Chapter 408
Chapter 408
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 408
Chapter Title: New Weapon (2)
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“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing!”
But there was no way he’d answer so straightforwardly.
Fergus kept muttering to himself until Rokan asked, at which point his expression flipped completely as he grumbled inwardly.
It was obviously a situation with some kind of problem, but he didn’t seem keen on letting Rokan know about it.
‘Not easy.’
Rokan couldn’t pry any further in the face of Fergus’s impenetrable wall and backed off.
But this reaction was definitely different from his usual ones.
The Fergus who would smash gear and then immediately charge back in with a “Let’s see who wins—you or me”—this time, he was sunk deep in thought, unable to pull himself out after agonizing for quite a while.
It was probably because he’d shattered his gear multiple times for the same reason.
“Go to Hainel City and fetch these. Then I’ll repair the Gale Battle Axe for you.”
“Uh... You knew?”
“Of course. You think I wouldn’t? Just thinking of that damned God of Massacre makes me want to smash it into ten thousand pieces, but a weapon’s blameless. So, you going or not?”
And after a long while, Fergus reappeared with a resolute expression and finally spoke to Rokan.
It wasn’t an offer for new gear, but if he ran the errand, he’d at least fix the broken Gale Battle Axe.
Not a bad deal.
‘One time leads to two.’
Above all, it had opened the door to conversation.
“Of course. Please wait just a moment.”
Rokan took the errand slip Fergus handed him and headed straight to the city.
There were closer villages nearby, but after checking the slip’s contents, he could see why it had to be Hainel City. These weren’t simple materials you could find in some backwater hamlet.
“Planning to make a holy weapon or something?”
Large quantities of purified spring water, top-grade holy water, bishop-level holy relics, celestial wing feathers, and so on—it was all heavily skewed toward holy attributes.
‘Not working out the way he wants?’
Rokan started forming reasonable suspicions as he confirmed the list.
Just looking at the names of the destroyed sacred weapons he’d scrapped—they were all brutally vicious, weren’t they?
Whether it was because he’d gotten heated up after meeting him or not, it seemed like he was trying to use the materials’ effects to rein in the murderous intent infused into the sacred weapons.
‘Can I really trust him with this...?’
At this point, serious doubts crept in about whether anything decent would come out of entrusting it to Fergus, but for now, there were no alternatives.
He clamped his jaw and made for Hainel City first.
“Ah, come to think of it...!”
Then, as if struck by a sudden realization, he grimaced.
“He didn’t pay me? Damn it, is this supposed to cover the repair fee?”
Rokan had coins to spare, but being sent on an errand without so much as a single one?
If he chalked it up to labor fees for a guy of that caliber, the amount might be pocket change, but these were all such a pain to acquire that it still stung.
Still, what choice did he have? If the man said pay up, he paid up.
Like the guy who digs a well when he’s thirsty—Rokan straight-up flooded the market with coins, snapping up the items faster and in greater bulk.
And at the same time, he gathered intel.
How far the Fame Realm pursuit team had advanced, how the world was spinning, and so on.
“They’re living it up, huh.”
Ever since Rokan had turned everything upside down last time and declared it the state religion, an unspoken rule had taken hold among the national guilds.
Don’t touch Rokanism.
But outside of that, it was a total warzone, a complete shitshow.
What some called colonial wars—small-nation realm invasions—were accelerating, and the fallout from the last ranking war had rankings battles in full swing.
Even though the rankings after the first one were just for show with no real rewards, players were obsessed, going wild over them.
Truth be told, Rokan would’ve acted the same in his past life.
Sure, he was overwhelmingly powerful now with no one to match him, but back when everyone was mediocre, plenty of players obsessed over official rankings—and even unofficial ones.
“Level 400... Faster than I thought.”
And there was more striking news.
The emergence of genuine level 400 players.
Not half-baked ones forcibly pumped up, or apostle-empowered fakes matching level 400 strength—real, honest-to-god level 400 achievers were popping up one after another.
It’d still take them a bit to grasp creation skills, but honestly, players at that level were nothing to worry about.
The group that hit 400 fastest after Rokan could probably whip up a decent creation skill with their instincts alone.
The basics of creation skills were avoiding greed and knowing thyself.
Grasp that firmly, and you could craft something at least mid-tier or higher.
Of course, he himself had blown past 400 to reach 450 and the Majesty Master realm.
“A few items will take some time, so shall I take a peek?”
He could grab most items right away, but a handful would require waiting.
Even that was just a matter of time. With his trading company putting out feelers and him buying extras to curry favor with Fergus, deliveries would roll in on their own soon enough.
In the meantime, he checked in on his own world.
***
After the first avatar and hero, Garun, entered eternal slumber, his descendant Lakan was born to inherit his will.
It wasn’t just talent—with Rokan’s very personality and disposition passed down, there was no chance he’d be ordinary. His power was recognized from childhood, he seized the throne young, and even before reaching adulthood, he swung the Thunderbolt Battle Axe to launch a new wave of territorial expansion.
On top of that, Rokan had backed him with troops and gear.
Humans who had developed the skills Rokan taught on their own went beyond clearing nearby monsters to conquer and absorb humans from outside their domain.
Thus swelling their ranks and using that strength to claim even more territory.
It hadn’t taken long for a city-state forged from a handful of towns to evolve into a kingdom spanning dozens, then over a hundred cities.
BE Violence-ism.
With a kingdom that massive completed, politics could’ve wormed its way in, but whether due to its short history or the era’s priority of survival against surrounding monsters, power trumped politics. A culture revering strength took root strong, sidelining intrigue, plots, and betrayal.
There was some overreliance on a single mighty hero, but the seeds he’d sown birthed new heroes, and the strength-worshipping culture churned out powerful armies, so it hadn’t become a major issue yet.
Lakan had reached a higher realm than Garun, granting him a lifespan far beyond a normal human’s—likely a factor too.
To the end, he was the strongest, closing his eyes as a warrior.
Even so, he’d only unified a fraction of the world; his descendants carried on methodically with the rest.
Technology, civilization, and combat prowess grew steadily, and within the game system, human stats as a whole kept climbing.
They’d found ways to grow stronger faster, to fight more efficiently.
They combined classes, combined skills. They cheesed quests to level up in a flash.
Thus, they came to dominate their first allotted region entirely.
‘This timing should be just right.’
Watching it all, Rokan waited until no more territory remained for expansion, then unleashed his divinity once more.
He swiftly released the next Lock he’d set in place—too fast for them to even consolidate their hard-won lands.
[Stage 2 opens.]
[Region restrictions lifted.]
[Hetero races appear.]
The region limits gone, hetero races spawning.
Now the real deal began.
Sure, some hetero races were pacifists, but plenty were as warlike—if not more—than humans.
Trolls, orcs, undead, goblins, half-elves, gnomes, dwarves—the core of The Lord—plus beastkin and hundreds more intelligent species were added, structuring it so expansion would inevitably pit them against these foes.
‘Go on, fight till you burst.’
And one more thing.
He didn’t forget to create a new hero: the third avatar.
Was it experience from the last one, or the world now able to handle it?
Crafting another hero of equal potential cost less divinity than before.
So he added an extra one.
Rumble.
A new divine relic. A unique-grade axe dropped beside the newborn infant hero.
It marked him as its owner and revealed the mission bestowed upon him.
After Lakan’s death with no heroes appearing for a stretch, humans went wild at this one’s arrival.
Not everyone, though.
They’d banded together for conquest and grand works, but with that done, other thoughts began to stir.
Still just tiny seeds for now, but left alone, they’d sprout into civil strife and infighting.
Rokan nipped it in the bud with a single quest.
[Species War][Quest]
Species war, plain and simple.
It hinted that this race was coming—and if they didn’t crush it, they’d be crushed in a brutal war.
That was enough.
It hadn’t been long since they’d escaped being torn apart and devoured alive by monsters.
Even amid Lakan’s conquests, such threats hadn’t fully vanished, so humans united once more.
To avoid disappointing their god, to perfectly fulfill the quest akin to a divine oracle—they rallied tight around the new hero.
Now inheriting not just Rokan’s personality and disposition but his humanity too, Karuta led them back into conquest.
***
“Phew, even this is getting tougher.”
It definitely wasn’t easy.
Fortunately, humans moved according to his will, but he’d accelerated time so aggressively for their early growth that he’d nearly missed his window to intervene.
Luck held, though—he’d checked at the perfect moment and taken the right steps.
Now the true struggle began.
Rokan had even considered skipping region limits from the start, but that would’ve made it brutally unfair.
Humans could grow stronger, sure, but their innate weakness in the early game left a high risk of total wipeout.
Luckily, the two heroic figures had led them well, securing a solid chunk of land, and rather than growing complacent, they’d kept up the endless fight to please Rokan.
Already supplying a hefty amount of divinity on the regular.
[World: Nether Magic World—13,124 divinity acquired.]
By Nether Magic World time, about 13,000 divinity per year.
At 10,000x acceleration, that was nearly 365,000 divinity per Rokan-day—over 3.6 times the 100,000 needed to maintain it.
Meaning his divinity recovery now outpaced consumption.
Even factoring in the costs of spawning avatars periodically, dropping relics, and issuing quests, it was still ridiculously low—but not bad at all.
Nether Magic World would keep growing, pumping out far more divinity down the line.
“Hm?”
While inspecting his world—having Kai hunt in the meantime since just sitting idle felt off—Rokan looked up.
He eyed coldly a group of players who’d approached him.
“What are these guys?”
In that instant, they fanned out to surround him. A few faces among them were familiar even to Rokan.
“Rokan, it’s time to step down from that spot.”
Representative players from so-called advanced or top nations.
Faces you’d only see in ranking war tournaments—all now leveling weapons at him.