"I've received some top-secret information."
"When the game shuts down, veteran level-100 players who stay logged in will receive a gift if they've spent more than ten thousand Saint Quartz recently."
"The gift is an invitation code for a new game and a special gift pack."
"Apparently, they'll give out something like divine artifacts when the new game launches."
"I'll give you some Saint Quartz so you can reach the required spending amount. The gift packs will belong to me."
"Remember to stay logged in."
"The payment for this job is five hundred thousand yen each."
"Lord Joshua, isn't that a little too much?"
Surshana blurted it out.
He never even questioned where this insider information had come from.
After all, this was Lord Joshua, whom the entire game company groveled before.
His insider information was guaranteed to be correct.
Shining Angel Meow couldn't help patting Surshana on the shoulder.
Why did you have to be so honest!
Lord Joshua had money to spare.
Six people at five hundred thousand yen each meant three million yen, enough for them to launch another small-scale Work Slowdown Campaign.
Roy smiled.
"Not at all. That five hundred thousand yen isn't just for this job. You'll also need to help me farm some special dungeons for certain special items."
"Apparently, those items can be brought over to the new server too."
"Oh, right. At the very last moment, make sure you're in the guild, sitting in the guild's chairs with your World Items. Understood?"
"That's a requirement for receiving the gift packs."
Everything Roy said was a lie. Ever since he had obtained the World Tree sapling, he had felt something special.
He would definitely be able to cross over.
Besides, compared with the butterfly effect caused by helping them, Roy was more worried about the greater consequences if these six failed to be online in time.
Thus, handing over a few items and fabricating an event to ensure they were online at shutdown mattered far more than anything else.
You still had six hundred years ahead of you. Stay alive.
After all, Roy didn't want humanity to have already gone extinct by the time he crossed over.
Roy didn't particularly care how many players successfully crossed over. He simply didn't want his own attempt to fail.
"We'll do everything as you command, Lord Joshua!"
Surshana thumped his chest in assurance.
Roy nodded.
"Then I'll transfer the money first. Get to work right away."
"Oh, and take these things. They'll help you kill monsters faster."
Roy casually tossed out a Storage Bag. Bags like these were designed to make trading between players easier.
These were all decent items and equipment for max-level players, but to Roy, they were no different from trash.
Resurrection items, Elixirs, and even some Information Crystals.
The Information Crystals contained extensive knowledge of agriculture, industry, biology, medicine, and more, all fairly elementary material.
Otherwise, given their level of education, they would have trouble putting it to use.
I hoped you would use these things to protect humanity until I arrived in that world.
After all, the Human Species was very valuable.
Although the humans of this New World were weak, they would count as a chosen race in most other worlds.
One in every two hundred people possessed an Innate Talent, making them highly valuable research subjects.
Even purely for the sake of preserving their genes, Roy hoped the humans there would live a little better.
At that thought, Roy added:
"I've already sent you the task list. Work hard."
"If you don't get the gift packs, I'll dock your pay."
Both thumped their chests and said in unison:
"Rest assured, Lord Joshua."
"I'll get the others online and working right away."
Roy was quite satisfied with that.
Surshana was the strongest member of the entire guild.
His class build resembled Bone King's, and both possessed the special class [Eclipse].
The others were considerably weaker. After all, playing the game was merely a cover.
They hadn't put much effort into playing, either, and Surshana had a ready justification for that.
"If we worked hard every day ourselves instead of playing games, how could we convince the other employees to slack off with us?"
His reasoning was so sound that it was impossible to refute.
Now that Roy had them working hard for the final seven days to boost their strength, with the Elixirs and everything else thrown in, they should be able to survive until they met again.
Roy gave them a few simple instructions and was about to leave when Surshana's follower, a Red Short-Tailed Cat, came over and rubbed against him.
"Meow!"
A level-100 NPC cat, the future last guardian of the Slane Theocracy.
Roy played with the cat for a moment. The cat looked content, rubbed against him vigorously, and shook out their fur.
Surshana had specifically configured this cat to be friendly toward Roy, hoping to score some game items.
Roy petted the cat for a while, considered things briefly, then took a Storage Bag from his inventory.
"These are for the cat to play with. No pocketing them."
Generally speaking, NPCs had equipment slots just like players.
A player's standard equipment slots were the head (helmet), face (mask), neck (necklace), torso (armor), shoulders (cloak), arms (bracers), hands (two weapons), waist (belt), legs (greaves), feet (boots), and two rings, for a total of thirteen equipment slots.
However, the game offered eight paid ring slots, bringing the total up to twenty-one equipment slots.
Although the original author, Maruyama, claimed this wasn't a pay-to-win game.
That was a lie.
What supposedly non-pay-to-win online game gave non-paying players eight fewer equipment slots?
Even Justice Online wouldn't dare do that, and Legendary Browser Game at least kept up appearances by using secondary equipment slots.
You were worse than Legendary Browser Game.
It was an outright whale-heavy game.
In an MMORPG, even one fewer equipment slot could create an enormous gap in combat stats, let alone eight.
Divine artifacts were difficult to craft. Even with the game's shutdown approaching, ordinary players couldn't simply get their hands on one.
For an ordinary level-100 player, spending three years grinding to save up for one divine artifact pretty much counted as reaching the endgame.
At the game's peak, there had been over a million max-level players, but no more than a hundred thousand divine artifacts in existence.
Even a top-tier guild like the Great Tomb of Nazarick would generally equip each NPC with only one or two divine artifacts.
Roy was giving them an extremely valuable gift. Surshana had wanted to decline, only for Roy to roll his eyes at him.
"The game's about to shut down. What value do they have left?"
"Come on, put them on the cat."
This level-100 cat could transform into a catgirl, and magical equipment could all adjust to changes in the wearer's body.
Yes, even armor forged to the size of a fingernail could be worn by a giant.
Magical equipment adapted automatically, but doing so would cause its defense per unit area to plummet to the extreme, effectively reducing it to nothing.
Thus, although this cat wore a full set of divine artifacts, others could wear them too.
That was exactly what he wanted.
Roy petted the cat a couple more times before leaving, thoroughly satisfied.
"Work hard. Look how badly you've starved the cat. They couldn't even afford divine artifacts."
Glorious Angel Cat and Surshana were both momentarily speechless.
They themselves only had one divine artifact each, with Legend-class gear filling the remaining slots.
They were playing the same game, so why was the gap so enormous?
Roy dusted off his hands and resumed collecting World Items.
After Roy left, however, [Glorious Angel Cat] looked thoughtful.
"Shana, did you notice?"
"What?"
"Lord Joshua had all this prepared beforehand."
"Otherwise, he couldn't have taken it out so quickly."
"He wanted to help us all along. He was just finding an excuse."
Surshana suddenly understood.
"Lord Joshua really is one of those rare people with a conscience."
"Then let's get moving. Even if we don't sleep for these last seven days, we have to finish the tasks!"
"Right, get the other four online too!"
"We absolutely can't let Lord Joshua down!"
The Cat Re-Estize Kingdom threw itself into work with fervor.
Meanwhile, Roy continued putting all his effort into collecting the remaining World Items.
The twentieth item, [Forbidden Fruit of Eden].
Before you continue