The Siege of the Sadiq Fortress
She tried to change the subject, but Tae-hyun wasn't about to let it slide.
"I asked you what happened. Why are there other players here?"
"Well, obviously I brought them to help you!"
Realizing she couldn't dodge the question, Lee Se-yeon answered with sheer bravado. In situations like this, backing down only puts you at a disadvantage!
"To... help me?"
Tae-hyun paused. If anyone else had heard those words from Lee Se-yeon, they would have shed tears of deep gratitude, thinking, Oh my god, Lee Se-yeon said that for me? But Tae-hyun was different. In his eyes, Lee Se-yeon was a wicked, underhanded individual—the exact opposite of his own righteous self!
This doesn't make any sense.
"Yeah. There's only so much I can do to help you on my own, right? So I gathered some people."
"How?"
"I just asked, and they showed up."
"..."
Tae-hyun was shocked once again. By his standards, people gathering like this made absolutely no sense. This was a Legendary-grade quest with no known clear method and barely any public information. Following someone into this wasn't just naive; it was downright foolish! If it were Tae-hyun, he would never have accepted such a suspicious proposal.
Yet Lee Se-yeon had pulled it off.
This is why celebrities are something else. Normally, no one would ever tag along for something like this, but she made them all follow her.
There was one thing Tae-hyun was overlooking: Lee Se-yeon had used his name! When word got out that Tae-hyun was joining a quest alongside Lee Se-yeon, a massive number of players tagged along simply out of sheer curiosity about what kind of quest it could be. Tae-hyun still didn't fully comprehend the sheer weight of his own reputation.
"Aren't you grateful? Aren't you?"
"Th-Th-Th..."
"Yes! Say it! Say thank you!"
"Ugh...!"
Losing the moral high ground, Tae-hyun writhed in agony. Saying "thank you" to Lee Se-yeon was a fate worse than death. In contrast, Lee Se-yeon was practically trembling with anticipation. It was a small victory, but it was a golden opportunity to bring Tae-hyun to his knees!
"Haa... haa..."
"S-Sis? What's wrong with you?"
Beside her, Hyun-ah stared at Lee Se-yeon with a horrified expression. This was a side of her she had never seen before! What on earth were they whispering about to make her breathe so heavily?
The one who saved Tae-hyun from his crisis was Burford.
"Everyone, gather up! What the hell is going on?"
"Ah, Burford is calling. Let's talk later."
"Hey! Hey! Don't you dare hang up on me!"
But there was no way Tae-hyun would reply. In that moment, Lee Se-yeon felt a sudden wave of déjà vu.
Ah. Back in Pan-On 1...
Tae-hyun had logged off right in her face when she invited him to join her guild.
And in the Auston Kingdom too...
Even when she had generously offered him a deal during the Orc invasion (even though he had stolen her crown!), Tae-hyun had flatly refused.
Now that I think about it, this jerk rejects literally everything I propose!
The memories brought a fresh wave of anger washing over her. It wasn't like her proposals had been bad, either. No matter how she looked at it, they were all incredibly good offers.
Yeah. No matter how much I think about it, it's not my fault. It's all Kim Tae-hyun's fault!
Dealing with someone like him was starting to make her feel like she was losing her mind. Lee Se-yeon pushed aside her frustration with Tae-hyun and focused on the task at hand. What mattered right now was conquering the Sadiq Church!
But wait, Burford? If it's Burford, he should be the first player to have joined the Sadiq Church... Did Tae-hyun meet him inside? How?
She was dying to know what had transpired while she wasn't looking.
"They're saying a subjugation force has arrived right outside! What the hell is going on?!"
As Burford shouted in a panic, one of the rogue players raised a hand and spoke.
"Isn't it just some party that stumbled here by accident?"
With the Arena League and everything else, interest in the Prica Continent was skyrocketing. It was entirely possible that some new players wandering the mountain range had just happened to arrive at their doorstep.
But Burford beat his chest in sheer frustration.
"I'm telling you, that's not it! It's a massive army! And Lee Se-yeon is the one leading them!"
"What?!"
"Lee Se-yeon?!"
The expressions of the rogue party shifted instantly. Lee Se-yeon herself leading a subjugation force here? This was not news they could take lightly.
Player 1: Hey, what's going on? How did they find out about this place?
Player 2: More importantly, shouldn't we decide what to do? We just joined this faction. Are we really going to leave without getting anything?
Player 3: Ugh, why did Lee Se-yeon have to show up here of all places...
Player 4: Let's wait a bit. We don't know if this fortress will fall that easily. If we manage to defend it, we'll get a ton of contribution points. Let's grab those and run.
They decided to stay for now. Even to their eyes, the fortress looked incredibly sturdy. On top of that, they had the military might of the Sadiq Church, the dark elves, and warriors from other tribes. No matter how strong Lee Se-yeon was, surely they could hold out against her with this much defense?
"Why is nobody answering me?"
While the rogue players whispered among themselves, Burford grew increasingly anxious.
"Does anyone know what's going on? Huh? How on earth did the players outside find out about this place?"
"Well..."
"Isn't it obvious? You're the only suspect."
"?!"
One of the rogue players pointed a finger at Burford. His tone was polite, but his words were anything but.
"What? Why me?!"
"Well, we only found this place because of the post you uploaded..."
"..."
Come to think of it, he was right. Burford had indeed uploaded a post introducing the Sadiq Church on the community forums. Of course, he hadn't written it so blatantly that anyone could immediately pinpoint the location of the headquarters. Since players could reach the headquarters by joining the faction from the outside, his post had focused primarily on how to join. But in their current situation, that distinction was meaningless. The most likely source of the leak was Burford's post!
"N-No, it wasn't me! I specifically left out the location of the headquarters! It was just a guide on how to join from the outside! You guys saw it too!"
"Sure, we saw that one, but it's not like you only wrote one or two posts. You practically spammed the forums. Didn't you make a mistake in one of them?"
"I'm telling you, I didn't!"
Burford beat his chest in frustration, but the rogue party's gazes had already turned ice-cold. They looked at him as if he were undoubtedly the culprit! Of course, the real culprit was Tae-hyun, but they couldn't possibly imagine that this weak-looking player had backstabbed them. After all, to reach this headquarters, he must have cleared quite a few quests; why would he throw away all that effort by leaking the information?
I'm starting to feel a tiny bit guilty.
Watching Burford tear up as he was cornered as the culprit, Tae-hyun felt a microscopic pang of guilt. Who could have predicted that teleporting off the ship would drop him right into a village of Sadiq worshippers, allowing him to reach the headquarters in one go?
"It wasn't me! Why would I dig my own grave like that?!"
"Well, it was probably a mistake."
"Would I really make a stupid mistake like that?!"
"Honestly, yeah..."
"Looking at your track record..."
Burford's jaw dropped. How dare they hit him with facts! Looking back at his past blunders, he couldn't even find a way to refute them.
That was when Tae-hyun stepped in.
"Let's stop this. That's not what's important right now. Regardless of where the leak came from..."
(It came from Tae-hyun.)
"...the important thing is that we join forces to fend off the attack, right? I believe in you, Burford. The players outside could have found out through some other means."
"You...!"
Burford stared at Tae-hyun with a deeply moved expression. A single ray of light shining upon him in his darkest hour! Of course, that ray of light was the very person who had pushed him into the abyss in the first place!
As Burford tearfully grabbed Tae-hyun's hand in gratitude, the rogue party clicked their tongues once again.
Player 1: Ugh, that low-level brat is seriously getting on my nerves.
Player 2: Why are you picking on that harmless pushover anyway?
Player 3: No matter how you look at it, he's definitely the one who did it. How else could the subjugation force have gotten here so fast? He definitely made a mistake in his post and forgot about it. You know how clumsy he is.
It was a verbal assault that would have made Burford burst into tears had he heard it. But thanks to Tae-hyun's encouragement, Burford had regained his spirits.
"Right! Let's head to the gate fortress first! The most important thing right now is defending against the attack!"
"Exactly! Let's head to the most vulnerable spots of the gate fortress!"
Tae-hyun was fully intent on tearing the fortress down. Completely oblivious to this, Burford simply looked at him with a face full of gratitude.
"Are there really not many undead around here?"
At Lee Se-yeon's words, the surrounding players looked utterly dumbfounded. Because right before their eyes, a massive army of the undead was rising.
⟨ Land of the Dead ⟩
⟨ Undead Rising ⟩ x3
⟨ Deeply Buried Grave ⟩
⟨ Evil and Dark Power ⟩
She cast a wide-area skill that buffed all undead in the vicinity, raised a massive horde of corpses, and then layered yet another buff on top of them. Though the undead raised were merely skeletons and ghouls, no one dared to mock them. The sheer power radiating from them was terrifying.
"Grrr..."
"Grrr... I smell the living..."
They were low-tier undead monsters, but under the influence of Lee Se-yeon's multiple overlapping buffs, they displayed a level of strength that could never be dismissed as mere trash mobs. Watching the dark aura swirling around the skeleton warriors, the players began to whisper.
"Is that a skill? A Necromancer Arcane skill?"
"I heard rumors that Lee Se-yeon obtained one, but she really did."
"Where did she get it?"
Among the players who had followed her, the ones watching with the most intense interest were the Necromancers. To them, Lee Se-yeon was their ultimate role model! Just as the mechanical engineering blacksmiths revered Tae-hyun, the Necromancers looked up to Lee Se-yeon. Of course, the stability of those two classes was on completely different levels...
"You guys over there, mind helping me out?"
"Huh? Us?"
"Since you're Necromancers, it'll be easier if we work together. Come over and summon some undead. It should be much easier to summon them within this domain."
"...Yes, ma'am!!"
The Necromancer players eagerly rushed forward. An opportunity to fight alongside Lee Se-yeon! Not only was it a chance to learn a great deal from her, but it was also an immense honor in itself.
⟨ Summon Intermediate Undead ⟩ x2
⟨ Summon Death Knight ⟩
"You don't need to exert yourselves so much already..." Lee Se-yeon muttered as she watched the players pouring their mana into summoning undead.
This was only the beginning of the siege. It was better to save their high-tier skills for later.
If the other players had known what she was thinking, they would have been shocked all over again. To think that this level of summoning was her holding back. It was a vivid demonstration of the terrifying power of a Necromancer—a true one-man army.
I hope Kim Tae-hyun is preparing properly on his end.
Once the basic preparations were complete, Lee Se-yeon initiated the attack.
"Go!"
The strategy was simple: the undead led by Lee Se-yeon and the other Necromancers would act as a meat shield, and the rest of the players would attack as they saw fit! It was impossible to coordinate a complex strategy with this ragtag group of players who had only just met.
Roaaar!
Howwwl!
The buffed skeleton warriors and ghoul soldiers began to charge forward, riding atop phantom wolves. Following closely behind them were undead archers and mages! Though their numbers were far inferior to the Necromancers supporting them, their ability to provide ranged cover fire was invaluable.
Thwip-thwip-thwip-thwip!
"The filthy undead are coming!"
"Lord Sadiq, grant us strength!"
In response, the enemies finally began to show their faces atop the fortress walls. They were Sadiq Paladins and warriors from the neighboring tribes.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
A rain of arrows began to pour down from the fortress walls. Under the relentless barrage, the charging undead warriors began to collapse.