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Saint Heaven Kingdom, Holy City.
Hand of Midas Branch.
Shiella was currently reading the reports that were just sent to her, making sure that everything was going smoothly.
The Corrupted Cult were hindering the carriages that they were sent to towns and cities that suffered great losses during the previous war. Fortunately, she was able to quickly solved it by increasing the number of personnel that she could mobilize in this Kingdom.
She pulled out some of their members from the Trading Firm's branches of the other Kingdoms and temporarily relocate them to this place.
She was trying to stabilize the state of crisis of the Kingdom by sending those supplies. This way, she could slow down the decline of the economic value of the kingdom and also grow the influence of the Hand of Midas at the same time.
Both the players and the NPC would see them in a new light if they succeed at restoring the Kingdom.
They might be burning a lot of resources in the process but the Trading Firm was also accumulating a lot of reputation points in return, so they were not losing too much from it.
At the same time, she also sent a lot of expert mercenaries to the outskirts of the kingdom where the temporary base of the Corrupted Cult was located.
She also borrowed the position that Shin and Cloe had to mobilize a few paladins and priests to purify the land in that area.
Shin was an Envoy of the Church of the Sun and the Moon while Cloe was the Holy Maiden of the Church of Light. With their current position in their respective churches, they had the right to mobilize a certain number of forces as long as the task fell on the responsibilities of the churches.
But since the two were not personally present, the number of paladins and priests was only limited. But that was more than enough to hinder the progress of the Corrupted Cult.
But she also knew that it was only a temporary solution. The strength of those paladins and priests was still not enough to take down the forces of the Corrupted Cult in that area, so she still needed to find the real solution to their problem.
Unfortunately, she always came up with a single solution. She still needed Shin and Cloe to visit their respective churches and ask for a formal request for a crusade on the now corrupted area of the Saint Heaven Kingdom.
In the end, the Corrupted Cult was still an NPC organization within the game and she needed an organization of the same level to completely deal with them, so she had no choice but to patiently wait and hope Shin and the others clear their quest.
Fortunately, there was still a good thing in this situation. Since the Corrupted Cult was involved, the Churches within the Saint Heaven Kingdom were issuing a lot of request missions to deal with them.
The rewards that the churches were offering were decently good, so the players had no problem accepting them. This was also the main reason why there were still a lot of independent groups and adventurer teams staying in the Kingdom despite its current state.
Originally, not many players knew about those requested missions because of how chaotic the Saint Heaven Kingdom currently was.
But Shiella pulled the strings behind the scenes and scattered a lot of members of their Trading Firms in different parts of the Kingdom to spread the news.
This was still a game after all, wherever there was a decent benefit for it, the players would still start flocking to those places regardless of how dangerous the condition was.
Seeing how effective that method was, Shiella even ordered some of her people to also spread the news on the neighboring Kingdoms and Empires.
If they could attract more players to visit the Saint Heaven Kingdom, then the economy of this place would still trend in a positive direction. Though, she also needed to control the flow of information since the current state of the kingdom could also attract some unwanted attention.
The other organizations might show their interest in this place after seeing the benefits that they could get from here. Then it would lead them at taking root in the Kingdom, creating another competitor for their trading firm.
Balance needed to be maintained in these kinds of situations, but Shiella was currently taking a risk at using a double-edged sword since their current opponent was very hard to deal with.
At the very least, she would have a head start since the reputation points were going to continuously flow in their direction as long as she continued to send out their supplies to the affected towns and cities.
While she was reviewing everything, someone suddenly knocked on the door.
Knock! Knock!
Shiella didn't bother to turn her head in that direction as she answered. "You can enter."
Then Delusive Smile opened the door and entered the office carefully. She then stood in front of the table and patiently waited for Shiella to finish.
After a few moments, Shiella finally closed the reports and turned to her in-game secretary. "What is it, Sister Smile? I hope it is not another bad news that will give me a headache."
Delusive Smile shook her head and opened a virtual screen, projecting a series of reports, before continuing. "I am not sure if it is good news or not, young miss. But it looks like the Hydra Guild is making their move."
Shiella creased her brow when she heard that and asked to send the reports to her. She then started reviewing them one after another.
"They are pulling out their assets from the Kingdom? And they are not even hiding it?" she asked with a doubtful tone.
Delusive Smile nodded her head and further explained. "Yes, young miss. They not only did it openly, but they seemed to be letting the public know that this Kingdom is destined to be doomed."
Shiella couldn't help but clicked her tongue. "Tsk! They are purposely doing it to discourage the other players from staying or moving to this Kingdom. They are clearly showing that they are in cahoots with the Corrupted Cult."
"With their reputation as the number one Guild of the game, a lot of players will definitely follow them," she added, clearly seeing that this was an attempt to neutralize her previous move.
"How about their other businesses? How are they dealing with them?" she asked while continuing to read the reports.
Then Delusive Smile responded. "It looks like they are selling them off at a very low price. They are openly looking for buyers and even posting it on their page as well as in the online forums."
"They are clearly cutting off their losses at the possible outcome of this battle. It looks like are they pretty confident at winning here," said Shiella with squinting eyes. "Are they not afraid of losing the bet instead?"
She turned to turn silent and started tapping her index finger on the table. A few moments later, she opened the online forums and started skimming through the post that the Hydra Guild had made.
She then turned to Delusive Smile and asked. "How many funds can we mobilize aside from the ones that we are using for the necessary expenses."
As a secretary within the game, and after working with Shiella for a very long time, Delusive Smile could already read what her boss was planning to do. "Are you planning to buy all of those shops and lands, young miss?"
Shiella didn't answer her question directly and instead said. "Since we are already gambling and betting for our victory, then why not increase the stakes instead?"
"B-But given their confidence, I am afraid that those guys are hiding something big," said Delusive Smile with a worried tone.
"Our losses are indeed going to be huge if we lose, but our gains will also be bountiful if we manage to snatch a win over them. And our influence is also going to grow large when that happens, I think it is worth the gamble," answered Shiella with a playful tone.
"If everything goes in our favor, then we may even control the entirety of the market within the Saint Heaven Kingdom. No matter how I look into it, our possible gains are much larger than our estimated losses, so why not give it a try?"
"In this kind of business, you will not gain anything if you are afraid of losses. Of course, you can't foolishly gamble everything if you know that the odds are in your favor. But it also doesn't mean that you can't do anything about it."
"If the odds are not leaning in your direction, then you must do everything to pull it back and turn it towards your side."
She paused for a moment and pointed out. "Those guys are confident that the Saint Heaven Kingdom is going to fall, so all we have to do is to find where their confidence is coming from and crush it."
"It is impossible for them to solely rely on the Corrupted Cult since the Righteous Churches within the kingdom are still standing strong. Then it will only live us with an obvious answer, they are sure that Shin and the others are going to fail the quest."
"Then all we have to do is to make sure that those guys are going to clear that quest by any means possible."
"I will take care of that matter later, though I also suspect that the other side will try everything they can to stop me."
"Given that, we should first deal with the other matters in hand before proceeding to help my little brothers."
She then paused and turned back to Delusive Smile and instructed. "For now, you take care of the lands and shops that the Hydra Guild is trying to sell."
"They are selling it publicly, so they will not care who is going to buy them. But to make sure that we don't have many competitors, let's make an imaginary one. Group yourselves into multiple teams and start 'competing' with each other at buying them."
"They are rushing at selling them, so we can take advantage of it. If the price is within 50% - 60% of the original price, then try to lower it to 25% - 30%. Buy it out if the prices fall between 35% - 40%."
"They will not be stingy since they are also rushing against time. They need to clear out all of their assets before the Empire Quest is finished."
"But we are different, we know who is currently doing that quest, so we can take our time as much as we want since we know exactly how long it will take. We have a clear advantage in this area and we can use it to control the flow toward our favor."
"They will have no choice but to lower their price and agree with us since they don't know when the Saint Heaven Kingdom will 'fall'."
She paused for a moment to look at the online forums before continuing. "I will take care of the rumors that will affect our plans negatively, or at least redirect their attention somewhere else, so that you can focus solely on your current task, understood?"
Seeing that Shiella laid out a perfect plan for them, Delusive Smile could no longer voice out her doubts and just nodded her head. After that, she left the room while summing up the finance team of the Trading Firm.
...
Now that she already took care of the business-related issues, Shiella was left with the main problem that they had.
She was confident that Shin and the others would do their job, but it didn't mean that they were prone to outside interference.
"They are aware of my presence. As well as the information that Sister Moon and Khing are on our side, but despite that being the case, they are still confident that the Saint Heaven Kingdom will fall."
"This means they either have a reinforcement that is strong enough to stop us from helping Shin and the others or they are confident that the quest is going to fail."
She paused when she reached this point and started to think deeply. "We can take care of the opponents on our side, but I am still not sure what kind of accidents are going to happen on the other side."
She then leaned on her chair and close her eyes while tapping her finger on the armrest. "I need to at least ensure that no one will bother them."
As her words faded, the room immediately turned quiet with the only sound that could be heard was the tapping of their finger.
That soft sound was like the sound of a ticking clock, counting the passage of time.
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