Without much thought, Krafty nonchalantly commented about how creating an imaginary country on the spot is ridiculous. Realistically, Krafty wasn’t wrong. But in a heartbeat, Sayooshi heard what Krafty said and slightly altered it to fit his mental narrative. Sayooshi realized something which he underestimated in his considerations, that for a country to exist there needs to be a logical reason or a ‘feeling’ for it to be naturally born, already rooted in the land by the time anyone like Sayooshi could claim it as their own. Yet, Sayooshi also realized something even far simpler and more vital to his whole project. He made a rookie mistake by worrying too much about the style of a potential Player Government, rather than the literal country which the Player Government is a part of. There is no point for any form of good government to exist without thinking about the country it's in first. Otherwise, the Player Government is pointless and should either just be a Player Organization or a union of guilds like the Republic of Adventurers.

After a moment of shock, Sayooshi requested his new friends to “wait a moment” as he jumped out of his bed and checked his computer, taking note of all the imagination gushing out of his mind before returning back into Divine Mortality.

…

…

…

“According to Niccolò Machiavelli, occupying a new place that has different customs and institutions from your own requires the occupier to have a lot of luck and hard work on their side.”

“Makes sense” confidently nodded Krafty

“And he also says that it’s probably best for the occupying ruler (in our case I guess that could be anyone we designate as “in charge”) to directly live in those new places they took over. Since it’s extra effective for a ruler to govern from a place where they could already quickly spot any problems which may arise and then solve them. Apparently, in real history, the Turkish sultan moved to live in Greece after he invaded it.”

“That also makes sense!” Krafty replied, impressed with himself about the amount of information he actually seemed to understand.

While Sayooshi and Krafty got focused on talking about random political-philosophy type stuff, which Sayooshi had somehow managed to bring up earlier on, right after he discovered the riddle for “what kind of Player Government it should be”, RemixHorizon was meanwhile bored out of their mind.

Currently they were staying inside a café owned by a tall Luminian gentleman, an NPC nobleman from the Free Counties. He has claimed to have found his purpose in life, by operating his very own café. There weren’t any other customers inside besides Sayooshi, Krafty, and RemixHorizon. So tonight, he served them as their personal waiter.

The café’s appearance was obviously designed specifically to appeal to the tastes of the higher classes of Kurajur. It was easy to tell because of the moderate yet still fairly fancy interior furnishing and colors which adorned the ‘humble’ establishment. The Luminian brought out a small rolling table-cart, which had wheels on the bottom but did not actually roll on the floor as it normally should do. Instead, it floated. The Luminian gentleman used his humble magical abilities to ‘carry’ the table with ease. He also used another magical ability when he spoke directly to his round-faced pet puppy dog on his shoulder, in a language which the three Players could not understand since none of them possessed the ability to speak to animals. An ability which they could unlock if either of them ever decide to find an NPC who could teach them that ability. The dog responded to their master’s command and quickly jumped off his shoulder, ran to the counter and brought out utensils to the gentleman’s rolling table-cart. The utensils were not carried by the dog via his mouth, but by a magical spell which allowed nearby chosen objects to also levitate alongside the dog.

The Luminian proceeded to lay out three small plates on the table in front of the Players. Each plate had a serving of a moderate slice of sponge cake, along with three cups of a fantasy warm drink (containing milk) which is only locally produced and consumed here in Sonder. The Luminian gentleman laid out all of these things down (plus other pointless objects such as the utensils) on the table, in lightning speed efficiency. So fast was his movement that his arms looked like they were sometimes invisible. RemixHorizon thought she’d be used to it by now, but she was still amazed at how quick and fluid this NPC’s animation was while serving them the consumable food and drink items. Finally, before elegantly departing, the Luminian gentleman gave a slight smile and a node towards RemixHorizon who was the only Player that truly paid any attention to their waiter. As the Luminian left, RemixHorizon’s attention was casted back towards either the window she had been often looking out of or spotting whatever other absurd conversation topic was being discussed by the two chubby fellas. Unbelievably, thought RemixHorizon, what has felt like an hour slowly draining away time was in fact only ten minutes.

Krafty briefly stayed silent for a moment before an idea popped into his head

“If we follow Machiavelli, I guess what we shouldn’t do is sit back and let others solve our country’s problems, even if those are minor problems?”

Sayooshi beamed in, “Exactly! I haven't actually ever thought about it that way yet, but you’re completely right. Even if we do get the ball rolling for our country to start, we should always be aware of everything we do from now on. With precise intentions for precise results! Especially since we're Players, limited to our own abilities. We cannot rely on thousands of NPCs under us to follow our whims like how the game developers specifically crafted societies to function in existing countries like Graypine, Visiwend, or even the Holy Lands, where the NPC rulers can make many mistakes all the time and their positions will hardly ever be compromised. Meanwhile, I suspect if we ever make more than few wrong decisions early on, then our nation will be kaput!

“What would be the alternative if we weren’t Players in this game?”

“The alternative…that would be someone like the king of Graypine. He is notorious for sitting back a little bit too far away from his Kingdom’s borders. When I adventured there, quite often there were minor or significant issues that he probably was simply too faraway to deal with. Faraway in the sense that, by the time new information arrived to him, his response would either be too late, or he wouldn’t bother prioritizing it since he had other topics to deal with. I say this a bit in the past tense since I can only recall from my experiences a month ago, but I bet he’s the same right now too. Of course, it’s obvious for rulers to stay back, but for us dudes who are trying to accomplish something amazing we kinda need to play risky in the front lines. If the King of Graypine was in the same village I was in when a pack of wolverines attacked, then I’m sure his response would’ve been lightning speed in comparison to what he is capable of doing now.”

“You just said “accomplish something amazing”! That’s funny, one of my roleplaying friends sometimes says that he wants to accomplish something amazing in this game. I’ve told him, he’s already done a few amazing things, but he doesn’t count those things as ‘amazing’.”

“Well, later on once we’re successful and prove to everyone on the server that a properly functioning Player Government can really exist, then you could brag constantly to him about our amazing deed.”

“Yup I sure will. I’d also invite him over to our project since this seems like something he’d love to participate in. But not only is he a roleplayer, which you don’t like, he’s a pretty busy person too so I doubt he’s got the time to spare.”

“Yeah… we should definitely wait a while before inviting him.” I’m super glad that guy is too busy to join us. Especially considering that guy is a roleplayer… there’s no way a roleplayer knows anything about administration…

Sayooshi had to pause a moment to recollect a memory he had a few months ago

“Actually, there might be a Player on this server who I like. And they simply happen to roleplay a bit too.”

“Ooh! Tell me about how the ‘Bane of Roleplayers’, Sayooshi, found a friend in a roleplayer?”

Sayooshi cringed a little after hearing the title given to him by Krafty

“Not very long after the first Invasion Quest was completed in our server, Isilia, tons of Players like me who had been just clearing simple dungeons up to that point started to look up higher at the possibilities available within the game. This game, when it was first released, offered many promises and miraculously a game to this scale succeeded in delivering most of those promises. But there are plenty more details in this game than meet the eye. While I’m far from a completionist, I’m the type of Player who usually likes to experience every gameplay mechanic available in a good game. That’s what I had been doing pretty much since I started playing this game. But that eventually changed.”

All the sudden Sayooshi went into story mode, telling a bit about his background. This surprised RemixHorizon since she assumed that this weirdo could only ask for other people’s information and not give out their own. So, RemixHorizon listened in. Krafty as well, since he was genuinely interested in the instance where a serious roleplay hater could have a good experience with a roleplayer. Sayooshi continued talking.

“I was actually a member of the Republic of Adventurers. Not for very long though. After the Ogre king was killed (if you didn’t know he was a raid-tier boss) most of the Players who had participated in taking over Cold Pass created the first Player Government in the server right on the same spot their event ended. They managed to create a Player Government because they fulfilled the requirements necessary to establish it. First, they took control over the only settlement in Cold Pass, along with a fair amount of zones which came along with it including a bit of territory inside the Lunar Empire region. Which already fulfilled one of the requirements for a Player Government. Another option for them was to unite themselves to reach a 500 Player count, yet not everyone who participated in the Invasion Quest wanted to join in. Anyways they also needed 100,000 coins so they could pay the ingame moderator (lesser god) to manually allow the creation of their Player Government. Luckily for them, there already was an ingame moderator overseeing the event and gladly sponsored their government, I think the ingame moderator was called Kinanawod who is supposedly the goddess of fury or whatever. So, they paid her and boom the Adventurer Republic was created. Everyone I knew was excited about what prospects awaited the first Player Government. It is still interesting to imagine what changes could entail with Player Governments in what is basically a MMORPG. But a week later, when I joined, it became obvious that a lot of work was required for the guilds to all cooperate with each other since many decisions required majority agreements. I still wonder what kind of things they could’ve done then to change the Overworld? But since some guilds within the Adventurer Republic don’t like each other, but everyone still likes being a member of that new country, they are all content with having the minimum accomplished. So, in reality their Player Government is just a union of guilds. Which is actually perfect for some Players since at the end of the day they receive various ingame privileges, yet, for me it wasn’t interesting enough, so I moved on…”

“Careful Sayooshi! Take a deep breath. I almost suffocated hearing you say all that!”

“So, what about that roleplayer you liked?” interjected RemixHorizon, wanting to know if Sayooshi’s never-ending rants will ever get to the main point.

“Oh, him? He was a Player with Dwelf character model, but I already forgot his name. Basically, after I helped the Adventurer Republic fight off a local Himenian baron that tried to annex some territory in the east, he stormed his castle and accidentally blew the top of it. So, the ceiling collapsed, and he received enough physical damage that our quest ended a bit anti-climatically. But after everyone left, I stayed behind at the ruined castle looking at the sunset in search for some enthusiasm, I was already thinking about leaving the country. Since I figured there were enough elite Players in the Adventurer Republic that they didn’t need my help and they could take care of themselves. But before I left to go north, that Dwelf randomly entered the big room I was in with his friend who was a human character, basically they were debating about ingame politics and their relationship to the lore in Divine Mortality while also examining the damages we did after the fight. Their conversation caught my attention and so I joined in their discussion, which relit my interest in stuff like Player Governments and political things. Sparking me to prioritize my attention towards creating an even better Player Government. Of course, I fooled around for a while and- “

“Alriiiight! You've had an interesting experience so far, very cool! Thank you for telling us. Everything you’ve just said made so much sense. Now I know why you are the way you are. So, can we finally move on with that quest you mentioned before?”

I don’t know how I should take that, is that a compliment or an insult?