Little Pink Starfish

At first, talk of Pei Sen and Eagle’s “relationship” was just a small niche of female players wildly speculating on the forums. But slowly, jokes about the two started spreading among players in general. Especially after Pei Sen left the battlefield to rush to the capital and rescue Eagle—even male players started teasing, “This has to be true love, right?” After all, what ordinary young master–butler relationship would go that far?

As for Aken… players hadn’t paid much attention to him before. They only knew he was Eagle’s friend—a down-on-his-luck noble who had sought refuge with Eagle. Because of his good looks, a few female players took interest in him, and since he was Eagle’s friend, he often appeared as a cannon-fodder side character in fanfics.

Now, Aken had come in person to receive Eagle, excited to deliver the news of their great victory. Pei Sen watched the reunion between the two with a slightly amused expression—he knew their friendship was pure.

But the players didn’t see it that way. And even Oke seemed to have misunderstood.

Oke knew Eagle, and he knew that Aken had been Eagle’s friend for years. But when he saw Aken completely ignore him in favor of Eagle, he felt extremely uncomfortable.

Pei Sen, meanwhile, stared speechlessly at the sympathy threads popping up on the forum:

“Green hat? What the hell?!”

Come on—they had a perfectly pure relationship! Aken and the young master too! What were these players even imagining?

Still, most players were just joking around. The main topic of conversation soon shifted back to Eagle’s sudden “growth spurt.”

Aken, still shocked at Eagle’s transformation into a full-grown man, asked, “What happened to you in the capital? Did they feed you some strange potion?”

Eagle shook his head. “No. You know about the Bonfrese ruin tablet, right?”

Aken immediately understood. Although the ruin tablet wasn’t widely known in Esmia, many nobles had at least heard of it.

Ruin tablets were extremely rare on the continent of Arylia, and aristocrats tended to have some awareness of such legendary items. There were only a few known ruin tablets in the world, and the one from Bonfrese had a decent reputation—Aken had heard it mentioned before.

And once the name Bonfrese came up, he immediately thought of someone:
“Princess Carolina?”

“Yes,” Eagle replied without elaborating. Aken already understood most of what had happened.

He gave Eagle a sympathetic pat on the shoulder—then realized this guy had gotten so tall, it was really throwing him off.

Pei Sen stepped in, “Anyway, this isn’t a great place to talk. Let’s continue the conversation back at Red Maple Castle.”

“Alright.”

The convoy set off again. Players whispered among themselves, piecing together some clues from the earlier conversation. So the young count’s sudden growth had something to do with this “ruin tablet”? They’d need to look into it more later.

…Meanwhile, everyone had completely forgotten about Oke.
This guy had once stood out significantly—at first, Aken genuinely didn’t see him. Later, he chose to pretend not to see him.

And Oke? He just sat there, lost in a daze, forgetting even to block Aken’s path. He remained silently mounted, watching Aken with no response in return.

It was a complete, deliberate snub. As if they’d never known each other.
Oke couldn’t believe it. Sure, it made sense if Aken no longer loved him—but for there to be not even hatred?

“Lord,” one of Oke’s knights asked gently, “Should we return to the territory?”

Oke closed his tired eyes. “First, find out what happened in Frost Maple.”

“But… now that Count Eagle has returned safely from the capital, shouldn’t we also gather information about what happened there?”

Oke replied calmly, “Our family already has channels in the capital. I suspect something major has happened in Frost Maple.” Aken had returned far too energized and radiant. “Send someone to investigate.”

“Yes, sir.”

And something had indeed happened in Frost Maple—actually, not just there. The entire Duchy of Balst had changed dramatically!

The descendants of the former Duke of Balst were now cowering in the capital. About 90% of the duchy’s territory had been seized by the new lord of Frost Maple. What remained were either deserted wastelands or the pitiful capital city itself.

Consequently, the Bix Magic Cube’s login map now displayed over a hundred new green “safe zones.” New Bix tribe characters were appearing daily. Because the Bix tribe was now considered the new Frost Maple lord’s personal army, their growing presence in Balst actually strengthened Eagle’s territorial control.

Players didn’t care who ruled the land—they only cared who gave them quests.
Right now, the most complete questlines were clearly under the control of the Thorned Rose faction.

In fact, Bix Magic Cube seemed to be slacking off, having handed over a large portion of authority directly to Pei Sen.

Sometimes, Pei Sen felt like this game had a split personality. One part constantly updated and improved the system; the other had basically let him run things after seeing how well he managed players.

For example, the missing main storyline.

Pei Sen remembered that, in the original timeline, the public beta did have a main story arc. Though early players often complained about it, it still existed.

Now? The main story had mysteriously disappeared. Only Pei Sen’s faction quests remained stable and consistent.

Now that the young master had been rescued, Pei Sen once again turned his thoughts to the game’s overall structure. He was still figuring out the best way to pull more players into Eagle’s faction. He’d worried about the devs’ attitude before, but now it was clear: they had pretty much left him in charge and were quite happy with that.

“The war’s basically over. Time to focus on development.” Pei Sen glanced at the barren landscape outside the carriage. “Winter’s ending—spring will be perfect for farming…”

The players who had begun reclaiming wasteland hadn’t made much progress yet, since it was still cold. But come spring, everything would change.

The Duchy of Balst also had several decent exploration zones with mild monsters and valuable magical materials. Without those, Balst wouldn’t have lasted so long next to a major power like Esmia, nor had the resources to wage war.

With Eagle now in control of the entire duchy, that meant more quest content for players too.

When they returned to Red Maple Castle, Pei Sen immediately wanted to inspect all the loot Aken had seized—only to be stunned by the sight of a dark, dense crowd outside the castle gates.

“What’s going on over there?”

It was clearly not players—the players themselves were craning their necks in surprise.

Eagle didn’t look. He just smiled faintly. “Probably the Frost Maple Knights.”

“The Frost Maple Knights?”

Yes—the Frost Maple Knights.

In recent days, no one had been more distressed than the knights of the Frost Maple Order.

They had originally pledged allegiance to Lady Red Maple. When the territory changed hands, they didn’t know who to support. Then the leadership changed again. At this point, they were completely thrown off.

The Frost Maple Knights had always been known as formidable warriors within the Duchy of Balst. They weren’t going to pledge allegiance to a new lord who did nothing.

But then—everything changed.

The new lord went to the capital. The acting lord waged war with a ragtag group of bizarre, unruly alien races.

At first, the knights had watched the war unfold with smug amusement, assuming the acting lord and his weirdo army would soon come begging for help.

After all, how could a group of reckless, war-ignorant freaks possibly win a war? Did they think sheer numbers could beat experience?

Yet to their astonishment… those freaks won—and won big.
They obliterated the noble families that even the knights had struggled against. They steamrolled through the duchy until it was nearly all under their new lord’s control.

And now? What was the point of the Frost Maple Knights?

The new lord had super-powered troops already.

So, upon hearing that the new lord had returned, every last member of the Frost Maple Knights lined up respectfully outside Red Maple Castle with their finest formation, ready to greet their lord.

They were deeply anxious.

Would the lord even need their loyalty?

Eagle didn’t need to look—he already knew what was going on outside.

Pei Sen raised an eyebrow, just about to comment, when—

Ding!

A clear, sharp chime echoed. Different from the usual quest notification sound—it was quicker, crisper. Pei Sen immediately knew: Bix Magic Cube had sent him a message.

That was rare. Usually, he was the one messaging it, and whether or not he got a reply depended on the game’s “mood.”

Though generally, the game responded to him pretty fast. But it had never initiated contact—until now.

Pei Sen forgot all about the knight order and opened his system panel, going straight to the inbox.

Urgent Notice:
There has been an unexpected system event.
Approximately three months from now, I will open a second server: Soulgreen Era.

Pei Sen stared at the message in shock.

Soulgreen Era? He was much more familiar with that server than Arylia. Even though his main character class was Mage, he had spent most of his time in Soulgreen Era because he preferred a more casual, non-PvP playstyle.

Three months? That was around when the second server launched in the original timeline too. But back then, Arylia was more popular. Few chose Soulgreen initially due to its many restrictions and poor compatibility with early class development.

Advanced classes like Soulhunter Gunner and Azureblade only unlocked much later. For now, Arylia was still better for career advancement, and Soulgreen mainly attracted life-skills and casual players.

Pei Sen muttered, “What kind of urgent reminder is this? You were gonna launch it around now anyway.”

But then he paused.

Wait… could it be that in the original timeline, this “unexpected event” was the real reason the server opened?

Could the system not fully control the server launch?

“Hold on. Aren’t you a game? How come you don’t decide when the server opens?”

Bix Magic Cube replied instantly:

“You can think of me as a GM. I’m not the developer.”

Pei Sen: “???”

But then who had been studying all the class content with him? Wasn’t that you?

This weird situation left him completely confused.

Still, the more pressing question was:

“Why are you telling me this? What’s it got to do with me?”

After a long pause, another message arrived. Pei Sen could sense a hint of guilt from the game.

“As a high-level NPC, you might be reassigned to act as a guide in the new server.”

Pei Sen: “???”

“Might”? What did that even mean?

He had both a player panel and an NPC panel—but his NPC identity was strictly tied to Arylia. What did he have to do with Soulgreen?

Then another question hit him:
Could he bring a real NPC to the new server?

Could Eagle… come too?

Thinking of the consequences of breaking the rules, Pei Sen had a very bad feeling.

Wait, maybe it was possible? In the later stages of the game, some important NPCs had appeared in other servers.

They seemed to carry a special item…

Pei Sen racked his brain.

“What was it again…”

Then he suddenly remembered—a certain key character always wore a necklace.

Hanging from that necklace…

Was a small silver cube.