The First Major Update

"Hero isn't like the mobile games these days. I'm certain of that. If I invest here, I'll get back more than I put in — I have no doubt."

"I see..."

"I'll be on my way, then."

"Yes..."

Blood Demon rejoined his companions and distributed the game currency he had bought from me among them.

"Cain, what happens to the ones among them who died?"

"They have to start over."

"That'll be rough..."

"Yeah."

The dead would become the second string, forced to level on their own. The gap was already too wide for them to hunt together.

"If we die, would we end up like that too?"

"No. We have the Family Pact."

"Yeah!"

With the Family Pact active, the experience penalty from level differences vanished. Unlike Blood Demon's people, we could keep the party together even if someone died.

"Let's call it here for today."

"Yeah."

"Okay!"

The defense of Rion Castle stretched on for days. The Pope's army had split its forces and came at us without rest — morning, noon, evening, and through the night.

Steel bit into flesh. Another body went down.

"There's no end to them."

I must have killed over a hundred since the siege began, and still they kept coming. A dull thud rang out as I slammed my shield into an enemy who had crested the wall, sending him tumbling into the dark. Beside me, another soldier died in a spray of blood.

"You've arrived, sir."

"I only slept five hours before logging back in."

Ever since the siege started, Blood Demon had been fighting wherever our party held the line. Something about how standing next to strong allies improved your odds of survival.

"Phew... please hold this position. I'm going to get our weapons repaired."

"Right, hurry back!"

"Yes."

I headed for the forge with the rest of the party. The smithy at Rion Castle was every bit as frantic as the walls. With so many people fighting, new weapons and constant repairs were a necessity.

"Cain, I'll go grab food with Seolhwa. Take care of my weapon too, please."

Seolhwa handed me the Ice Dragon's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Sword as she spoke.

"Got it. Go ahead."

"Okay!"

One of the reasons Rion Castle had held out for days was that it was drowning in supplies. During the battle on the Golden Plains, the Emperor's army had suffered a crushing defeat and lost a huge portion of its provisions — which was why they had fallen back here in the first place. Rion Territory was the starting village for users. Players disillusioned with gacha rates and the way other companies ran their games had poured into Hero, and as the game's popularity kept climbing, Rion Territory had swollen with new arrivals. NPC merchants, scrambling to meet the exploding demand, had funneled massive quantities of goods into Rion Castle. Thanks to that, even after days of war, the fortress had never once run short.

Hammers rang without pause.

"Leave the weapons in front."

"Yes."

The blacksmiths didn't even glance up, wholly absorbed in their repairs. They had to be running themselves into the ground. I'd heard they were working fifteen hours a day.

Once the weapons were done, I rejoined the party and we returned to the walls.

"You're back."

"Yes."

Blood Demon and the Blood ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Alliance guild members were clustered in one stretch of wall, cutting enemies down as they came. In the time we'd been gone, the enemy had seized a section of the battlements; we drove them back off it. I shoved soldiers away with my shield while Seolhwa carved through them with the Ice Dragon's Sword.

Steel screamed against steel. Seolhwa was butchering enemy users when someone caught her blade.

"What?"

I closed the distance in a hurry. Something about this one was wrong — even though, on the surface, he was wearing perfectly ordinary gear.

"Seolhwa, we take him together."

"Yeah!"

Blows crashed against each other in a brutal rhythm. The enemy soldier turned aside our Aura-reinforced strikes as if they were nothing, then answered with counters of his own — all while facing the two of us alone.

"I'll assist!"

Fersin, Sarah, and Elena poured everything they had into him. And still the enemy held.

"Who are you?"

A user this strong? I couldn't make sense of it. I had led this party along the most efficient growth path in the game, following a beginner's guide assembled from more than ten years of updates. So how is he stronger than we are?

"You don't need to know!"

Blue light flooded the enemy's weapon.

"Damn it. Seolhwa, Fersin — fall back!"

I poured Aura into my shield and took the blow head-on.

I had blocked with everything I had, and I still caught a stun. Seolhwa hauled me backward before the next strike could land.

"That guy's an NPC. We need to retreat."

"An NPC?"

For days the Pope's army had thrown nothing but users at the southern gate, and we had grown complacent — forgetting that they could send holy knights whenever they pleased.

"Blood Demon! Get out of there!"

The instant the stun broke, I pulled the party into a retreat, shouting a warning to Blood Demon, whom I'd grown close with over the past few days.

"GRAAAAH!"

"GAAHK!!!"

"What the hell!!"

Starting with the holy knight we had been holding, a wave of them came over the wall.

"Where do we go?" Blood Demon asked, urgency stripping the ease from his voice.

"The lord's castle... we should make for the lord's castle."

"Understood!"

The walls were breached. The only play left was to run toward whoever was strongest — toward wherever the Emperor was staying.

"This... it looks like the Emperor has already gotten out."

"So it seems."

By the time we reached the lord's castle, he was already gone.

"Cain, what happened?"

"This is..."

The Pope's army had never once lifted the siege of Rion Castle. Not from the first day of the battle until now. And today, they had committed their main force and taken the walls. The Emperor had been waiting for exactly that moment — the instant the enemy's main strength crested the battlements. Leading his elite troops, he punched through the thinned encirclement and fled, leaving a great number of users and soldiers behind inside the castle.

"Are we... dead?"

"What about the three hundred million won of game currency we bought?"

The Blood Alliance guild members spoke as if their deaths were already decided.

"Cain, is there no way?" Blood Demon asked.

A way, huh...

The Emperor had broken the encirclement with elite troops. We couldn't. A handful of holy knights in the path would be enough to stop us cold.

"There is a way."

"Oh!"

"Follow me."

We entered the now-empty interior of the lord's castle, and I reached for an old memory — the Rion Territory succession war. After losing the first war, the second son, Kses, had taken troop support from Pirion Territory and attacked Rion Castle. Back then, I had taken the third son, Ryan, and slipped out through a hidden exit. I led everyone toward it now.

"Where is this?"

"A secret passage."

"How did you...?"

"I received a related quest in the past."

"I see."

Using the secret passage built into the lord's castle, we made it out alive.

It was absurd. The Emperor had abandoned a huge portion of his forces inside Rion Castle and run. We had clawed our way out on our own. If I hadn't known about the secret passage, we would have died in there with nowhere to go. And the moment we made it out safely, a quest popped up telling us to rejoin the Emperor's army.

"Damn it... no choice, I suppose. Cain, we'll go with you as far as the Emperor's forces."

"Understood."

Sharan Territory sat right against the border of Rion Territory. The Pope's army was camped in Rion; the Emperor's army waited in Sharan. Both sides seemed content to gather their strength, and for a time, the fighting simply stopped.

"Cain... do we have to keep waiting?" Elena asked as we walked the walls.

"It's frustrating, but... at least we're making money."

Lately, logging in left us with almost nothing to do. We were barred from entering the castle itself, so the days boiled down to patrolling the battlements or running into someone we knew on the streets and talking. And the only person we even knew was Blood Demon, more or less.

"I'd rather we just went to war at this point," Elena said, looking out at the darkened land beyond the walls.

"Yeah... ah. Seolhwa, do you remember Viscount Rion?"

"That Young Master ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Ryan who was around our age?"

"That's the one. Want to go find him?"

Elena perked up, as if a new development sounded far more interesting than another circuit of the walls.

"Viscount Rion? You mean the lord of Rion Territory?"

"It's complicated. Here's what happened."

I told her about the Rion Territory succession war we had lived through. Ryan, the third son, had won the first war — but in the second, when Kses counterattacked, Ryan had lost.

"Young Master Ryan is probably here. Let's go find him."

"Okay...!"

"Let's go!"

After following several leads, we found Young Master Ryan in front of the lord's castle.

"Sir Cain! You're alive!"

"Good to see you, Viscount Rion."

"No... I... I am no longer Viscount Rion."

"Don't tell me...?"

It seemed the title had been taken from him by the second son, Kses.

"Not yet. Soon... I will reclaim my father's viscountcy."

"I see..."

"Sir Cain, please — come to a restaurant. Allow me to treat you to something worth eating."

"Thank you."

We followed Young Master Ryan with the rest of the group. At a high-end restaurant, an enormous spread was laid across a massive table.

"This is... isn't this a bit much?"

"It's nothing. Compared to the help I received from you, Sir Cain, this barely registers."

"We'll enjoy it."

For a while we simply ate. For Seolhwa, Elena, and me, it was nothing more than a computer screen — but we kept at it all the same. Above all, because Sarah was eating with such genuine happiness.

"By the way, Sir Cain — did you have some business with me?"

"Ah. I came because I was curious why no one is fighting."

The information available to users was thin. Almost no one had broken level 100 — not even 0.1 percent of the player base. Anyone at 150 or above almost certainly didn't exist. With user levels that low, gathering intelligence was hard, and even searching the Hero community hadn't turned up a decent explanation.

"I see. The reason both sides have stopped is on the Pope's end."

"What's happening over there?"

"There are signs of rebellion, I'm told."

"Rebellion?"

"Yes. The situation is this..."

Young Master Ryan laid out the state of the war. In the name of the Witch Hunt, the Pope had killed twenty percent of the Holy Royal Empire's population. When the Emperor rose against him, the hunts had stopped in the south — but in the north, they were still going. In the old days, holy knights had toured the northern territories and crushed any pushback from the lords and their people, using sheer martial force to keep the lid on. Once the war began, however, every last holy knight had been pulled south. The power that had been holding the north down was simply gone.

"Even so — a rebellion. Isn't the Pope the apostle of God...?"

I asked because, in that moment, I couldn't quite square it. In the Holy Royal Empire, the Pope's authority ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was absolute. He outstripped the Emperor and the lords in both military might and political power, and through the church he had a stranglehold on the people as well.

"You're right, Sir Cain. But they lost their families in the name of the Witch Hunt. No matter that it was the Pope who did it — they cannot help but be furious."

Family...

I had been talking in terms of game lore. Ryan was speaking from an NPC's heart. So the rage of NPCs who had lost their families was boiling over into rebellion. Whoever had built Hero, they had made the AI frighteningly well — well enough that a Witch Hunt could turn NPC public sentiment into an actual uprising.

"What happens from here?"

I understood the present. What I needed was the future. Burning days on wall patrol was a waste I couldn't afford.

"Unfortunately, His Majesty's forces are in no position to strike first."

"I see..."

"Sir Cain, time is still on our side. Please wait a little longer."

"Understood."

The longer this dragged, the worse it got for the Pope. Rebellion was stirring in the northern empire, but they weren't in any condition to put it down. Peel off even a portion of their strength to crush the north, and they risked being picked apart by the Emperor's army. The Pope's main force was pinned at Rion Castle, unable to move either way.

"Thank you for today."

"Not at all, Sir Cain. I hope we meet again."

"Yes."

We parted ways with Young Master Ryan, who had grown considerably more mature since the last time we'd seen him.

"Let's log out for now too."

"Yeah."

"Okay..."