WTYTIAAN Chapter 198

Chapter 198

However, with the announcement of the faction war already issued, Yan Yunqing couldn’t make the game retract it; after all, he wasn’t the true master of the game.

All he could do was figure out how to minimize the impact of this event with the players’ participation.

Perhaps he could guide the players towards confrontation by focusing on the key point of “factions”…

Ah, he was still so angry.

Yan Yunqing clicked his tongue and switched to his [Ri’an] identity, unsurprisingly receiving the game announcement. A game prompt popped up.

【Please choose your faction.】

【[Bato Vita] or [Romunike]】

【Your choice will affect the plot of the subsequent mission “Frontline Campaign.” Please choose carefully.】

Yan Yunqing frowned at the two choices. Honestly, he didn’t want to choose either side. Although the Eleventh Princess Alice of Bato Vita was his student, Alice couldn’t represent Bato Vita.

At least, the current Bato Vita still belonged to King Bato and Queen Augreir.

As for Romunike, Yan Yunqing had even less interaction with them, but he was certain that the Romunike royal family wasn’t so clean either. There must be people from the Church of Light among them.

After all, Yan Yunqing hadn’t forgotten about Xavier’s matter!

Now, Xavier was suspected of not being dead and had even gone to the Church of Light to become a Holy Son with considerable power. Furthermore, the Mantipel incident showed that the Church of Light was also secretly searching for people with “talent.” The Chain of Soul Linking and the Soul Locking Array both appeared in Mantipel’s dungeon, which also had countless connections with the Church of Light.

The Church of Light seemed to be doing something similar to the Eternal God Cult, except the Eternal God Cult used brainwashing tactics of a cult and borrowed the name of the Eternal Lord, while the Church of Light cooperated with other forces, sending bishops to station in various places to infiltrate ordinary people in a subtle way.

Neither of them were good.

Yan Yunqing didn’t know anyone from the Romunike royal family, so he couldn’t judge the extent of the Church of Light’s infiltration into Romunike, but Romunike was definitely not a good choice either.

…So, he couldn’t avoid choosing?

Yan Yunqing stared at the system panel for a few seconds. As if sensing his thoughts, the system panel glitched for a few seconds before slowly displaying another option—[Let me think about it].

Yan Yunqing:?

Yan Yunqing’s eyes widened slightly as he watched the two options on the system panel change into three: 【[Bato Vita] or [Romunike], [Let me think about it]】, as if the existence controlling the game system behind the scenes had made some kind of compromise with him.

…Wait, compromise? Yan Yunqing didn’t know why he had such a thought, but he still hesitated and chose [Let me think about it]. After choosing, the first two options dimmed, and the system task updated.

【Frontline Campaign – Overture】

Description: Prince Fig, the beloved sixth son of King Bato, was kidnapped by unknown individuals while traveling in Romunike. The kidnappers were extremely arrogant and cruel, brutally killing Prince Fig. Bato Vita negotiated with Romunike several times, wanting Romunike to hand over the cruel bandits who killed the Sixth Prince, but was refused. With negotiations failing, King Bato decided to declare war on the Romunike Empire.

As an outsider who has descended upon this world, you decide to join and record this war.

——You have chosen [Let me think about it].

Since you have not chosen any faction, only some of the Frontline Campaign missions are available. If you need to change factions, please go to the faction affairs officer to [change].

(Note: When you choose to change factions, your original faction affinity will be reduced to [Hatred]. The difficulty of changing again will be doubled, and the affinity of the changed faction will be [Indifferent]. Please choose faction changes carefully.)

【Frontline Campaign – Recorder】

Task 1: Entering the Frontline

Task Description: War is about to begin, and we need to know more about the situation on the frontlines.

Task Objective: Arrive at the frontline camp, speak with the (grayed out) camp commander and (grayed out) local residents to understand the situation on the frontlines. (0/3)

Task Reward: [Experience xn], [Gold Coins xn], [Unknown]

Task 2: Helping Civilians

Task Description: The flames of war on the frontlines have displaced many civilians. We need to help them find a safe place.

Task Objective: Go to the designated area, find 10 civilians, and escort them to a safe camp. (0/10)

Task Reward: [Experience xn], [Gold Coins xn], [Faction Reputation xn], [Unknown]

Task 3: Reconnaissance (Cannot be Completed)

Task 4: Escorting Supplies (Cannot be Completed)

Task 5: Disrupting Enemy Supply Lines (Cannot be Completed)

…

A series of tasks refreshed, and Yan Yunqing found that he couldn’t complete the tasks related to the war in his mission list, while the tasks unrelated to the war could be completed.

Yan Yunqing opened the game forum and, after searching, found that some players had already posted the faction war missions on the forum. He compared his missions with those of players who had chosen the Bato Vita or Romunike faction, and there wasn’t much difference except that he couldn’t complete some of the tasks that the players could choose to complete.

So, this [Let me think about it] option was an identity that maintained a neutral faction and could join another faction at any time?

Yan Yunqing refreshed the page and confirmed that the third option had appeared for other players around the same time as it did for him. Players who had logged off earlier all said that they hadn’t seen the third option before.

Yan Yunqing:…

No way? Was this really the game compromising with him?

Yan Yunqing looked at the task of helping civilians in the basic missions and frowned. If the appearance of the third option made him feel that the game was compromising with him, then the tasks that were more inclined to protect ordinary civilians were like blatantly saying how much it favored him—uh, wasn’t that word a bit strange?

At least Yan Yunqing was sure that, apart from the tasks that he authorized the NPCs to issue to the players, none of the game’s autonomously issued tasks had the core of protecting civilians.

Yan Yunqing knew that the players’ participation would make the outcome of this war unpredictable, so he was angry that the game system suddenly caused trouble by pulling the players in, but the game immediately issued tasks to all players to protect and help civilians, as if a child who had done something wrong was trying hard to make up for it and please him…

■■ was wrong, but would dare to do it again next time?

Yan Yunqing was disgusted by his own mental imagery and decided to delete this guess from his mind.

Glorifying the enemy was not a good sign.

Yan Yunqing put away his extra thoughts and glanced at the missions, feeling a little relieved.

At least the tasks were there. Although there was no mandatory restriction on players to prevent them from harming ordinary people, with the task preferences in place, players would subconsciously remove ordinary people from the faction war, which could at least reduce the harm to ordinary people and even save some people who were accidentally affected by the war.

It also saved him the trouble of personally guiding the war.

Yan Yunqing closed the mission list and saw that [Yingyi] had sent him a message.

[Yingyi]: What faction do you think is better to choose for the faction war mission?

Yan Yunqing raised his eyebrows. He touched his chin and found the team leader’s question very interesting, as if he thought that he knew the inside story of this faction war, so he came to test the waters?

Hmm… If they were official people, they probably would have already found out about the game GM image he had created at [Big A Bro] and [He Kou Wang]’s place. They might not believe it directly, but they would definitely focus on his actions.

It was also reasonable to deliberately come and test his intentions.

Yan Yunqing pondered for a moment.

[Ri’an]: Faction war? Don’t you think the reason for the war between the two great empires is very perfunctory? (laughs) I didn’t choose any faction. I always feel that participating in this kind of war is not a good thing.

The official people were actually very powerful. Although they clearly weren’t the type of people who played games often, their levels were almost all at the top. Half of the top 100 players were official people.

This proportion was extremely exaggerated. To be in the top 100 of the level rankings, you either had to be extremely lucky to encounter a special mission, or you were a professional gamer, and playing games was your main job. They knew the unwritten rules of the game like the back of their hand to ensure that their levels remained stable at the top.

And many of the official people didn’t have either of these. The only possible reason they could be on the list was that they were frantically grinding monsters, relying on their real-world combat experience to grind against those monsters in the game, even fighting monsters above their level to get more experience, thereby keeping themselves in the top 100 of the level rankings.

These people were all experienced veterans. Even with the limitations of swordsmen and mages, their joining the battlefield was an uncertain factor. If he could trick them into sending fewer people to participate in the faction war, it would be suppressing the expansion of the war to some extent.

[Yingyi]: Is that so? Thank you, I will consider your suggestion.

Yan Yunqing nodded in satisfaction. It seemed that the other party understood his subtext. It would be good if they could consider it more. He didn’t expect to really influence the decision made by the official people.

Immediately afterward, [Yingyi] sent another message, causing Yan Yunqing’s gaze to pause.

[Yingyi]: The condition I promised you before has some progress. I should send you the mission details soon.

The condition he promised him before?

Information clues about other hidden missions?

Yan Yunqing was a little surprised. He didn’t expect the official people to be so fast. It seemed like he had only told the other party not long ago, right? Was it that fast?

Could it be that as soon as he finished speaking, they started studying the world background overnight? And they actually found a hidden mission?

[Ri’an]: So fast? Just to be clear, I’m very picky. This information must be at least the same level as the mission I shared with you.

The treasure hunt mission he shared, although the mission was a little cumbersome and there might be pitfalls, was related to the Eternal Empire that was destroyed more than a thousand years ago. It could be seen how rare this mission was.

There weren’t many missions as rare as 【Treasures Buried Under the Yellow Sands】.

[Yingyi]: Don’t worry, it’s still based on the initial transaction content. You have the right to choose.

Yan Yunqing smiled.

[Ri’an]: Then I’ll wait and see.

*

On the border where the two great empires met, the Banot Mountains cut a borderline.

Although it was called a mountain range, it could actually be seen as a small hilly area. There were even living villages on the plains in the middle, and the nearby cities had stationed troops, each belonging to different nobles.

Because the nearby area was barren and the cultivatable land was scarce, most of the residents here made a living by hunting and logging, so even if it was the territory of nobles, it was difficult to extract much profit from the commoners.

Before Bato Vita officially declared war on Romunike, it had always been a relatively peaceful place.

Poor, but able to survive.

However, everything changed after Bato Vita declared war on Romunike.

The nearby cities were all under martial law, and ordinary civilians were not allowed to enter or leave the areas designated as borders at will, and the rights of civilians to enter and leave the cities at will were also restricted.

The atmosphere on the border became solemn.

Even though Bato Vita had only declared war not long ago, and even the generals and armies had not yet arrived, it had already revealed some of the cruel atmosphere of war.

And the border cities of Romunike were not much better. They were still in disbelief, “What? The neighboring empire is going to attack? Why?”

However, the reaction of the royal family had confirmed the reality of the war to them. The atmosphere in the border city was also very solemn, and the patrolling city guards were almost constantly on duty, for fear that Bato Vita would not abide by martial ethics and suddenly launch a surprise attack.