Kneel, Old King
The result of rolling dice two tiers higher, courtesy of two Constellations.
Of the ten items on the list, not a single one was worth discarding.
They just handed me a full raid set like it was nothing. Should I complete the Michela Set right here and now?
The Michela Set was one of the best armaments you could assemble in the early game — and correspondingly one of the hardest to complete. The number of people who actually held all three pieces could be counted on one hand. And they had just tossed it at me as a main quest reward: a treasure that normally demanded blood, sweat, and soul-crushing grind.
…Every last one of these ten drops exclusively from specific raid monsters.
But I still had reason to hesitate. I wasn't a beginner — I was a super-veteran of Pangenia. I knew full well that the remaining eight items were every bit as good as the Michela Set, and that knowledge made me pause.
For a first-year player, the Michela Set would have been the obvious pick. But—
The Guardian's Talisman. It can activate a sanctuary so field monsters won't attack you while you rest.
In this game, if you logged out anywhere other than a designated safe zone, you died horribly. And the further you progressed, the scarcer those save points became. That was exactly when items like the Guardian's Talisman — artifacts that could force a safe zone into existence — became indispensable. You didn't just need them for logging out; you needed them desperately for mid-hunt rest stops. In practical value, it rivaled the Michela Set itself.
The downside was that it was consumable.
The problem is the limited number of uses.
Every artifact that forcibly established a safe zone burned out after a handful of activations. They were nightmarishly hard to obtain, which made them genuine treasures that had to be spent with extreme care.
The Sea Beast's Gills are essential for exploring oceans and rivers.
Same logic. The seas and rivers hid plenty of dungeons — most of them Level 7 and beyond exploration zones — and scrambling to find Sea Beast's Gills at that stage could make you cough blood. Stocking up in advance was the wise call.
The Adversary's Anvil, coldly assessed, was unnecessary. My Hidden Trait, Handicraft, would let me raise production skills on an anvil quickly enough — but I wasn't a blacksmith.
The Red Knight's Banner and the Red Hare didn't matter much to me either. Delivering that banner to a particular kingdom would earn a knighthood, but it also meant getting tangled in obligations. The Red Hare was a mount, and I already possessed the Hydragon's Soul.
Pallam's Armor, the Fairy Queen's Tears, the Shadow Cloak… Of all of them, the one that pulled at me hardest was, without question—
The Shadow Cloak.
A cloak that hid its wearer in shadow. Free stealth skill, essentially. Permanent so long as the cloak itself remained intact — an absolute steal. Higher-tier detection tools and high-level tracking skills could still catch it, but those were rare. And more than anything, this cloak would be massively useful in the real world too.
Invisibility. Wasn't that the childhood fantasy everyone had dreamed of at least once?
You have selected the Shadow Cloak.
You may select one additional reward.
I chose the Shadow Cloak without a second thought.
One left.
I rubbed my chin, eyes gleaming. Which of the remaining options should I take? Which choice would make people say I'd picked well?
「…….」
Space-time was collapsing. Everything was shattering apart. At this point, it was hard to tell whether this place was reality or a dream.
Of course, this entire sequence of events was unfolding only within Dramut's world.
Dramut watched the man in stunned silence, words completely gone.
It had been certain the man would burn to death upon the 【Star】. And yet he had walked forward with perfect composure and lifted the 【Star】 as if it had always belonged to him — as if nothing could have been more natural.
This is a dream. This isn't real.
Dramut denied it. A fabricated reality. An illusion someone was showing it. Yes — it was clearly trapped in a hallucinatory state. It must have slept too long. Or eaten something wrong. Had there been a lot of hallucinogenic mushrooms nearby?
Dramut accelerated its metabolism. If it had been poisoned, detoxifying and returning to reality would settle the matter. Close its eyes, open them, and reality would be waiting.
Blink!
It squeezed its eyes shut hard, then snapped them open—
Fwaaaaaaah!
A cascade of starlight poured down.
……What the hell.
Clearly the mushrooms from that morning had been extraordinarily potent toxic fungi. Nothing else could explain the 【Star】 choosing that human.
The master of the 【Star】 was, by extension, Dramut's master as well.
Its previous master, Wilhelm, had been a powerful human — a perfect superhuman, more than worthy of Dramut's service. The moment they met, Dramut had felt the gulf in their ranks. Even a thousand, even ten thousand of itself would never have been enough to match that man. So it had humbly accepted the truth and guided Wilhelm to the Star.
But look at this human.
I have to serve as master a human who falls short of Wilhelm — who falls short of even the golems outside?
Not a speck of transcendence showed on him. Had he at least been granted the qualifications? No. He wasn't even prepared to bear the Star. He was weaker than the golems outside, weaker than the rabbits on the mountain slopes.
The gap between them was colossal. Heaven and earth? They existed on entirely different dimensional planes.
So when the man had declared his challenge, Dramut had laughed its fill, certain he would burn upon the Star.
And yet—
"Dramut. Kneel."
「…….」
"Ah, right. Snakes don't have legs."
This damnable creature was making the exact same demand Wilhelm had made the moment he became master. Even the line about having no legs was identical.
"Isn't your gaze a little too high for facing your new master?"
Ssssssss.
Damn it. Damn it. Damn it all!
No matter how hard it resisted, resistance was impossible. Dramut pressed its face flat against the ground. Its body had reacted on its own, automatically lowering itself to match the man's eye level.
An absolute, flawless shackle — impossible to refuse, impossible to defy.
It meant that this human had become, wholly and completely, the master of the 【Star】 — and Dramut's master.
"Good."
Tap. Tap.
The human smiled as he patted the bridge of Dramut's nose.
How dare he. How dare he treat the Old King, guardian of the Star, like a household pet!
"I am Randolph. I look forward to working with you, Old King Dramut."
「…….」
"Hmm. Too overwhelmed to speak, I see."
「…….」
"Fine. Then as a token of your loyalty, let's begin with exploring the sanctuary."
This is a dream. A wretched dream!
Dramut denied reality.
But Dramut's nightmare was only just beginning.
Thump! Thump!
Isabella's heart began to pound like mad.
Because she had seen the Star? Or because that Star-Bearer had suddenly claimed it?
She didn't know. What she did know was that she was wound tighter than she had ever been in her life.
"Isabella."
"……Yes."
The formal speech slipped out before she could stop it.
The moment he took the Star, the Star-Bearer was no longer a Star-Bearer. He was the Star itself. A goddess made flesh.
She was standing before a god.
No matter that she was the second-in-command of Faisalmer, the great city of the desert — no matter that she was called a princess and held in reverence — how could she dare compare herself to a goddess? Before a god, she was an infinitely small being: a speck of dust that a single breath could scatter.
He stood before that colossal serpent and commanded it like a servant, governing everything. Maintaining her previous attitude toward such a being would have been an act of blasphemy.
"Once the curse is broken, what do you want to do?"
"Leave the desert……"
"And after you leave the desert?"
"……I want to find my… roots."
"The Dercian family, you mean?"
"……Yes."
He knew everything. He saw through every secret.
Isabella von Dercian. She had not been born in the desert. She was a noble born into the Dercian family somewhere on the continent. She had learned of her Dercian origins from the Queen herself — the Queen who, even as she laid the curse, had spoken Isabella's secret aloud.
But she had said this as well: If you want the curse broken, submit. Rise to the rank of princess, and then I will free you.
…The Queen had not kept her promise.
A secret Isabella had never told a soul — and he knew it. Even if the Star whispered secrets, that should have been impossible for a mere Star-Bearer. But for the master of the Star — for the Star itself — it was entirely possible.
"I will bestow a blessing upon you. However, there is a condition."
"A condition……?"
"Serve me for one year. After that, I will grant you your freedom and help you find your roots."
"Ah……"
"Do you think I am lying?"
Isabella shook her head.
The Star smiled.
Simply serve for one year, and freedom would be hers.
Even if it were a lie, she would have accepted it. If only the curse could be broken. If only she could escape this wretched desert.
"……I will serve you."
Isabella swore her loyalty.
The Hall of Fame has been updated.
Rankings for Main Quest 2 — Obtain a Class have changed.
1st — 230 pts. Randolph
2nd — 198 pts. Gracia
3rd — 190 pts. MintChocoIsDelicious
4th — 166 pts. Obsidian
5th — 160 pts. Master
······
You have fallen outside the ranking bracket for Obtain a Class.
The privileges of Main Quest 2 granted to Haksal have been revoked.
Access to the Secret Auction House has been revoked.
Cough!
Haksal scowled at the messages that had suddenly flooded his vision.
"Shit, what the hell is this?"
Privileges revoked?
The Secret Auction House was a privilege exclusive to those who ranked on Main Quest 2 — and that access had just been stripped away.
Haksal was a ranker, but his class was the one ordinary thing about him. He had been clinging to the very bottom edge of the Main Quest 2 rankings, and now he had been overtaken out of nowhere.
But the irritation lasted only a moment.
"Randolph…… 230 points?"
He rubbed his eyes, certain he had misread it.
The man had finished Main Quest 1 with 220 points, and this time the score was even higher. Two hundred and thirty. What kind of class could possibly produce a score like that?
Even second-place Gracia — who had passed over secret classes twice to claim the super-class of Sword Saint — had only scored 198. And this was 230?
"Is this bastard really Phantom?"
Randolph. Was this guy actually Phantom?
He probably was. The only person who could know every secret of Pangenia well enough to claim a class superior to Gracia's was Phantom.
So after having his character deleted during the Great Expedition, he had truly been summoned into Pangenia.
I'll kill him. I will absolutely kill him.
Haksal ground his teeth. No matter how good a class the man had obtained, he would be weak right now. Find him. Kill him without fail. In Pangenia or in the real world — it didn't matter where. Just find him.
But first, I need to recover my ranking.
Hoo… Haksal took a slow, steadying breath and assessed the situation with cold clarity.
Recovering the privileges came first. It wouldn't be particularly difficult. Kill anyone above him in the rankings, and his place would be restored.