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Chapter 2: Gold
“TH-THIS is something else…”
Atou’s jaw dropped as she stared at the spectacle before her in disbelief: gold coins lay in haphazard stockpiles reminiscent of sand excavated from a mine. The mounds of gold glistened and glittered under the shafts of sunlight spilling through the tree canopy.
The gold had been collected within the city square, originally used to store construction materials, but was now so covered in gold, you couldn’t walk without stepping on a coin.
“GYEEEEEEEE!!!”
“GYEEEEEEEE!!!”
E n̂ u m̀а̊.і ḋ
“GYEEEEEEEE!!!”
More than a dozen Long-legged Bugs were scuttering around. Each of them deposited the gold coins from the baskets on their backs onto the piles, then quickly scuttled into the shadows. There seemed to be plenty more gold for them to collect.
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Atou had certainly seen an ocean’s worth of gold scattered across the battlefields with her own eyes. From that alone, she knew they had much more collecting left to do, but she was more worried they would run out of space first.
“Th-There’s so very much of it!” Caria cried.
“Moolah, moolah, everywhere!” Maria cheered.
“Wow… It’s something else when you see it in person,” Takuto said in awe. “And wow, is it blindingly bright!”
Ẁeb́_n̂оvel̃ Êǹům̃ а̃
Takuto stared curiously at the mountains of gold. It seemed even he hadn’t imagined the sheer scale of it all despite giving the order to gather it.
“King Takuto…is this why you mass-produced the Long-legged Bugs?” Atou asked.
“Yeah. I ordered the Long-legged Buggies to collect all the gold coins the Brave Questers’ monsters had dropped,” he explained. “They have high Movement and Speed, so they’re the most effective at collecting stuff.”
“I-I see… Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I believe the economy will collapse if we try to circulate this much all at once. Even if we can use it for trade with Phon’kaven, do they even have anything worth trading for?” Atou asked, wording her question carefully. She didn’t think for a minute that her master didn’t already have a plan accounting for those things.
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A nation strictly manages the distribution and processing of currencies. The amount of currency in circulation depends on the public’s demand for currency.
There was too much gold to circulate within Mynoghra, where the population was still quite small and trading goods was the norm. And even if they decided to use the gold in trade with Phon’kaven and the other empires, it would sink the international market at this scale.
W̃ẽ b̃n о̌v ėl̄_ .Еñ um̀а
In Atou’s honest estimation, the gold coins were essentially no better than fool’s gold to them.
“Oh, right.” Takuto slapped his hands together as if her confusion suddenly made sense. “I forgot you’d only be familiar with Mynoghra’s strategies and wouldn’t know the different playstyles for the other empires.”
He was right. Atou only knew the world of Eternal Nations through Mynoghra’s limited lens and wasn’t well-informed about what strategies the other empires excelled at. Still, even drawing on all she did know of the game, she couldn’t think of any empire or a specific strategy that would allow an empire to put such an insane amount of money to use effectively.
“Yes, you’ve got me there, my king,” she conceded.
“Atou, do you remember what the term Currency refers to within Eternal Nations?” he asked gently to help her understand.
“I do… Currency is issued and managed by an empire as a tool for circulating the domestic economy. However, each empire has its own specific Currency, so it never seemed all that important to me…”
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
“That’s right. Getting too specific on something like that will make this kind of game less fun, after all,” Takuto said. “That’s why the game makes more use of Mana over Currency.”
“Mana has the characteristics of both energy and money, right?” Atou ventured. “It’s incredibly versatile and easy to understand when trading with other empires.”
“Exactly!” Takuto exclaimed.
The three most important Resources in Eternal Nations are Food, Materials, and Mana. Food is, of course, used to maintain the population and armies and is an indicator of national power. Materials are mainly used during the production of units and structures and are also an indicator of productivity. And Mana is an indicator of economic power and is required for various things, including Emergency Production. Generating a solid balance of these three basic resources while maintaining your empire is the basis of Eternal Nations’ gameplay.
“So that’s why I don’t understand,” Atou continued. “It doesn’t matter how much gold we have—it’s still just gold. It has little value beyond its material use, even if we go out of our way to collect it…”
In Eternal Nations, “Gold” as a metal is a Strategic Resource. It’s necessary to produce advanced units and buildings, but its value is limited to that.
Е̌ṅ u m а
It would be one thing if Mynoghra had reached the final stages of development as an empire, but wasting time and energy collecting gold at their current level seemed pointless to Atou.
“If you understand that much, I’m pretty sure you know the answer deep down…” Takuto said.
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“…How?” Atou tilted her head, the answer still eluding her.
“Don’t worry about it. I think showing you will be faster, anyway!” Takuto smiled wryly at her as though he figured he was better off just explaining without beating around the bush. He held his palm out over a part of the town square.
“Emergency Production: Market!”
“K-King Takuto?!”
W̌ ѐ b̈ n̆ о̆v̀ӗl̈ Е ń um ӑ
A great rumbling vibrated the ground. Takuto’s Mana absorbed into the town square as a low-pitched thrumming noise resounded through the area. Then came a building with a distorted and bizarre design that seemed to sprout from the ground.
“Huh? …Pretty!” Maria said in a bit of a daze.
“H-Hey! B-Big Sista! It’s dangerous over there! Come here!” Caria scolded.
The twins leaped away from the piles of gold they’d been playing in and scurried out of the way, since the newly sprouted facility had toppled the coins. It grew in such a way that it incorporated and surrounded the town square by dividing itself into multiple buildings and tents of various sizes. With its asymmetry and strange colors, it was far from any design most people associated with a marketplace, but looking at it from a functionality standpoint, it was certainly a market.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Takuto had used Emergency Production to create a Market, one of Mynoghra’s many facilities.
“Welp, there goes the last of my Mana,” Takuto said lightheartedly, looking awfully refreshed.
Е n̂ũm̃à
Emergency Production can be used in a variety of ways. Although it consumes an enormous amount of Mana, it offers the unbeatable advantages of instantly creating Food, Goods, and even Buildings. In a matter of seconds, it’d created a Market, which would’ve needed ample personnel and time allocated to it to build using normal means.
Impressed by the awesomeness that was Emergency Production all over again, Takuto boastfully spun toward Atou, hoping to see the look of surprise and awe on her face. However…
“…Atou?” he asked cautiously.
“Hmph…”
Atou was pouting.
Apparently, he was being a little too pompous with his display.
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“I-I promise I’ll explain everything to you!” he rushed out in a fluster. “C’mon, Atou, follow me!”
Even Takuto knew that he was in for some serious trouble if he let her mood sour worse than it already had. He left the twins buried under the mountains of displaced gold and quickly led Atou inside the main Market building.
◇◇◇
TAKUTO brought Atou to the largest building within the Market. It was the most conspicuous structure among the myriad of tents and stalls used to exchange goods.
A large number of shelves packed with documents came into view as soon as they set foot inside. This seemed to be the building where the ledgers were kept and the exchange of valuable goods would take place.
The oddest thing of all was that while Takuto and Atou were the first to enter the building, someone else was already there.
Ӗ n um̊_a
“Y-Yu-Yur Magesti… Wer-come.”
Asymmetrical limbs and nebulous, googly eyes. Twisted joints and dirty skin marked by distinct edema. This creature lacking any signs of intelligence was a member of the Homunculus, Mynoghra’s unique race.
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Takuto raised a hand in greeting to this Homunculus as if it were only natural that it was there as a part of the Market. He then commenced speaking with it about something or other before finally shouting toward the door.
“Heeeey! Can you girls bring me some gold?” he called.
“Aye, aye, sir!” Maria called back.
“Yessums!” Caria responded.
Е̄nū ḿӑ
Shortly after that, the Elfuur Sisters showed up noisily dragging along a basket jam-packed with gold coins. Atou finally understood what Takuto was trying to do. Surprise colored her features as the truth dawned upon her.
“I want you to convert this gold into Mana. Can you do that for me?” Takuto asked the Homunculus.
“Yip, me can.”
The Homunculus owner of the Market lifted the basket of gold with unimaginable ease and unsteadily withdrew into the back of the building with it. Before long, he returned on equally wobbly legs with a substance resembling faintly glowing gas resting upon his palm.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
“Takey-take, Yur Magesti. Takey-take.”
“Thanks,” Takuto said. The moment he held his hand over the gas, it absorbed into him.
En u_m а . i d
Atou trembled with glee as she closely oversaw the proceedings. There was no doubt in her mind that what Takuto had absorbed was exactly what she believed it to be.
“I thought the exchange rate would be lower, but they bought it at a much higher price than I imagined,” Takuto commented. “I’m seriously surprised. Just a few more baskets of gold, and we’ll easily recover the cost of the Market.”
Takuto’s remark solidified Atou’s theory.
In Eternal Nations, the Market increases an empire’s economic capacity. The secondary function also allows the player to sell their excess Resources and buy the ones they need instead. This may come across as a very basic economic activity, but it held significant value in Mynoghra’s situation.
What they could receive in return for their abundance of gold coins was none other than Mana.
“I didn’t drain the last drops of our Mana to create the Market for economic reasons. That’d be pointless at this stage,” Takuto explained. “My real aim was this exchange.”
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“I can’t believe it accepted the gold coins dropped by RPG monsters as an exchangeable resource…” Atou muttered, baffled.
“That’s not quite right. It’s not the gold coins as a currency that it accepted, but their status as a Strategic Resource—Gold,” he corrected.
Takuto had more or less grasped the rules behind Emergency Production after using it so many times.
◆Emergency Production Rules
1. Items that don’t exist within Eternal Nations can be produced with the necessary amount of Mana.
2. The Mana required for production is equivalent to that item’s value in the world it comes from.
Е́ ñû ṁа.
3. The Mana required to produce any known item in Eternal Nations abides by its in-game value.
Put another way, no matter how common and mundane an item is in another game, if it exists within Eternal Nations, its value would be set by Eternal Nations. The gold coins were a perfect example of this. It didn’t matter what value the gold coins held as a currency within Brave Questers. It didn’t matter if their value was so low that you could only buy a Wooden Stick after collecting fifty pieces. Eternal Nations’ system would treat it the same as the Strategic Resource called Gold.
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It ultimately came down to this: Takuto could exchange this Gold for the equivalent amount of Mana. That was the conclusion he came to after applying everything he had learned thus far about Emergency Production.
“B-But where is all this Mana coming from?” Atou asked.
“Beats me.” Takuto shrugged. “The game never covered that either. They probably figured fleshing that mechanic out too much would bog down the game and make it more tedious than fun.”
The fourth rule Takuto had realized was that the game system presiding over this world carelessly reproduced things from video games despite knowing they went against existing laws of physics. The fact that the Demon Lord Army, forces that came from a role-playing game, could pull off things that ignored the laws of physics, such as the infinite summoning of subordinates and forced events, proved this rule to be true. This was also proven by the fact that Mynoghra, a civilization that came from a 4x strategy game, could turn its territory into Cursed Terrain and change the Dark Elves’ alignment by making them its citizens.
W_è b̂ nо̆ v е̄l̄ È ṅu m а̃
Takuto fully understood that the powers granted by the game weren’t their only weapon—just wielding the massive strength from their pre-established settings wasn’t going to take them to the finish line. No, their true weapon was applying their game mechanics to the reality of this world, warping it in their favor.
…In this case, Mynoghra’s greatest weapon as a 4x strategy game was empire management. This meant that as long as they had Mana, they could produce an endless supply of goods and buildings, all while ignoring the laws of time and physics. This also meant that the player—the Commander—had the ability to know all that was going on within their empire and could give direct orders to their subordinates from the comfort of their throne. There was also the fact that almost every building and unit had unique traits and abilities.
All of these factors applied without considering the laws of reality.
In other words, this was the ultimate proof that they could game the system by exploiting holes in the rules.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
“This is what people usually call an economy-focused run,” Takuto said. Then he turned to thank the twins, who were busily bringing more and more gold coins without him ever having to ask them. With each new batch, he asked the Homunculus to exchange the “Gold” for Mana.
“With this playstyle, you focus on generating a large amount of money through international trade and the domestic economy, and then create all your buildings using Emergency Production,” he continued to explain. “It’s a strategy where economic power creates more economic power, exponentially increasing national power as a result. People who play as the Great Wall Dwarves or the Seven Seas Coalition tend to go this route.”
E ń ù m̂ ӓ . іd̀
Takuto had no idea what was happening in the back room where the Homunculus brought the “Gold.” Regardless of what went on back there, the Gold continued to be exchanged for Mana—without any holdups. They didn’t have to worry about rate fluctuations or the depletion of their desired resource, because Eternal Nations never implemented such complexities into the system. Thus, this repetitive exchange would continue until they ran out of gold coins.
“Funnily enough, Gold is such a rare and valuable Strategic Resource, I was always scrambling to get some to produce the strongest units…” Takuto remarked. “On the upside, its scarcity and value also gives it a very high exchange rate with Mana.”
Just as he said, Atou could sense Mynoghra’s Mana reserves rapidly growing—growing to insane amounts for early game, which was where they still considered their empire to be.
“S-So, in other words…” Atou said hesitantly, “if we invest this many gold coins—no, this much Gold as Mana into the empire…”
This was the trick to masterfully exploiting the holes in both strategy and role-playing games. Bugs that would’ve never existed if the two games hadn’t encountered each other were now being exploited in full.
The greatest weakness of a strategy game player is that it takes a lot of time to make an empire huge. They had now eradicated half of that problem.
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“Come along, Atou. It’s time for some oh-so-very fun cheating,” Takuto said in a singsong voice.
The cries of Long-legged Bugs resounded in the distance. It sounded like they’d returned with even more gold coins. Elder Moltar and the rest of the Dark Elves could be heard making a fuss over something outside too. Takuto would need to explain the situation to them as well, even if it was coming a little late. He stopped what he was doing and strode outside.
“We’re rolling in gold. Why don’t we live it up like billionaires?”
The mountain of gold reached the treetops.
After gaining a nearly unlimited amount of gold—of Mana—Takuto let out his first pleased laugh in a long time.
Е n̂ ǔ mа̄
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