The Righteous Player(s)

Chapter 34: Don't Give Up

Annan was rendered speechless.

Annan blinked his eyes, not knowing how to reply for a moment.

Are people from your world like this straightforward?

Seeing Annan staring at herself blankly, Lin Yiyi’s heart jumped slightly after staring back at those clear and transparent ice blue eyes.

She tried her best to suppress the eagerness in her heart and said nonchalantly, “I just thought, young master, you might need a few personal guards. It just so happens that I’m good at taking care of people.”

What a lie.

Lin Yiyi had never taken care of others in her 21 years of living. Among the living creatures she had taken care of, the largest animal was a rabbit.

Annan, who had never chatted with women until now, was a little moved when he heard her words.

Although for him at this age, these meager matters were unnecessary. But, it was always good to have someone to take care of his daily life.

He could indeed recruit one or two players who were pleasing to the eye and let them take care of his daily life. After all, Annan, as a Gold NPC, was a better prospect for experience points. At least he could grow his maid group not slower than the frontier elite adventure group, or even faster than them.

If Annan wanted, he could quickly spawn a Level 10 duo-profession player in a day.

But, that would be meaningless.

Annan thought for a moment, but it still felt inappropriate to him.

It was not that the idea of ​​hiring players to be his own maids was inappropriate. But the fact that the players could get such a benefit to be his maid without contributing anything was inappropriate.

Indeed, he did not mean it wrongly.

The maids should be paying a price instead rather than him.

Annan was confident in his appearance. He was also well aware of his noble status. In this case, he was undoubtedly in the advantageous position.

Therefore, he must be reserved.

To create an image of “being cold outside but warm inside, kind hearted, and must become strong because of pain and frustration,” Annan had to reluctantly refuse it.

Judging from my worth, the maid job could be sold at a good price.

Annan thought so calmly in his heart.

He roughly estimated his mission value to see what price he could sell himself off at most while not irritating these players and made their “sense of gain” significantly higher than “sense of giving.”

As a game planner, he fully understood the importance to strike a balance between the sense of giving and the sense of gaining. Of course, this was the critical issue that distinguished a game with mature and reliable planning with other games.

If Annan could not think of a solution to this problem, he would either give out lesser benefits to the mission or filter out players who could significantly bear more frustration than the others to undergo the mission. After all, the abundance of rewards could raise the players’ expectation and capability overwhelmingly, leading to diminishing happiness when gaining rewards, thereby reducing desire to perform missions.

Indeed, the reward distribution technique was originally used to cheat the players to top-up money into the game.

This game did not provide top-up channels.

Since there was no monetary gain and no way to charge on players’ time, Annan only needed to think in the direction of “how to improve playability and durability of the game.” For him, this had drastically reduced the workload.

Firstly, he got to invent a stable currency.

Even though there was no real-life money at stake, Annan could simply create a currency to charge the players.

Sure enough, it was the “affection rate” he dedicated to the players.

As long as this affection rate could be used to buy essential items, unique items, multi-purpose items and cost-effective items, then the affection rate would become the currency token that players gained through missions. Since the affection rate could not be traded, the currency was binding to each individual player.

Since Annan had the currency issue settled, he could proceed.

In fact, all Annan’s plans for players were all centered around this “currency.”

Firstly, Anna had to make the players think that the affection rate to him was useful. They could purchase items from Annan.

Even Annan himself could be bought.

Indeed, Annan was even thinking about how much money he should label himself as a commodity, and how much benefits could be harvested from these players.

En, at the very least, 1,000 affection rates can be exchanged for a maid job opportunity. Just in case, the prerequisite is being a female.

If you want to be my maid, how can you not pay me?

Since I am so adorable, of course you gotta pay me.

Annan thought so confidently as though he was right all along, with a calm heart.

“I live with Senior Salvatore now.”

Seeing that Jiu Er squeezed her face over with curiosity, Annan had to signal his horse to go slower. He lowered his head to explain to the ladies in a low volume, “This is inconvenient…”

“Senior?”

Jiu Er made a soft and curious voice, “Where is the senior? Twenty-four years old?”

“No, he should be in his 30s.”

Annan pretended that he did not hear the reference she made [1]. He calmly explained, “He is the previous mayor of Freezing Water Port, a wizard who is more powerful than me.”

“In other words, are those people planning to attack Freezing Water Port in front of Lord Salvatore?”

Lin Yiyi asked instead.

She shifted the previous topic wisely. It was just like after failing in her confession and found out that she did not have a place in his heart, she would quickly divert the topic. It was the girls’ general skill.

She would choose to change the subject at this time, but not because she wanted to take her words back.

She just noticed that Jiu Er, who was following behind previously, suddenly came over with a curious look.

Lin Yiyi felt a warning sign, and signalled Annan to brush the topic over.

Although she was only 21 years old this year, she felt she was the older sister in front of this young feudal lord who was only thirteen years old.

Whether it was in terms of age or height, there was a gap.

On the contrary, Jiu Er, who was too petite and even shorter than “Don Juan Geraint,” was more like a peer of the same age. They were more likely to have a common topic together.

Moreover, Jiu Er was not a real “twelve or thirteen-year-old peer.”

Jiu Er’s age approached adulthood; she was also a streamer. Compared with other girls of this age, she was better at talking, chatting, attracting others’ care and understanding.

Among the forty players in this first batch, there was little competition since there were not a lot of ladies around.

Lin Yiyi was confident.

Because she believed that other female players must have come over for the feudal lord mission.

Only she was different.

She came here because of the young face! She was more for the appearance!

She could even speak out her desires confidently. For her, that was enlightenment.

Suddenly, Lin Yiyi had a bold idea.

Speaking of which, is this game for all ages?

Annan shuddered after sensing her undisguised gaze.

Damn, are players over that world so scary?

He coughed slightly, and pretended to be unaware of it. He replied plainly, “Since we found out about Black Fire previously, Senior Salvatore is now doing research in the soundproof basement.

“He happened to be away in these few hours.”

“That’s a coincidence.”

Lin Yiyi nodded with a serious face, and echoed.

In fact, she did not listen much to the conversation at all. Her mind was occupied with the ice-blue eyes similar to a cat plushie.

Annan could only cough lightly again, staring at the front and replied plainly, “Yes, so this is not a revenge, but a deliberate murder. They have already planted a conspiracy just to kill me.

“I don’t know how I offended them. But since they want to come at me, I will face them.”

Annan said coldly with grievance, but at the same time his expression was firm and his words were full of confidence. “I will never give in here. No matter how dangerous it is, no one can stop me.”

Although Annan had put up a lot of drama, he had never taken this enemy seriously.

After all, Annan did not see a Transcended during this assassination that violated the noble rules.

This had undoubtedly shown Annan about his enemy’s inside information and true worth.

If it weren’t for the player being present, he would not bother to utter a single word. He would slash the two people hiding to death directly. But after all, the players were watching. He would need to show them some information about the plot from the dialogue like how a game usually did. So, it was a little troublesome.

But, Annan was still grateful to the old viscount.

Thanks to the viscount’s actions, Annan smoothly made a good impression in front of the players, establishing a positive image of an innocent suffering grievances. No matter what he did next, the players would empathize with him.

In theory, it was the same as Annan showing Salvatore that he was attacked. Putting oneself at the victim side would usually earn the sympathy of others. Moreover, Annan had potential, status, capability and most importantly a good look. He immediately gained public affection.

After Annan returned, he would get prepared for the dungeon instance.

He was curious whether this old and confused Roseburg’s viscount would continue plotting against him. It was best for the viscount to take advantage of his absence and completely anger the players and the leaders in Freezing Water Port.

In this way, he would lead the players in his “revenge” and fabricate it as a righteous act. He would even establish his prestige and the Freezing Water Port’s leaders’ liking, uniting all the forces at this place.

So, please don’t give up, old man!

Please! Please continue your foolishness!

I’m easy to kill. Send over another wave of enemies.

I promise that I will not fight back this time!

[1] A reference to an incident taking place in real life where a senior male student rejected a 24 years old junior female student due to her being fat.