Chapter 123
Chapter 123
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 123
Chapter Title: The Union Guild
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“You have to say it was your idea.”
Passing the blame without a second thought!
Arthur cried out urgently.
“Bro!”
“What.”
“This isn’t right!”
“What do you mean, ‘not right’? Didn’t you say you’d do anything I asked if I let you join the party?”
“What? Well, I did, but still, this is…!”
His voice had gotten quite loud.
At this, Jeong Yu-ra turned her head.
“What’s going on? What are you two talking about?”
“!!”
“It’s nothing.”
“…?”
“Really, it’s nothing. We were just saying the recording came out great.”
“Oh, really?”
Thankfully, Lee Shin’s nonchalant response seemed to have dispelled any suspicion.
After tilting her head in curiosity, Jeong Yu-ra turned back around, and Lee Shin sent Arthur a whisper.
‘Anyway, you figure it out.’
- But…
‘Do it.’
When I tell you to do something, you do it!
It was practically a command.
Arthur reluctantly nodded his head.
- Yes…
It looked like Arthur had a lot more to say, but he didn’t voice it.
He had no choice.
Now that Lee Shin had taken this stance, it was unlikely he could be persuaded…
And honestly, looking at the footage itself, it seemed destined to get an insane number of views.
The problem was Jeong Yu-ra’s reaction.
…How do I explain this?
No matter how you looked at it, it hadn’t been filmed like a normal introduction video…
‘Ugh.’
In the end, unable to come up with an explanation that would satisfy Jeong Yu-ra, Arthur simply chose to ignore reality.
‘…I don’t know anymore.’
I’ll leave it to my future self!
In a way, it was optimistic. In another, it was completely unplanned.
After spending so much time with Lee Shin, Arthur had started to resemble him in many ways.
* * *
Just as Lee Shin’s boredom was reaching its limit, the party arrived at their destination.
[You have arrived in Solar County.]
[This is your first time entering this region! All stats will increase by 1 for one week.]
[Warning!]
[The security level of the fief is…]
‘I can ignore this.’
After dismissing the warning message he had seen so many times he was sick of it, Lee Shin looked around.
The appearance of the residents and the overall sanitation level of the fief were the first things to catch his eye.
‘Hmm.’
Lee Shin nodded in satisfaction.
There was no particular stench, and there were no beggars rushing to accost people wearing clean clothes.
For the Eteun Kingdom, this was a perfectly acceptable standard.
‘Not bad.’
It was a reaction completely opposite to Grania's, despite looking at the same city!
This was because the two had completely different backgrounds.
For Lee Shin, who had started the game in the Eteun Kingdom, a city like Solar County was one of the better ones.
‘First…’
Before going to find Kaka right away, Lee Shin headed to the guild.
It was his first time in this fief, so he wanted to gather some information and see if there were any worthwhile quests.
Arthur asked.
“Are you going alone?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what should we be doing?”
“You guys, go find the location of the workshop. I’ll head there as soon as I’m done at the guild.”
“Okay.”
“And I…”
“Gillaim, you go with them.”
Sending just Arthur and Jeong Yu-ra was risky; they weren’t used to PK at all.
Lee Shin was more than hardened against PK, so he was fine on his own unless the situation was extremely dangerous, but the other two were not.
In the Eteun Kingdom, an unfortunate incident could happen anytime, anywhere.
Especially now, with all sorts of users flooding into the Eteun Kingdom, they had to be extra cautious as looter players were running rampant, preying on people like them.
Gillaim nodded.
“Understood.”
“Good. Let’s meet up again in about an hour.”
“Yes.”
* * *
The situation in the fief was a bit unusual.
For starters, there were no decent fief quests available for Lee Shin’s party.
[There are currently no available quests.]
[Would you like to search for D-rank or lower quests?]
“…?”
None?
Lee Shin looked at the receptionist with an expression that said, ‘How is that possible?’
The receptionist, who was yawning widely, scratched his cheek and answered.
“Ah, that’s because another guild took them all a while ago…”
“Who?”
“I’m afraid I can’t disclose information about others.”
Technically, he was correct.
But there was always a way.
As if he had been waiting for this, Lee Shin took something out from his pouch and handed it to the receptionist.
“…Ahem.”
“This is… Gasp!?”
[You hand over a pouch of gold.]
[You have bribed a guild receptionist to illicitly obtain information about others!]
[If this fact is revealed…]
The effect was immediate.
After checking inside the money pouch, the receptionist’s nostrils flared in an instant. He leaned in and whispered to Lee Shin.
“The Union Guild.”
“That guild took every single one?”
“That’s right. They arrived not too long ago, and there were a lot of them.”
“Hmm…”
A large guild that had arrived recently, big enough to sweep up all the quests in a fief.
It seemed they were a massive guild that had relocated to the Eteun Kingdom for the main quest.
Lee Shin continued to ask.
“Wasn’t there any backlash from other guilds or adventurers?”
“There was.”
“What happened?”
“There was, but it quieted down soon enough.”
“Ah… is that so?”
After weighing the situation, Lee Shin came to a conclusion.
‘They must have solid combat power, too.’
In the Eteun Kingdom, where drawing your sword first was the law of the land (in Lee Shin’s subjective opinion), for a single guild to monopolize nearly all the fief quests without incident?
It meant they weren’t just large in number, but their strength was so formidable that no one dared to challenge them.
‘…I’ll have to keep that in mind.’
Lee Shin smacked his lips and nodded.
“I understand.”
“…Ahem, anything else you want to ask? If you show a little more ‘sincerity,’ there’s not much I can’t tell you.”
“Haha. I’ll come back if anything comes up.”
“Tsk. Alright.”
After finishing his conversation with the receptionist, Lee Shin approached the mercenary NPCs lounging at the tables in the guild.
Similarly, by slipping them some gold, he was able to easily acquire information. It was then that he coincidentally learned about Kaka.
“There’s this one goblin that even the lord can’t touch…”
“Oh?”
Lee Shin’s eyes widened.
He had simply come following the trail of the previous Salseong, but this was an unexpected big catch!
The fact that someone held as much influence within the fief as the lord himself was not something to be ignored.
‘If I play this right…’
Lee Shin’s anticipation grew steadily.
* * *
An hour later.
After rejoining his party, Lee Shin spoke.
“Did you find it?”
“Yes. We found the workshop, and since we had some time left, we also located Kaka’s mansion.”
“You did?”
“Yes. Just in case you needed it.”
“Good work.”
“How did it go for you, bro?”
At Arthur’s question, Lee Shin explained what he had heard at the guild.
About a guild called Union monopolizing all the fief quests, and about Kaka’s influence within the fief.
While Jeong Yu-ra and Gillaim showed little reaction, Arthur was different.
In the middle of Lee Shin’s explanation, Arthur’s head snapped around with a look of surprise.
“…Wait a minute? The Union Guild?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah.”
“Are you sure it was Union?”
“Yeah, why? You know them?”
“Of course I do! I’m more surprised you don’t… well, maybe you wouldn’t know? You don’t check the guild rankings, do you?”
“I don’t look at that.”
Lee Shin only ever checked the individual rankings.
There were too many guilds, and since he had never been part of one, he had no reason to be interested.
“To put it simply, they’re a multinational guild made up of rankers from all over the world. They’re really famous. I think they’re ranked 7th right now?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. …No, wait, they moved up recently, so they’re 6th now. And they’re strong individually, too. They have a legendary class user and quite a few high-rankers. You’d probably know some of them.”
“Who’s the highest ranked?”
“Grania. She’s 11th overall. You know her, right?”
“Ah, she’s with them?”
“Yes.”
“Of course I know her. She was a high-ranker in Avala Online 1, too.”
Skimming through the individual rankings in Avala Online 2, Lee Shin already knew nearly half the people on the list.
Most of them were rankers who had come over from Avala Online 1.
And half of that half had suffered so much at Lee Shin’s hands that they would freak out at the mere mention of his name.
Even the other half didn’t hold any particularly fond feelings for him.
When Lee Shin was on his ranker-hunting spree, every one of them had been a target, or nearly became one, so it was only natural.
However, Grania was one of the few exceptions.
Lee Shin had never killed her.
The same went for her guild.
It wasn’t because Lee Shin had excluded her from his hunts, but because she and her guild had meticulously avoided him.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I don’t think we’ve ever even crossed paths. The moment she heard I was in the area, she’d turn off her stream and go into hiding.”
Thorough evasive maneuvers!
And that was what was so surprising.
Rankers usually had strong pride.
Who was stronger than whom, who had a type advantage, and so on.
They were incredibly childish topics, but as true gamers, they took such things very seriously.
As such, even when they knew Lee Shin was openly targeting them, almost no rankers would stop streaming or halt their ongoing quests.
Doing so would give the impression that they were running away from him.
For a prideful ranker, that was an unforgivable act!
In fact, many of them, confident in their own skills, would often say things like this.
‘Lee Shin? Who’s that!’
‘Just let him come! I’ll crush him!’
Full of confidence!
Or perhaps, a conviction that ‘I will be different.’
…Of course, that was all before they got beaten down.
Lee Shin’s skill was far beyond what they imagined.
Most would soon be thrashed until they developed a trauma, eventually undergoing a mental reconditioning to the point where they would shudder at the very mention of his name.
And in that respect.
Grania had proven to be an extremely calculating person.
She hadn’t avoided losses entirely by avoiding Lee Shin, but at least she hadn’t faced the disaster that was Lee Shin head-on.
By quickly swallowing her pride, she had suffered relatively less damage compared to other rankers!
That was why it was difficult for even Lee Shin to judge her.
‘…’
For instance, a case like this.
What if she…
realized that he was *that* Lee Shin?
Would she tuck her tail and run like before, shouting, ‘It’s Lee Shin!’?
Or would she try to get revenge for the old days when she could only flee helplessly, thinking, ‘Perfect timing, I’ve been waiting for you’?
‘…I don’t know.’
Lee Shin couldn’t tell.
He had never been on the receiving end of something like that.
He just went around beating people up as he pleased.
But one thing was certain.
At his current level, it was impossible for him to face her, let alone her guild.
The basic level difference was so vast that he would most likely lose without being able to do a thing.
Of course, that didn’t mean he had to just take it.
Whether it was ‘Mark of Malice’ or the newly acquired ‘Mutual Destruction.’
Lee Shin had skills he could use even against enemies who overwhelmingly outclassed him in combat power.
Skills that could drag at least one opponent down with him, no matter how disadvantageous the situation!
However, doing so would certainly put the brakes on his own growth.
Thus, Lee Shin’s choice was to avoid contact with them as much as possible for now.
‘They seem to be in the middle of a fief quest, so I should probably stay away from the guild.’
The tables had turned!
Arthur asked.
“But is it necessary? They probably won’t recognize you anyway, right?”
“No, rankers are a bit more dangerous.”
“Huh?”
“If they meet me in person, they might actually recognize me.”
“Ah… I guess so.”