The Mayor stepped up onto the wall to address the assembled crowd with a polite political smile. One designed to ingratiate him to everyone he met and cover his true feelings. A well-practiced mask that every Mayor knows well.
"Excellent work everyone. I must say, you all did an excellent job showing M City that you are worthy Guardians. Unfortunately, only one of you can win here, but we can give the others a glowing recommendation should they wish to assist another city in the Region.
All three candidates are on the very powerful side of Mythic Awakening, and each showed a variety of unique talents of their own.
With that said, the most impressive certainly had to be the Forest Dragon and the ease with which Miss Prana was able to control the battlefield. During an attack, with the aid of the city guard, the council feels that her particular skill set is best suited to the role."
The Mayor's impromptu speech was heard by hundreds of onlookers, who all gave a mighty roar of appreciation for their new champion.
After hearing about the combat style of the Demon Dryad, neither of the other contestants had any complaints about the decision. With large area crowd control, a Mythic Dragon, and the ability to grow food, she really was an amazing choice for City Guardian.
Not many classes could develop the skills necessary to fill every role, but hers did, so they were willing to concede the loss and take the referral to complete the World Wide Quest in a smaller village.
The benefits might not be as great, but the title would grant them power and a chance at future exclusive quests that the System sometimes gives to title holders. Plus, living in a smaller village isn't always a bad thing.
"What is the first thing I should do?" Prana whispers to Cain, seeing the civilian population staring at her, waiting for an acceptance speech.
"Thank them and ban the incense. I don't know if you were at the farm for the tests, but the pheromones in the incense are weaker than the monsters attacking, so it's only working to lure them in." Cain reminds her, too softly for those around to hear.
"Thank you for the warm welcome everyone!
For those that don't know, my name is Prana, and I specialize in a combination of Poisons and Nature Magic. It is an honor to be chosen to represent M City as its Champion and I will do my best to keep everyone safe.
To that end, the repellant incense will be prohibited within the city limits. The pheromones that it contains are from a creature that is now weaker than the Mythic Beasts attacking the cities, so it serves as a lure instead, drawing them in large numbers to attack and try to take the territory from what they believe to be an inferior beast."
Prana's revelation brings responses ranging from shock to horror among the crowd, but a number of the Hunters look curious. If the incense really does attract the monsters, doesn't that mean they can use it as bait, burning it in the woods to draw them into a trap?
That would revolutionize their hunting techniques and help them quickly clear the area.
"Will there be more food?" One of the elderly beastkin asks, his round ears pressed to his head in shame.
"Yes, even after the trade caravans start again, we will continue the soup kitchen. We lost a lot of young folk and providers lately, and our people need help. I don't yet know what the final solution will be, but the city will help everyone who needs it." The mayor confirms, after looking to Prana and the Witches for confirmation.
The abundance of elderly and orphans are a problem that a lot of cities have now. Even if the attacks didn't overrun the guards, there were a lot of casualties, and the hunters that were away from the cities when the vortexes collapsed had it even worse.
Cain was under no illusions that he could do much to change things on a grand scale, but he could help people that he liked to complete the Laughing God's special quest and take the title of Champion.
Which raised the question, 'who is filling that role in the unawakened areas?' It would have to be someone either awakened or over level 300, so they could challenge the Epic beasts.
The Eastern Continent might also be in trouble, since the strongest of their monsters were already often over level 300, and they would have only improved.
He hadn't seen much for Guild messages from Port Nefheim though and surely there would have been some indication of trouble if they couldn't handle the attacks.
Cain didn't actually need to be worrying about Port Nefheim, since Neffie and the Lesser Watchers had a plan. The World Quest had been generous to Neffie, granting her a Mythic Barrier for the Port City and they had been making excellent use of it.
The barrier only kept out enemies, so when the first few freshly upgraded Mythic Beasts attacked, they set their defensive lines just in front of the barrier and then retreated when attacked, letting the attackers slam into the barrier before being viciously counterattacked by the Lesser Watchers and finished by Neffie and her forces.
In this way, they got a number of Mythic items and even a [Mythic Transformation] Skillbook Neffie claimed for herself.
It would increase her body quality to Mythic for a short time, but simply knowing it also granted her the status of Mythic Awakened, with the damage reduction buff to match.
Now she could lead her forces from the front lines with little fear unless an awakened beast led the forces. Even then, her transformation would upgrade the close combat attacks of whatever class she was mimicking into Mythic attacks, as well as granting an increase in her spell damage.
The last item on her to-do list was to upgrade her class, but the options she had so far were not satisfactory. Nothing less than unique and amazing would be enough to satisfy the young Demon Queen. The combination of her young age and her ridiculously overpowered role models had given Neffie an extremely high standard for her own future advancements.
Tonight, she had a meeting scheduled with the Lesser Watchers to experiment with [Modify] and see if she could get a class option worthy of her noble self.
She had even made a small shrine to the Old Gods of Creation next to the docks in the Port for extra luck. She knew the Laughing God ruled the System, but the others must have some sort of input over the development of the world. Even if they didn't, she wasn't going to risk offending them by leaving them out.
As the old saying goes: Shiny things come to those who cheat.
Wait, no, that's not quite right.
As night fell, both Prana and Neffie were very busy. Prana was meeting the people of M City and organizing the garden at the Redwood tree, while Neffie was deep in discussion with the Lesser Watchers, who had turned to Cain for a third opinion.
Knowing that Neffie doesn't have the words subtle or understated in her vocabulary, they were going to have to go overboard with a skill to satisfy their most beloved and spoiled Guild Member.
When she became Port Nefheim's Guardian, the System gave her a citywide barrier ability. Cain's best idea is to supplement that with the party-wide spell [Shared Resilience] that would grant everyone in her raid party her best damage reduction ability.
In the awakened areas, the spell is pointless, everyone has the same ability as their best form of damage reduction, but in Port Nefheim or the Central Continent, an awakened fighter could make excellent use of it.
After cautioning Neffie not to finalize it before checking her class options, the Lesser Watcher granted her the spell and the little Demon got a big smile on her face.
Her system interface had a very promising message for her:
[Requirements met: 2 Mythic Area Defense Spells, Title: Guardian, Species: Demon Queen] hidden class unlocked.
Neffie opened her class change menu and looked at her hopefully amazing and unique new class option.
[Demonic Overlord]
[Overlord's Authority] None may question the might of an Overlord in their own territory. So long as the Overlord has more than fifty followers or subjects and is in their home territory, all damage taken by the overlord and their followers within (Overlord's Level) meters of the Overlord is reduced an additional 25 percent, and all attack abilities used by the Overlord are activated at the quality level of their most powerful defensive ability.
The Class Skill alone is enough to sell Neffie on this new class. Overlord sounds like it outranks Queen for sure, so she will be the Overlord of Port Nefheim.
The rest of the skill tree is just uninteresting nonsense about creating protective statues and traps and stuff to defend her castle. Sure, it's going to be great for defending the city, but better than being able to trick her mom into calling her Overlord Neffie? That's simply impossible.
Neffie finalized the [Shared Resilience] skill and selected her new class, coming back to reality to find that both her parents as well as the Captain of her guard have joined her and the Watchers in the private room where they were holding the meeting.
"Commander Neffie. We have a situation, the Beasts have attacked again." The Captain began, before being cut off by Neffie's cheer.
"That is perfect timing. I needed to test out my new abilities anyhow. Follow me dear subjects and I will show you the might of Overlord Neffie... owowow, Mom, let go of my ear."
"Overlord who did you say, young lady? Take every battle seriously or I'll ground you with no trips to the candy shop for a week." Lickity declared, dragging her daughter out of the room by one fluffy ear while the Lesser Watchers and the Captain of the guard tried not to laugh.
"We didn't get to congratulate her on the new area buffs." The captain sighed, following the pair out of the room and towards the edge of the city.
