Chapter 37
Chapter 37
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 37
Chapter Title: Escalating Clashes
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Yuseong stared blankly at the window displaying his attention rating.
‘Strategy guide. Why did this rise so much?’
It was certainly good news, but he still needed to know the reason.
【Many players have taken interest in your clashes with the Hers Guild. This is the resulting attention rating.】
“Hmm….”
Yuseong had no intention of clashing with the Hers Guild any further. He had already gotten everything there was to gain, so there was no need to take on more risks.
However, if his attention rating was rising this sharply, he needed to reconsider.
‘If I keep fighting the Hers Guild, will the attention rating keep going up?’
【Yes, it will.】
‘If I give up?’
【It won’t rise much.】
Yuseong fell deep into thought. The skyrocketing attention rating was definitely a boon.
‘Should I keep fighting after all?’
The words from that Hers Guild member about forcing him to quit the game kept coming back to him.
But that only applied if his respawn point was inside Verhill, where the Hers Guild held strong influence. If he set it in another city or village, he wouldn’t end up trapped inside the city starving to death.
Of course, if the clashes dragged on, the Hers Guild members might track down his designated respawn point.
‘Is there a way around that?’
He asked the strategy guide right away. And it provided the perfect solution.
【There’s a village nearby that players haven’t discovered yet.】
‘Really?’
No need to hesitate.
‘Alright. Let’s head there.’
Once he secured a safe respawn point, he wouldn’t have to fear clashing with the Hers Guild anymore.
‘Then I won’t have to hold back my anger?’
The thought crossed his mind. Now with good reason, his fist clenched tight.
* * *
After the incident where Yuseong massacred a swarm of their guild members, the mood in the Hers Guild had clearly soured.
Even inside the city, they always moved in groups, and when venturing outside, they formed even larger ones.
When managing hunting grounds, they gathered in groups of twenty or more.
The seven they’d sent to kill him had been wiped out without mounting any proper defense, so their response made sense.
However, it wasn’t a catastrophe by any means.
They had certainly taken unexpected losses, and their pride had been utterly crushed by a single person, but it wasn’t a fatal blow.
It was an emergency situation, no doubt. But they didn’t expect the damage to grow any worse.
“No way that bastard’s gonna come at us again, right?”
Most Hers Guild members shared this sentiment.
“He wouldn’t really try to go head-to-head with our guild.”
“Reversing the pursuit squad and raiding the hunting ground was impressive, sure, but picking a fight with a whole guild? That’s suicide.”
What they were actually worried about was something else.
“No way he’s gonna say we should go chase him down in some other city, right?”
“Nah, no chance….”
Excluding those directly killed by Yuseong, most Hers Guild members just hoped nothing more troublesome would happen. They simply wanted to keep managing the hunting grounds and raking in the cash.
Fortunately, their worries were put to rest.
But it wasn’t in a good way for them.
Bang!
A gunshot rang out, piercing their ears. The Hers Guild members—who had left just a few at the entrance while scattering to hunt bandits more productively—froze as their faces hardened.
“What the hell!”
“A gunshot? No way…!”
“Fuck, even if guns aren’t popular, you think only that guy uses them?”
But denying it didn’t dispel their anxiety.
And their anxiety proved spot on.
Shouts erupted from their comrades at the stronghold entrance. With multiple voices yelling chaotically, they couldn’t make out exact words, but the fragments they caught were enough to grasp the situation.
Yuseong had ambushed them again, and one guild member had dropped dead on the spot.
“He actually came charging in?”
“That psycho!”
There had been no attacks since the hunting ground raid, so the Hers Guild members had quietly concluded that Yuseong had moved on. They figured this annoying group-hunting lifestyle would soon end.
But if Yuseong was starting his raids again, that changed everything.
“Crush him!”
“Let’s make the bastard quit for real this time!”
“Kill him, seriously!”
Spitting curses left and right, the Hers Guild members rushed over in a mob.
No matter how much they wanted the situation resolved quickly, their fury toward Yuseong was unanimous across the guild.
Time to vent all their pent-up frustration. The guild members gripped their weapons tighter.
But that firm resolve didn’t last long.
They spotted their comrades surrounding a single man in combat.
No mistaking it. That was ‘Yuseong.’ His face and build were already known to every guild member. Streamers like Naltorri and Bom Bomi had shown his face in their broadcasts, making him easy to recognize.
They saw comrades already downed, victims of Yuseong. Given his skills from the streams, it wasn’t surprising.
But the guild members were confident. They could see more comrades rushing in from the flanks.
Numbers were numbers. Sure, they expected quite a few deaths, but victory would ultimately be theirs.
But it didn’t take long for that flimsy confidence to shatter.
Bang!
“Argh!”
A guild member with a bullet lodged in his head vented his frustration. But soon, his avatar crumpled to the ground, motionless.
“What the fuck is that bastard?!”
One guild member bellowed.
The full battle had barely begun, yet over half their members were already game over. Meanwhile, Yuseong was still going strong.
Their attacks hadn’t landed a single solid hit on him. In contrast, Yuseong’s bullets struck their vitals with ghostly precision.
They painfully realized just how idiotic it was to think superior numbers guaranteed victory.
No hope of winning. With that judgment, the Hers Guild members began fleeing. Like cockroaches scattering in all directions, Yuseong couldn’t catch them all.
But he embedded bullets in the backs of as many Hers Guild members as he could.
Soon, the sounds of battle faded. All that remained were the avatars of their crushing defeat. Even those soon vanished, leaving items behind.
Yuseong scooped up all the money and items dropped by the Hers Guild members. Then he leisurely departed the hunting ground.
Players who had watched the fight gazed at his retreating back in awe. They immediately messaged friends and acquaintances, spreading word of what they’d witnessed.
* * *
The widespread belief that the war was over since Yuseong had vanished was overturned when he swept through more Hers Guild members.
Naturally, all eyes turned back to Verhill.
As if mocking the notion that he couldn’t handle their numbers and would retreat, Yuseong rampaged freely, massacring Hers Guild members left and right.
Not just their monopoly hunting grounds—countless guild members were ambushed on the roads.
The Hers Guild’s response was to increase group sizes.
But it was futile.
Even their handpicked seven elites and the twenty guarding the hunting ground had been unilaterally slaughtered.
Making groups a bit larger wouldn’t change a thing.
“Does this even make sense?”
One Hers Guild member’s lament perfectly captured their collective mindset.
To them—who had enjoyed privileges near Verhill thanks to their powerful guild—the current pathetic state was utterly unbelievable.
Of course, their guild wasn’t the strongest in Ark. This was a low-level zone near Verhill, so they strutted around, but in the grand scheme, they were on the weaker side.
If a high-level player were the opponent, it wouldn’t be strange for the guild to be toyed with by one person.
The problem was that Yuseong, the one waging war(?) against them, wasn’t a high-level player.
“That bastard didn’t fake his level, did he?”
“We’ve combed through every video of him like crazy. He’s not high-level.”
“Then why the hell are we getting steamrolled?!”
“That bastard’s physical stats are straight-up broken.”
That was the conclusion they kept reaching.
But identifying the cause didn’t provide a solution.
What fix could there be when they were simply outclassed by the opponent’s skill?
Still, they couldn’t just sit on their hands.
Most Hers Guild members lived off the guild’s income. And most of that came from the monopoly hunting grounds.
Now, Yuseong had halted that income stream. Meaning massive disruptions to their real-world lives.
“How much are we losing?”
“No clue. How would grunts like us know? But it ain’t pocket change.”
“Salaries will still come through, right? They won’t skip payroll just ‘cause the hunting grounds are paralyzed?”
“Fuck! My card bill this month’s gonna be insane!”
The Hers Guild members held meetings daily to resolve the crisis. But no solid ideas emerged.
“We’ve gotta kill that bastard somehow! Gather every guild member and swarm him at once! No matter how good he is, he can’t handle that many.”
“How? Where even is he?”
“We find him!”
“If finding him was that easy, the world would be perfect!”
“We scatter and comb the area!”
“We got wrecked even in groups—now you wanna scatter everywhere? Why not just hand over all our money and exp while we’re at it!”
“Some sacrifices are necessary! Dealing with him comes first.”
“And if our average level tanks in the process? Even if we take him out, can the guild keep going?”
In Ark, characters lost a percentage of exp upon death. Lose enough to dip below the threshold, and levels dropped.
The reason Hers Guild held sway near Verhill was their undeniable power in the area.
And a guild’s power in the game hinged on members’ levels and skills.
If levels plummeted in the war with Yuseong, they couldn’t maintain their territory even if they won. Rival guilds would pounce immediately.
“Then what?! If you’ve got an alternative, spit it out. You just gonna oppose without one?!”
“No alternative means we agree to certain doom?!”
No decisions were made—just shouting matches between them. The highest-ranking member in the Hers Guild, who had been silently watching, finally shouted.
“Quiet!”
All eyes turned to him.
“So there’s no clear way to resolve this mess?”
No one answered.
“No helping it. Call the guild master and the main force.”
The guild members’ faces darkened in unison. But no one opposed the idea.