After the meeting ended, Carl returned to his room and began packing his luggage, preparing to go to the final boss area and become a cave monster.
After Carl finished packing, he found his little maid, Irene, already standing outside the door with all her bags on her back, waiting for him.
"What are you trying to do?"
Carl looked at the camping backpack on her back, which was completely disproportionate to her petite figure. She looked like she had brought along everything she owned.
Irene had an excited expression on her face, as if she were looking forward to an outing.
"Of course I'm going with Lord Carl to the basement to be the final boss!"
This innocent little maid actually thought becoming the final boss in a mobile game was something good.
Looking at how foolishly cute she was, Carl felt that before leaving, it was necessary to properly educate her again.
He had to make her understand certain rules that anime game characters had to follow.
"There's no need for you to come with me. To be precise, after launch, Irene, you are not allowed to have anything to do with me anymore!"
As soon as Carl said this, he immediately frightened the little maid. A slightly panicked expression appeared on her face.
"L-Lord Carl! Even if you've already prepared yourself to die, please don't say something like that!"
"Please let me follow you! At least when you die, I can build you a beautiful gravestone."
Carl was a little speechless as he pinched Irene's extremely soft cheeks.
"Who said I'm going to die? Irene, listen carefully! After launch, not only are you forbidden from having anything to do with me, you are also forbidden from having any relationship with the other male characters in this academy!"
"To put it simply, after launch, romance is absolutely forbidden, got it? Not only are you forbidden from dating the game characters in the academy, acting too close to them is also forbidden."
At this point, seeing the little maid's blank expression, Carl added another warning to keep her from causing any controversy.
"Even with the players, you have to maintain a certain distance. Just participate in the story and say a few lines. It doesn't matter even if you act like a background character."
"With your charm and your super-sized buffing power, even if you treat the player like a camera, some players will still like you! You don't need to take the initiative to do anything at all!"
Irene finally spent some time struggling free from Carl's hands, then rubbed her reddened cheeks and said pitifully,
"But... Lord Carl, is taking care of your daily life not allowed either? That is my duty as a maid."
Carl hurriedly waved his hand, telling her not to harm him.
At the same time, he continued teaching Irene the survival rules of mobile games.
"No! When you introduce yourself in the story, you can explain your relationship with me to the players, that you are my maid. But once you make that clear, you are forbidden from having any contact with me!"
"Who knows what strange plotlines they'll imagine? In short, if you don't want to be hated by the players, then from now on, don't get involved with me anymore!"
"Uu... I understand."
Although Irene really wanted to ask, "Are players really that petty? They won't even allow someone to fall in love?"
But looking at Carl's terrifying expression, she somehow felt that if she really dared to fall in love after launch, something extremely frightening would definitely happen.
Fortunately, Irene's mind was currently filled with thoughts of saving her hometown together with Carl.
This country girl maid really had no mood to think about romance.
After seeing that Carl was truly determined to temporarily cut ties with her, Irene took a deep breath and spoke with her last bit of stubbornness.
"Then... Lord Carl, after the Saviors arrive, I will send you the Contract Stones I earn from them every day through letters."
Are you some mysterious letter-sending girl too?
But Carl found it strange that this little maid's loyalty was so high.
If he translated Irene's words simply, it basically meant, "I'll go out to work and support you. From now on, I'll mail you all the money I earn every day."
Was there really such a good girl in this world?
"Speaking of which, Contract Stones are such an important resource. Are you really going to give them all to me?" Carl asked tentatively.
Irene also gave a silly smile and explained why she wanted to do this.
"Because I feel like Lord Carl knows everything. I have always been very clumsy, and aside from my actual duties, I'm not very good at anything else."
"So I think, if we want to save our hometown, it would be better to give all the Contract Stones I earn to you, Lord Carl."
"Fine. I'll make your wish come true."
Carl did not actually have much attachment to saving the original owner's hometown, but as long as his arcade got up and running, getting the players to go to Irene's hometown would be extremely easy. It could be considered a goal completed along the way.
Carl directly said goodbye to Irene and headed to the underground area of the academy, beginning his life as a cave monster.
The underground laboratory beneath the academy was unexpectedly spacious.
But scattered throughout it were nothing but useless tables, chairs, and experimental equipment.
This place itself was a maze provided for players to explore, filled with various monsters.
The Calamity-mutated beast serving as the final boss was sealed behind layer after layer of barriers in the deepest part of this space.
Fortunately, Carl found a safe room near the entrance of this area, which looked like a monitoring room.
"Is this... an unexpected discovery?"
Carl put down his luggage in the safe room and looked around.
A large number of monitors were placed inside the room.
The world background of Oath belonged to a kind of super-magical civilization mixed with all sorts of strange power systems. Things like magical machinery and magical puppets were all present.
So modern surveillance equipment like this did not feel out of place in this worldview.
Carl originally thought this was just an abandoned facility. But after he fiddled with some buttons on the control panel, the extremely complicated-looking monitoring device actually started up.
This surveillance device was extremely powerful. It could monitor every area within Elysium Academy.
"This helps a lot. Now I finally feel a bit like a behind-the-scenes boss."
Carl looked at the various images displayed on the monitoring equipment.
Because his current resources were limited, and the game he had constructed could only support up to three players at most, Carl had to carefully select the truly heartbroken players when promoting his game.
After all, when normal players saw Carl as the final boss, they definitely would not be in the mood to chat with him. They would only want to cut him down quickly and claim the rewards.
Therefore, Carl needed to choose suitable players. Only then could he slowly break through their defenses step by step and turn them into his loyal audience.
This special monitoring device had helped him greatly.
After Carl became familiar with the various operations of the device, time reached ten o'clock the next morning.
On this day, the epoch-making anime single-player open-world game Oath, highly anticipated in the real world, finally officially launched.
At that moment, thousands upon thousands of players poured into Elysium Academy.
The academy entrance, which had originally looked completely empty on Carl's monitor, was soon filled with Saviors of all different appearances under his gaze.
In different worldlines, they stepped into the world of Oath at the same time and began an adventure that belonged only to them.
And among these players with faces full of excitement and anticipation, Carl began selecting his first victim.
(To be continued.)