Chapter 177
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 177
Chapter Title: Berlin, Dark Elf Kingdom - 1
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One day, the world suddenly changed, becoming like a ‘game’.
In the midst of that endless calamity, humanity had yearned for an ending.
But that was just an old tale…
Now, the entire world had adapted to the game, accepting it as a new order. Talk of an ending had come to be seen as the antiquated values of the old or the reckless bravado of the young.
“…I will see the end of this game.”
In this changed world, it had been a long time since the ‘end’ was mentioned like this.
No, others might have spoken of it, but never with this much impact.
“That’s right! This whole game, it’s not normal, is it?”
“…I’d forgotten, but we do have to end it someday.”
“And if it’s Steel Rain, maybe he really can…”
The ‘end’ spoken of by an overwhelming hero who had already saved the world several times carried a different weight.
“—Yeah, let’s see this through to the end!”
Someone shouted, and cheers erupted from all around.
“Exactly! We can’t live like this forever!”
“If he means it, I’ll lend my strength too!”
“I can’t let my children live in a world like this!”
Of course, not everyone would agree with Lee Hyun-wook, and some would still be jealous of him.
‘But what’s important is that I’ve seized the momentum. Now, there’s much more I can influence.’
From now on, there would be more people willing to stand with Lee Hyun-wook than those who would try to check him.
Of course, there was the problem of carefully filtering out the Villains who would try to hide among them, but…
‘…As they say, you can’t let the fear of maggots stop you from making the paste.’
The state of this world could now be considered under Lee Hyun-wook’s control.
‘But finishing them off doesn’t solve everything.’
Dealing with this world’s Villains wasn’t the true ‘end’.
‘…The ones who killed me in my past life will come, and they’ll be even stronger.’
The so-called ‘Dimension Travelers’…
He had to start preparing for their visit now.
Otherwise, his past life would repeat itself.
***
- Following Thwarted Assassination Attempt, Steel Rain Makes a Shocking Declaration… The Truth Behind the ‘Organization of Evil’?
- A ‘United Human Army’ to Counter the ‘Monster Alliance,’ Centered Around Steel Rain?
- The World Cheers for ‘Steel Rain’s’ Next Move After Heroic Declaration and Overwhelming Display of Power!
Thus, the world was heating up after Lee Hyun-wook’s ‘declaration’.
And it was encouraging that this wasn’t just a reaction, but was leading to action.
- Following Steel Rain’s Speech, Players Worldwide Declare Their Participation in <Titanomachy>
- Russia’s <Mir07> Guild Dispatches 121 Players, Declaring, “We Support Human Unification.”
- Edward Woods’ <Slayers> Guild Announces Advance to Begin Tomorrow Morning from Normandy, France
Players from all over the world who had been lying low began to join the war in droves after Lee Hyun-wook’s declaration.
They began hunting the remaining Titan Hoplites, and the results were better than expected.
- [Interview] How Did Players with an Average Level of 49 Hunt a Titan Hoplite?
The Titan Hoplite, a massive level 110 monster, was thought to be impossible to face for anyone but the most powerful Player groups. However, after several rounds of trial and error…
- Titan Hoplites Can Be ‘Raided’ Even by Those Who Aren’t High-Leveled? Strategy Guides Being Shared…
Thus, even lower-leveled Players joined the Titanomachy, accelerating the reclamation of Europe.
- UK’s <Liverpool Raid Research> Statistics: “Average Level of Players Participating in Titanomachy Increased by 11”
- Giant Slayer? Surge in Interest for Growth-Type Achievements Obtainable in Titanomachy
Of course, it was unavoidable that a considerable number of Players were sacrificed in the process, but it was a positive sign that humanity’s overall strength was actually increasing through this big event.
Lee Hyun-wook also led his steel fleet to hunt Titan Hoplites in the Germany region, raising the levels of the Hope Guild members. The third act of Titanomachy would soon begin, so they had to increase their strength before then.
And that evening, the South Korean government also officially announced the dispatch of Player troops.
- South Korea Dispatches Large-Scale Force to Europe, Fleet Carrying 1,801 A.M.T. Soldiers and 688 Private Guild Members Departs
Among them was the <Zmeun-narae> Guild, which Lee Hyun-wook had been secretly waiting for.
‘…Good, they’ve arrived just in time.’
Lee Sung-yoon and Kang Seo-yoon’s <Zmeun-narae>. They would have completed a hidden quest and brought back the key to ending <Titanomachy>. An anti-Titan weapon known as the ‘Hecatoncheires’.
‘With that, we’ll be able to clear the final battle of Titanomachy much more easily.’
Then, about two days later, the phenomenon that signaled the final chapter of <Titanomachy> finally began.
Gooooooooo—
Standing on the ramp door of the Prydwen, Lee Hyun-wook gazed toward the horizon. Far off in the southern region, a pillar of red light was soaring into the sky, a phenomenon similar to the one that had heralded the start of the ‘Great Battle’.
But this time… the problem was that the pillars of light were rising from four different points simultaneously.
‘In other words, this time there are a total of four areas—four flags—to capture.’
Lee Hyun-wook knew exactly how the finale of Titanomachy would unfold.
In fact, this was the very reason he had made his revelation and called for humanity’s unification at this specific time.
‘We have to attack all four locations at once. That means we need to split our forces.’
In other words, a perfect victory was only possible if there were four armies that could move in concert with Lee Hyun-wook.
“Sir, they say that location is on the Balkan Peninsula, in central Greece!”
Behind him, Team Leader Lee Jung-joon reported after communicating with someone.
‘More precisely, it’s Mount Othrys.’
Mount Othrys, the stronghold of the Titans in Greek mythology.
And that was the stage for the final chapter of <Titanomachy>.
Just then—
- (!) The quest details have been updated.
[War Quest]
- Titanomachy Finale: ‘The Siege of Mount Othrys’
Through numerous battles, your forces have halted the Titan invasion.
Ultimately, even the lofty Titans have stopped their attack to catch their breath.
They will gather at ‘Mount Othrys’ to reinforce their legions.
You must stop them to secure a decisive victory. Advance to that location!
1) Secure a total of 4 ‘Victory Flags’ for at least 1 hour within 168 hours (In Progress)
2) Defeat the boss monsters ‘Cronus’ and ‘Atlas’ (In Progress)
* Reward: Distributed according to ‘Merit’ in the war.
- Warning! Failure to complete objective ‘1’ will cause the ‘Titans’’ morale to skyrocket, drastically increasing their combat power.
This time, it was a great war—a siege—incomparable to the preceding second act, the ‘Great Battle’.
The problem was that the situation was set up so that humanity would inevitably be the besieging side.
‘And four places at once, no less…’
And as with almost all sieges, the attacking side was at an overwhelming disadvantage.
“If this is right, it means we have to charge in while those brutes are all bunched up, right?”
The question came from Emilia Müller. She had joined the Titanomachy with Donald Harris a few days ago and hadn't touched a drop of alcohol since, which had led her to complain of lethargy.
“Ugh—I can finally see the end… I should start preparing for the after-party.”
She stretched and rose from her military-style seat, and Lee Hyun-wook nodded.
“Yes, in that case… I suppose it’s time for us to gather as well.”
Meanwhile, there were some unfamiliar men aboard the Prydwen, holding cameras.
“Alright, standby—Steel Rain, we can go live now.”
They were none other than war correspondents from a French media outlet.
Lee Hyun-wook nodded, and the camera’s light came on.
“…To everyone fighting across Europe in the name of humanity, the time has come.”
***
“Uwaaaah—!”
A man let out a shout as he stretched, his voice echoing in all directions.
“Agh, how much longer do we have to be cooped up in here? I feel like the parrot I had as a kid!”
The Hispanic man, complaining nonstop, was Ricardo Oliveira, an executive of the Villains. He was one of the world’s top Red Players, better known by his moniker, ‘Blood Lord’.
He lay on a sunbed with a bored expression, smoking cigars all day, a pile of ash accumulating on the floor.
“But can’t you stop smoking? It’s an enclosed space, you know?”
A woman approached him, coughing and voicing her irritation.
“Hoo—it’s a cigar, not a cigarette. And since we’ve been on standby for two weeks, this is my last one. And for fuck’s sake, this place is huge. What difference does a little smoke make? Ann, stop making such a fuss.”
He looked at his last cigar with a bitter expression, then tilted his head back to look at the ceiling. All he could see was a gray ceiling, gray walls, and a gray floor.
“Hah—if I don’t smoke this in this birdcage, there’s nothing else to do. What do you want from me?”
That’s right. This square, cube-like space was not the real world.
It was inside a high-dimensional subspace known as a ‘Pocket Space’.
In other words, they were currently inside someone’s pocket.
“…No, I’m just worried they’ll get some debuff like a lung disease before we even get to use them.”
She gestured angrily in all directions. The space was filled with rows of iron cages, and inside them, hairy creatures with red eyes drooled and blinked slowly.
Grrrrr…
They were all ‘Werewolves’ and ‘Vampires’, mutated based on the Blood Lord’s blood. The reason they were locked in cages, despite being the Blood Lord’s children, was that their mental faculties had been largely suppressed in favor of enhancing their physical abilities. Simply put, they wouldn’t even recognize their own parent.
“They’re already not the sharpest tools in the shed. What if they inhale all that smoke and become even less obedient?”
“Hoo—don’t worry. I’ve taught them one thing perfectly: ‘bite’.”
In the battle to come, these creatures would relentlessly target Steel Rain’s neck.
“And Ann, if you get bitten to death, I’ll give you some of my blood to bring you back, so stop making such a fuss.”
Woong—
Just then, a faint light began to emanate from the center of the solid gray ceiling.
“Oh, something’s finally here?”
This was the phenomenon that occurred when something was ‘brought in’ to the Pocket Space from the outside world.
A man soon walked out from the beam of light, and the woman called Ann greeted him.
“Lord, it’s a messenger from the Chairman. He says Titanomachy has now reached its final stage.”
At those words, Ricardo Oliveira tilted his head with a look of disinterest.
“Hmph… besides that, there must be other news, right? Hey, you, what’s-your-name, come here.”
The man who had entered as the messenger approached cautiously, his face tense.
It was understandable, given that the place was filled with monsters reeking of grime and blood.
“Yes, Blood Lord, what… are you curious about?”
“Hmph—I heard we got our asses kicked in Germany again.”
“Yes, the Hellfire skill was consumed, but it was a complete failure.”
“And that bastard gave some cool speech and gathered an army of Players?”
Although he had been on standby here for over a week, he had received news from time to time.
“Yes… so the situation has become much more complicated.”
“Hey, in that case… aren’t we going to get crushed again?”
He took off his sunglasses and sat up on the sunbed. The messenger blinked, as if asking what he meant.
“I’ve been through this a few times, you see… There was this guy in Seoul, a Mister Ki. Acted like he could handle everything himself, the fucking prick, but in the end, he got killed by Steel Rain. So here I am, trapped in this goddamn marble right before I face Steel Rain. How can I not be anxious? Huh?”
“…”
“You, you son of a bitch, have you met with the Chairman recently? He’s not planning on using me as a disposable card too, is he?”
He demanded, his face full of irritation. But the messenger shook his head firmly.
“I… I saw it with my own two eyes.”
“Huh? Saw what? Speak clearly.”
Although he cowered before Ricardo Oliveira, an executive within the organization, he too held a fairly high position among the Villains. And he was a level 68 Assassin-class Player.
“Green Hell. The might of the Dark Elf army gathered there… is truly immense. If they join this Titanomachy, no matter how many Players gather, they can never win.”
He pounded his chest as if to guarantee it.
“…Level 58, there are at least 20,000 Dark Elves with an average level around there. And the elite Black Orc unit brought by the Black Orc King Stronox numbers around 3,000.”
Hearing this, Ricardo Oliveira’s lips curled into a grin.
“So, while that bastard Steel Rain is busy dealing with the Titans, Dark Elves, Black Orcs, and those sandcastle-building kids… that’s when I slip out and take a bite out of his neck, is that it?”
Indeed, the Villains had invested heavily in this big event.
This time, they planned to eliminate Steel Rain and other nuisances all at once…
***
“—Ah! Well, here we are at Mount Othrys in central Greece, the final stage of Titanomachy!”
A man standing with the 1,728-meter-high Mount Othrys in the background shouted at the camera. He was smiling brightly, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses as if he were on a hike.
But when he moved slightly, plumes of black smoke could be seen rising from various spots on Mount Othrys.
“And I’m Josh Paul, here to broadcast this big event!”
He was a fairly skilled level 67 Player and a famous TV show host from Ireland. But today, he was serving as a special correspondent for <Kill the Monster>, providing live coverage of the impending battle.
“The atmosphere here is very strange! It’s like a rock concert, an Olympic stadium, and a disaster zone all rolled into one!”
Josh Paul had a way of packaging such fateful moments in a cheap wrapper, which was precisely why he was popular. After all, with such disasters repeating for over a decade and becoming a part of daily life, the general audience preferred to have them delivered as light entertainment rather than as a tragedy.
“Oh! And there comes the famous DS, doesn’t he? To be honest… DS must have given it a lot of thought, right? Hehehe, coming to a war led by Steel Rain, the man who crushed him.”
Following that, helicopters carrying big names from all over the world began to appear one by one.
Dududududu—
Each time, Josh Paul skillfully explained whose helicopter it was.
“Doesn’t this whole situation feel like superstars arriving at an awards ceremony in their limos?”
He chuckled and continued with a silly joke about setting up a photo zone.
In any case, Players with soaring morale were gathering there. Having already taken down Titans several times, their confidence and levels were high as they threw themselves into the final battle.
And A.M.T. units from various countries had arrived to set up a containment line encircling Mount Othrys.
But just then…
“Oh! Look over there! It’s the great hero Steel Rain, the man who practically brought this ‘United Human Army’ into existence!”
All eyes turned to a group of a dozen airships slowly approaching from the northern sky.
“Wow—a more splendid entrance than any other hero, a scale truly befitting a king’s procession!”
And with Donald Harris’s airship, the ‘Ship of Theseus,’ and dozens of large helicopters carrying White Tree Guards mixed in, the scale was so immense it felt like a fleet.
As he appeared, the ROK A.M.T. forces already on site moved busily, securing the perimeter.
The commander of those forces was General Choi Jeong-cheol. He was serving as the acting commander of the Seoul Operations Command, replacing Commander Jung Sang-sik who was reassigned after the ‘Great Cleansing,’ and was scheduled to be officially appointed soon.
Amidst that, the decision to dispatch troops to Titanomachy was made, and as Woo Seong-mun’s closest aide, he was the one to step up.
Wooooo—
The moment the steel fleet’s flagship, the Prydwen, landed on the ground, ROK A.M.T. soldiers approached and encircled it with a magic barrier. They were taking every precaution, as there had already been several assassination attempts against him.
And the one leading those A.M.T. troops was also a very familiar face, none other than Colonel Kim Kang-seok.
“Lee Hyun-wook… the commander of humanity. I can’t believe he was once one of my soldiers. It feels like just the other day he was tasked with closing a Kobold dungeon that appeared in downtown Seoul, haha—”
The two men shook hands, feeling the passage of time.
However, a piece of bad news arrived, shattering the friendly atmosphere.
“…Commander, sir, a report from the western watchpost!”
A female soldier with the rank of ROK A.M.T. Captain ran up and handed Kim Kang-seok a tablet PC.
“This is a hilly area 11km west of here.”
There…
“It is presumed that all of those are the Dark Elf army.”
An enormous number of Dark Elf troops were emerging from a massive portal.
“It seems that, as expected, the Titans and the Dark Elves have joined forces.”
That observation was shared among all Player groups, and murmurs spread everywhere.
“Damn it, are all of those monsters?”
“…That’s a real army right there.”
“Hah, just dealing with them would be tough enough…”
The Players who saw the scene all uttered words of discouragement.
After all, even tackling the legion of several hundred Titans was analyzed to be a difficult task.
“Gasp!”
Then, another army was seen joining them, and gasps escaped from here and there.
“B-Black Orcs too…”
The Orc King Stronox, who had gone missing in Shanghai, China, had appeared leading his royal guard.
In other words, the Titan army, the Dark Elf army, and the Black Orc army had all taken up positions in close proximity.
Even though Lee Hyun-wook had already warned them, seeing it with their own eyes felt completely different.
“…Did we gather enough people?”
“That’s what I was thinking. Don’t we need more?”
Those who had been buoyed by the victories of the past few days were now facing reality.
Soon, the commanders of each group gathered for an emergency meeting.
Perhaps some groups, who had boldly joined the war, were now regretting their decision and considering a retreat.
In that gloomy atmosphere, only three people, Lee Hyun-wook’s party, felt something a little different.
“…Sir, it’s time, isn’t it?”
Kim Se-hee came up behind Lee Hyun-wook and whispered, and he nodded.
‘As expected, a huge number of Dark Elf troops have come as reinforcements.’
Which meant that the Dark Elf kingdom was now, as they say, an ‘empty house’…
‘Now… it’s time to steal the entire kingdom.’