The Dragon Unmasks
"What the hell..."
While Ryu Si-beom stood there flustered, Gaon bellowed at a volume the entire room could hear.
"How did the Land of Eastern Courtesy fall this far? Your ancestors would weep tears of blood if they saw you talking to an elder like that, you little shit! A brat still wet behind the ears, and now that the world's gone to hell you don't even know the Way of Confucius and Mencius—"
"What are you talking about? How old are you even..."
Lee Bok-dong carefully opened his mouth.
"This gentleman is from As. An elf, at that."
The word elf alone was enough to explain Gaon's age. Even men who had lived more than ten thousand years still ran around on active battlefields—that was their race, wasn't it?
"Why would an elf living in As care about Confucius and Mencius..."
When Ryu Si-beom challenged him, Gaon came back even louder.
"Listen here, pal—back in my younger days I was friends with a Joseon man! I learned the Three Bonds and Five Relationships from that friend! He told me the people of the Korean Empire were all so meticulously courteous that whenever I visited Korea, folks would treat me like a venerable elder—and this ignorant descendant of his has gone and made his ancestor a liar!"
Gaon kept shouting. Ryu Si-beom's pupils trembled.
"I understand, elder? Please calm down. I made a mistake."
"This rotten bastard tells an elder to shut up! If you're going to get old you might as well die—how am I supposed to live with this bitterness!"
Jijonmussang roared with laughter. Ryu Si-beom was about to glare at him, then thought better of it.
"An elder is speaking—where do you get off looking somewhere else?!"
Gaon went on venting his rage after that, and whether he was doing it on purpose or not, he showed no sign of stopping. Unable to endure any more, Ryu Si-beom surrendered.
"I'm sorry..."
"You know you did wrong?"
"Yes, yes."
"Then why did you do it if you knew?"
It was a full ten minutes later that Ryu Si-beom finally managed to send Gaon and the other two on their way.
Having barely caught his breath, Ryu Si-beom looked around. The guild members were struggling to hold back their laughter.
Shit...
Seething, Ryu Si-beom sat weakly in his chair. An officer-turned-player serving as his adjutant approached and spoke.
"Your commitment to seniority is really something, huh? Age or no age, they're just pro gamer riffraff—you could've just crushed them with your rank."
"How could I do that, man..."
"Anyway, that swordsman fellow—you said he was probably a Swordmaster. Looking at him now, have you concluded he's not?"
Ryu Si-beom answered with a tired face.
"That guy is a Swordmaster."
"What?"
"Didn't you see the video that went up recently? The reason we were able to bomb Hyungtun and kill him was because that man bought us time against him. Just looking at that kind of ability, he's clearly a Swordmaster. How do you not know that?"
At that matter-of-fact answer, the adjutant probably wanted to ask: if you really thought he was a Swordmaster, why did you pick a fight with him out in the open? If he really is a Swordmaster, insult him and your head could come off in real life.
But the adjutant never got the chance. Ryu Si-beom, already furious, took aim at him and started tearing in.
"I told you to check the latest intel—instead of watching the videos coming out, you were just drinking? You think my words are a joke, you bastard? Don't you know personal maintenance time is self-training time? This kid who never improves, I swear..."
The adjutant swallowed his resentment.
Shit...
Kim Jong-il was a member of the White Skull Unit, and he did not like this guild. He had joined because he'd been tempted by the promise of getting paid regularly while he gamed, and it felt like he had basically re-enlisted.
Just now, though, had been pretty enjoyable.
Kim Jong-il guided the three visitors toward the position.
"Man, Gaon, you're so reliable! Why are you so damn reliable!"
Jijonmussang laughed and chattered the whole way, and not a single White Skull Unit member tried to stop him. They just smiled faintly and threw salutes. Kim Jong-il laughed too. Because that swordsman had just tormented the old fossil Kim Jong-il hated most, goodwill overflowed in his voice.
"Alright, alright, stop laughing. You know why you came here, right?"
Jijonmussang answered.
"Yes! To beat the crap out of the commies."
"That's right. Our primary enemy is North Korea."
Kim Jong-il pointed to the trench line spread beyond the ridge. Lee Bok-dong looked through binoculars and saw several High Elves scattered along the crest—High Elves so ugly you could scarcely believe they belonged to the elven race.
"Those pointy-ears over there are all North Korean bastards."
Confronting the Korean People's Army was the White Skull Unit's main work. By forcing the Korean People's Army to hold a front here, they kept them from concentrating their strength on the Arin Plains—so that Kim Il-sung would not win. Chairmen who wanted to win the thing themselves, rather than that dictator, had been sending the White Skull Unit sponsorship money.
"What about the dragon that's supposed to show up?"
"Ah, it does. It really comes out a lot. See that mountain range? That's supposedly the lizard territory of Atorurium or whatever it's called. So when the Earth faction and the As faction clash, it sides with As and attacks. From the North Korean army's perspective, it's basically free reinforcements."
Kim Jong-il explained that they couldn't advance because of that damn lizard, and that if they could just kill it they would be able to drive deep into the North Korean rear.
"Anyway, catching that thing is what's important, right?"
"Huh? Ah, yes."
As Gaon smiled, Kim Jong-il smiled along. They traded small talk for a while after that, and Lee Bok-dong, who didn't dare join the conversation, pretended to concentrate on watching the enemy lines.
"Just stay here for the time being. I'll be going, then."
Only after Kim Jong-il withdrew did Lee Bok-dong dare to speak.
"Gaon hyung? Last time you said you were about the same age as me..."
Gaon grinned.
"Come on, anyone under three hundred is the same age! We're friends, pal!"
So he was close to three hundred. For Lee Bok-dong, it was a fresh, sharp realization of the gap between that man from As and himself. Truly someone from another world.
Trying not to feel inferior, he looked around.
This battlefield was a battlefield in the truest sense of the word. A front spread across a domain so vast it would not even fit in the eye, positions lined with war machines each worth tens of thousands of dollars. A true battlefield that countless pro gamers wanted to reach and could not was laid out here.
While Lee Bok-dong stood moved by the sight, Gaon quietly surveyed the surroundings as well.
A vast battlefield. He could see the modern killing ground that had made even superhuman Swordmasters thrash around and die. If it had been him, he would not have thrashed. With the power he had won through two hundred years of effort, he could have seized glory. If only he had returned a dozen years sooner. Or if only the war had lasted a dozen years longer...
Jijonmussang asked.
"But Gaon? You said you're an elf—so isn't it awkward, killing elves?"
"Hmm? It's fine."
"No, in Korean terms that's like collaborating with Imperial Japan and killing independence fighters, right? Your own people, too. Even if it's a game, wouldn't that sit a little wrong?"
"I said it's fine! Those are High Elves to begin with. How are they my people? If I had my way I'd wipe them all out."
Only then did Jijonmussang shut his mouth. Gaon glared at the High Elf army right in front of him.
In truth, historical accuracy had been thrown out the window. In reality, the entire High Elf population numbered only a few thousand. But the elves visible over there, no matter how you looked at them, numbered more than ten thousand...
Visible over there?
A signal flare went up. Radios vibrated fiercely on every side.
"Fuck, it's a surprise attack!"
The Korean People's Army's preparatory bombardment started a few beats late. As artillery fire rolled out of the enemy lines, this side began returning it. Amid a storm of thunder, the enemy revealed themselves in earnest.
The vanguard of the Korean People's Army was monsters in heavy gear. Ogre mercenaries they must have hired at enormous expense came over the ridge.
Strong motive power naturally becomes defensive power. If your engine is strong, you can bear more weight—and that means you can make the armor thicker. The same held for ogres, whose monstrous strength far surpassed any human's. The ogres now in view had covered their entire bodies in iron plate. They had torn the armor off captured tanks, welded it together in crude sheets, and strapped it on. Heavily armed in iron like that, their weapons were enormous as well: Gatling guns in their fists. They came charging, hosing fire as they ran.
"Waaaaaah!"
Behind the ogres, artificial giants could be seen approaching with heavy, thudding steps.
Golems.
There had once been the idea of using golems to overpower Earthlings' tanks. It had ended in miserable failure. The sluggish golems had only proven they could not possibly keep up with a tank. But after repeating that failure, another fact had come to light: no matter how slow a golem was, it was more than sufficient as cover for charging infantry.
Hundreds of stone golems and dozens of iron golems were advancing in a line. It looked as if the trench walls themselves had grown legs and were walking this way. Some had iron plates welded onto the golems' heads as frontal armor, with machine guns mounted on top. A few High Elf soldiers of the Korean People's Army stood atop the wildly swaying golems, raking this side with machine-gun fire.
Each one was a shabby force compared to actual mechanized equipment, but they were sufficient to break a defensive position. Like it or not, firepower had to be concentrated there.
Along with artillery support, Ryu Si-beom sortied the tanks. Naturally, the tanks' main guns were more than enough to crush those fake armored forces. They could overwhelm them in firepower. That did not make it an easy fight.
"Smaaaash the iron hunks!"
Ogres who had thrown away their Gatlings ran in with giant sledgehammers, looking to cave in the tanks. The tanks' evasive maneuvers were enough to shake off two-legged charging ogres, but it was not comfortable. As both forces mixed together, Ryu Si-beom realized the enemy's equipment was better than expected. Machine-gun fire pouring down like rain like that? The infantry on this side did not even dare poke their heads over the trenches.
"Those developer bastards didn't do a damn bit of historical research! If this were actual history those fuckers wouldn't be armed this thoroughly..."
He bit his nails in anxiety. He knew he could not relax just because they seemed to be holding for now. The enemy would, as a privilege of the fantasy faction, throw in absurd asymmetric forces.
Dragon...
When? From where?
He had prepared to stop it. Hidden tank reserves. Field guns with their barrels already turned to concentrate fire. Fighter jets. He was reasonably confident he could stop it. He had already driven the dragon off several times. He had even stopped it when it came flying transformed into a bird under an invisibility spell, thanks to the thermal infrared equipment doing its job. He should have killed it then. Instead he had torn one wing and sent it back alive.
He hoped he would be as lucky this time. If possible, he needed to concentrate fire before it got too close...
There was no time for other thoughts. On this front, Ryu Si-beom had to keep both ears and both eyes on every sector. Radio reports of engagements came in from all over. You could not confirm it with the naked eye on a battlefield this vast, but enemy infantry were maneuvering here and there, trying to encircle this side, swinging to the flanks to break through the rear. It was only natural. There was no reason to be surprised.
This, too, was only one of those.
A moment later, that report that had been nothing special transformed into a danger signal ringing across the entire battlefield.
There was no need to report it. Even Ryu Si-beom's eyes could see what was happening on the flank.
Apparently, among the enemy squad that had swung around the side, there had been a dragon polymorphed into a goblin. The dragon that had approached as close as possible that way undid its transformation and revealed its true form.
A dragon standing fifty-two meters tall unfurled itself directly in front of the trench line. Even on a battlefield so vast it was hard to take in with the eyes, that enormous existence was distinct. Massive golden scales caught the sunlight and threw it back in a radiance like the sun itself.
Ryu Si-beom put a hand to his forehead. Gaon's eyes flashed.