What Guild Are We Supposed to Ally With?
“But who are we supposed to ally with?”
“...”
A sudden silence fell.
The truth was, the Suning Guild didn’t exactly have a great image either.
And it wasn’t just the Suning Guild. Among the large guilds, the ones that hadn’t caused trouble and still managed to keep a clean image were rarer.
“With some other guild...”
“Can we trust them?”
“Ugh... honestly, he’s right. If they betray us, we’re screwed.”
Su Ning wasn’t stupid.
He’d learned his lesson from the defeat at Abalab City.
A sloppy alliance could just as easily be turned against them by Tae-hyun.
Kim Tae-hyun that bastard might even plant a spy in our camp.
People praised Tae-hyun so much on the broadcasts—kind, considerate, generous—that even Su Ning had nearly been fooled.
Kind?
Considerate?
Absolutely not.
That guy’s got at least a hundred snakes coiled up inside him!
What had happened back in Abalab City still came vividly to mind.
“Hey. I’ll let you go, so run out through that gate.”
“R-Really? You really won’t chase us?”
“Yeah. I’ve got no choice but to obey Edaor’s orders, so I’m stuck doing this, but it’s not like I PK because I enjoy it. Just leave, and I won’t chase you.”
“T-Thank you! Gah! What the hell?! You piece of—”
“Sorry. My hand slipped. But still, wasn’t that a bit much? I’m very offended.”
“Aaaagh! Hey! You son of a—!”
Every last idiot who got charmed by Tae-hyun’s words ended badly.
Betrayal. Sowing discord. Bribery...
It felt like they’d seen every ugly trick in existence at Abalab City.
Thanks to that, the guilds gathered here—guilds that needed to unite against Tae-hyun—couldn’t trust each other at all.
“Are there really no trustworthy bastards out there?”
“...”
Silence from everyone.
Honestly, it was ridiculous for the Suning Guild to be the ones asking that.
No one trusted them, either.
“Um...”
“Oh? What is it?”
“What if... we just participate in the auction and buy the items back?”
“...”
Humiliating, but realistic.
Just enter the auction and buy back the items that had been taken from them.
It was the one method that could minimize the damage.
Somehow, every time Kim Tae-hyun PKed someone, he only ever took the choicest items.
It wasn’t even like his guild members were the ones taking the Infamy penalties from all the PK.
If anyone was racking up those penalties, it was Tae-hyun himself.
And yet when you looked at the list of items he’d taken, it was a complete mystery.
“No... still... that’s a bit...”
Everyone recoiled on principle.
Their pride wouldn’t allow it.
But reality was reality.
The same conversation was happening in place after place.
“You’re seriously telling me to buy my own stuff back with money?”
“I’ve got my pride. I’d rather die than do that.”
“And where exactly do you plan to get those items again? Fine if they stay here, but if they end up on an auction site, every Fantasy Online player in the world will jump in.”
The players who had gathered to crush Tae-hyun were now drowning in agony.
“Count Kim Tae-hyun! I’ve heard the rumors. As expected of you—truly magnificent!”
The giant of a man, Count Anong, boomed the moment he saw Tae-hyun.
“A beautiful territory! Open plains in front, and behind it, majestic mountain ranges rising into the sky!”
It took a talent to dress up a territory with absolutely nothing in it like that.
“It suits the territory’s name perfectly! And that name would be...”
“Valley of Despair and Sorrow,” Count Marcel muttered from the side.
Hearing that, Count Anong faltered.
“Uh...”
“It’s fine. It does suit the name.”
“N-No, not at all! It is only crouching for now, gathering strength! Before long, it is sure to soar like a mighty phoenix! And seeing that construction site, I can already glimpse its future...”
Count Anong hurriedly tried to comfort Tae-hyun.
Tae-hyun let it go in one ear and out the other as he asked,
“What rumors, exactly?”
“The rumors that you defeated the demon that appeared in the Espa Kingdom, Count Kim Tae-hyun. Of course, some vile, worthless scoundrels have been spreading nonsense that you joined hands with demons, destroyed cities in the kingdom, and looted them—but please, do not pay such absurd lies any mind!”
“...”
“Surely the great hero Count Kim Tae-hyun would never commit such outrageous acts!”
“...Of course not!”
You have succeeded in Speech. Count Anong believes your heroic tale.
The rumors you created begin spreading throughout the Atali Kingdom.
Count Marcel looked at Tae-hyun with open suspicion.
But Tae-hyun was shameless.
“Those spoils were taken from demons after I defeated them.”
“As expected! Incredible!”
“By the way, Count Anong. I revived the Arkius Church this time...”
“What?! Please, tell me more!”
At the mention of a new religious order, both Count Marcel and Count Anong showed interest.
—So there was this forgotten god called Archisus, and I once received that god’s grace. To repay that debt, one thing led to another, I gathered traces of the god, and revived the order!
Tae-hyun explained everything in the most convincing way possible, then said,
“Since you’ve both come all this way, how about building one small temple each in your territories? What do you think?”
“...”
Count Marcel stared at him in disbelief.
Isn’t this just plain robbery?!
Having a temple built in one’s territory was one of a church’s rights.
Whether or not a church could establish itself there depended on its relationship with that territory.
Obviously, if relations were bad, they weren’t getting in—and because of that, churches sent priests and holy knights to curry favor with nobles.
And this bastard was trying to settle it all with one sentence.
Other churches offered bribes and gifts and everything else under the sun!
But Count Anong looked at Tae-hyun with shining admiration and cried out,
“To restore an order in order to repay the grace of a god—you have accomplished a feat beyond anything I could have imagined!”
“I’m kind of amazing.”
Count Anong now holds you in the highest admiration.
You may now build an Arkius Church temple in Anong Castle.
“Count Marcel, you should build one too, right?”
“N-No... that’s... I have to be mindful of the other churches too...”
“Ah, it’s fine. The Arkius Church temple doesn’t conflict with other churches’ temples. As long as there isn’t an exclusive state religion in the territory, we can always go in.”
“What a magnanimous god, hahaha!”
Count Anong laughed heartily, completely oblivious to Count Marcel’s true feelings.
“Then we will now begin the auction!”
Crunch!Craaaack!
The sound of teeth grinding came from all around.
If looks could kill, Tae-hyun would have died several times over already.
The Valley of Despair and Sorrow was packed with people who had come to participate in the auction.
One-third were players who had brought plenty of gold because they genuinely wanted useful items.
Another third had no money to buy anything, but had shown up because it looked fun to watch.
And the remaining third?
Players who had gathered out of sheer hatred for Tae-hyun, only to abandon their ambush because the counts’ knight orders had shown up—and had ended up joining the auction instead.
Needless to say, their resentment was sky-high.
I have to pay money to buy back my own stuff?!
I’ll kill you, Kim Tae-hyun! I’ll kill you someday!
No amount of cursing him out in their heads changed anything.
Tae-hyun conducted the auction as calmly as if nothing was wrong.
“...The next item is [item name omitted in source]. If I remember right, I think this belonged to a member of the Suning Guild.”
Crack!
A thick vein bulged on the forehead of the Suning guild member who had originally owned it.
“Naturally, the options are excellent, since it belonged to someone worthy of using it! Now then—a chance to get a weapon once used by the Suning Guild!”
“100 gold!”
“150 gold!”
The price shot up the moment it began.
The Suning guild member felt wronged, but he had no choice except to participate.
“200 gold!”
“250 gold!”
The instant he spoke, someone else raised their hand.
Were there really this many people here?
Sure, there were lots of people—but he had assumed there wouldn’t be that many with enough gold to actually buy things.
And since there wasn’t just one or two pieces of loot up for sale, he’d figured he could at least reclaim one item he wanted...
“300 gold!”
As the Suning guild member painfully forced himself to keep bidding, the members of Power Warrior smiled.
Because the ones hyping up the bids were all of them.
If the Suning guild member ever learned the truth, he’d probably clutch the back of his neck and collapse.
“Nngh!”
In the end, the Suning guild member bought the item for twice what it should have cost.
And he wasn’t the only sucker.
The players who had lost items to Tae-hyun in the Espa Kingdom all had to choke back tears and pay enormous sums.
Tae-hyun’s persistence was absolute. He never gave anything back for free.
You bastard!
I’ll kill you!
“Next up is Assassin!”
“?”
“Ass... assassin?”
“That’s an equipment name?”
The crowd murmured in confusion.
Up until now, a string of impressive items had come out one after another, so everyone had been excited. Then suddenly, a name no one had ever heard before was announced.
But what came out wasn’t an item.
It was a prisoner player.
“An assassin who tried to ambush me and got caught! If there’s a guild he belongs to, you can pay up and take him back!”
“?!?!?!”
The captive assassin’s face turned red.
Humiliation didn’t get much worse than this.
“Puhahaha!”
“So these were the idiots who got caught?”
Only then did everyone realize what was going on, and laughter erupted.
These were the players who had tried to assassinate Tae-hyun and gotten captured instead.
And now he was selling them off for money.
One particularly nasty spectator raised a hand and asked,
“What happens if nobody buys them?”
“Then I’ll just PK them and strip their items.”
The answer came instantly, without a second’s hesitation.
—Hey, what do we do about that?
—Do we seriously have to pay gold?
—How much do we even have right now?
—Help me out, you bastards! You’re not seriously thinking of leaving me here, are you? If you abandon me, I’m dragging all of you down with me!
The guild whisper channels exploded with frantic back-and-forth.
The captured players were ready to play drowning-man tactics if they had to—if they went down, they were taking their guildmates with them.
—That idiot gets himself captured and now this?! We told you to find a way to deal with Kim Tae-hyun, and you’re the one who got caught?!
—I told you from the beginning we shouldn’t do it. Kim Tae-hyun’s way too much for people at our level.
—Shut up and gather the gold. We can’t just leave a guildmate behind after coming this far.
In the end, the guild members gave up and pooled their gold.
But their thinking was far too naive.
“10 gold.”
“20 gold!”
“?!?!?”
Unlike the items, there should have been no reason for competition over captured players.
What would anyone else even do after buying a prisoner from another guild?
At best, they could PK a defenseless target—but there was no reason to pay expensive gold for that when there was no guarantee of good drops.
“What the hell? Why is there competition?”
“Seriously? Is there some kind of benefit to buying them?”
“Maybe they’re carrying something good?”
“...!”
The faces of the guild members who had come to retrieve their comrades turned pale.
Players from the crowd—players with plenty of gold—had suddenly started raising their hands.
If other people are bidding, there’s definitely something in it!
If I can buy him, I can squeeze something out of him!
“Y-You lunatics...! Why are you raising the price?!”
“How much do you think it’ll come to?”
“W-Well, after subtracting this and that... I think... around 200,000 gold.”
“...Say that again.”
“T-Two hundred thousand gold.”
Even as she said it, Lee Da-bi’s voice trembled.
Which was only natural.
It was an amount worthy of trembling over.
The combined total from selling all the loot at inflated prices and hauling everything back here...
And there were still a few things people didn’t know yet—additional goods they had quietly sold off on the side.
“Looks like we can really start developing the territory in earnest now.”