The Crusade Marches On
Carbanog wonders why you are acting this way.
Tae-hyun usually liked meeting noble NPCs.
Commoner NPCs meant there was not much to squeeze out of them. Noble NPCs, on the other hand, had plenty to be squeezed. Didn't Archisus love those who had more to offer?
Well, that's true, but...
Tae-hyun wasn't ignorant of that. However, the noble NPCs of the Salz Kingdom were quite different from those of other kingdoms.
While typical noble NPCs cared about dignity, lineage, and were arrogant and full of pride, the noble NPCs of the Salz Kingdom were the exact opposite.
They were traditionally rough, warlike warriors who enjoyed fighting on the battlefield their entire lives!
Tae-hyun had once met the Count who ruled Tyrum. It was thanks to his achievement of wiping out all the rabbits around the territory.
The reward he received back then was a Rusty Iron Axe! True to his past as someone who hunted orcs in his youth, the Count had given him the very axe he used.
That alone showed what the atmosphere of the Salz Kingdom was like.
Aren't they just barbarian warriors rather than a kingdom?
Tae-hyun had read somewhere that the origin of the Salz Kingdom was a wandering tribe of barbarian warriors who settled down after beating up monsters and orcs.
At the time, he had just thought, Makes sense, and brushed it off, but thinking about it now, the thought came back to him.
Carbanog tells you to cheer up. It says that an Apostle should easily be able to handle barbarian warriors, and urges you to think of the Akisus Tribe!
The Akisus Tribe warriors. They were barbarian warriors of the Asbian Empire, but they had joined the artillery unit through their faith in Archisus!
But that was only possible because they're weirdos who worship Archisus.
......
"Is that any way to talk about your own believers?"
Well, I suppose I was being prejudiced. It's not like meeting them would hurt...
He had blindly avoided them due to preconceptions, but thinking rationally, it was an undeniably good situation. First of all, wasn't the other party grateful to Tae-hyun?
"Please come visit our Count!"
The nobles of the Salz Kingdom, distant descendants of rough warriors and hunters, always wanted to revive their ancient traditions. However, the neighboring kingdoms had thoroughly punished the Salz Kingdom, forcing them to retreat into the mountainous regions to build up their strength.
Now, the time of the Salz Kingdom has come!
Reclaim the Lost Lands
Rise up in the name of the Salz Kingdom and reclaim the lands stolen by the Auston Kingdom!
🎁 Reward: ?, ???, ???
????? Why a war all of a sudden?
Well, the Auston Kingdom does look like an easy target right now... They were repeatedly going through civil wars and were still fighting, so it was natural to covet their land!
"Lee Da-bi. By the way, did the Auston Kingdom ever steal land from the Salz Kingdom?"
"Huh? No. Surely you don't mean that land the Salz Kingdom once attacked, briefly occupied, and then lost again, do you?"
"..."
That was exactly it!
What shameless bastards... To think they considered land they failed to conquer as their own! It was a level of shamelessness that even Archisus would admire.
"Mmh. I'm busy right now, so I'll think about it later." Tae-hyun changed the subject. Then he informed his party members that such a quest had popped up.
For a quest to start, there were starting conditions. Once a certain number of those conditions were met, the quest would trigger.
Right now, the war quest for the Salz Kingdom had not started. In this situation, receiving a proposal meant...
...The moment I step in, the war quest might trigger...
The Auston Kingdom was in a terrible state, and all the kingdoms were flustered due to the Curse of the Volcano. No matter how he looked at it, now was the perfect time. If someone like Tae-hyun helped, it would begin!
This was a massive stroke of luck for the Guild Alliance or the Midas Guild! Tae-hyun had simply started too many projects. Not only was he constructing various buildings, but a civil war was also raging in the southern part of the kingdom.
While everyone else was distracted, he had to clear as many quests as possible and stabilize the kingdom!
"W-Why... why are they holding out so well?" Woodstock had a bewildered expression.
He had been deeply moved by watching Tae-hyun's plays and had even compiled a list of things to learn.
📝 Woodstock's Siege Notes
• When conducting a siege, increase the number of allies!
• Don't just attack the enemy's territory; cause internal strife!
• Focus on the enemy's gaps rather than a head-on clash!
• Turn an idiot into a bomb and make them self-destruct!
The more he studied these, the more his confidence swelled. Ah, once he bought a territory from Kim Tae-hyun, capturing a city would be a piece of cake! In his mind, he was already a mastermind like Zhuge Liang.
...But a large-scale siege was different from reality.
⚠️ The Tillau Knights are beginning their counterattack!
⚠️ The siege weapon has been destroyed!
⚠️ A morale depletion penalty is applied to the entire siege force!
⚠️ The South Gate has been reclaimed! A morale depletion penalty is applied!
Boom! Crash!
"Tear those lawless adventurers to shreds!"
"Knights, charge!"
"Aaaah! They're charging! Dodge!"
"It's a knight charge! If you get hit, you're done!"
"Why are you dodging?! We have to block them!"
Count Tillau had certainly made many mistakes. He hadn't hired players, which allowed them to betray him from within the city; his pride had caused support negotiations with other nobles to fall through; and he wouldn't even dream of kneeling to Tae-hyun to beg for help...
As a result, the number of players on the siege side was overwhelming, while the defending side consisted entirely of Count Tillau's knights and soldiers. By all accounts, the siege side should have won!
"The west gate is weak! Break through!"
"There are only a few knights left! Let's go!"
❌ Defeat in a 1:1 duel...
❌ Too many allied players have died in a short period of time! A penalty has been applied...
❌ ......
"...!??"
"W-What the. Why are they so strong?!"
Indeed. Pan-On was not a game where you automatically won just because you had numbers.
Count Tillau might have been a foul-tempered tyrant, but the strength of his knights and soldiers was the real deal.
It was only because it was Tae-hyun that he could face knight NPCs over level 400 or 500; normally, even rankers avoided fighting knights of that caliber.
No matter how much of an advantage players had over NPCs, with a level gap like that...!
As a result, the raiding forces that had managed to push into the city through sheer numbers were completely repelled.
Whenever they set up the siege weapons they had painstakingly prepared, the knights would come out and smash them. If they scaled the walls, the knights waiting in ambush would strike. If the players tried to set fires inside, the soldiers would rush over and capture them...
It was no easy task!
With every single attack blocked, it was the attacking side that grew anxious.
"Guild Leader! You need to give us orders! What do we do now?"
"The 8th Raid Group says their losses are too high and they're pulling out!"
"The 6th Raid Group says they'll pull out too if the 8th does..."
"The 3rd Raid Group is complaining that they're taking too much damage compared to the others!"
Messages poured in from all directions! Woodstock felt his mind going blank.
"Guild Leader! Pull yourself together!"
"Why isn't it breaking?! It worked so well when Kim Tae-hyun did it!"
"..."
To think we have a guy like this as our guild leader... The guild members looked at him with pity, but then spoke up. He was still their guild leader, so they had to cheer him up!
That was only possible because it was Kim Tae-hyun.
"That's why you should've known your place."
"Hey!"
"Oops. My thoughts slipped out of my mouth."
"If you say it like that, what does that make our guild leader?!"
"I think the guild leader is crying..."
"I-I'm not crying...!"
And a Power Warrior Guild member was listening to this conversation nearby.
This looks like a sinking ship...
Although there were still many players on the siege side, if they started leaving one by one out of frustration, the whole thing would collapse in an instant.
I need to report this! The guild member quickly contacted Lee Da-bi, and Da-bi relayed the message to Tae-hyun.
"Wait, didn't these guys say they were confident?!" Tae-hyun was dumbfounded. Since they had been so full of confidence, he had thought, Oh, maybe they have something up their sleeve, but they had absolutely nothing!
"Should we just tell them to pull out then?"
"No... it would be a waste to do that."
Tae-hyun held a grudge against the southern nobles of the kingdom. Ever since the incident with the Sadique Order, those bastards hadn't helped him once. Yet, after Tae-hyun had gone through all the trouble of suppressing various rebellions and ascending to the throne, they had the audacity to act stubborn, saying, 'We cannot recognize someone like you as our king!'
He wanted to declare war on them immediately, but with enemies on all sides and a mountain of quests to complete, he was holding back.
Moreover, the southern nobles weren't attacking first; they were just huddling up in their own territories, so while they were annoying, they weren't directly harming Tae-hyun.
But just for drawing aggro all this time, they deserve to die.
Carbanog strongly agrees!
Just on the charge of insolence alone, they deserved the death penalty!
"It wouldn't be a bad idea to send whatever forces we can mobilize right now."
"Won't it cause trouble if we get caught?"
"Hmm... honestly, even if they find out, what are they going to do about it?"
"..."
Tae-hyun was relaxed. The situation was very different from before. The Auston Kingdom to the north had no room to fight, and Tae-hyun's territory was growing rapidly with various revenues and buildings...
Even if an all-out war broke out, he was confident he could defend it!
"And we just need to end it before it escalates to an all-out war."
Tae-hyun opened his list and scanned the forces he could send. I've really gathered quite a lot without realizing it.
The most vicious force, the Archisus Artillery; the Silver Sword Knights extorted from the Erangs Kingdom; the Paladins and Priests of the Archisus Church; and the Flame Unit that became available after the creation of the Fire Magic Tower...
On a kingdom-wide scale, there were the Blood Archipelago Knights sent by the vampires, Count Marchetti's Knights, the Ernesto County Warrior Band, and so on.
On top of that, there were the forces that the Power Warrior Guild could mobilize, and what Tae-hyun could gather by instigating... no, recruiting other players.
Yet, despite this splendid list, Tae-hyun felt reluctant. Having a large army isn't necessarily a good thing. Money is already leaking like a sieve because of construction...
Most guilds loved raising armies. Armies composed of high-level NPCs! Such massive armies were the very definition of a guild's prestige, something ordinary players or parties could never hope to match.
But to Tae-hyun, an NPC army was just a money-eating hippo.
I can fight alone anyway, so why raise an army?
Why did the Guild Alliance split up like that? Wasn't it because they went bankrupt trying to hire soldiers like crazy for their expansion wars? It was so bad that a desperate Su Ning had resorted to saying, 'I'll just win it back and pay it off!'
Carbanog tells you to think about expanding! As a king, you should have a larger army and more territory!
Carbanog shouted ambitiously. Let's establish the Archisus Empire on the Central Continent! And build a rabbit statue as a bonus!
Forget it. The current level is enough. I'm already dying from a lack of money. If anyone else said it, it would sound like nonsense, but when Tae-hyun said it, it was highly persuasive. Wasn't he a player who could dismantle an army by himself?
So, instead of trying to persuade him, Carbanog responded with emotion.
Carbanog mutters that you are obnoxious.
... Tae-hyun pretended not to hear and selected the forces to send.
"Huh? What is the Ernesto County Warrior Band? Didn't the Count die?"
One of the territories they captured while taking over the north was Ernesto County, right? He was sure they captured it...
"Ah. That... Galakpad's Archisus Crusaders probably changed their name."
"...I should send them."