Chapter 123: The Consequences Of Past Actions
"It is amazing how interconnected the world can be at times."
"How one small event in one duchy can greatly impact a whole kingdom."
"And how the past has a strange way of coming back to bite you."
Reginald Coulan, creator and head of House Aurellion in Dynasties Online.
….
Reginald removed his jet-black headset after returning from the virtual world. His muscles, which had been still for 12 hours straight, began to ache as the lazy player stretched them out to relax them, slowly kneading all the knots out of them as they continued to click for a good half an hour, feeling nowhere near as tired as he did when he was constantly running around during the Dynasty History System which surprised him slightly.
This was primarily thanks to the players sleeping at night during the game, which helped lower the stress on their brains so that they were not like brainless zombies when they woke back up in the real world like Reginald was when he first woke up.
'Damn, I never thought my actions during my last Dynasty History Event would lead to a minor inconvenience to my plan.'
Reginald thought, thoroughly disgruntled as he reflected on his 6 in-game days, where 3-4 were nothing but him and his three friends, Jordis, Norfaelor and Vegrif, travelling to the Nathian royal capital of Narthonia with nothing interesting happening at all. At first, the novel experience of riding a horse, which he had never done before, kept him occupied, but as he slowly got the hang of it and didn't fall off every 10 minutes, his time travelling was getting more and more tedious.
Even in the real world, Reginald hated travelling, and so having to ride on a horse that would leave his backside sore only to check into a tavern and spend a few silvers for a bed was not his idea of fun at all, and after spending 6+ in-game days playing Dynasties Online its amazing realistic graphics was no longer novel enough to keep his attention.
This actually nearly made the lazy and effort-phobic Reginald quit the game. However, he remembered that he could make money from it and had little else better to do anyway. He also thoroughly enjoyed his Dynasty History events, finding a strange thrill in commanding battles and negotiating with powerful nobles even if he was afraid of what striving for power would do to him.
There were many reasons for Reginald to begin building his company, though he had to make sure that neither his face nor any of his friend's faces were seen too much during negotiations; otherwise, this company's connection to House Aurellion would be exposed the moment his character Railius revealed his true identity to the world, and this was something he did not want for it could be a useful pawn in getting information from around the world that the young player could trust.
One reason was to build a solid revenue source and a way to gain information faster throughout the world as the caravans travelled, but there was a second one, too, and that was to use the bandits that they encountered to train up Railius' feeble combat skills and physical abilities.
Another reason was to give Railius an extra avenue to gain information and, if needed, use his company reputation to smuggle certain things in if necessary as merchants or nobles can use their wealth reputation or good relations with certain city guards to bring usually restricted goods into a city this is commonly used when you want to bring weapons into a city to attack it from the inside or start a coup.
Thanks to doing so well in the dynasty history system, Railius had managed to gain his character quite a few attribute points. However, he still could only be said to be average at best when it came to his physical attributes. Luckily, because his character was young, he could gain some in the future to help deal with this problem, though he would never be as strong or fast as those players who heavily stacked their physical attributes.
But despite all these concerns, what annoyed Railius the most was that a plan he had devised to hit many birds with one stone seemed to have missed a few.
While building up a business was Reginald's current primary objective, it was not the only reason for Railius' travelling, as there was another reason that had to do with Railius' current poor combat skill.
Thanks to some luck and the usage of his new active skills, Reginald had somehow managed to defeat the members of Leon's dojo; however, each fight was not easy, and most of the time, the young player was suppressed before finding an opening and exploiting it for victory.
To be honest, if it were not for his active skills in which one had the seemingly disgusting ability to slow down time, giving Railius the opening and time to calculate his opponent's strike trajectory and slip just under it, he would have lost nearly every single match in the dojo's tournament!
It was similar to how early on in the Battle of Brunag, when Reginald was playing his current character's father, Lucius Aurellion, he nearly died in the first skirmish he did with the enemy.
It only took seconds for him to be dismounted by an orc captain nearly ending his dynasty right there. Lucius would have died if it were not for Leon coming in and saving him at the last second, something that would become the norm as the grandmaster of loyalty would regularly save the lord of House Aurellion when he was in a pinch during the loyal man's long service to House Aurellion.
Reginald was not the only person having to deal with this issue. Many players, especially those who had just started, found that they were utterly outmatched and crushed when they fought NPC, with many dying when they decided to bite off more than they could chew and having to play as a child character or create a new dynasty altogether.
In the modern world, many people do not practice martial arts. So even if they had an intermediate or even an adept skill level in a weapon skill, it did not mean that they could actually fight at this level as your virtual body moves precisely as a real one would with passive skills mainly increasing damage and allowing you access to more and better active skills and why it is recommended to have it resemble your real life self in terms of size as much as possible to help you adapt to your character easier.
To help deal with this problem, instead of going into the army where he would get a little training before being pushed into the front lines of combat with trained soldiers, Reginald thought it would be better to spar with his friends and fight bandits slowly increase his and his subordinates fighting skills without having to risk dying in a war as even if Railius survived the crucible of war he would lose many Pelican Guards as they died in his place doing everything they can to keep him safe.
But who could have thought that his actions in his last dynasty history event would have such a significant impact on the Duchy of Detarnor to the point that it became one of the safest places to travel in the kingdom, with only the lands immediately surrounding the capital being safer than it!
After having a banditry issue nearly led to royal intervention in his dukedom, Duke Ridorfin, who had previously overlooked and even worked with the bandits within his territory, began to exterminate them with extreme prejudice, not wanting to risk such a thing happening again.
Even bandits he had once worked with were ruthlessly destroyed by his hands not only giving the cunning duke a better reputation but their deaths also ensured that any potential leakage of his despicable actions over the years died with them.
For these reasons, a strange event happened, one that sent shockwaves throughout the entire duchy! For the first time ever, Count Nidor Pagnar and Duke Ridorfin Rikitus, these two sworn enemies, miraculously worked together to eradicate the bandits from the duchy and, combined with Vice Count Valentine's almost supernatural investigatory skills, formed a formidable trio that annihilated these parasitic criminals and led to merchants and trade flowing through the duchy never had in the last 50 years.
Over the last 8 years in the game, the gallows of Detarnor had been working overtime as condemned after condemned was led up its creaky wooden steps to their deaths under the watchful eyes of a jubilant crowd. Every week, it seemed new criminals and bandits were found and executed to the point where even the populace, who usually found such displays as entertainment over time, got desensitised to the hooded men hanging on the gibbet only to be then put on display at the capital gates as a warning to others.
This ominous sight both made people feel safer as these evil people were now dead and more terrified of the duke for they had not experienced his ruthlessness in a while as usually, it is the noblemen and merchants who experience it, not the commoners, as crime dropped noticeably, with everyone not wanting to be the next man to swing from a rope.
Because of this, the bandits that Railius was hoping to appear so he could sell or melt down their weapons for money and use to practice his martial skills on never appeared, leading to the lazy young player getting increasingly bored as time went on!
But this time, travelling amongst the exquisite nature of the medieval world of DO did give him time to think, and Reginald thought he had come up with an interesting idea of how to not only train himself but allow him to continue to travel without having to rely on bandits to train himself up.
It would likely cost a few hundred gold, but once he had sold some of the wine he had in the Nathian capital, he should have more than enough money to accomplish it.
To explain why this bandit extermination phenomenon happened, it should be noted what a Royal Intervention actually means for a noble and why it was so feared by them.
Royal Intervention occurred when a noble lost control of his territory and uprisings and rebellions began to appear or if they were accused of some crime that warranted the royal court to get involved as such a potential treason case would definitely lead to an investigation by the royal court into the dealings of the duchy.
In Nathia, a noble was like a king while he was in his territory or fiefdom, having a significant amount of autonomy. Not only could he pass judgment on his subjects and vassals and create laws, but he could tax and rule them as he wished. A noble could also raise his own private army, which would be used to defend it from attack and be used to keep law and order within the territory.
This meant that if the son of a noble was corrupt or ended up being a poor ruler, a territory that was once powerful and prosperous could very quickly become poor and desolate, just like those idiotic heirs to wealth who waste it until there is nothing left.
It also meant that nobles held a considerable amount of power, with the most powerful ones able to raise large armies, tens of thousands strong, as long as they had the loyalty of their vassals, such as vice counts and barons, who would send men to help them in times of conflict.
A Royal Intervention removed a lot of a nobleman's autonomy, as the king could send a royal commissioner or governor to temporarily take control and investigate why there were so many problems in a territory. Royal commissioners had extensive powers, with many being nobles themselves, and if enough evidence were found, they could arrest landed nobles. Even the 2 powerful grand dukes of the kingdom were no exceptions to this rule and resisting would brand you a traitor, leading to the entire kingdom raising arms against you.
Any enemies or disgruntled vassals could use this to invade your territory and take it for themselves or for the king, who would then reward them for their efforts by granting the newly taken land to them officially giving them a legitimate reason to annex it beyond conquest.
Cunning kings of Nathia had used Royal Interventions in the past to put in their own loyal men under a rebellious vassal, giving them a spy and a royalist within their lands or finding all traces of corruption and using it as a reason to replace nobles more loyal to their liege lord than to the crown.
For these reasons, all nobles would do anything they could to avoid a Royal Intervention, and was why Duke Ridorfin was willing to go along with Vice Count Valentine's plan to arrest and execute one of his most loyal but corrupt counts to prevent the royal court from investigating all the shady dealings that went on within his domain as it would likely lead to his own imprisonment and loss of his noble title for all the shenanigans he had committed over his many years of rule as unlike Vice Count Valentine, the royal representative would have no issue accusing the duke of any crime he had committed instead of changing it to someone else.
After he finished massaging his muscles, Reginald, who had been told this by Jordis, went to get some food and quickly met with his friend Carter.
"Reg, how are things? Did anything interesting happen during your first day on the server?"
Carter asked, trying to drum up a conversation with the introverted man.
"Got a few active skills, but I spent most of my time with a sore ass! What about you?"
Reginald complained and sighed as he threw a pizza into the microwave oven.
"I made a few deals but nothing too fancy, but I did exchange some money with the system. I now have nearly £1000 in my bank account though its tax is a real pain in the ass!"
Carter said with enthusiasm when he barely bought his headset on credit like Railius deciding to pay in instalments, he was worried that he might not be able to make too much money in the early days of the game; he had even prepared himself to live off cheap foods like pot noodles for a few months! But who knew that on the first day of the servers being open, he would make enough money to exchange for 1000 pounds?
"That's 100 gold, right? Not bad!"
Reginald commented, doing the maths in his head. While his maths was not too good, it was enough for a business degree, which needed some proficiency in the subject.
"125! That bloody system and its tax is tyranny!"
Carter complained the smile he had on his face quickly turning into a frown.
"I could take out a lot more, but then I would have nothing to continue my in-game business with, but I will admit the lack of a fast travel mechanic does make life much harder!"
"Especially for a merchant like me! Did you know it takes 6 months in the game to get from one side of the world to the other by ship? It's even longer if you go the land route!"
"That's one month! I would have to spend one month in real life on the virtual sea, and it's not guaranteed I'll get there without pirates attacking and losing everything; even my character's life would be no exception!"
"Being a merchant in this game is not easy!"
Carter said as Reginald's alarm went off telling him his food was done, and the young university student sat down to eat while opening up the game forums on his phone.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
LaziestDragon
LaziestDragon Thank you for reading and for your continued support it means a lot to me and helps to give me the motivation to continue
Because I am out tonight this chapter has been set to be released in advance to keep up with my usual release schedule this will become the norm when I am busy like I am today.
It is also an attempt by me to make at least the releases on Webnovel as consistent as possible even if I will struggle to do so for a bit on Patreon.
Also, the Patreon chapter will be coming out likely early in the morning on Friday I am using British time btw for anyone who is confused as I will finish it when I get back late tonight with an announcement in Discord when it is complete.
The next chapter should be out by Saturday so I hope to see you then hope you enjoyed the chapter and don't forget to give name suggestions or look/create art for the art event and shove it in the discord.
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