The influence of the Arpen kingdom is shown to be rising. It is mentioned how when users from the Arpen kingdom visit other towns, the townspeople actively ran up to them and offered them quests to bring Arpen craftsmanship (ex: pottery, sculpture, paintings) to the town. It then shows how many other small villages in the Northern continent are joining Arpen kingdom (fishing villages, woodcutter villages, etc.) and how users were actually very popular with the villagers. There were 2 players talking about how, in the past, villagers were unfriendly towards strangers, but now they were extremely accepting towards others. Also, another on mentioned how a little girl ran up to him and gave him a flower. Then it shows how tons of knights, lords, and nobles were joining the Arpen Kingdom and how the entire Northern continent was essentially undergoing a Renaissance of sorts.
Scene then shifts to Weed who is trying to find a place to complete the other quest in his quest chain (he was given 2 quests simultaneously and he had to complete both of them to move on. The first quest was the “Train in the Stormy Sea” one and the other one was a quest where he had to essentially terraform a place and create “natural beauty.” Weed eventually establishes a place away from all the developing cities (because terraforming a city would be bad).
The story then mentions how in addition to the cities, Arpen’s military was developing far quicker than most people expected. First of all, it is due to the dissolution of the Brent Kindom. After the destruction of Brent, there were many high level knights left without a King. Drawn by the stories of Weed, the great and honorable (Editor: lol) king, these knights flocked to Arpen, significantly increasing Arpen’s army. The other reason is because of the many subjugation quests (ex: think the Lair of Litvart quest in Volume 1). With the help of the player characters the NPC soldiers quickly gained levels.
Scene changes to Rabah Seu (the land in the sky populated by Aves). Golden Bird and Esuna (platinum/mithril bird) is surrounded by the inhabitants of floating land. He convinces the inhabitants to move to Arpen. The Aves’ decision was helped by the fact that Golden Bird is technically their great-great-great-etc grand-uncle. Note: the Aves were originally created by the Emperor, who also sculpted Golden Bird. In addition, the Embinyu denomination was stirring up a lot of trouble and Mora was described as a place of plentiful grain, etc. So, the entire island, with all of its dungeons, shops, roads, and hunting grounds were being moved to Mora.
Meanwhile, Weed goes to the Rhodes stadium to turn in his “ Train in the Stormy Sea” quest, increasing his reputation by 850, leveling up once, +5 speed, +6 power, +3 something (not sure what). He then goes back to pondering what he should create as a natural sculpture and decides to create a swamp; a place where many animals would live. He uses natural disaster sculpting to shatter the land (lamenting at how he was destroying what could have been acres of farmland). Rivers begin to flow and ponds form through his disaster sculpting. He then sprinkles seeds everywhere as well as remains of ground-up fruits and trees for fertilizer(Rover asks Weed whether this counts as cannibalism). After planting, he uses his earth elementals to shift sandstone and rock, creating hills and valleys. Lastly, he follows the hints of the questgiver (one of the head sculptors in the sculpting guild at Rhodes stadium) and attracts fairies over with fish and honey. Many fairies come and they eat and play. The swamp was then designated a “playground for fairies” which accelerates the effect of nature (making the swamp go through about approximately 200 normal years of change). Suddenly, Weed and Rover are now in a true swamp complete with vegetation, animals, fish, birds, etc. Weed is asked to name the sculpture and he initially decides to name it “Land of Mourning, regret and despair” (because he sacrificed all of that farmland to make a swamp) but when asked for comfirmation, he decides to change it to “Wet Earth” (google trans: Wet ground) instead.
Wet Earth (his first natural sculpture):
Artistic Value 8142
Effects:
Due to the vitality generated by the birth of many species all health and mana will increase by 50%
+19 (not sure what. May be all stats? Or +19 permanent Art stats)
Resistance to plague and poison will permanently increase by 1%
Increase growth rate of all animals in the surrounding area
Weed’s rewards:
Carving skill up
Dexterity (aka Handicraft) skill up
Fame increases by 4093
+19 Art
+7 Wisdom
+9 Intellect
+3 containter (idk what this was, I think fortitude?)
+49 affinity with nature
+3 stat increases (these can be distributed into any stat by Weed I believe)
Increased friendliness with Fairies and Elves
Weed then goes to Rhodes and turns in the quest. The carving guild leader praises Weed as a genius and Weed’s reputation increases by 1,600, carving skill increases, and the influence of the Engraving Guild also increases.
The leader begins to tell Weed about the next quest, first asking if he had heard of the Devil Labyrinth of the crazy Arcmage, Rodeurik. Weed immediately replied that he had and recalls the information that he read online. The Labyrinth was known since the earliest days of the game. However it had always been associated with instant death, with both NPCs and players trying to clear it, but all failing. The first attempt to clear the dungeon happened when a group of lvl 200 adventurers attempted to enter the labyrinth. It was a massacre, with everybody dying even before they reached the entrance of the Labyrinth (note: the Labyrinth is set in the basement floor of Rodeurik’s castle/house). As time passed and the user’s levels continued to rise, new parties intent on challenging the Labyrinth appeared. Level 300s, Level 400s, but they all failed. In addition to the abnormal number of traps, the levels of the monsters in the dungeon were absurdly high. A well-known guild called Morningstar was the most recent attemptee, but their hopes were crushed by the dungeon. The leader of the engraving guild then says how the Archmage Rodrick was fond of art and a genius. He intently studied how to express the Radiant Beauty (note: this entire quest-chain is to discover the skill that allowed engravers to express the Radiant Beauty of the world). In addition to being brilliant, the archmage was also a very curious man. As so, he summoned many beings attempting to quench his curiosity. But, because of his arrogance, he lost control of one of his summons. Weed then thinks in his head how he understands Rodrick, remembering the time where he bought the 200 won (17 cents) salt (Editor’s note: Lol, this happened almost 20 Volumes ago and Weed still remembers this). Weed is then treated to a cutscene of an old wizard and a demon battling (and soldiers and minor demons fighting in the background). The demons were gaining the upper hand, and in a desperate attempt Rodrick sacrificed his life to distort the space around the dungeon, essentially sealing the dungeon.
After the cutscene, Weed is pondering the greatest difficulty of the dungeon: the fact that nobody could find an exit. If Weed due to the Radiant Beauty quests, then he automatically abandons the Radiant Beauty questline. However, the Labyrinth was worse. If Weed brought a living sculpture into the labyrinth, it too would die once Weed died (because it can’t find its way out of the labyrinth). As such, any sculpture that Weed brings into the Labyrinth may be gone forever. Weed frowns and then asks if it is essential to go into Labyrinth to which the elder/leader replies it is. The quest is then offered, with the objective to conquer the Labyrinth and obtain Rodrick’s research (also, death will result in failure of quest-chain).
Quest Accepted