Chapter 830
In truth, the loophole of keeping their party somewhat permanent so that Anders and Anna could enter the game inside the Multiplayer option of Anton’s Diablo System wouldn’t have been useful since there would be no monsters in the location that they had already conquered; therefore, Anders and Anna couldn’t use it to level up their character. They couldn’t move forward by themselves because the game was extremely difficult, since it was geared for eight players.
Still, Anton thought of a new loophole in that loophole. After they were done playing, Anton could just create a fresh new game and invite his father and his sister again. That meant that all the monsters, including those in the early locations, would respawn, and Anders and Anna could kill them to increase their level or hunt for gears.
For now, that technique isn’t truly useful for them because the three of them were too low-level to benefit from exploring the world of Diablo II alone. They also preferred to play the game with each other since they now treated their adventure in Anton’s “Hidden World” as a form of bonding time for the three of them.
Anton also tried his best to find a way to use their journey inside the world of Diablo II as an escape tool. With how it currently worked, the Multiplayer option wasn’t a viable escape option from the moment they entered the game to escape something. the fact that once they decided to leave the world inside Anton’s Diablo II System, they would all return to their entry point location meant that if the cause of their escape was still present, they would all still be in danger.
Unfortunately, Anton didn’t find anything that would allow him to move the entry and exit point for the Multiplayer option of Anton’s Diablo II game.
He didn’t lose hope since there was a chance that his Diablo System would add that option in future updates. He recognized the fact that some of the updates that his Diablo System had were the changes that he desired for his system to have.
Anton, Anders, Anna, and Cormanur returned to their journey in Rendindura. Since most of the kingdoms in Rendindura were in the process of rebuilding, the citizens were incredibly poor. That meant that if they wanted to, there was nothing that Anton and Anna could buy from different kingdoms that they couldn’t buy in Ormunda, so when they entered Homura, Anton and Anna chose to stay inside their inn while Anders and Cormanur gathered information outside.
During the next several weeks, they passed through the kingdoms of Greton, Ruandelle, and Leminthor. At the very least, all of those kingdoms still existed and were currently in the process of rebuilding themselves from the destruction caused by the Undead Coalition.
Still, there was a massive drop in population in Rendindura, so the different kingdoms' sizes shrank.
Another sad thing that Anton saw was that before, when they were running from the undead, they still managed to pass through several villages and towns, but now all of them were gone.
Anna asked why there were no people trying to rebuild their towns and villages.
“The people are still very much afraid. Even though the news that the Undead Coalition was no more, the fear was still there, so the people that survive chose to join in rebuilding the cities instead of isolating themselves to rebuild their towns and villages. More than likely, they thought that it would be safer if they joined a large group,” Cormanur said.
“They were wise in doing that. There were still monsters out in the fields,” Anders added.
During those weeks of travel, Anders and Anna learned a lot from Cormanur. They learned so much that they started calling he old wizard, “teacher”. The old Supreme Rank wizard completed watching all of the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, so they returned to watching movies.
Some nights, Anton, Anders, and Anna would join Cormanur in watching movies and would resume watching the movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
After those weeks, Anton, his father, and his sister reached level 40 in their characters and finally entered the Nightmare mode. Because of their careful playing, the three of them didn’t die, even once, but the downside was that they were leveling extremely slowly.
Anders and Anna were extremely happy since the power provided by their characters inside the Multiplayer option of Anton’s Diablo System had increased their strength tremendously.
“Anna and I could probably imitate your solo dungeon delving in the higher floors of any of the high-level dungeons,” Anton’s father said.
After leaving Ruandelle, the travelers on the road had grown so it was normal for them to encounter some of them. Anders took the time to converse with some of the travelers. They learned that the roads were safe to travel simply because the monsters that were left were weak and low in number, so even normal folks could handle them with ease. There were also fewer bandits because everyone understood that everyone was just too poor, and no one had any extra wealth or food that could be stolen or even shared.
At the very least, the farms had started again, so sooner or later, food and other products would start circulating again.
One funny rumor that was spreading was the rain god that was going around blessing some of the lands and the farms. In truth, it was actually Anton who kept casting his Blizzard spell that was converted into Mana Rain on every farm, even though they were empty or destroyed, that they encountered while traveling.
Finally, they reached the kingdom that Anton thought would be their home in Rendindura. The kingdom of Zalnothel.
Since they stayed in Zalnothel for a while, Anton thought that they might encounter someone whom they had known before. Unfortunately, they didn’t find any such persons. Because of that, they chose to leave Zalnothel immediately.
While they were in Zalnothel, Cormanur learned that the Holy Kingdom of Tiande was utterly decimated by the Undead Coalition, and it would be hard for anyone to rebuild it. The destruction of the city was so thorough that it would be better for any of the remaining citizens of Tiande to rebuild their kingdom somewhere else.
They had also heard that Tiande had suffered such severe devastation that there were only a few remaining citizens who existed, and those people chose to flee to other kingdoms. That meant that Tiande would probably remain destroyed.
One good thing was that they had also started seeing towns and villages along the road. That fact made Anna cry, and Anton almost joined her. It was proof that Rendindura was in the process of coming alive again.
Anton knew that the main reason why Anna and Anders were affected greatly by the fact that some of the villages and towns were rebuilding was the possibility that Oakswood was also now in the process of rebuilding itself.
If that was the case, there was a chance that they didn’t have to go to Mendi since they would reach Oakswood first before reaching the capital city.
When they passed through Nurmeno after a week, Anton saw that his father and sister had become excited. He prayed that Oakswood would be there when they reached the place.
On the day they finally reached the village, Anders and Anna cried so hard that Anton cried with them. Oakswood was there, and the villagers were in the process of rebuilding their homes.
