Chapter 317: Exposing the Game
Rubedo kept his expression entirely neutral. He rested his arms on the console and watched the glowing halo bob across the monitor. He processed the bizarre statement without showing any outward reaction.
"You expect me to believe that," Rubedo said.
"I am telling you the truth," the Radiant Monarch replied. His floating golden hands gestured wildly. "Calculus is completely destroying my schedule right now."
’He is attempting a psychological trick,’ Rubedo thought. ’He wants me to lower my defenses before he launches an orbital strike.’
Rubedo analyzed the logic behind the statement. The deception sounded incredibly stupid. All the gods on the server, with the sole exception of Rubedo himself, were players summoned from Earth and permanently trapped inside the game.
They were forced to act as deities and create their own civilizations to survive. Nobody possessed the ability to leave.
Talking about final exams and real-world schedules completely contradicted the established reality of the server.
Even if Radiant Monarch wanted to confuse him, utilizing such an unbelievable script provided zero strategic advantage.
Rubedo decided to test the boundaries of the entity’s strange narrative. He kept his expression guarded and tapped a finger against the armrest of his throne.
"If you have been away for months," Rubedo asked, "how are your capital cities still standing? The system requires continuous faith generation to maintain municipal barriers against the native beasts."
The Radiant Monarch waved a floating hand dismissively. "I set all my major cities to auto-manage before I logged off. My priests handle the daily resource collection and barrier maintenance. I just check the companion app on my phone occasionally to ensure the faith meters stay full."
Rubedo narrowed his eyes. "You left a continental empire on auto-pilot."
"It usually works perfectly fine!" The Radiant Monarch complained. He threw his golden hands up in frustration. "I bought the premium management pass specifically so I wouldn’t have to micromanage every single village. You completely ruined my AFK farming setup."
Rubedo processed the bizarre terminology. The entity spoke with casual frustration rather than divine wrath.
"What about the other three gods?" Rubedo asked. "The Heavenly Divine Emperor and the God of Valleys. They set their empires to auto-manage as well?"
"Obviously," the Radiant Monarch replied. "We are all in the same study group. The Silver Wing is currently stressing out over a physics paper. We agreed to pause our territorial expansion until the semester ended."
Rubedo carefully navigated the conversation. He needed to confirm the exact nature of their existence without revealing his own hand. "Your followers prayed to you while my Vanguard slaughtered them. They begged for salvation. You ignored them for a physics paper."
"They are just NPCs," Radiant Monarch said. He crossed his floating arms over his halo. "They respawn eventually if you rebuild the temples. It is really annoying to lose the infrastructure, but it is just code. Why would I care about code?"
Rubedo stared at the screen. The absolute lack of empathy mirrored his own, but the reasoning was entirely alien. The Radiant Monarch genuinely believed the citizens of Aethelgard were artificial constructs.
"You consider the Earthlings you empowered to be NPCs as well?" Rubedo asked quietly.
"The Heralds?" Radiant Monarch asked. The halo tilted slightly as if considering the question. "No, they were player summons. A limited-time event reward. I used a massive amount of premium currency to activate that summoning ritual. They were supposed to act as elite mercenaries to defend my borders while I studied."
Rubedo clenched his jaw. "You summoned them."
"Well, yes," Radiant Monarch confirmed. "The event promised thirty elite units. I only received twenty-nine for some reason. And they were supposed to be in pairs so I had one extra, and he was a completely defective husk with zero stats, so I just synthesized him. The other twenty-eight worked great for a while."
Rubedo felt a cold, violent fury spike in his chest. He pushed it down instantly.
"You synthesized the defective husk," Rubedo repeated.
"Well, not me. But the game engine did it automatically. Remember, I set it on auto so whatever happened, happened because of the algorithm or whatever you call it" Radiant Monarch said. "It was useless. Anyway, since you completely broke my auto-farming setup, I need to know your guild affiliation. Are you part of the beta-tester alliance? I did not think they were allowed to raid the Fourth Continent until the next patch dropped."
Rubedo sat perfectly still. The entity on the screen viewed the apocalyptic war, the slaughter of thousands, and the violent tearing of Rubedo’s soul as nothing more than a minor inconvenience in a digital sandbox.
"I am not affiliated with any guild," Rubedo stated.
"Then you are a solo player?" Radiant Monarch asked. He clapped his floating golden hands together. "Perfect. Look, I really do not have time to rebuild my empire right now. My exams start next week."
Radiant Monarch leaned his halo closer to the screen. "I will make you a deal. If you pull your armies out of my capital and help me restore my faith generation nodes, I will send you some premium cosmetics. We can form an alliance contract."
Rubedo watched the glowing halo. He was completely prepared for this to be an elaborate trick, but the sheer absurdity of the offer felt too bizarre to be a lie.
"You want to form an alliance?" Rubedo said flatly.
"It is a win-win," the Radiant Monarch replied. "You get premium gear, and I get to pass calculus."
Rubedo stared at the glowing halo on his screen. "I reject your alliance. There is absolutely nothing in it for me."
"I just told you I will give you premium gears. What else do you want?" he asked. After a brief pause, he added, "okay, how about this. I will give you the S tier blueprints I have which will help you boost your civilization to the next level."
"Those things are useless to me."
"What do you want then? Tell me. I have too much money. I can even give you some of my stuff which you can either use or salvage and get some points, which might help you break through the 19th rank and reach rank 20."
"Absoulutely not."
