Chapter 257
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 257
Chapter Title: If It's Maia, It's Possible.
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"Damn it, what the hell is going on?!"
Hober spat out a curse.
Up until he'd first joined the Forest Guild, he'd thought he'd hit the jackpot.
Sure, he'd been dumped in the outer branch because his skills were lame, but in return, he could live like a king around there.
Drinking booze for free.
Raking in hefty taxes.
Fooling around with decent-looking girls.
Just flashing the Forest Guild name let him do whatever he wanted, and no one dared get in his way.
But that bliss ended when the guild's headquarters crumbled in the war against those damn Green Dragon Clan bastards.
What followed was a string of grueling days.
They'd recruited him to fill the spots left by guild members lost in the war—who could've guessed he'd end up stuck in this godforsaken jungle?
No girls to play with.
Couldn't even drink or slack off freely.
It was nonstop days that made him regret ever joining the Forest Guild.
If it weren't for the perk of indulging in Ambrosia to his heart's content, he would've bolted long ago.
Of course, having seen how Gula would kill him if he actually tried to run, it would've stayed just a fantasy.
"Why the hell did the sky suddenly turn red?!"
But even all those years of hardship combined didn't make him regret joining the Forest Guild as much as this moment.
The moon stained crimson.
The chills crawling up his skin.
And above all, the warning from 『Crisis Detection』.
They all whispered that something ominous was about to happen tonight.
And he wasn't the only one feeling it.
The other guild members scrambling around, grabbing guns and items, only made him more uneasy.
'Ugh, having to call those worthless shits my comrades...'
Maybe because so many were fresh recruits.
Feeling frustrated by the unreliable bunch, Hober turned his gaze beyond the wooden palisade.
Better to stare at the dreary jungle than watch that mess.
Rustle.
That's why he spotted it.
The slender figure emerging from the jungle, trampling through the thick underbrush. Hober blinked in confusion.
'...What the hell is that?'
If hundreds had shown up.
Or if they'd snuck in stealthily.
He would've screamed intruder and raised the alarm.
But a single person strolling right up the front, slowly? No way that screamed intruder.
'No one gets lost in this jungle. And if it were one of ours, they'd signal...'
What was this weirdo?
Hober puzzled over it.
But moments later, he forgot every question.
Rustle.
"...!"
The red moonlight illuminated the figure stepping from the jungle.
And he saw her.
A woman as beautiful as a flower, with skin like milky glass, almost translucent.
Gulp.
Her faintly sickly pallor only amplified her delicate allure. Hober swallowed dryly at the sight of a beauty he'd never seen the likes of.
He'd prided himself on bedding plenty of beauties.
But hers shredded that pride like trash.
So what surged was desire.
A raw, animal impulse to claim her, all the fiercer for its purity.
"Whoa...!"
"What the hell is with that smoking hot babe?"
Hober wasn't the only one gripped by it.
The gasps erupting one after another.
The eyes gleaming with greed.
The other guild members who'd just spotted her laid bare their base lusts.
'Those filthy bastards!'
Hober glared at his comrades.
Just their leering felt like it was tainting her beauty, stirring disgust in him.
Forgetting he'd been ogling her the vilest of all.
"Hngh!"
A scream-like gasp came right then.
Puzzled by the odd sound—far from lustful—Hober turned and froze.
Mateus, the headquarters hotshot who always strutted around, had collapsed, face ghost-white like he'd seen a ghost.
"Hey, what's wrong with you?"
Mateus didn't answer.
He just pointed a trembling hand at the woman approaching from the jungle.
"Th-that, th-that... "
"That?"
"It's Boiúna! Boiúna's here!"
"What? You mean the Green Anaconda?"
"No, Boiúna!"
Hober was baffled.
Boiúna was just a nickname for the Green Anaconda from some legend about it turning human.
Why call her that?
But then he remembered.
Mateus had called something that before.
"That bitch is the Green Dragon Princess?"
The shock that the monstrous Green Dragon Princess was such a knockout.
The suspicion that the Green Dragon Clan's boss had shown up alone, their enemy.
As all those emotions threw Hober into turmoil.
Mateus's eyes bulged.
Maia had halted and was tugging off her gloves.
"N-no!"
Years ago at the Forest Guild base, he'd seen this exact scene. Without thinking, he shrieked in a voice like tearing flesh.
"Stop her! Stop her, now!"
Slipping off.
But his cry came too late.
By the time he screamed.
The gloves encasing her arms to the elbows were already fluttering free.
Exposing pale skin.
And as despair flooded his face.
―Ruin began.
[Honestly, I just don't get it.]
"What part?"
[This situation right now.]
Yuna Kyung let out a soft sigh.
She turned to Li Chingwei, who was lost in thought over a map spread on the table.
[A full-scale war between the Forest Guild and the Green Dragon Clan? This is huge, right?]
"Well... if we're splitting hairs, yeah, it's not exactly minor."
Li Chingwei nodded readily.
The Seven Dragon Society, which had built the Seven Dragon Group to dominate the world's wealth.
The top ten guilds, ruling as tyrants of this era on the back of their absolute monarchs' power.
They weren't some run-of-the-mill megacorp or co-op.
They could topple nations solo and reshape global politics—embodiments of this era's money and might.
A clash between two such forces?
No brushing it off as a mere dispute.
Given the military scale and fallout, it was already a war.
That's why Yuna Kyung felt so uneasy.
[So why's the vibe in this country so damn casual? Shouldn't there be at least some tension, even if not full evacuations?]
"Means Maia moved that fast."
Li Chingwei replied calmly.
Her haste was to ambush the Forest Guild before intel leaked.
Most folks didn't even know the Green Dragon Clan and Forest Guild war had restarted, so no panic made sense.
[That's the part I get least.]
"Not announcing it was a rational call on Maia's part, I'd say."
[No, I mean the 'restart' part.]
A solid ambush strategy.
Yuna Kyung thumped her chest with her wing, exasperated at Li Chingwei sounding just like a Black Dragon Clan princess.
['Restart' implies there was a war before. A massive one that blew up the Forest Guild's base, even.]
"True."
[But I've never seen news on any war that huge.]
"Maybe it just wasn't newsworthy."
[A bombshell like that isn't newsworthy?!]
Yuna Kyung was dumbfounded.
"Africa's got wars and nations popping up and vanishing daily, but how often do they make headlines?"
[...Even for Brazil's shitshow security, comparing it to that is a stretch.]
"That's how routine wars between the Green Dragon Clan and Forest Guild are on this continent."
Li Chingwei smiled faintly.
Truth was, clashes between the Seven Dragon Society and top ten guilds weren't rare.
Like the Black Dragon Clan rubbing the Infinity Guild wrong in East Asia, or the Blue Dragon Clan opposing the Makers Guild while leading the British Empire.
It was inevitable.
The top ten guilds had exploded in power over the last thirty-odd years.
The Seven Dragon Society had wielded global influence from the shadows for over a millennium.
New powers hungry for turf inevitably clashed with the establishment.
"Especially the Forest Guild—they grew from gangs, so they favored shadowy fights."
If the Holy Monarch clashed with the Green Dragon Clan over legit medical biz, the Monster Monarch did over illicit drugs.
Drugs were gangs' cash cow.
But every cartel in South America knelt to the Green Dragon Clan.
Turf wars stayed underground, rarely surfacing.
[So the Green Dragon Clan won but kept it quiet, and they just said the Monster Monarch went into hiding?]
"No point dragging underworld shit into the light."
Both had skeletons, so they buried it.
Forest Guild to hide their fall.
Green Dragon Clan to avoid tainting their civilized Quetzalcoatl image with crime.
After Li Chingwei's explanation, Yuna Kyung's expression twisted in complication. Only after a while did she scratch her head with a wing and open her beak.
[Hmm... even so, the Monster Monarch just handing over his base like that? Still doesn't add up.]
Yuna Kyung tilted her head.
Li Chingwei gave her an odd look.
"She didn't hand it over easy. He had no choice but to flee."
[Flee? Who?]
"The Monster Monarch."
[Huh?]
Yuna Kyung was floored.
Never met him, but even half the rumors made him the cruelest monarch.
Him fleeing? Sounded like a joke.
But Li Chingwei's face was dead serious, no hint of kidding.
"And if I'm right, Maia's the one who pulled it off."
[Obviously?]
"Not just ordering it. She did it herself. Alone."
[...?]
BaFFled only briefly.
Realizing the meaning late, Yuna Kyung's eyes nearly popped out.
[That scary sis took down the Forest Guild solo and chased off the Monster Monarch?!]
"If my guess holds."
[Is that even possible?!?!]
Yuna Kyung blurted, demanding answers.
She knew Seven Dragon Society princesses outclassed most raid bosses.
But there were limits.
Soloing a top ten guild and their monarch? Beyond reason, impossible to swallow.
"If it's Maia, absolutely."
Li Chingwei asserted.
Impossible for other princesses, but Gold Dragon Princess and Green Dragon Princess could manage.
Especially in solo mass slaughter—she outdid even the Gold Dragon Princess.
"That's the biggest reason they hid the base's destruction, too."
When Maia stormed in.
What happened at the Forest Guild base.
The scene left in her wake.
Imagining it, Li Chingwei murmured low.
"...The aftermath of her fighting? No way they'd let that go public."