Pitting Them Against Each Other
The Midas Guild! A rising powerhouse that had recently begun to crop up whenever players asked, "Who is the strongest guild in Pandemonium Online?"
Or so it was, but the mechanical engineering blacksmiths were far removed from common sense. To them, the only things worth looking at on the forums were crafting guides and videos!
"What does Midas do?"
"No idea..."
"Shh. It might be a newly created guild. Don't embarrass them."
"Ah, my bad. How inconsiderate of me."
The blacksmiths looked at the guild representative with deeply apologetic expressions.
"Ah~ Midas! Of course we know it! It's a fantastic place!"
"Right, right. The guild leader is amazing~"
"The members are great too!"
"And the gear is top-notch!"
Incredibly vague praise! Their attempt at consideration was even more humiliating.
Are these crazy bastards serious... They don't know us?
Even if they were relatively new, the representative had assumed every single person in Pandemonium Online would at least know the name of the Midas Guild!
The guild representative felt a surge of anger but held it back. He was here to make a request, after all.
"Ahem. The reason I came today... is to buy some goods."
"Goods? Ah. Bombs?"
"Must be bombs."
"Well, we don't really have anything else."
These bomb-obsessed maniacs...
Actually, it was true. They only sold bombs here! In fact, outside the Demon's Forge, there was a stall packed with bombs next to a sign that read [SALE]. Of course, very few people actually bought those bombs. Everyone knew what kind of items they were by now.
Those cheap bombs sold on the street were essentially defective goods! They were the failed practice runs made by the mechanical engineering blacksmiths, thrown out to be sold on the cheap.
The only players who bought those bombs were either completely fearless or had absolutely nothing to lose from the death penalty.
Even now, long after Tae-hyun had sparked the mechanical engineering craze, the number of players who actually used bombs remained highly limited.
Unless you had an absurdly high Luck stat like Tae-hyun or an incredibly high Engineering skill, using them was a massive gamble. But knowing that didn't make it easy to solve.
Training a high-tier blacksmith to focus primarily on Engineering was a massive waste of potential! No guild wanted to absorb that kind of loss just to raise an engineer.
As a result, new players who started the game dreaming of becoming mechanical engineering blacksmiths had nowhere to learn. When they searched for a place to acquire skills or blueprints, they inevitably ended up here... at the Demon's Forge!
And once they arrived, they only had two choices: go completely mad for bombs, or give up on mechanical engineering altogether.
Despite this notorious reputation, the rankers of the Midas Guild had realized one crucial fact.
To be precise, they weren't talking about the defective street goods, but the genuine, high-quality bombs crafted with painstaking care by the high-level blacksmiths among them!
When they thought about it, it made perfect sense. They had spent so much time following Tae-hyun around, crafting bombs, blowing them up, and crafting them again. It was only natural that their skill levels had surpassed the Advanced tier!
The genuine bombs meticulously crafted by Gabriel and the founding members had a near-zero defect rate.
Then why did the rumors remain unchanged?
Well...
They kept the well-made bombs for themselves and sold only the failures outside!
It was an absurd practice that completely defied the basic common sense of business, but the mechanical engineering blacksmiths didn't care. Tae-hyun funded them anyway, so they were never strapped for cash!
Most of these high-quality bombs were safely hoarded inside the forge, only brought out when they went to battle, or occasionally lent to the Power Warrior Guild after they begged about a hundred times.
The Midas Guild had focused on this exact point.
Currently, the Midas Guild was locked in a continuous war against the Guild Alliance. And in siege warfare, nothing was more effective than these bombs.
They possessed enough destructive power to shatter castle walls and blow open gates even without high-level mages! With a single bomb, even an ordinary player could unleash devastating force.
To their opponents, it was an unpredictable wild card!
And that was why the guild representative had come.
"Yes. I am indeed here to buy bombs."
"Well, you didn't really need to call us out for that. See that stall outside? Just leave the money there and take the bombs."
"Since today is a good day, we'll even give you a 1+5 deal."
"1+5? Why not make it 1+6?"
Buy one bomb, get five free! Of course, players did not appreciate this kind of blood-curdling service. A single bomb carried more than enough collateral damage. Carrying multiple bombs only meant they would chain-explode together!
"N-No, not those defective ones..."
"What? Defective?"
"You dare call our masterpieces defective?"
The blacksmiths' eyes grew fierce. The representative panicked and waved his hands frantically.
"Ah, no! I apologize! It was a slip of the tongue..."
"Watch your mouth. Do you have any idea how much effort we poured into making each and every one of these?"
"Have you seen this Horn Shard Bomb? We packed poison-coated iron shards shaped like horns inside to maximize the damage. Though it's a bit Unstable as a result..."
"Look at this Dual Flamethrower Bomb too. It has a 90% malfunction rate, but the damage is guaranteed!"
"What I want is a bomb crafted by the most outstanding master among the mechanical engineering blacksmiths!"
"A bomb made by Tae-hyun?"
"N-No, we wouldn't dare ask for that... Just the one right below him..."
The representative hastily corrected himself in fright. A bomb crafted by Kim Tae-hyun? Buying something like that might shake the very financial pillars of their guild.
"Right below him? Hmm... Well, we do have bombs crafted by Gabriel and the others."
"!"
The representative's eyes lit up.
"That's it! That's exactly what we want!"
"But we need permission for those."
"Please, ask for permission!"
"Hold on. I'll go ask."
Five minutes later.
"They said no."
"..."
A flat rejection! The representative spoke in sheer disbelief.
"Please let me meet them in person! Once they hear our terms, they will surely change their minds!"
The Midas Guild had brought a massive amount of gold to secure these bombs. Thanks to the recent influx of sponsorships and advertising revenue, they had plenty of funds to throw around.
"But they said they don't want to..."
"Please, just once!"
The representative clung to them desperately. Eventually, Gabriel walked out, looking thoroughly annoyed.
"We are currently in the middle of unraveling the secrets of the Unstable option, why do you keep..."
"Master Gabriel!"
The representative bowed at a perfect ninety-degree angle and shouted.
"Please give me the opportunity to purchase your masterpieces!"
"Hooh."
Gabriel stared intently at the representative.
"There is a condition to using my masterpieces. Do you happen to know what it is?"
"W-What is it?"
"You must be able to cherish and love the bomb as if it were your own child."
"..."
The representative sincerely regretted his life choices. Why did I come to this crazy territory... I should have taken a different assignment!
Honestly, it was weirder that they kept hoarding them in the warehouse. And frankly, it was dangerous. Who in their right mind hoards that many bombs in a warehouse!
Tae-hyun was temporarily lost for words.
Lalgrgal is pursuing you.
Distance: Closing...
What a stubbornly persistent bastard!
Currently, Tae-hyun was playing a game of tag with Lalgrgal around the outskirts of the Erangs Kingdom. Move, stop to check items. Lalgrgal catches up, move again. He was repeating this endlessly!
Come to think of it, doesn't the demon Freid in our territory excel at alchemy?
Tae-hyun suddenly thought of Freid. The demon alchemist, Freid!
Freid had tried to develop his alchemy in the territory while competing with the demon blacksmith Saruon, but he seemed to be lacking in many ways. He had even gone out of his way to lure players himself...
"Lord Tae-hyun."
"?"
This time, a different whisper arrived. It was a report from his spy inside the Guild Alliance.
Does this guy think 'obtain' always means 'plunder'?
The spy harbored a highly irreverent thought.
"Alcott. Is your guild trying to buy bombs?"
"Huh? Hold on."
A moment later.
"Yeah, they are. Apparently, they're scraping together every siege weapon they can find to fight the Midas Guild."
"Ah. So that's why."
Tae-hyun fell into thought. Behind him, Lalgrgal was hot on his heels, and the demons were busy sorting items on their stalls, but Tae-hyun's mind was perfectly calm.
Wait... isn't this an incredibly good situation?
Unlike before, when Tae-hyun had to run around frantically dealing with the Guild Alliance all by himself, the guilds were now warring among themselves. For a solo player like Tae-hyun, this was something to celebrate with open arms. Hadn't things been just as convenient back in Pandemonium Online 1 for this very reason?
Furthermore, it didn't end there—both guilds were now trying to buy his bombs!
"If I pit them against each other... Hmm. But they probably don't know the other side is trying to buy them..."
"??"
Cain tilted his head at Tae-hyun's muttering.
"Alcott!"
"What now?"
"I'll give you a golden piece of information. The Midas Guild is trying to buy bombs."
"!!!!"
"Crawford!"
"Why me...?"
"If you have any close mage rankers in the Midas Guild, leak this information to them. Tell them the Guild Alliance is trying to buy bombs."
Pitting them against each other! It was an evergreen tactic.
Crawford spoke in utter disbelief.
"Hey, no matter how shameless you are, do you really think we'd help you spark such an obvious bidding war... Wait, Alcott, what the hell are you doing?!"
"Huh? I'm sending a whisper."
Alcott was already typing away! From Alcott's perspective, there was absolutely no reason not to report this. He was about to receive praise like: Whoa! Alcott! To think you brought such high-level intelligence. As expected of our alliance's greatest ranker! The others need to learn from you!
Reporting it was a guaranteed win!
The math checked out, but Crawford could only marvel at how Alcott had dispatched the message without even a second of hesitation.
What a magnificent piece of trash.
"Crawford. You can sell this information for a high price too, you know."
"...W-Well, that's true."
Come to think of it, the rankers in Midas would pay handsomely for this information!
"I... guess I should sell it too!"
What a trashy bastard.
The two good friends silently labeled each other as trash!
"Lord Archisus! I found it! This is the deadly poison crafted by that bastard Lalgrgal!"
Meanwhile, Jukenen held up a small glass bottle triumphantly. A gem discovered amidst countless glass bottles and various alchemical items!
"Well done, Jukenen! Your name shall be passed down through the generations of the Demon Realm!"
"N-No... isn't that just a curse...!"
No matter how he looked at it, that was definitely a threat!