Chapter 71
Chapter 71
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 70
Chapter Title: Pay-to-Win Knight
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[The Hell difficulty of Balkan Orc Fortress (Normal~Rare) has been cleared!]
[The guild that completes the conditions first can apply for the siege!]
[A Shabby Earthen Fortress (Normal) appears!]
[Upgrading Shabby Earthen Fortress (Normal) to Pristine Brick Castle (Advanced)!]
[Upgrading Pristine Brick Castle (Advanced) to Splendid Fortress (Rare)!]
[Upgrading Splendid Fortress (Rare) to Perfect Fortress City (Heroic)!]
In one go, I poured 70,000 diamonds to raise the castle up to heroic grade.
"Diamonds are bursting out like fireworks. And there are tons more castles to conquer ahead."
But I couldn't skip upgrading the castle just because it was a waste of money. To fight off the hordes of ice monsters that would come swarming, we had to use the castle as our base.
If we got careless with an advanced or rare-grade castle and it fell, the situation would turn dire.
"In a scenario where both numbers and average stats are lacking, we have to dominate at least in terrain."
I left the lord's castle and headed down to the central plaza. The fortress city showed no signs of life.
With the siege over, all the orcs had vanished, and there were no humans they'd been holding captive either.
"Even if there were any, they'd probably all be dead by now."
Even sturdy orcs had been shivering like aspen leaves in that cold—regular people wouldn't have stood a chance.
Boom!
At that moment, a massive explosion echoed from the south. It wasn't hard to guess what it was.
"Golems."
Only the orcs had disappeared; the ice monsters remained. They'd been pushed out of the dungeon after the clear, and now they were charging back to hammer at the gates.
"Let's see... Chat with Steelstone and Hundred."
[20 shares → 8 shares]
The chat connected as my shares decreased.
And in that state, I said,
Han Jaeyeon: Finished the siege and secured the castle. Enter through the north gate the moment you arrive. Prepare for defense.
Steelstone: Confirmed the castle's status.
Hundred: We'll hurry as much as we can.
After their replies, I headed to the south gate. No rush. A heroic-grade gate wasn't something that broke easily.
There was a gatekeeper standing there.
"Raaargh!"
A bloodied yeti let out a guttural roar and went berserk. Ignoring its own wounds, it charged, swinging a fist the size of a man's head with lightning speed.
That momentum was ferocious enough to kill a wild bear in one hit, but—
Clang!
A flexible rapier deflected the fist. The yeti, over 2.5 meters tall, staggered like it was nothing. The blade that parried the punch in a single motion slithered up the arm like a fish swimming upstream.
Splurt!
A small hole pierced the yeti's skull.
"Die! You arrogant bitch...!"
A snow woman wrapped in chilling mist wailed a curse as she lunged, but the whipping sword strike tore her apart before she could even scream.
Sword energy was a deadly threat to semi-spiritual beings like snow women.
"Fighting well."
True to their ice nature, the ice monsters had crossed the moat effectively—by forming an ice bridge right up to the gate.
But the elite monsters that reached it and started pounding were getting shredded by the gatekeeper.
"Sword Master, huh..."
Even I hadn't expected her to shed her mortal shell and become a Sword Master the instant she got her class.
"Just gaining memories boosted her realm like that... It's subtle in many ways. Wonder how much synchronization happened."
Upon acquiring the Duelist class, Hayes had mastered all its unique job skills and wielded them flawlessly. Well, those skills were originally based on her own techniques, so it made sense.
Flash!
She darted in like lightning, piercing an ice elemental's core.
Slice!
She severed an ice golem's ankle, toppling its balance.
Crunch!
She thrust her rapier into its thick torso, silencing it in an instant.
"Hoo..."
Before long, the area in front of the gate fell into a lull.
The ice elementals couldn't easily charge against such overwhelming prowess.
"Opening the gate."
"Oh! You're here? Wow, I heard about it, but it's still amazing. A castle this massive appearing like magic."
Creak!
I manipulated the interface, and the gate swung open. Considering the thousands of monsters waiting outside, it was insane, but neither she nor I batted an eye.
Thud! Crack!
The gate-cum-drawbridge lowered, smashing the ice bridge. Hayes nimbly sidestepped to my side.
Her face was flushed red with excitement.
"I'm super strong now! Even stronger than before, I think? Whoa! Leveling up gave me stat points and everything."
"First time getting a class, huh."
"Of course! I clawed my way to this realm after nearly dying a bunch of times."
The odds of a class card dropping from a monster were one in a hundred million, so it was only natural.
Even in Revenge, where millions of players ran auto-hunts daily, killing thousands to tens of thousands of monsters, they were rare. In Ardenia without a goddess's blessing, it was worse.
"Deflecting enemy attacks speeds up my movements—it's insane. And these skills... I could beat that Khan Slasher guy now, right?"
I smiled at her excited expression.
"The problem is we have to fight even worse ones."
"Oh! Yeah... now that you mention it."
Hayes, who'd been pumped up, deflated.
I patted her shoulder and stepped forward.
Whoooosh!
With the elites wiped by Hayes, the ice elementals surged like a tidal wave.
The chilling cold spreading across the ground formed a layer of thin ice.
"Straight line... Perfect."
I formed hand seals. Four simple motions, nothing long or complex.
Body, Acceleration, Heavy Gate—Open.
Body Acceleration.
The fairly common chakra technique activated, slowing the oncoming ice elementals.
In the slowed time, I drew a Bone Longsword (Normal) from my inventory. Infused with internal energy, it trembled faintly.
[Critical Hit!]
The thrown bone longsword shattered the lead ice elemental's core and kept going.
The next one took it to the head, the one after to the shoulder, then chest, then grazed the shoulder.
Next was head again. The one after missed—because the bone longsword, which I'd thrown level with the ground, gained altitude and soared skyward.
"Ah, angle a bit lower."
I fired the second bone longsword. It pierced twenty elementals before embedding in the dirt. The debris from the final bounce had decent lethality, but the short range was disappointing.
"This time, more spin."
Third throw. The sword spun horizontally forward.
And around then—
The [sound] arrived.
Boom----
The air exploded, scattering fragments of destroyed ice elementals everywhere. But I ignored it.
Only one thing mattered.
"How do I throw the bone longsword level with the ground for maximum distance?"
The third flew about 150 meters before arcing upward, due to the lift from its spin.
"Too little spin is bad too. The impact throws off the trajectory."
With so many enemies now, it didn't matter, but lower accuracy wasn't ideal.
"Throw from a lower point..."
I threw. Threw again and again.
And found the answer.
[Sword Qi Manifested]
The skill-generated sword qi—not from enlightenment—faded the moment I released the bone longsword, vanishing without a trace in one second.
"One second."
Enough time for it to fly 700 meters.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Kaboom!
The icy tidal wave collapsed with holes punched through, long scratches gouged everywhere, and earth overturned, turning the landscape into a mess.
All in mere seconds.
But the final bone longsword sliced straight through the monsters, embedding in one far off.
"Phew... Success. Easily 500 meters."
"......"
I turned to see Hayes standing there, mouth agape.
"I can see your uvula."
"Huh, what... What the hell? You're a total monster!"
"Stronger than your average monster, yeah."
I shook out my right hand. Continuous throws had bruised my entire right arm. My fingertips had burst from the pressure, blood dripping steadily.
"No... This isn't the fight I imagined."
"What did you imagine?"
"I thought you'd show off exquisite swordsmanship. You're the genius swordsman who mastered the Heavenly Dragon Sword Art—the continent's strongest sword technique—even revealing it to soldiers, and fully comprehended and refined the Starlight Marquis household's training just by watching, right?"
"......"
"Ah! You're so strong now that you don't even need swordsmanship!"
"......"
Looks like Hayes had some big misconceptions about me. But as I went to explain—
[Stamina increased by 1 point for unknown reasons!]
[Vitality increased by 1 point for unknown reasons!]
"Nice. Training instead of illness. Not like I'm some vital energy cultivator."
I pulled a rice cake from my inventory and ate it.
[Consumed Mugwort Rice Cake (Advanced)! Recovery and mana recovery +100 for 4 hours!]
"Ah, almost out. Lunar New Year's rice cake soup event was my hope, but the supply was low."
Luckily, there'd been a food event for Lunar New Year too.
Target: Rice cake soup!
But... The amount I could snag was a measly(?) few thousand bowls.
"Can't compare to the tens of thousands of rice cakes."
Truth is, the rice cake drop rate was a remnant of a patch for a bug; players dumping them everywhere wasn't the devs' intent.
"Now they just leave it be—no need to patch."
The rice cake soup drops were normal, so few were discarded. Even scraping every last one, supply was limited.
"If only there was an event here... Wait, hold on?"
A sudden idea hit me, and I spoke up.
"Take a break. Seal the gate for me."
"Got it."
I watched Hayes walk off for a moment, then muttered.
"Delete chat."
[8 shares → 20 shares]
And in that state, I said,
"Activate the Chuseok rice cake event."
My words dropped the 20 shares to zero instantly, then back to 20. Impossible.
But I realized one thing.
"The speed's different."
Shares don't drop all at once. Not straight from 10 to 0, but 9... 8... 7... down to 0.
Meaning, by measuring the depletion rate... I could reverse-engineer the share cost for this power. [Patch].
"Let's see."
I sat right there and calculated. Using the 6-share chat as baseline, I tested other patches.
Result came quick.
"Chuseok event... about 12,000 shares."
For reference, one Nemesis share was over ten million won now.
So the value for that patch?
"Eat shit and die, you crazy bastards..."
At least 120 billion won.
"Ha."
I sighed in disbelief, then realized something.
"Wait, what about NPCs? How many shares for a shop NPC in one city?"
My words dropped shares to zero again, then back.
Calculation done instantly. Slower than before.
"34 shares!"
Just 340 million won!
Tears of emotion welled up.
Truly like a fairy.