Azimuth: The Elden Throne (New Version)

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/Slam!/

“Look, I know how you feel, but we can’t keep this on any longer.”

“Because… If what I just said wasn’t enough, we get almost nothing back at all for all of our efforts.”

“The coins from the Quests barely pay that back, which is good but nowhere near ideal!”

“Our Guild has directed 25% of its total earnings to support us… 25% of a major Guild to support only 10 or so players!”

“Things would’ve been different if it weren’t for the massive tax fee of exchanging items through the Church system, but what can we do when the Village is still developing?”

“Even with the new merchants that have arrived, this will only reduce our future expenses… But so those of our competitors.”

“For now, we need to do something else, because supporting us has started to take its toll on the plans of the Guild.”

“After all, there are several other departments and each one of them needs its own form of support, we may be one of the most important ones, but without solid gains, it isn’t worth it.”

“Siiiigh…”

Rodi was really sad, but that was just how things were.

You raid in one area, then you go to the next, grind there, and then to the next one, this is how it works.

They already spent more than enough time here, and given everything that happened recently, this is the perfect opportunity to bail out into a better hunting ground and take the lead for good.

Soon there will be Guild Wars, and they need to be ready to protect themselves…𝑛𝑶𝔳𝚎𝐥𝗇𝐄xt.𝒸𝗈𝓜

At least… Until their Guild figures out what to do with Resko, will they abandon it? Or will they stick to it and fight for dominance?

“Don’t be like that, it’s not like we lost all support, money will still flow to us.”

Hina smiled.

“You may like this news, but the Headquarters in the Capital have decided to support us with more personnel.”

“Really?!”

“That’s surprising, given how serious they all are, I bet they would concentrate everything on themselves in order to strengthen their control in the central parts…” Drey said on the side as he crossed his arms

“Finally! I won’t be the junior anymore!” A girl with a hood rejoiced as she raised her arms high

“That’s your worry?…” Another girl with smooth black hair said as she looked at her friend

“…”

‘Great, responses have been good so far.’

Hina smirked at the sight of her companions voicing their positive opinions.

“Everyone… With this, we won’t need to abandon our position in the Church, and instead, pass it onto someone else.”

“Wait, but the Quest was tied to me, wasn’t it?” Rodi questioned as he opened his Quest pop up

‘Bla bla bla… Aha!… Yup…’

“That’s where your role comes in.”

“Go to Dale and try to convince him of changing the rules of this Quest.”

“… W… What?”

“Is that a problem? Didn’t you persuade them once?”

“B-But that was…”

“At least try it once, if you fail, then you may be obliged to accompany the clean-up team every day to the Dungeon since that is the Quest condition.”

“… Understood…” Rodi said as a headache started attacking his brain

“In any case, if you succeed in changing the Quest’s rules, once we’re strong enough, we can go back there and fully explore its secrets…”

“It’s that fine with you Rodi?”

“I… Have no complaints…” He said slowly as he dropped his head

‘I am the person with the highest Reputation score… So it makes sense… Yes… It makes…’

He was having a mental breakdown.

Trying to convince an NPC to change a Quest? Was it even possible?

Only one way to find out…

“Regardless, we’ll return to it eventually… When we’re actually ready to raid below the 3rd floor.”

“I understand your fears very well, this is something we worked hard to acquire, but everyone’s tired, you included Rodi.”

“I know that you are thinking of our responsibilities first, but the most important thing here is to have fun while you do it.”

“Repeating the same thing 100 times over will take its toll even on the sturdiest mind.”

“She’s right rock head, relax a bit more…” The skinny man said with a cheeky expression

“…”

‘I don’t want to hear that from you!!’

Rodi ignored him as he waited for her to continue.

“With that in mind… I know where we should go now, and why.”

/Point…/

She opened a map and let it roll on the table, it was a pretty expansive product they had someone draw over the last few weeks.

“Our levels are high, and even though our gear is somewhat lacking, as long as we can find good items, we can soar even higher and leave most players in the dust.”

Her finger slid to the south, the green fields before the dark forest…

“Not so long ago, the Thunder Well Giants’ Clan was wiped out during the Unique Field event that happened in the Southern Grasslands, and very likely, their dropped items are going to flood the market soon…”

“And we won’t lose that opportunity.”

“Using that and our high Reputation, we’ll be able to secure materials rapidly thanks to the timely appearance of these new merchants, and secure the new Field!”

Her finger slid toward the North, pointing at the endless yellow desert full of sandstorms…

“You all know exactly what I’m talking about… The Field that opened in the desert… Yellow, Hard-Stone Dessert!”

“Many players have already gone there to check it out for themselves, and according to them, the field is a large fissure of an unknown length similar to a Canyon.”

“It’s a fissure that goes from West to East, creating a divide in the middle of the Desert.”

“Its borders are on average 400M apart from each other, with sand falling inside of it like waterfalls…”

“In some areas, it’s possible to jump from one side to the other while on others, the distance makes it hard to even see the other side.”

“Due to how little time everyone was given to explore it, a few have affirmed the canyon is 3 to 4 km deep but some say it’s way less, while a few affirm to it being deeper.”

“In truth, it is deeper since the canyon isn’t straight but curved, so from the top it’s impossible to see the actual bottom.”

“How far it goes from there is unknown, but the sand has to go somewhere.”

“In fact, there is so much sand going there that if you’re unlucky, you can be dragged by the tides, falling to your death, so be careful.”

“There are many caverns that stretch out from the walls of the Canyons, and that is where the true Field starts, an endless circuit of interconnected caves full of rare ores, minerals, and other items…”

“The surroundings are merely a delicacy and where the low-level and unorganized players will hunt.”

“Most monsters on the surface are similar to Elemental Golems often seen in other series and places, but there are other varieties of creatures.”

“They are all obviously high Level with even the weakest recorded so far being Level 22 while the strongest one was recorded by a player not so long ago, a Level 85 spider creature that was entering one of the side cave holes.”

/Shivers…/

Some of the shivered, spiders weren’t exactly nice creatures to see, much less giant ones…

(Depends on the type of spider, they’re mostly pretty chill unless you happen to be a rat facing a tarantula)

“The player that succeeded in defeating some of those weaker monsters that surround the Canyon and managed to collect their drops have shown that in essence, they drop the very same materials scattered inside the caverns…”

“They’re pretty much a shortcut to mining but they’re not exactly efficient, it depends on how fast we are at clearing them and our luck with the drops.”

“Still, those are the exact materials this Village deeply needs, resources that are in high demand.”

“A lucky one somehow dropped a rare gem similar to a ruby, managing to exchange it with a merchant for a large sum of money just a few moments ago.”

“We have the Levels, and soon, the gear to raid there… Do you get where I’m going at?”

They nodded in unison.

“So get ready!”

(I don’t remember if I defined the Canyon’s size before, I’m pretty sure that I did, so if you remember where, I’ll change it to fit)

…

/Far away deeper into the Continent, somewhere abandoned for millennia…/

/FWOSH!/

/Crunk…/

A silent arrow was released from its string, precisely hitting a mechanism inside a door, making it crack into pieces with some of them falling inside a dark and bottomless hole, opening the way for a man fully clad in dark, oily leather.

“Huff… Huff…”

He breathed rapidly, clearly very tired, but upon noticing what lay beyond the door, his eyes grew a bit calmer.

An Altar silently rested amidst a glorious room full of vines and cobwebs…

“Finally, I’ve arrived.” He said emotionally as he saw a strangely distorted fragment atop the altar

‘The first Piece…’

‘It’s mine!’

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Notes

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