Chapter 38: Side Quests Part 1

I will admit. It took me a shockingly long time to realize that this game of mine had side quests, and I feel rather silly for that. Seriously, I was trapped in this massive school, and I somehow thought there were only about five people worth speaking to and three locations worth visiting. What was I thinking? Heck, I had been offered side quests on the very first day and hadn’t even noticed. Yeah, as it turns out, all those people loudly complaining about their problems were actually quest givers, and when Logos said there was more I needed to do to unlock the best ending, he meant I needed to solve their problems.

Now, some of these side quests were actually pretty simple. One of the first ones I heard about was a girl who had lost her locket. Admittedly, searching for the locket took a full week because she had no idea where she’d lost it, but it was still relatively simple. There were a few fetch quests like that, and that one was on the easier side. The idiot couple I treated in the infirmary also needed me to find a piece of jewelry, her engagement ring, but rather than being somewhere on campus, it was taken by the goblins that attacked them.

This meant I had to go goblin hunting til I found it, and as there was no quest marker to follow, I spent a lot of time searching the woods, though that was still pretty straightforward. Turns out the specific goblin I was looking for had a bright red bandana and followed a pretty simple pattern through the woods, so he was easy to find on subsequent loops.

Probably the most complex quest came from a guy asking for advice on how to break things off with his fiancée because he’d fallen in love with a commoner. Of course, that premise hit a bit too close to home, and I ended up killing that guy, but he was fine in the next loop, so I begrudgingly took on the quest. However, I was still irked, so I convinced his fiancée to dump him by spreading awful rumors about him. Was this mean-spirited? Absolutely, but she was relieved to have a reason to end things because she had also fallen in love with a commoner and wanted to end things.

Does that sound like a wild coincidence to you? Well, hold your horses because it gets much weirder. As it turns out, both of them had been independently disguising themselves as commoners because they were sick of noble life. They had then run into one another while dressed up and had not recognized each other at all. Yes, my friends, you read that right. This man had unknowingly asked me to dump his fiancée so he could marry a commoner who was actually his fiancée in disguise, while his fiancée wanted an excuse to dump him so she could marry a commoner who was actually him in disguise. This solution was so stupid that I only figured it out when the guy mentioned that his poor waitress lover had a servant.

Apparently, neither of them actually knew the first thing about being a commoner, so neither of them noticed that the other one also didn’t know anything about being a commoner. Oh, and this wasn’t my fault either. I checked with Logos. He confirmed that these two idiots actually existed in this world, and that he just turned their already bonkers love story into a quest for me.

That quest cost me a month because I kept getting the bad ending. Yeah, that was another fun little detail about all this. I could fail quests so badly that I had to start over, and it wasn’t even obvious when I did. One guy asked me to help him convince his girlfriend to give him a second chance, and I thought the quest was completed when I did. Then I found her body stuffed in a shed while looking for the locket. Turns out, there were some very valid reasons why she dumped him, and the proper way to finish the quest was to catch him in the act with a professor by my side. After that, he was successfully locked up in the school’s dungeon, which I didn’t even know existed.

Oh, and if you’re wondering how I knew if a quest was completed successfully, I technically didn’t. There was no pop-up announcement, and Logos refused to add one, no matter how much I begged. However, I did have one clue. I eventually realized that there were five quests from each ducal faction, and once I completed all of them, the representative of that duke summoned me to a meeting to thank me.

I’m pretty sure I mentioned this before, but the four dukes basically own every inch of the country, except for the royal capital and some plots controlled by the two churches. Meanwhile, every other noble basically rents the territory they control from them. In a sense, it’s kind of like the four dukes are kings of four different countries, who all decided to more or less play nice, though maybe “decided” isn’t the best word to use here. Perhaps as a natural result of the land they owned, each of them took on a very specialized role, such that none of them could really survive without the others.

My father, the Duke of Thorns, controls land riddled with powerful monsters, and as a result, is responsible for training and assigning the knights who fight these monsters and protect public order. The Duke of Petals controls land rich in mineral deposits and other natural resources necessary for craftsmen. As a result, he controls the country’s artisans. Almost every blacksmith, mason, painter, and craftsman trains and receives their certifications in schools that he runs. Many continue to work on his land, as it provides them with the best access to materials.

Meanwhile, the Duke of Roots owns territory rich in arable land, perfect for growing fruits and vegetables. In fact, it's even been estimated that up to 80% of the country’s farmable land is under his control. Consequently, he basically controls the country’s food supply. Finally, the Duke of Stalks is the only member of the four dukes whose land allows for clear and easy travel to other nations. This means that any goods going in or out of the country must travel through his land and are only handled by merchants he has personally trained and approved.

Together, these four men basically ran the country, and now I needed the help of their respective representatives if I wanted to survive. Yeah, these meetings weren’t just for them to say thanks. They were also side quests, though their objectives were much less clear, as the children of dukes are trained almost from birth to hide their true thoughts and speak in a subtle language that’s nearly impossible to understand.

What’s that? Shouldn’t I have received that same training? Well yeah. I technically did, but I wasn’t particularly good at it, and my father already had a lot of other kids. He was fine with me joining the Church of Eros and staying out of noble matters as much as possible. I’m sure he’d be less than pleased to find out I was negotiating on his behalf, especially since I made some pretty big promises in his name, but I was desperate. Plus, it’s not like he ever told me I couldn’t make deals in his name. He just never expected me to take the initiative.