Chapter 49: NPC Recruitment

In the unnamed town, Angora felt a headache coming on.

From the information brought back by Edward and seeing his own brother killed in front of him—even if he didn’t have a good relationship with his second brother, he could not help but feel sad by this turn of events.

Thinking back to how the bandits he met on the way here were also the work of the Society of the Secret Eye, he naturally saw them as his greatest enemy at this point.

As the saying goes, the enemy of your enemy is your friend.

At this point, it seemed like pursuing connections with the Frogmen tribe that were causing trouble for Black Whip would be worth the effort. If needed, they could even offer help and resources for them. Angora didn’t expect any material from those amphibians, but it was worth it as long as they could attract the attention of the Society of the Secret Eye to give the town some time to grow stronger.

This time however, there weren’t any quests issued by the system that he could directly ask the Players to accomplish.

Should he use game coins as a reward to issue a mission for the Players to go to the Gray Fjord Port and negotiate with the Frogmen there?

But now, the Players were not as broke as they were as before. After doing so many missions and carrying bricks they already have had a meager amount of savings. Even though he had the building blueprint for a ‘shop’, he hadn’t gotten started on it yet so the use of game coins now was pretty limited. Even if he used them as a reward the Players wouldn’t probably bat an eye…

Only now did Angora truly feel that Players weren’t easy to be utilized. They weren’t his subordinates, hence they did not have any obligation to listen to his orders. Their relationship was more of a symbiotic relationship.

“If only I had subordinates instead of Players…” Angora sighed, a little frustrated.

But then again that wouldn’t quite be possible. After all, he himself was a devout believer in the God of Games, so the subordinates he would get would have to believe in the God of Games too. Once his subordinates became true believers and obtained Systems, they would probably be infected by those crackhead Players and who knows what kind of people they would become…

As he was worrying about this, a System alert rang in his mind.

[Ding! Hidden conditions fulfilled. Unlocking new feature: NPC Recruitment]

[You can recruit NPCs from Players through contracts.]

[Once a Player becomes an NPC, they will not participate in Player events and their system will become affiliated with the Overlord System, changing into the Subordinate System(not affecting their class) until they retire or quit.]

[Number of NPCs recruitable: 2]

“The heck? I can do that?”

Angora read the system message again as he rejoiced from the new feature.

Is this not a gift from the God of Games that saw that he was working on everything by himself? So even if He lost some divine energy he would still give him the ability to recruit subordinates!

‘I’m yours forever, God of Games!’

With this thought in mind, he quickly made his way to the Player he was the closest to.

“Vela, I have something to ask you!”

“My lord?” Vela who had chosen to become a ranger after becoming a Player asked curiously, seeing the young man so excited.

She was pretty satisfied with the life she currently had. After all, only half a month earlier the residents of this town couldn’t even fill their stomachs and couldn’t have survived the frost.

It was this lord that brought the magical religion of the God of Games, letting them be able to eat their fill and fixing their homes, even fending off the revenant siege together with the Players. Even the biting cold of the frost couldn’t stop the burning passion of the Players that injected a well-needed dose of liveliness into this unknown town.

It was because of these reasons that she had some budding affections for this young man who was younger than her by a couple of years.

Alas, perhaps it was because Angora was an orichalcum straight man 1, or perhaps it was he was still young, but he hadn’t guessed that she had feelings for him yet.

As the young lady gazed at the young lord gently, she thought that perhaps it wasn’t a bad thing that he hadn’t noticed either. As long as she could be of help to him, she would sacrifice her all…

“Vela, are you willing to entrust your future to me?” the young lord asked earnestly with a steady gaze to match.

“M-My lord?”

Vela who had always had the image of a female mob boss was now as shy and flustered like a maiden. Her cheeks immediately flushed pink as she looked at him with her mouth agape, not knowing what to say.

“I know you must have your doubts, but please give me a chance! I will treat you well (in pay)! I know this is sudden and I can’t hope for you to put all your trust in me because I’m still young and inexperienced…” The young lord saw that she was swayed, so he continued to convince her.

“No! I, I…” The young lady first cut off his words, then as if that exclamation used up all of her bravery, she mumbled, “I-I do…”

After saying those words, her body went weak as if she used up all of her strength.

“Really? Thank you, thank you!”

Angora cheered happily before pulling out a scroll and unfurling it, revealing it to be a contract with all the terms and conditions, as well as the duties and rights to becoming an NPC. Then, he pulled out a pen and put it into Vela’s hand gently, pointing at the blank space at the bottom of the contract. “Sign your name here please!”

“???”

The young lady froze in place. She looked at Angora, then looked at the contract and looked at him again.

“This was what you meant?”

Angora nodded innocently. “Yeah, what else?”

“…”

From nowhere, Angora felt a chill run down his spine as he felt something rising from the young lady like a cloud (probably bloodlust).

He asked warily, “Is something wrong…?”

Vela shook her head. “No, it’s nothing.”

Her mood turning sour, she took the pen and wrote her name on the contract.

The next moment, Angora received a system notification.

[Vela Newman has become your subordinate.]

After that, Vela’s page popped out. For some reason, there was a silver R shining next to her name.

Below her name was her loyalty. It was maxed out at a hundred points which greatly pleased him.

After that were the stat displays. Different from the STR, SPD, and INT stats of normal Players, the stats displayed were for Military Strategy, Internal Affairs, and Diplomacy. Perhaps it was because she was a normal hunter girl from a small town, her military strategy and internal affair stats were extremely low. She did have forty-two points in Diplomacy, which was pretty good.

After that were NPC skill slots, which were currently empty. According to the system notification, Angora would have to buy skills himself for her, which made him feel cheated somehow…

Before he could continue talking with Vela, the old mayor ran frantically over to him.

“My lord, that man called Marni has brought around a hundred people here, I think they’re going to overthrow you!”

“Huh???”

Ch 49 Footnote 1

This is a pun on the modern term 钢铁直男 which literally translates into ‘steel straight man’ and refers to men that have no taste or are not sensitive. The author uses the term 奥利哈刚直男 which means ‘orichalcum straight man’ which means he’s even more thick-headed than a normal ‘steel straight man’