Player’s Guide to Raising a BUG Angel-Chapter 62 : The Journey to the Holy City

Chapter 62: The Journey to the Holy City
The interior of the floating magitech carriage was even more luxurious than Mophis had imagined.
A carpet made from the soft fur of some unknown magical beast covered the floor beneath her feet. The walls were inlaid with moonstones that glowed with a gentle radiance, and the air was filled with a calming, tranquil incense. The carriage was spacious, like a small reception hall, with a table laid out with delicate refreshments and chilled fruits that gave off a faint frost.
Most extravagant of all, in each corner of the carriage, small constant-temperature magic arrays and shock-absorbing runes had been arranged, keeping the entire vehicle so stable in its high-speed flight that not the slightest jolt could be felt.
Her backside felt wonderfully comfortable.
Mophis sat on the soft sofa, feeling as though she had leapt from being a girl of the slums straight into the role of a noble corrupted by capitalism.
And truth be told, the feeling was… not bad at all.
“Your Excellency, this is ‘Soothing Flower Tea,’ brewed with morning dew gathered from snowy mountaintops. It has the effect of easing travel fatigue.” Elsa personally poured Mophis a steaming cup of tea, carrying herself with the demeanor of a humble maid, not at all like a princess of the Empire.
“Thank you.” Mophis accepted the cup and took a gentle sip.
The fresh floral fragrance spread across her mouth, and a mild energy flowed down her throat, instantly lifting the fatigue that lingered from last night’s “excessive chanting.”
It seemed the Empire truly had spared no expense to win her over.
“Your Highness Elsa, there’s no need to be so formal.” Mophis set down her cup, deciding to break the slightly awkward atmosphere. “Before arriving at the Imperial Capital, I’d like to learn a bit more about Her Majesty the Empress.”
Know your enemy, and you need never fear a hundred battles. She needed to prepare well for the meeting to come.
Hearing Mophis take the initiative, Elsa’s spirit lifted. This meant the other party was willing to converse with her—a chance to build a personal connection.
“Of course, it would be my honor.” A sincere smile spread across Elsa’s face. She gathered her thoughts and began introducing her elder sister.
“My sister, Her Majesty Seraphina, is the most outstanding ruler in the history of the Orleans family. She ascended the throne at fifteen years old, and at a time when the nation was beset by internal and external crises, she used an iron hand to eliminate all opposition within three short years, securing the imperial throne.”
“She believes in absolute order and law, convinced that only under strict rules can the Empire achieve everlasting strength. To that end, she issued thousands of legal codes, reformed the tax and military systems, and within twenty years, brought the Empire to an unprecedented peak of power.”
Elsa’s voice brimmed with admiration for her sister.
But Mophis heard the undertone behind the words.
Iron hand. Absolute order. Thousands of legal codes…
Wasn’t this just a domineering woman obsessed with control?
And for a ruler with such a personality, the things she would hate most were “accidents” and “uncontrollable” variables.
Yet she, along with the vast player army at her back—and that unreasonable Mother Dragon—were precisely the most uncontrollable factors in this world.
It seemed this meeting would not be as harmonious as Elsa was trying to make it appear.
“It sounds like Her Majesty the Empress is an extraordinary sovereign.” Mophis said evenly, then smoothly shifted the topic. “But I am more curious about another matter. How does the Empire… view the ‘Chosen Ones’?”
This question was crucial. It would reveal the fundamental stance of both GM and NPC forces toward the players as a whole.
Elsa’s expression grew complicated.
“The Chosen Ones…” She weighed her words carefully. “They are… a very peculiar existence. They possess immortal souls, grow at an astonishing rate, and their actions are… filled with chaos and unpredictability.”
“In the Empire’s official archives, they are defined as ‘unstable variables,’ potential ‘Fourth Calamities.’ The Empire’s stance toward them has always been to monitor, restrict, and, when necessary… eliminate.”
As expected. Mophis thought to herself. This was exactly the same as the background setting she had once designed.
“But…” Elsa looked at Mophis, her emerald-green eyes flickering with curiosity. “After witnessing you and ‘Mophisia,’ I’ve begun to wonder whether the Empire’s assessment was mistaken.”
“You seem… able to guide them. To turn their chaotic power into miracles of creation. I want to know—how do you do it?”
There it was: the core question.
Mophis lifted her teacup, hiding the faint smile in her eyes.
It was time to “show off.”
“Guide them?” She shook her head, and in a voice that sounded like she was stating an eternal truth, she slowly said: “No, I never guide them.”
“The Chosen Ones are like a surging flood. The more you try to dam them, the more power they build up, until one day they shatter all your levees.”
“The only thing you can do is go along with their flow, carve out channels for them, and let them release their strength along the paths set before them. In the end, they won’t bring disaster. Instead, they will irrigate the most fertile lands.”
“So don’t try to control them. Understand them. Make use of them. That is what it means to follow the trend of the world.”
These words were Mophis’s “Guide to Taming Players,” distilled from her past-life experience as a game designer and her deep insight into player psychology.
Yet in Elsa’s ears, it struck like thunder.
Follow the trend? Carve out channels?
This… this was no mere technique of ruling underlings. This was a supreme political philosophy—a way to turn chaos itself into order!
Elsa felt her mind buzzing, as though a door to a new world was slowly opening before her.
She gazed at Mophis’s serene and beautiful face, her eyes brimming with reverence.
Just then, as the atmosphere in the carriage grew solemn from Mophis’s “divine words”—
“Wooo——!”
A sharp, violent screech full of malice suddenly rang out from beyond the carriage!
The next instant, the entire floating vehicle jolted violently!
“Enemy attack! A wyvern flock! Protect the carriage!”
The voices of gryphon knights shouting and blades being drawn echoed from outside.
Elsa’s face changed as she immediately stood. “Your Excellency, please remain inside the carriage! Do not step out! They’re only a group of brainless beasts—my knights will deal with them quickly!”
Mophis glanced out the window.
Dozens of massive, hideous, black wyverns were surging up from the valley below, surrounding the entire carriage.
So, the GM’s off-field trick had come.
Mophis sneered inwardly. To send such low-level monsters to attack—was this meant to test her strength?
She certainly wouldn’t let them succeed.
“There’s no need.” Mophis rose calmly, stopping Elsa as she was about to go out and command.
“To deal with these little things, there’s no need for blades or guns.”
With that, under the astonished stares of Elsa and the maidservants, she walked to the carriage door and pushed open the ornate mithril gate.
A fierce wind rushed in, whipping her black hair and white skirt, making her look like a goddess about to soar upon the gale.
She looked upon the circling, roaring wyverns emanating draconic sub-species pressure, her eyes utterly calm.
Then, she activated the 【Projection of the Dragon’s Treasure Hoard】.
But this time, what she projected was not glittering treasure.
It was an aura.
An aura from the depths of her memory, from that woman herself—the purest, most domineering, utterly unmatched…
Dragon’s Might of the Golden Dragon King Ignis!
Buzz——!
An invisible but searingly real wave of terrifying pressure erupted from Mophis like a tsunami, sweeping across the skies in an instant!
In that moment, time itself seemed to halt.
The dozens of savage, roaring wyverns froze the instant they touched the aura.
In their clouded beastly eyes bloomed an ultimate terror, born from the deepest recesses of their bloodlines.
The absolute submission of lesser creatures before the sovereign at the top of the food chain.
“Thud!” “Thud!” “Thud!”
The next instant, an astonishing scene unfolded.
The dozens of wyverns, like dumplings tossed into a pot, screamed, howled, and scrambled to flee, diving headlong back into the valley below. They forgot even to flap their wings, tumbling away in disgrace until they vanished without a trace.
The skies returned to silence.
Only the stunned royal knights, who even forgot to control their gryphons, remained—along with the figure at the carriage door, her robes fluttering, her demeanor cool and indifferent, as though she had done nothing of consequence.
Elsa gaped, staring at Mophis’s back with the eyes of one beholding a deity.
To conquer without battle…
So this was her power?