“Miss Ciri, we’ve agreed that you cannot play that ‘save’ on your own. I will return to play again tomorrow,” Before leaving, Gallolie turned around and reminded Ciri who was eating an apple.
“Got it,” Ciri nodded her head in agreement.
Thus, Gallolie and the Blackwood Elf priestess were seen off by the mage lady and left the Hearthstone Tavern.
The moment Gallolie left, Ciri returned back to the desk and resumed her farming adventure in Minecraft.
“Ciri, you should be sleeping too,” Joshua brought over a cup of warm milk and placed it beside Ciri.
“Hmm? What happened to the ruthless and inconsiderate black-hearted boss from before?”
Ciri picked up the milk and shot a glance at Joshua. Having interacted with Joshua for a long period of time, Ciri had picked up a lot of ‘Joshua-style’ vocabularies.
“You’re currently on a break. If you want to remain beautiful, it’s best to sleep early.”
“Why do I feel like you’ve suddenly turned into my mother... ah...”
Ciri suddenly stopped in mid sentence. She took a sip of the warm milk and, without saying anything, continued on with her gamer’s great undertaking.
Joshua felt Ciri’s silence. Suddenly, he recalled that this mage lady’s mother had already passed. She and her older sister were children without parents wandering in this city.
Seeing the silent Ciri, Joshua did not attempt to poke at her sore spot again and changed the topic.
“If you’re farming, the bone meal crafted from the bones dropped by skeleton archers will increase your efficiency,” Joshua gave Ciri a guide to the game.
“Bone meal? It worked... and here I was wondering what it is used for.”
Upon receiving the guide, Ciri immediately utilized it to help her great farming undertaking. She became even more obsessed with farming. Joshua suspects that with the ‘toxicity’ of this game, this mage lady would likely not stop playing until the next morning.
Joshua walked over to the window and looked out to Norland... Now that he had obtained the second World Tree, it was only a matter of time before his range of control expanded from Norland to Farucci.
Under the influence of the three movies, the citizens of Norland had already changed their impression of demons. Now, if a non-fierce-looking demon was to enter Norland, Joshua believed that the majority of Norland’s citizens would not show any hostility toward that demon. Albeit, they would still be on the alert against such demons.
Compared to the missions that created a favorable impression of the demons, it was Cheryl’s ‘Diary of an Inquisitor’ that vastly decreased the favorability of the Nation of the Holy Church in the eyes of the citizens of Norland.
Joshua’s cultural invasion plan has already produced its initial results. At the very least, he had managed to pull the Nation of Farucci to the opposing side of the Holy Church. In other words, they were now a potential ally to the Demon Realm.
The wider the range the magic network reaches, the easier it would be to topple over the sacred and righteous image of the Holy Church.
Now, apart from creating more movies and games, Joshua needed to do something even more important — upgrading his hardware.
He planned to introduce ‘television’ to the citizens of Norland.
The World Tree lodging in Gallolie’s body allowed Joshua to see hope in accomplishing that goal.
“Speaking of it... when are you planning to give lessons at the Lursk Advanced Magic Academy?” Ciri asked all of a sudden.
“Lursk Advanced Magic Academy? The magic academy your older sister is studying at?”
“Mhmm. My sister has come up to me asking about when you’ll be giving lectures many times now. I think that course is called... Software Programming.”
Ciri’s reminder caused Joshua to suddenly remember the invitation letter Gray Mage Lursk handed him. It was to invite him to become an honorary professor and give lectures about programming in his magic academy.
However, back then, the Heresy Tribunal’s inquisitors came to cause trouble for Joshua. After that, Joshua started filming ‘Hachiko: A Dog’s Tale.’ As such, he never had the time to give lectures at the Advanced Magic Academy.
“About that...” Joshua took out the invitation letter from his desk. There was an owl imprint on that invitation letter.
While he was thinking about finding some time to find Gray Mage Lursk, a message popped up from his magic network interface.
When Joshua tapped open the message, he saw that it was sent to him by someone he knew very well... Cecily.
Cecily Annderlaude, the Demon Realm’s second princess and Joshua’s elder sister.
......
Several hours earlier. At a farmland at the border of the Demon Realm’s Royal Capital.
“The crops here have all wilted too.”
Half-squatting, Cecily picked up an ash-colored crop plant. With a gentle sway of her hand, the plant turned to dust and dissipated into the air.
“Prophet, do you know the cause for this?” Cecily asked the person standing next to her.
“My apologies, Your Highness Cecily. I do not know the cause for the withering of these crops.”
The person Cecily called ‘prophet’ was a very young-looking demon. She was about as tall as the half-squatting Cecily.
“They must be affected by something,” Cecily looked to the ashen crops on the ground. She had a very bad feeling.
“Your Highness Cecily, this is already the third farmland. If this is to continue, the Royal Capital might end up suffering a famine this year.”
The prophet pushed her wooden eyeglasses as she looked at the wilted cropland with concern.
Normally, this time of the year would be the time of harvest.
While a portion of the demons in the Demon Realm do not need food to survive, the majority of the demons still needed foodstuff to maintain their lives.
“What about the food reserves stored in the granaries?” asked Cecily.
“If we are to take them all out to feed the citizens... it will, at the very most, only be able to last us for fifteen days,” the prophet quickly replied.
“Not enough... have the sentinels visit the territories of the four Dukes. I need to know the situation with their territories,” said Cecily.
The Demon Realm’s territory was not as vast as the human world. There exists ‘borders’ to the Demon Realm... Apart from the Royal Capital, the rest of the cities in the Demon Realm were mostly under the administration of the four Dukes.
“Understood, Your Highness,” The Prophet immediately walked toward the city’s interior upon receiving Cecily’s orders.
Cecily stood up and looked to the towering city walls. She had a faint feeling that something abnormal was occurring in the Demon Realm. An indescribable sort of aura was pervading the Demon Realm.
It was not the aura of death emitted by undeads. In the Demon Realm, those intelligent undeads were ‘legal’ residents. Some undeads even possess their own house and hold status in the Royal Capital.
The aura Cecily was feeling was something even more malicious.
She must... start her investigation. Cecily started walking toward the city gate. But, upon taking a single step, she felt a sharp pain coming from her head.
Cecily held her head and the headache immediately disappeared. The headache persisted for only a couple seconds before disappearing like it never existed in the first place.
This was not the first time such a thing happened. According to her knowledge, all the Chaos Demons in the Royal Capital had suffered from these brief headaches. At the start, they would have headaches once every dozen or more days. But now, the frequency of their headaches had increased to once every couple days.
Cecily had examined her body before. There was no injury at all.
Exactly... what was going on?
Cecily looked to the remnants of the crop in her hand. Her heart grew even more uneasy.