturally wanted to settle down in her city which led to the increase of the city's population.

The reason behind the population influx was mostly due to Maria's actions which weren't overbearing and cruel like most of the other vampire nobles that ruled with strength and oppression.

Naturally, some unscrupulous individuals wanted to take advantage of this 'naive' young queen who treated her citizens fairly thinking that she could be easily manipulated, but unfortunately for them, they needed to get past Ash's watchful eyes first and if they do, Maria wasn't one to be taken advantage of. The fates of these people if they were to ever piss her off were most likely a one-way ticket to the underworld. Maria still held the title [Angel of Death] for a reason.

As Maria flew past, the citizens below her called out to her in greeting and waved at her. Maria smiled and naturally waved back. It was quite odd seeing the pale and happy faces of the vampires and the nonhuman-like faces of a few other races that were her citizens.

Maria finished flying around and checking her city. She then quickly went towards the northern district of her city which was the craftsmen area and she flew towards a particular construction site.

When she got there, the workers and the vampire dwarves who were overseeing the construction all bowed to her in greeting. Danor Dwarfsong, the head craftsman of her faction was running towards her from the distance.

"Y-Your Highness, you should have informed me that you were coming. I would have prepared a better reception for you."

"Don't worry about those trivialities. How goes the construction of the underground part of the city?"

"It's going as planned, Your Highness. We can expect to finish at least one district size area by the end of the month!"

"That fast huh? Keep up the good work then, Danor," Maria happily replied with a clap of her hands.

Her wings also fluttered in response to her happy mood and this caused Danor's eyes to brighten.

"I am unworthy of your praise, Your Highness. However, if we did have more workers, we could speed up the completion of the underground city's first phase by quite some time."

"Once I've established a few more towns and villages, I'll let you recruit more workers. The excess materials that you've excavated from underground will be used for the creation of these towns and villages so I want you to divide a team to process them into construction materials."

"Yes, Your Highness, I'll have a team get it ready right away! Where do you want these materials stored?"

"You can make the arrangements with Lilah. I'll tell her to come here once she's finished with her work in the castle."

"Alright, I'll discuss it further with Lady Lilah. Is there anything else that you need, my Lady?"

"That'll be all. I'll get going now. Goodbye."

"Take care, Your Highness."

Maria waved everyone goodbye before she flew away. She checked the time and saw that it was nearly time for the live stream about UT's next content.

"I better log out now and go watch it with big brother. I don't want to miss out on anything!"

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