Cana
[Info] Let’s Learn the Combat Ranks of Silia
You’ve just started Silia Online, the god-tier game.
After being dropped into a quiet little village, you’re given the status of a Wood-rank mercenary.
At this point, the curious will naturally wonder:
Just how high is Wood-rank, anyway?
First, mercenary ranks are divided into six tiers.
Wood
Bronze *In foreign countries, it’s called Bronze.
Silver
Gold
Platinum
Lord
If you’ve read a fair number of fantasy novels or spent any time with competitive games, these will all feel very familiar.
The Wood-rank mercenary status you receive at the start of the game is the lowest tier in the Mercenary Guild.
It’s basically just proof that you’ve registered with the guild, so unlike the other ranks, you don’t even get a mercenary badge to confirm your identity.
In practice, most of the Wood-rank mercenary NPCs you encounter in the game are about as strong as a local thug.
Now, hold on a second.
If you’re quick on the uptake, something might already be bothering you.
Sure, Wood-rank makes sense because it’s for newbies, but why is there one rank that isn’t named after a metal?
The reason is that Lord is on a completely different scale from the other ranks, but I’ll explain that later.
Right now, the highest-level player is level 59 and holds a Gold-rank mercenary badge. So how strong is a Gold-rank mercenary in the world of Silia?
That’s where another ranking system comes in.
Novice
Beginner
Expert
Master
Demigod
The hierarchy’s starting to get a little complicated, so from here on I’ll keep it brief.
A Novice is an ordinary person who can’t use mana.
A Beginner has only just started to handle mana.
An Expert is someone who can wield mana skillfully.
A Master has reached full command of mana and weapons.
A Demigod is a being who has completely transcended humanity.
And Gold-rank mercenaries correspond to Expert.
You might think Expert sounds pretty underwhelming, but most people in Silia never get past the wall of Master, so it is by no means a low level.
For reference, unlike other jobs that start at Novice, mana-based classes like mages begin at Beginner, because you have to know how to handle mana before you can change jobs into them.
Just like players of the same level can still vary wildly in strength depending on skill, techniques, and physical ability, people of the same rank can be drastically different in combat power as well. So even if you beat one Expert NPC, don’t get cocky when you fight another—take them seriously and be careful.
The Lord and Demigod ranks I skipped over earlier are, in fact, effectively the same tier, though most people have probably never even heard of them.
That’s because Demigod is such an absurdly grand name that people assume it’s a legendary realm found only in stories.
There’s a rumor that Arca, the founding emperor of the Ro Arca Empire, was once exactly at that level.
…
(omitted)
…
That’s all for today’s lesson on combat ranks.
Because RPGs make leveling harder and harder the higher you go, the Expert range may start to feel painfully dull, but not all Experts are created equal. Keep honing your abilities and strive to get stronger.
In the next article, we’ll cover the monsters of the world of Silia.
If this was helpful, please give it a recommendation.
“Fine!”
Before Joni could come up with a plan, someone burst into the tent in a hurry.
It was a woman wearing the standard garb of a priest.
She pushed into the entrance roughly, then froze a little when she saw Joni.
“A-ah, hello. I’m Lemony…. I’m running with Fine’s raid party.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m the streamer Joni.”
“What’s going on, Lemony?”
“Ah!”
Lemony, who had been exchanging awkward greetings with Joni, remembered why she had rushed into the tent at Fine’s words.
“The Wanderers Guild has requested a talk!”
“What? The Wanderers Guild joined too?”
Joni blurted out in surprise.
The Wanderers Guild was not the kind of guild with a clear, singular purpose.
They weren’t driven by a desire to grow stronger and seize power, nor were they a cozy little group of people who just wanted to hammer away at some craft together.
They were for people who needed guild affiliation, but couldn’t meet the absurdly strict requirements of other guilds. That was where the Wanderers Guild came in.
Because of that, the guild had plenty of members, but until now, they had never really acted as a unified force.
“Not under the guild name, no. But I think they’ve got so many members involved in the war that the guild master stepped in.”
“Still, that’s amazing…. If even a guy obsessed with leveling comes all the way out here, I guess things really are serious.”
“Will you take the meeting?”
After a moment’s thought, Fine nodded.
“Sure. We can at least hear them out. With Joni here, there’s no way they’d try anything sneaky, right?”
“Huh? Me?”
“You’re basically a big-shot company. I’ve even heard rumors that one word from you can change the whole scene on Pishishik. Supposedly, there are more than a few streamers who shut down after getting on your bad side….”
“No, why are you slandering me out of nowhere?!”
“Guh— wait, that was supposed to be a secret. Please, could you cut me some slack just this once…?”
“That’s not true!”
Joni shouted, her face going bright red.
Still, because she could tell he was serious, she calmed down quickly.
“But Fine, are you the representative of the Canaria faction?”
“Our raid party was the first to step up and fight, so that’s how it turned out. We’ve got a bit of a name for ourselves too.”
“I honestly thought you’d side with them, Fine….”
“Like I said earlier, they were the ones who latched on to us first. What else was I supposed to do? Well, even if that hadn’t happened, I still wouldn’t have joined them.”
Because I was rooting for Joni.
Fine smiled softly.
“You were rooting for me?”
“Watching Joni coax around the gravekeeper somehow felt like watching someone tame a cat, so I got absorbed in it.”
“Coax… around? After all that, it felt like that to you? If it were me, I think I’d be grinding my teeth.”
“Well, tigers are in the cat family too.”
“Is this one of those Stockholm syndrome things or something?”
Given how desperately Lemony shook her head, it seemed she did not agree with Fine.
“We’ll be waiting, so let’s get going. If we’re any later, they’ll get furious and say we stole their leveling time.”
“Come on, surely not… no, actually, yeah, that does sound like something they’d do.”
Joni, recalling the Wanderers Guild master, agreed with Fine.
She was the type who had once left her stream on and spent an entire day farming without saying a word, so yes, that was entirely plausible.
When they stepped out of the tent, a more settled atmosphere greeted them than before.
There were still fights breaking out here and there, but no one was smashing weapons together with the same ferocity as earlier.
By the time they reached the center of the battlefield, a woman who had already been waiting there frowned and said, “You could’ve come faster. Don’t you know time is money?”
“How do you never miss the mark on these guesses?”
“I’ll take that as a compliment about my consistency.”
The Wanderers Guild master was also a streamer who made her living on broadcast.
She wasn’t as physically imposing as Joni or Fine, but she had a fairly large and loyal viewer base.
As far as Joni knew, there were quite a few people who had joined the guild because they liked her.
“So what brings you here, Yuki, the woman who’s normally obsessed with hunting, gracing us with your precious presence?”
“If it were just PVP or war, I could enjoy it as fun and that’d be fine. But things have gotten way too heated. We’re getting constant complaints about people being PK’d indiscriminately, even while they’re just passing by. No matter who I am, I can’t ignore public sentiment completely.”
“You’re telling me the person who cares about public sentiment streams nonstop solo hunting with zero interaction for twenty-four hours?”
“It wasn’t hunting. It was challenging my limits. I wanted to see how long I could hold out against endless waves of enemies.”
“…Be honest. You’re an NPC, aren’t you?”
“That’s rude.”
Yuki shrugged.
“I never told anyone to PK, so I don’t get why everyone’s coming after me. I’m just trying to hunt, and people keep bothering me.”
“You really are exactly like yourself….”
Unlike Joni, who had only exchanged a few words with Yuki, Fine knew her well enough to keep needling her.
Only when Yuki drew the sword she had planted in the ground did he finally close his mouth.
“So, what do you want to talk about?”
“Let’s set some rules.”
Yuki dragged her sword through the ground.
“Doesn’t this ever get annoying? You die, come back, die again, come back again….”
Even if people keep resurrecting, human interest doesn’t last forever, so eventually it would end—but until then, it was just a pointless war of attrition.
“We’ll call a temporary truce, regroup, and then fight again. Die, and you’re out. The side with nobody left standing loses.”
“So you want a death match. Like a real war.”
“Then is this more fun to you? A fight without even the thrill of having your life on the line?”
“You really are….”
Fine shook his head.
“And if the match is decided that way?”
“The losing side will fully cooperate with the winners. We’ve already reached an agreement on our end. If there’s anyone who won’t listen, we’ll help deal with them too. You do the same on your side.”
“If that’s all, then I guess….”
“Hold on a second. So if we lose, you’re saying we should just tolerate you blocking the road like that?”
“What’s wrong with that? Isn’t it normal for the losers to end up with nothing? Besides, this isn’t like some other game where you can just pay to overgear yourself and crush everyone. You lost on skill.”
“No, even so….”
“And you’ve already had plenty of leniency up to now. Honestly, if things hadn’t gotten this heated, I wouldn’t have even bothered stepping in. It’s not a crime to do things your own way in an RPG, so why should anyone stop you? Is there even a law against it?”
Yuki’s point-by-point rebuttal left Joni speechless.
There was nothing she could immediately think of to refute it.
“Stopping people like that is also doing things your own way, so sure, that’s possible. But if you want to stop them, then you need strength. Or you need to bring in so many people that it’s not even a fair fight. If you don’t have the power and then complain that people won’t listen to you, isn’t that just a kid throwing a tantrum?”
“Hey, hey. Could you maybe—”
“I’m not wrong.”
Yuki remained brazen even though she surely knew there were plenty of viewers watching Joni’s broadcast.
In fact, it was Fine standing beside her who started to watch his step.
He lowered his voice and whispered, “This is actually good for you, Joni. If we just look at the numbers, our side is ahead, so this is better than dragging things out in a war of attrition.”
“Haa… fine. All right.”
At Fine’s persuasion, Joni nodded.
Yes, after all, this was free Silia Online.
Getting angry because someone else didn’t suit her taste was meaningless.
She could either persuade them and change their mind, or shape public opinion through criticism.
What mattered was finding something she could actually do instead of just seething.
“Then let’s—”
“Who gave you permission to make that agreement among yourselves?”
Step.
At that moment, someone came walking forward, stepping right over the line Yuki had drawn.
A man wearing an unpleasant smile.
Joni looked to Yuki, wondering if she knew him, but Yuki simply shook her head lightly in denial.
“If you’ve got power, you can do whatever you want. That’s true enough.”
Clang. Clang.
Heavy sounds followed the man’s voice.
Knights in silver armor, glittering brilliantly under the sunlight.
The battlefield fell silent at the sight of the black sun emblem painted on their shoulders.
Joni’s eyes widened.
“The Empire…!”