Near noon, in the commercial district of Deya City.
The newly appointed president of Deya Bank, Berendir, met with the real estate developer Cliff at an open-air café.
Since the Night of Assassination, their status and wealth had risen steadily, making them undisputed beneficiaries of the event.
After all, most of the old-guard nobles had died, and someone had to step in to fill their positions.
Consequently, Berendir and Cliff felt a hint of gratitude toward Truth alongside their lingering fear.
Berendir spoke first.
“Now that the Mist has changed again, the Saintess has finally made an appearance. It seems she’s been staying in the Cathedral this entire time, waiting for the changes to manifest.”
He still remembered Truth saying that Deya City had to be developed around the Mist from now on.
“So, the Saintess really plans to start construction inside the Mist? And she’s moving so fast, claiming all the land at once without giving anyone else a chance,” Cliff asked.
“For that matter, aren’t they afraid of attacks from monsters?”
In fact, Cliff had previously discussed the feasibility of building outposts in the Mist with members of the Church.
If it were possible, they could have quickly harvested the wallets of the adventurers.
Unfortunately, the newbie adventurers who needed to train in the Mist basically had no money.
Their levels were low, and they only bought First Rank items, meaning there was little profit to be made at an outpost.
Furthermore, compared to other outposts, they would have to spend a massive amount of money on security to hire adventurers to fight the monsters near the station.
After some quick math, it was clearly a losing business.
“It’s because of a mushroom called the Mist-Dispelling Mushroom,” Berendir replied seriously.
“Don’t you know? The Academy has been explaining its uses lately. They say its effect is exactly what the name implies: it dispels the mist! As long as the Mist is dispelled, there won’t be any monster attacks!”
“Huh? There’s a plant like that?! Is it a specialty of the Mist? Why didn’t we notice it before?”
“The Mist hadn’t changed yet! All I can say is that the Saintess has incredible foresight; she predicted everything in advance. Since she’s leading the development of the Mist, we should probably stay out of it for now. Otherwise, I’m afraid we might not see the sun tomorrow.”
The Mist was changing and becoming more valuable, making it hard for many people not to want a piece of the pie.
After all, everyone deserved a share. According to his old methods, Berendir would usually unite with other nobles or Church members to pressure Truth through various means.
For instance, he could denounce her alongside Church members, accusing her of using her authority as a Saintess for unfair competition.
By using public pressure, they could force her to yield some benefits to a few God-guides.
Once Truth agreed to distribute the profits, everything would be easy.
After all, a crack would have already been formed…
Unfortunately, the God-guides he could have collaborated with had already been arrested by the Church.
The charges seemed to be using letters of report to defile the Saintess…
But that wasn’t the most important part.
A position like God-guide could be filled by a suitable puppet at any time. The most important thing was…
The Ninth Saintess possessed one supreme truth — violence!
Therefore, even if the nobles were salivating over the value of the Mist, they didn’t dare move a muscle as long as Truth didn’t give the word.
……
“Sigh… I need to find a way to get those nobles moving.”
Atop the main wall of Deya City, Truth muttered as she watched the slowly expanding Mist.
Construction workers had already begun measurements before starting work, and a steady stream of building materials was being transported inside.
Tia guaranteed that within 6 months, they would be able to build a commercial center inside the Mist specifically to serve adventurers, complete with taverns, inns, and a free-trade market. They might even establish a new Adventurer’s Association inside.
“6 months? Is the efficiency really that low?” Truth complained slightly.
Although she wasn’t short on time, she was an impatient person. Aside from lying in wait to ambush someone from behind, she didn’t have much patience at all.
“6 months is already very fast. That’s only because the workers agreed to work overtime.”
“No, no, no, don’t limit your thinking. How much efficiency can you really gain by just adding a few hours of overtime each day? Why not try a three-shift rotation over 24 hours?”
Truth explained to Tia what a 3-shift rotation was, and the latter was greatly shocked. “Huh? That’s a bit too…”
Tia never expected Truth to say something so inhuman. Where did her gentleness and kindness go?
‘I feel like the Hermit is the one controlling Truth right now…’
While a 3-shift rotation was certainly efficient, wouldn’t the workers’ health be damaged? Staying up all night was very hard on the body.
Furthermore, even if they wanted to implement it, what if the workers didn’t agree?
Truth simply smiled faintly. “Don’t worry. As long as the money is right, everything is negotiable…”
Then, Truth handed over all 80 gold coins given by the Church to Tia.
She told Tia to double the wages of the workers willing to work the 3-shift rotation.
At the same time, she put out high-priced bids for all the necessary building materials.
For a moment, the entire construction market in Deya City seethed with excitement.
Very quickly, Truth used the power of money to shorten the construction time of the Mist’s commercial district from 6 months to 1 or 2 months.
Unlike modern buildings on Earth, most structures on the Mist Domain Continent were basically just laying a foundation and then assembling wood.
Actually, Truth could have used the Mist’s Build Mode to raise high buildings from the ground, and she could even change the housing materials to high-grade marble.
However, the commercial district was for the public; if she did that, it would be difficult to explain where the houses came from.
She couldn’t exactly say the Goddess of Life gave them, right?
If she did, the Goddess of Life would eventually find out when she questioned it. It was better to build them slowly in front of everyone…
After solving the basic infrastructure, the next step was attracting investment.
Truth didn’t want to spend a lot of time studying the adventurer market just to make money — like how much an iron sword cost, how much it could sell for in Deya City, or how much it would fetch after being transported to Wangsheng City.
One could only say that every profession had its specialists.
Truth only wanted to be the invisible hand behind the scenes that could remotely control the general direction of the market. The rest could be left to free market adjustments.
Therefore, letting those nobles come over to do business was an excellent choice.
Regardless, the platform belonged to her, so she could take whatever cut she wanted.
“Maybe we can keep the most profitable facilities as official, directly-operated ones, and then release an investment announcement stating that anyone can come to the Mist to do business?” Tia suggested.
Since the nobles were too afraid of Truth, there was a high probability they wouldn’t take the initiative to negotiate Mist operations with her.
If Truth went to them, they would surely overthink and do something strange, which wouldn’t be conducive to the healthy development of the Mist’s free-trade market…
So, public recruitment it was. Truth nodded; anyone was fine as long as they could make money.
“By the way, Truth, what should we call this new area of the Mist? Since it’s meant for making money, we should think of a name that leaves a deep impression,” Tia suggested.
She knew this place would definitely become a major economic source for Deya City in the future, so they needed a suitable name to increase its popularity.
“Isn’t ‘Consumer Zone’ a good enough name?” Truth felt the name was simple and easy to understand, making it very suitable.
“No, if you want to make more money, you must have a good name! Let me think… Mist, entrance, commercial… I’ve got it! How about Fog Gate Plaza? In the future, everyone entering the Mist will have to pass through there; it’s the undisputed main entrance. It’ll also be a place where adventurers gather in large numbers, so the name Fog Gate Plaza feels very appropriate!”
At noon, while everyone was still focused on the new entrance of the Mist and the sudden appearance of various construction workers, a familiar announcement appeared before the eyes of the adventurers who were challenging Dungeons and collecting materials inside the Mist:
[Notice: The entire Mist area is about to undergo a server-shutdown update. Adventurers seeing this notice should immediately follow the guidance and leave the Mist; otherwise, they will be permanently consumed by the Mist. There will be no compensation for this shutdown update.]
“Huh? Why is there no compensation for this update? We got 5 monster materials as compensation last time!” one adventurer wondered.
“You still want compensation? Get out of here quickly, or you’ll be swallowed up in a bit!”
Soon, a large number of adventurers continuously ran out from the Mist.
Unlike the last time when only one area was cleared, this time the evacuation of the entire area took about 1 hour before the Mist was ‘nearly’ emptied.
The reason for saying ‘nearly’ was that Truth discovered some adventurers were taking advantage of the situation to kick their enemies while they were down, breaking their rivals’ legs or tying them to trees to wait for the Mist to consume them.
Other adventurers continued to greedily farm for upgrade materials.
After all, once the Mist released the update announcement, there were very few people competing for materials. Some adventurers didn’t even take the notice seriously at all.
In response, Truth showed that she was a woman of her word. With a wave of her hand, she summoned countless monsters near the adventurers who hadn’t left.
In less than 5 minutes, every adventurer still inside the Mist vanished from this world.
If she didn’t fulfill her promise of consuming those who didn’t leave in time, a large group of adventurers would definitely ignore the notice during every future shutdown update.
After cleaning up the excess trash in the Mist, Truth posted the update contents at the main entrance of the Mist and began replacing the Dungeons and new content she had prepared long ago.
[Mist ver 0.24 Update Announcement:]
[1. The allowed level for all Newbie Dungeons will be changed from “Only allowed below Level 15” to “Level 10 to Level 20.” Additionally, all Dungeons have been optimized with added content, increased rewards, and incremental difficulty.]
[2. Added two new exploration Dungeons: “Abandoned Cellar” and “Ghoul Cemetery.” Besides these, a new multi-party challenge Dungeon has been added: “Sacrifice of the Soul Altar”…]
[3. Added a party mechanism. Monsters inside the Mist will now drop Party Cards to create a 4-person party. All experience gained by party members during the adventure will be shared equally, loot will be public, and members will be able to see each other’s status in real-time…]
[4. Added a massive amount of Second Rank materials and Magic Items. Added new Bosses: “Mother of Corruption” and “Chaos Water Spirit.” Added new Second Rank Elite Monsters: “Greater Ghoul” and “Gazer”… Added 13 new First Rank monsters…]
[5. Optimized area coordinates and UI display within the Mist. Removed Slime Square. Slimes will now spawn randomly throughout the Mist, and the drop rate for “Party Cards” will be twice that of other common monsters.]
[6. “Mist Arena” will appear at the former location of Slime Square. Adventurers below Second Rank can participate in free combat in the Arena.]
[7. Random side quests will now spawn inside the Mist. Adventurers can freely choose whether to accept them…]
“Whoa, that’s a lot of new content!”
When the update announcement was posted, a large crowd of adventurers once again blocked the new entrance of the Mist, making Truth consider that she should probably open another entrance to the south later on.
“Great! Finally, adventurers below Level 20 are allowed into Dungeons!”
“What the hell? Why is the Dungeon difficulty increasing? It was already like a nightmare, okay?! I hope the two new Dungeons are a bit more normal…”
“Monsters can drop Party Cards? You… still need a card to form a party?”
“What is the Arena for? Is it for us to fight specific monsters one-on-one, or is it for duels between adventurers?”
Having experienced the last update, the adventurers were even more interested in this one.
Furthermore, as the Mist’s reputation grew, the news of this update spread across almost the entire Dea Plateau through newspaper reports, making many adventurers below Second Rank want to come and see what was happening.
Everything was proceeding in an orderly fashion.
Truth was working overtime to add content, while Tia was personally supervising the construction progress at Fog Gate Plaza.
Since Fog Gate Plaza wasn’t covered by the Mist, it technically didn’t belong to the Mist, so the workers didn’t need to temporarily stop working because of the update.
That was until two strange fellows caught Truth’s attention…
Although Fog Gate Plaza wasn’t covered by the Mist, Truth could still use the Mist-Dispelling Mushrooms to observe the area.
After all, these mushrooms were a specialty of the Mist. Thus, Truth quickly discovered two strange men who had dressed as workers to sneak onto the construction site.
They were strange because Truth noticed their movements were extremely agile.
They felt like they were at the Third Rank, not at all like ordinary workers.
Truth didn’t believe for a second that someone would work at a construction site if they were already at the Third Rank!
For the rest of the time, Truth observed the two while updating the Mist content.
It wasn’t until the workers changed shifts in the afternoon that the two strange men finally made their move.
They quietly went to various key locations at the construction site and planted small black bags.
Truth took the opportunity to zoom in and saw that the bags were filled with various flammable and explosive materials, primarily Explosive Leaves… Put simply, they were explosives.
It seemed these two wanted to blow up the construction site.
After planting the small black bags, the two men met up secretly and spoke in low voices.
“Is everything ready?”
“Done. We’ll detonate it first thing tomorrow morning when the workers start their shift!”
“Tomorrow? We can detonate it in a bit! Did you forget what those workers said just now? They’re going to keep working through the night!”
“Huh? They don’t even let people rest?! Has the Church of the Goddess of Life become this inhuman? That’s simply unreasonable! We must overthrow that Ninth Saintess this time. For the future of humanity, these workers will just have to suffer a bit.”
“Stop being so sympathetic. They’re all fools who have been completely brainwashed by the Church. They aren’t worth the pity…”
At the same time, Truth nodded thoughtfully after listening to their conversation.
‘It seems they’re a couple of Blasphemers. They probably ran here from Wangsheng City, right?’