[NR] But Where? - Chapter 503 (Patreon)

Once the Guild business was finished, the group got back to their inn and gathered in Rosha's room to plan. They knew about where they were going, but needed to actually nail it down. Though really, what mattered was the last town they would pass through.

Whatever town that was, would be the one they would be trading with. Too small, and the stuff they brought back wouldn't sell. Too big, and what they brought back wouldn't sell for much.

Not that the group planned to make too many trips back to civilization. However, they also didn't trust somewhere so close to the Deep Wilds to follow along with their plans. Too much could happen that would necessitate a quick retreat.

Even more fun, it wasn't like there was one clear direction to go. Sure, heading back the direction they came from would be moving away from their goal. Anywhere else? Well, patches of forest and other such terrain that connected to the Deep Wilds was scattered around.

They weren't at some sort of edge of the world or anything. It is just that areas of the deep wild tended to be unmappable by nature and appeared more like someone splotched some paint on the map. That and each map was hand splotched so none were ever quite the same.

After all, while people constantly worked to claim land from the Deep Wilds, the Deep Wilds in turn would take back what it could. Not in big ways like people tended to do. Rather, it would spread to small areas of wilderness nearby and absorb them if no one notices.

One day the local copse of trees would be normal enough. The next there would be new growth pushing out and the shadows go deeper in than possible. Given enough time and if close enough it would grow together with another similar area. If not? Then when left alone long enough the copse would literally move to join with another area.

The landscape shifts not only in the natural dance of shifting biomes, but magical attraction between metaphysically connected terrain. This wasn't just with the Deep Wilds. It would work on any large enough land feature, drawing in other similar areas.

The devs claim it was just an interesting side effect of them having the System make sure there were larger than life areas. That was the same excuse they used to explain the Deep Wilds as well. And to be honest? Jason actually half believed them.

Part of this was clearly System based manipulation. Tectonic plates just didn't do what was observed in NeoRealm. This was especially true for the speed it could happen if unobserved.

Though the fact that observing the situation slowed it down also pointed towards this. A hold over from old games where they would have to be careful not to spawn in new stuff where the player could see. Except in this case it involved literally moving mountains.

And believe it or not, all of that actually helped the group decide where to go. While the Deep Wilds wouldn't claim large areas of land like the races would claw out entire kingdoms worth of land. It wasn't again surrounding a person and tightening the noise.

Peaceful settlements have been known to vanish into the Deep Wilds if they aren't careful about the land around them. So a group of three travellers? It would certainly be more than happy to absorb them.

That left a strip of land. Other areas were basically wild in their own right. As with most areas connected to the Deep Wilds, the local kingdoms had pushed it back far enough that their own lands wouldn't be under too much threat from beast hordes.

The strip of land they decided on was actually a part of one such effort. The difference is that while yes, the area was officially outside of the kingdom's land. They were still working on pushing the wilderness back.

That meant not only were there a lot less bandits and monsters in the area than normal. The land was also being managed by Rangers to make sure the Deep Wilds didn't spread. Now, maybe if this process was fast the area wouldn't be the most viable.

However, despite how fast it seemed such things moved, entire kingdoms worth of space being hewed from the wilds. Most of the time it moved much slower. The strip of land had been under development for the last 342 years and likely had just as much time before the kingdom would call it finished. If at that time it was still the same kingdom.

These kind of projects could outlive the original dynasty easily enough. Now, generally a kingdom would be stable for at least a few hundred years because of how they tend to form. After all, kind of hard to take down a kingdom when the founder, who literally defeated something strong enough to have a kingdom sized area to themselves, was still around.

The strong and high leveled lived long lives so by that nature, the first ruler of a kingdom also tended to be the longest to hold the position. Very few dynasties have managed to raise heirs that can match up to their founder without said heir going off to find their own fortune. After all, at that point why bother with the complex politics and backstabbing of a kingdom multiple centuries old when you can just go off and make your own? For the same reason the founder lasts the longest, they also tend to have the most internally peaceful reign as well.

So with that in mind, a new kingdom pushing back the wilderness? Perfect area to set up. The three of them wouldn't likely be able to appreciably push back the wilderness, but the kingdom wouldn't mind them doing what they could. Every little bit counts. Maybe it wouldn't push up the date for when things would be finished, but the end result would be cleaner.