Cooperation
Jinsoo returned to his seat.
"Thank you, honored guest."
The NPC server said it with a smile.
"Don't mention it."
"This one's on the house. I know you're strong, but even so, you'd do well to avoid the Bone Dragon no matter what. Please take my words to heart."
The NPC set down food they hadn't even ordered, stressed the Bone Dragon's danger one last time, and vanished into the kitchen.
"Let's eat."
Jinsoo picked up his spoon as he spoke.
"Yeah. But those guys said they belonged to the Americas Alliance. Think that'll be a problem?"
"The odds of this turning into a real dispute are pretty low."
He answered Shin Sua's question without a flicker of concern.
The Americas Alliance was a guild formed by players from the American continents, but compared to other guilds its cohesion was remarkably thin.
Honestly, it's a wonder people with temperaments that different ever managed to band together under the name of an alliance in the first place.
Its factions split broadly into North America and South America, and then again by member nation and region.
If those guys earlier had belonged to one of the major factions, it'd be a different story.
They wouldn't have been moving as a single party, for one.
"The Americas Alliance gives its people a lot of autonomy. So long as we didn't attack them for some unreasonable cause, the guild itself won't step in."
Jinsoo laid out what he knew of the alliance for Shin Sua.
"From the day it was born, the Americas Alliance has had a strongly defensive character."
It had begun as a private gathering of players from the Americas. Then a party that included one of those members was driven out of a hunting ground under unfair pressure from another guild—and that was only the start. Incidents kept coming without end: players barred from dungeons, players slaughtered by PK guilds. Members of the gathering began pooling their strength more and more often to protect their own safety and their rights, and as word spread, players joined of their own accord just to receive that help. The group swelled until, at last, it had grown to the scale of a mega-guild.
Even after it got that big, what it actually did never changed.
"And that's how it came down to us as the Americas Alliance."
If a member suffered some unjust harm, they joined forces to help. Anything short of that, and they barely cared what befell anyone.
"Isn't that how most guilds get started?"
"More or less. But whether it's the free-spirited temperament or the founding policy, they almost never pool their strength for interests or honor the way other guilds do."
The Americas Alliance had grown fat on its own without ever really trying to expand its power. And unlike other guilds, its structure was horizontal rather than vertical, which meant agreement was often hard to come by.
"It's more accurate to think of the Americas Alliance as a coalition of many small guilds."
"So they're keeping one organization together as a kind of insurance?"
"That's about the size of it."
Its temperament was nothing like the Sabel Guild or the Yellow Dragon Guild. There was no real chance the entire guild would come charging in, swearing vengeance for its members.
At most they'd drag along a few people they were friendly with.
And if they brought companions, he could always just empty their pockets and be done with it.
What mattered more right now was information on the Bone Dragon.
Can I even take a Bone Dragon?
Even as he ate, Jinsoo turned the hunt over in his mind.
Before the regression, the high-level players on Floor 100 fought it with a city at their backs and still couldn't bring it down. They were crushed.
On Floor 50 he had hunted the Out-of-Spec Monster White Drake alone. But a White Drake was only a lesser dragon. The Bone Dragon, though fallen and dead, had been built from the bones of nothing less than a true dragon. They were not in the same class.
And since it's an Out-of-Spec Monster that appears on Floor 100, the odds are high that it outlevels the White Drake from Floor 50.
Against something that powerful, even Jinsoo could not swear the hunt would succeed.
Doesn't mean I can give up on it. There are two ways.
The first was to hunt it alone before it ever reached this city. The second was to use the city as a shield and take the Bone Dragon down alongside other players.
I can't be the only one weighing this.
Right now the high-level players on Floor 100 were brimming with confidence. They would be treating the Bone Dragon not as an unbearable monster they had no hope of facing, but as a treasure chest stuffed with rich rewards.
There may already be guilds that charged it and got smashed.
As things stood, he simply didn't have enough information.
Gather what I can on the Bone Dragon first, then decide.
There was a limit to what he could learn from an NPC.
Best to make contact with the Daehan Guild.
The only mega-guild he currently held friendly terms with was the Daehan Guild, so there was no real choice to make.
But do undead monsters even have a hun and a po?
The question struck him out of nowhere.
If a soul and a lingering spirit are still there, I could use Army Summons.
The Bone Dragon, though, was no living creature. It was an undead monster made of bone.
Since I advanced to Sovereign Necromancer and Dominator Necromancer, I haven't fought an undead monster. No way to know.
Army Summons built its summons on the foundation of hun and po—the ascending soul and the lingering physical spirit.
Hun and po don't linger long.
He had already confirmed that through earlier tests. Even after the breath stopped and the corpse vanished, they remained in place for a while, but once about an hour passed the hun evaporated into the empty air and the po sank away into the earth.
The Bone Dragon is an undead monster raised by necromancy, too.
Jinsoo had no idea what other necromancers used as material when they made undead. He had met necromancers before the regression, but none of them had been close to him, so his knowledge of the class was thin.
Do all necromancers build undead from hun and po? Or do they just use corpses? If I hunt an undead monster that was made by consuming hun and po, can I still use it as material for Army Summons?
Without solid information, all he could do for now was guess.
Sovereign Necromancer and Dominator Necromancer are cut from a different cloth than ordinary necromancers.
That much was certain.
Just look at the summons' forms. They're nothing like ordinary undead summons.
If he wanted information, he was going to have to move.
Jinsoo finished his meal quickly and rose from his seat.
"Where are you going?"
Shin Sua asked, watching him head for the door.
"To the Daehan Guild. I'm going to see what I can learn."
"Then I'll come with you."
"All right. Give me a moment."
Jinsoo asked the NPC server where the Daehan Guild's branch was.
Close.
Fortunately, the branch wasn't far from the inn.
"Let's go."
Jinsoo and Shin Sua left the inn and made for the Daehan Guild branch.
The conference room of the Daehan Guild branch.
Centered on Guild Master Kim Young-cheol, every officer of the Daehan Guild had gathered in one place.
"The Phoenix Guild's elites took a hit bordering on annihilation? Is that true?"
Kim Young-cheol's face was set hard as he put the question to Jin Ju-hyeong, one of the officers.
"Yes, sir! I saw it with my own two eyes. Andres, the Phoenix Guild's guild master, is dead as well. The Bone Dragon is a monster on a level we cannot face. They don't call it an Out-of-Spec Monster for nothing."
At the words of Jin Ju-hyeong, who possessed a scouting skill, the officers' faces hardened like stone.
"Hmm."
"I think we should withdraw immediately."
"What, pull out without even fighting?"
"The Phoenix elites went down without putting up a real resistance."
"Are you saying our Daehan Guild is weaker than the Phoenix Guild?"
"We're not weaker. But honestly, the level gap isn't that large. The Phoenix elites didn't fight them to a standstill and then retreat. From what I hear, they were beaten one-sidedly until the damage was nearly total. If we step in, the result will be about the same. That's obvious."
"Ngh. That's true enough."
"If the Phoenix Guild went down without ever bringing their strength to bear, withdrawing would be the wiser call."
"Andres, the Phoenix guild master, is the strongest tank on Floor 100. If even he couldn't hold, we have no chance."
"Still, throwing away a shot at the Bone Dragon feels like such a waste."
"It is a waste. An enormous waste. The achievement would be one thing, but it's bound to drop a heap of incredible items."
"Don't cling to a fool's regret. If you're dead, what good are achievements or fine items?"
"A solo hunt with our guild alone is impossible, but if we fight with the city at our backs alongside other players, we'd have a decent chance, wouldn't we? Then we wouldn't even need a tank."
"Then the spoils shrink, too."
The Daehan officers bickered back and forth, trading opinions.
What am I supposed to do?
Kim Young-cheol's face hardened.
At first the plan had been for the Daehan Guild to hunt the Bone Dragon alone. Then the Phoenix Guild had beaten them to it.
I was bitterly disappointed at the time.
He had thought their inferior intelligence had cost them a golden chance to hunt an Out-of-Spec Monster. But the moment he heard that the Phoenix elites had suffered near-annihilation at the Bone Dragon's hands, losing the initiative suddenly felt like a blessing.
"For now, let's try hunting the Bone Dragon with the city as our shield."
At Kim Young-cheol's words, a cheer burst from the faction in favor of the hunt.
"That's right! Of course we have to take the challenge!"
"It would've been far too much of a waste to just give up."
"With the city as a shield, we can take it down for sure."
The faction opposed to the hunt, by contrast, darkened.
Then Kim Young-cheol spoke again.
"But there's no need for us to charge in first. We'll watch the other guilds attack, join the hunt if a real opening to kill it appears, and withdraw as we are if it doesn't."
"Well, that much is acceptable."
"Our share will be smaller, but safety does come first."
"It's a little underhanded, but it's a good choice."
At that, even the opposition came around. Watching the situation and moving only when the moment was right looked comparatively low-risk.
"Then that's the plan. For now, you're dismissed. Ju-hyeong and Hayeon, stay. Oh, and don't breathe a word of what you heard today to the guild members."
"Understood."
The Daehan officers filed out in a rush.
"How many guilds have an accurate picture of the Phoenix Guild's situation?"
Once the officers were gone, Kim Young-cheol turned to Jin Ju-hyeong, the one with the scouting skill.
"The Americas Alliance, the Al-Sani Guild, the Upendo Guild, and the Ivan Guild should know exactly."
He meant he had spotted scouting parties from those four guilds while he was out reconnoitering.
"What about the Yellow Dragon Guild and the Minamoto Guild?"
"The Yellow Dragon Guild was nowhere to be seen. Maybe the infighting's been bad since their guild master died. The Minamoto Guild was late getting the information, so they arrived a little behind. They'll know the Phoenix Guild lost, but they won't know the damage was a one-sided near-annihilation."
"Is that so?"
The situation wasn't bad.
That means about half the guilds gathered here don't actually know how strong the Bone Dragon is.
Which meant the odds were high they would charge it without fear and fight bravely.
"Reach out in secret to the Americas Alliance, the Al-Sani Guild, the Upendo Guild, and the Ivan Guild. Tell them the guild masters should meet and discuss this."
"Understood."
There was no way the other guilds would tolerate the Daehan Guild hanging back on the fringe, angling to walk off with someone else's catch. But if they quietly joined hands with the Americas Alliance, the Al-Sani Guild, the Upendo Guild, and the Ivan Guild, it was entirely possible.
Just then, a knock sounded at the conference room door.
"Guild Master, it's Seongjun."
"Yeah, come in."
The door groaned open, and Kim Seong-jun stepped into the room.
"What is it?"
Kim Seong-jun was an ordinary guild member, not an officer.
"Um, the guest you mentioned before has arrived, Guild Master."
"The guest I mentioned? Who?"
"Lee Jinsoo, sir."
"Ah, Mr. Lee Jinsoo! I'll go out myself."
The moment he heard of Jinsoo's visit, Kim Young-cheol's face brightened.
If Jinsoo joins the Daehan Guild, he'll be a tremendous help in the Bone Dragon raid.
Kim Young-cheol had Jinsoo's ability pegged as a little below his own party's. A fighter of that caliber would greatly strengthen the Daehan Guild's forces.
The nature of the summoner class mattered just as much.
With summons, we can respond more flexibly when things go bad.
A player had only one life. A summon, even if it was destroyed, could simply be called again. The risk of death was on an entirely different scale.
But what terms should I offer?
If he wanted to bring Jinsoo under the Daehan Guild even just for the Bone Dragon raid, he would of course have to pay a price worthy of it.