Arknightcraft Modpack
Chapter 456: After Playing Musou for Too Long, It's Time to Try Strategy
Alina still had classes to teach, and Steven had no intention of actually devouring her at a time like this. So after nothing more than a brief, mischievous plundering of her lips, he finally let go of the little doe who looked as if all the strength had been sucked out of her bones.
"Miss Doe, are you okay? Do you need any further… in-depth treatment?"
With a wicked grin, Steven met Alina's eyes, reached out, and gently touched her flushed cheeks—so hot they seemed ready to give her a fever.
The young woman, who had nearly passed out from lack of air just moments ago, took a few deep breaths before shyly pushing against Steven's chest.
"I'm not dealing with you," she said. "I'm going to teach the kids."
After hastily straightening her disheveled clothes, Alina ignored Steven's obvious attempt to tease her and walked off rather awkwardly toward the crude classroom.
"Oh, by the way," Steven called after her, still joking, "are you going to Talulah's place tonight or not? There might really be glowing toys, you know?"
Just like he enjoyed watching Talulah the little fire dragon get flustered, Steven also loved seeing the usually gentle Alina react like a bashful schoolgirl.
"I'll… think about it," Alina replied without turning her head.
Her voice was still tinged with lingering embarrassment, making it impossible for Steven to tell whether she was serious or just brushing him off.
In any case, the answer would have to wait until nightfall. Steven decided not to tease her any further. After pausing in place for a moment of thought, he opened a black hole and vanished from the camp.
When he reappeared, he was already back inside the simple wooden cabin he had built on the snowy plains. After checking that no one had broken in, Steven finally relaxed and headed down to the hot spring beneath the cabin, sinking into the warm water with a satisfied sigh.
Unlike his usual habit of closing his eyes and resting, this time he also opened up the mod selection interface.
Steven had just thought of something rather important, which was why he was scrolling through the mod list in search of what he needed.
—His personal strength was already more than sufficient. But no matter how you looked at it, he needed a force of his own.
Something like a secret police unit, or an elite guard—an organization that would be absolutely loyal to him.
The Block Consortium of Kazimierz, with its foundation in the former Armorless Union, could be considered one of the stronger assets under his influence.
But first, their loyalty could not be fully guaranteed. And second, at the end of the day, it was still just an assassination organization. In this world, it simply wasn't enough to influence conflicts between nations when things truly escalated.
He wanted a force capable of standing toe-to-toe with a nation's field army, only then would it truly satisfy him.
After all, once you've played Musou-style power fantasies for too long, it's only natural to want to change things up and try your hand at survival-building and grand strategy warfare instead.
Just that the problem at hand was what kind of units and members he should use to fulfill this idea.
Iron Golems and Snow Golems could be produced easily even without mods, but the issue was that neither of them truly obeyed his commands. Under normal circumstances, he could nudge their behavior a bit, but once they were thrown into real combat, things would get messy fast.
What he needed were units with absolute efficiency and loyalty—soldiers he could command on the battlefield with pinpoint precision, like ordering a machine gunner to move three meters to the left at a moment's notice. To achieve that level of control, relying on mods was unavoidable.
"The Tamed Monster Mod isn't bad," Steven muttered softly. "Plenty of unit options too—Creepers, Zombies, Skeletons, melee and ranged all covered. There's even stuff like Johnny. If resources are abundant in the late game, having a few Ender Dragons or Withers would definitely be flashy."
Despite that, Steven quickly shifted his gaze away from the mod.
The choices were indeed plentiful. In a normal world, an army composed of vanilla Minecraft monsters might very well meet the combat requirements. But unfortunately, this world had Originium Arts.
Sure, such a monster army could deal with ordinary Ursus Infected patrols, or even clash head-on with regular Ursus field armies without much trouble. But once they ran into elites like Yelena's Yeti Squadron, or Patriot's Shieldguards, their combat power would fall short.
And then there were the Royal Guards. Though small in number, each one was powerful.
If Ursus possessed troops like that yet still hadn't become the sole ruler of the world, then it was obvious that other nations must also have their own trump-card elite forces.
Steven didn't expect his personal guard to reach the level of the Royal Guards—but at the very least, they should be able to match the Shieldguards under Patriot, right?
Sure, stacking an Elite Champion–type mod on top of this one could massively boost the monsters' combat power. But running two mods at once just to achieve that effect was something he wasn't too keen on.
"Armed Villagers?"
Steven found another promising mod and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Villagers are actually decent combat units. They can handle development tasks on the side too, and the cost is dirt cheap. Just grab a few villagers, slap down a dozen doors, and let them breed like crazy. Mass production at its finest."
This villager-based mod wasn't bad at all. The biggest selling point was how absurdly low the cost of massing troops was. Steven wouldn't even need to invest real resources—just build a villager production line and flood the map with manpower. Near-zero-cost deployment, easily churning out dozens of army groups.
But before long, Steven rejected the idea himself.
Same old problem. Even with tougher variants like militia villagers, they were still fundamentally fodder. To fight, they needed equipment—and even then, their strength had a hard ceiling. Winning purely through meat-grinder tactics felt… boring.
"In the end, does that leave only one option?"
Steven let out a quiet sigh. "If I'm going down the elite route, it might actually work."
His gaze finally settled on a mod with a rather eye-catching name:
[Touhou Little Maid].
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Note:
Tamed Monster Mod: https://www.mcmod.cn/class/8090.html
Touhou Little Maid:
https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/touhou-little-maid
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Note: Character Illustration is in this Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iuyfwNVFHzIi9H4rWNT_lAm7jTSiah_M
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If you want to see more chapter of this story and don't mind spending $5 monthly to see till the latest chapter, please go to my Patreon[1].
Latest Chapter in Patreon: Chapter 521: Is That Something a Normal Person Would Say?[2]
Link to the latest chapter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/152281351?collection=55713[3]
https://www.patreon.com/collection/55713?view=condensed[4]
[1] https://www.patreon.com/collection/55713?view=condensed
[2] https://www.patreon.com/posts/152281351?collection=55713
[3] https://www.patreon.com/posts/152281351?collection=55713
[4] https://www.patreon.com/collection/55713?view=condensed