A Simple, Effective, Powerful Word: Double!
A simple, effective, powerful word.
Double!
Gerald stammered in a flustered voice.
He was, in his own field, a fairly high-level Architect. He already charged a pretty hefty commission as it was, so hearing double left him shaken.
“E-even so, danger is danger. I’m sorry.”
Tempted though he was, Gerald held back.
If greed for gold got him killed, he wouldn’t even break even.
Besides, the Auston Kingdom was currently the very source of chaos and destruction. This was exactly the kind of place where an innocent shrimp could get crushed between fighting whales.
Gerald had principles.
Even if it meant taking the long way around, safety came first.
Even if there was a stone bridge, you tested it before crossing.
This job went against everything he believed in.
But Kim Tae-san replied without even a second of hesitation.
“Quadruple!”
“……!”
“Damn. This place is vicious.”
When Cain arrived in the Auston Kingdom, he muttered under his breath.
Unlike other peaceful kingdoms, tension hung in the air here even on an ordinary road.
This was a place where players and NPCs alike stayed braced for a fight at any moment.
The current public order in the Auston Kingdom is extremely low. NPCs of the kingdom may attack you.
In destroyed territories, you cannot receive assistance from NPCs.
“Cain, unfold the map. Let’s pick somewhere good.”
“Okay. I’ve got everything organized.”
Cain had been bouncing between broadcasts and websites, gathering information.
The forces currently carrying out quests in the Auston Kingdom!
The large guilds with major ambitions were targeting castles and cities, while the weaker mid-sized and small guilds were going after fortresses and villages.
Sigh. I used to be hot stuff too, once...
The sudden memory made Cain feel a little miserable.
“Kantan Fortress was taken by Black Rock Guild, Talla Fortress by Rudolf Guild, Igoden Fortress by Acacia Guild... Aren’t those all pretty middling guilds? Kind of awkward to squeeze them for loot. Though we could probably toss them into the mess later when it’s time to stir up a fight with the Orcs. Ogden Fortress is... hold on. Ogden Fortress?”
Tae-hyun lifted his head and looked at Cain.
Ogden Fortress was definitely...
The old stronghold once occupied by Cain and the Red Zone Guild!
Cain seemed to remember too, because his face changed in shock.
“Looks like some other bastards took it?”
“What cocky sons of bitches?!”
The Red Zone Guild had been smashed to pieces and scattered, but that didn’t mean the memory of owning the place had vanished so easily.
Cain bristled like someone had stolen his personal property.
“If it’s the Restaurant Guild, then it’s those guys. The chef guild from back then.”
At the cooking competition, they had bought up all the ingredients to sabotage other guilds, and before the arena started, they had poisoned the food...
They were a creative bunch. The kind you could actually learn something from.
To the people they’d victimized, they were villains among villains, but Tae-hyun had been genuinely impressed in his own way.
Of course, the Restaurant Guild hated Tae-hyun’s guts.
They had gotten burned badly during the arena incident.
“What kind of power does a bunch of cooks even have?”
“They’re close with the Suning Guild, aren’t they? If the Suning Guild was grabbing a territory around here anyway, it wouldn’t be surprising if they handed over one fortress too.”
It wasn’t unusual for massive guilds to keep close ties with production-class guilds like a chef guild.
And since the Suning Guild and Restaurant Guild had been seen cooperating before, it made even more sense.
“Hey. Wanna hit it?”
“……?”
At Cain’s suggestion, Tae-hyun turned to look at him.
What the hell is he saying now?
“Why are you looking at me like that?! Am I not allowed to attack a fortress?! You do all kinds of evil crap, so why are you only like this with me?!”
“...No, you can. And also, the issue isn’t whether it’s good or bad. It’s whether it’s possible or not. Though I do now understand very clearly what you usually think of me.”
“……!”
“Attacking Ogden Fortress right now isn’t a great idea. Even if the Restaurant Guild is a chef guild, they still captured a fortress. You think they’d just leave it undefended? They’ll have hired mercenaries or other players to guard it. If we stall even a little, the Suning Guild will show up too. More importantly, right now we’re supposed to be stripping people bare. If we attack first, then we can’t strip them later.”
“…….”
In other words, he wanted to blackmail the Suning Guild later, so he didn’t want to wreck the place yet!
For a moment, Cain was moved.
While he had been thinking of petty evil from a narrow perspective, Tae-hyun had been considering evil on a grand, sweeping scale.
Truly, a master of bad deeds!
“So let’s behave for now. Even if we don’t fight, there are plenty of ways to shake people down.”
Clop, clop—
“……?”
The sound of approaching hoofbeats echoed in the distance.
Tae-hyun and the others turned their heads.
What’s that?
From a far-off hill, a single knight-class player was riding toward them at a leisurely pace.
Cain muttered in disbelief.
“What’s with that guy? Is he suicidal or something?”
If you knew the state of the Auston Kingdom right now, then a player wandering around alone that casually had to be either fearless...
Or had something to rely on!
“No... that guy’s high-level.”
“So what?! This isn’t the kind of place where being high-level solves everything!”
“I think he’s a lot higher-level than you’re imagining.”
Murmuring that, Tae-hyun carefully examined the player.
The horse he was riding had a shining mane, and it was even wearing proper armored barding for a knight’s warhorse.
You could feel the luxury from a mile away.
And on top of that, the guy was handsome.
A perfectly sculpted nobleman’s face.
That handsome face seemed to irritate Cain for no reason at all.
“Hey! We were on this road first! Go around!”
It wasn’t exactly wrong.
Starting with Tae-hyun and Cain, then the Winged Demons and the Orc warriors behind them, their group was big enough to clog the whole road just by passing through.
Clop, clop—
But the knight player kept riding forward without a care.
He hadn’t heard Cain from that far away.
“What was that?”
“I said we were here first, so go some other—”
“Wait. Orcs? Don’t tell me those are those Orc troops?”
“Didn’t you hear me? You—”
White Knight’s Sun
You cannot move.
You successfully resisted with Slave’s Grit.
“?!”
“I’ll protect you. Get behind me!”
“This bastard really is deaf, isn’t he? Hey!”
The knight player had used a wide-area skill to freeze everyone’s movements, then immediately tried to enter combat.
Seeing that, Cain flared up and reached for his weapon.
Then Lee Da-bi smacked him on the back of the head.
Smack!
“...Hey!!!”
“That guy, that guy!”
“What do you mean, that guy?”
“That’s Smith!!”
The player who had obtained a Legendary Class alongside Lee Se-yeon.
A ranker who never dropped out of the competition for the very top.
The owner of White Knight of the Ancient Empire—Smith.
Cain slowly started to put away the weapon he had just drawn.
Then his eyes met Smith’s.
“H-ha ha...”
“Why did you draw your weapon?”
“Uh, I was gonna help you fight those Orcs!”
“Such kindness wasn’t necessary, but thank you.”
Lee Da-bi looked at Cain like he was completely hopeless.
Cain, however, was shamelessly proud of himself.
Hey, I’ve gotta survive too!
No matter what, he had zero confidence in beating Smith.
As Cain made an ass of himself, Tae-hyun stepped in.
“Those Orcs aren’t enemies. My junior brought them out.”
“Ah, I see. Wait. You look familiar somehow... Ah! Kim Tae-hyun! Aren’t you Kim Tae-hyun? I’m pretty sure you’re Kim Tae-hyun, right?”
Smith called out Tae-hyun’s name three separate times, sounding genuinely delighted!
Tae-hyun abruptly felt uneasy.
Sure, he was famous—but not famous enough that some ranker he’d never met should be shouting his name with that much enthusiasm!
“You knew who I was?”
“Of course. The broadcast I appeared on got pushed into second place because the one you appeared on took first.”
“…….”
The atmosphere turned cold in an instant!
Standing beside him, Lee Da-bi couldn’t endure the silence and turned her head away.
“Th-that’s...”
“Cain was on that broadcast too.”
“S-sorry...”
Cain tried to make an excuse for himself and only made things worse, so he quietly shrank back into the corner.
Ignoring that, Tae-hyun looked at Smith in silence.
Is he picking a fight?
He had never expected to clash with a top-tier ranker in a place like this, but that didn’t mean he planned to roll over either.
No matter who the opponent was, if it came to a fight, he would simply fight with everything he had.
Even if Smith held the advantage in several ways, Tae-hyun was still confident.
“Anyway, it’s nice to meet you! I never expected to run into you in a place like this.”
Smith smiled politely and greeted him.
There wasn’t the slightest trace of hostility.
“...?”
Cain, who had been debating whether to grip his weapon or not, tilted his head.
We’re not fighting?
“What brings you here?”
“A guild that helped me out in the past asked for my assistance, so I came.”
“I see.”
Smith didn’t attack Tae-hyun’s group, didn’t show any hostility, and didn’t try anything.
Seeing that, Lee Da-bi whispered softly.
“He doesn’t seem that dangerous.”
“Right?”
“Come to think of it, I think he was popular on broadcasts for being gentlemanly too.”
“Isn’t that annoying? The bastard’s handsome and nice?”
“Lower your voice! What if he hears you?”
“Eek!”
Cain clamped his mouth shut in terror.
Even if he looked that gentlemanly and kind, his actual skill was the real thing!
Tae-hyun glanced at Cain and Lee Da-bi as if they were pathetic, then turned back to Smith.
Right now, what mattered was information on Smith.
“So which guild?”
Tae-hyun asked in as casual a tone as possible.
Inside, though, he was tense.
If Smith was heading toward the Suning Guild—or toward any guild Tae-hyun intended to fleece—then he might need to change plans.
Before the Orc army even arrived, he could end up fighting Smith and his guildmates.
“You probably won’t know them. It’s a small guild called Black Rock Guild. They helped me once with a quest. I’m going to repay that favor.”
Smith had personally come all this way to repay aid he’d received while clearing a quest!
Even rankers were desperate for every minute and every second, so the fact that he had made time for this was impressive.
Lee Da-bi, Cain, and Jeong Su-hyeok all looked genuinely amazed.
Tae-hyun, however, was unimpressed.
Why bother doing something like that?
If it were Tae-hyun, he’d probably have just taken what he got and run.
“Black Rock Guild? That’s the guild that captured Kantan Fortress earlier.”
At Cain’s words, Tae-hyun tilted his head.
“Really? Is that why the name sounded familiar?”
Black Rock Guild.
Smith called it a small guild, but for some reason the name rang a bell.
It sounded weirdly familiar.
“Then I’ll be on my way to Kantan Fortress. I hope the rest of you have a good day as well.”
“Ah, yes! I’ll move the Orcs aside for you!”
Cain bowed and scraped while grabbing the Orc warriors by the ears and making a path.
Smith smiled pleasantly, then rode off in dashing fashion.
“He’s gone, right?”
“Yeah, he’s gone.”
“Tch!”
“…….”
Lee Da-bi looked at Cain with utter contempt.
“Jeez, why’s a ranker wandering around alone and screwing with people like that? I thought I was gonna die!”
“More importantly, Black Rock Guild is bothering me. I swear I’ve heard that name somewhere before. Haven’t you?”
“Nope.”
“Me neither.”
“Hmmm...”
Tae-hyun furrowed his brows.
It was like a sneeze that felt like it was coming but wouldn’t quite come out—an irritating, half-formed sensation.
“Still, what are they doing that they had to call in Smith? Isn’t that a waste?”
“There are a lot of Orcs around here, and the remaining Orc troops are still active, so that’s probably why they called him. Anyway, now that we know Smith has nothing to do with us, let’s get back to our own business.”
Tae-hyun spread out the map and traced routes across it as he spoke.
“Here, here, here, and here. Let’s visit these castles and cities.”
“And what exactly are you going to say when we visit them?”
“What kind of obvious question is that? If they pay us gold, we leave. If they don’t, we just camp in front until the Orc army arrives.”
“That’s basically just blackm—”
“Ah, ah. If someone overhears that, they might get the wrong idea. It’s not blackmail. Let’s call it... begging.”