<I’m finally done taking down the town~! Oh right, good evening! Are you busy?>

<Congratulations! Good work out there. I’m glad things went well.>

<Thanks to you, Raerae! Ah, Mister Kenzaki? He’s super duper strong!!! So strong I feel like I should start praying to you every day!>

<I’m glad he turned out to be useful.>

Things had also settled down a bit for Rare. If nothing was going on over there, then she could teleport straight to Blanc with [Summon Caster] and talk with her in person. It would be a good opportunity to explain how best to use the [Summon] tree. Since Blanc had already learned [Subordinate] anyway, and they were already working together, there was no harm in teaching her more about skills like [Summon], [Necromancy], and [Discipline].

<Is it all right if I come over to you? There’s some stuff I’d like to talk to you about.>

<That’s totally cool~! Isn’t it far, though? It’d take you half a day to run here.>

So her group ended up traveling for half a day after that, huh. Though, since she was on the forums at some point and read enough to send information back to Rare, the ones doing the running were probably those spartoi.

<No worries, it’ll only take a second.>

<Oh you, such a jokester…>

＊

“—so with those points in mind, the [Summon] and [Discipline] skill trees have a lot of useful skills. But then, since you didn’t get [Subordinate] in that way, then you might find some skills in the [Subordinate]-specific skill tree that have the same effects if you keep going down it instead. If you’ve got extra XP then you can proactively try out those skills to see how similar their effects are.”

“Mhmm… But you seriously got here in literally a second… I totally thought you were just trying to sound cool.”

“Nah, I’m not really good at talking myself up.”

Sarcasm, though, was a completely different matter.

“Anyway, you left a lot of buildings intact here. Are you planning to use them for something?”

The town’s residents had all been zombified and were wandering around aimlessly. If she wanted to mess with players the way Rare was doing at the capital, then Rare was worried that Blanc’s group needed to be a little stronger to handle it.

“I didn’t really think that far ahead. ‘If I’m the one destroying this place, then it’s basically all mine, right?’ That’s why I made them all my minions.”

“I see. From what I saw on the forums, there are two towns next to this one, and the players there already know about this one being destroyed. Now that this has become a new zone for farming, they might come here during the event to grind XP.”

Rare thought back to her conversation with Kerry earlier that day. The fact that the daily event teleport worked between neighboring towns meant that, looking at it from Rare’s perspective, players could arrive from any city less than a day’s travel away. That must have been what the ones attacking the capital were doing.

“Meaning if you’re carrying each other, even players from two or three towns away could make it, so big groups could just show up out of nowhere.”

“…But how strong are other players?” Blanc asked. “I’ve only met one before, and he died in a single hit after being caught off guard.”

“Did you meet him at a town you hit before this one? That would have been well within the country’s borders, so he probably wasn’t a hardcore player. It’s also possible you had been killing other players without knowing it at the towns you attacked before.”

“Ah, maybe. If the entire town got blown up, then maybe the inn was gone before they could respawn, yeah.”

“The casual players aren’t a problem, but the ones I’m worried about are the players who hear about you taking over this town then go out of their way to come here. Those people are going to be even stronger than those knights you fought at that hill with the rubble before.”

“Dayum…”

If those kinds of players formed a raid and came here, Blanc’s group would be slaughtered. Giving her another Kenzaki would only delay her imminent death.

“Plus, if one of the players who killed me is in the mix and saw a Kenzaki, then it’s possible they’d figure out that we’re working together…”

“That sounds kinda like what they talk about on those tabloid shows! I’d be like a celebrity! Ah, but they’d probably think that I’m just some regular girl…”

Rare wasn’t really sure what Blanc was talking about. This occasionally happened when they talked, but by the end of the conversation they understood each other so it wasn’t a big deal. Aimless chats were also a staple in female friendships, so overall things were excellent.

“If you don’t mind, Blanc, then I guess I won’t really worry about it.”

“Nah, not at all! ’Cuz I’m gonna be the demon lord’s right-hand man, after all! Ah, are you gonna gonna make like your big four?”

As far as her four closest subordinates went, that would be Kerry’s group. However, rather than soldiers in the demon lord’s army, they operated more as spies at the moment. It would be better if they continued down that route, digging up the human side’s secrets and whatnot; that kind of work wasn’t suitable for any of Rare’s other followers.

“If I had to pick now, then Sugaru, Deas, and Sieg, I guess. Do you want to be included then?”

“Yeah, totally! Do I need to do anything? Is there an official appointment or anything?”

If there were going to be some kind of formal ceremony, the only attendees would be their two sets of followers. It would be good for everybody to be introduced to each other, but Rare’s followers were currently spread out across the western part of the kingdom, so it would be pretty difficult to actually do that.

“It would be hard to have an official appointment ceremony… Plus, strength wise, you’re kinda… Well, it should be fine.”

Right now, Blanc was raising her followers’ stats (aside from zombies) individually, but [Enhance Follower] would be cheaper and easier to manage. It was a bit of a hurdle that [Enhance Follower]’s initial cost was so high, but things would be much better in the future if she got it now.

“I don’t have quiiiite enough XP to get all the skills you pointed out. I’ll have to go bust up another town or two.”

“…Or there might be a better way. It might take some time, but if you wait here, you could try to farm the players that come. You left such a splendid wake of destruction that some parties must already be on their way here.”

Rare could turn invisible and fly over to the nearest town and maybe another one past that to do some scouting. Although, lately, Ominous was just spending all his time sleeping in the great forest, so she could also just [Summon] him to help out.

“All right, let me order some quick reconnaissance.”

She [Summon]ed Ominous and pointed him in a direction before releasing him into the sky.

“Ahh! Right, I could do that too! But how will he report back after getting to town? Will he have to come back here?”

“One of the skills under [Summon] lets me jack into one of my followers and see what they see. I can use that to go peep on them for myself.”

“Whooaa… I really need to get all those skills you recommended as soon as I can…”

“Well, we’ve got some time until he gets there, so while waiting why don’t you see what skills would be useful for you immediately and learn those right away?”

“Gotcha. Yeah, good idea. Do you mind if I do that now?”

“Of course not. I’ll go check out the forums to see what the other players are up to.”

Ominous probably wouldn’t reach his destination until the sun was starting to come up.