Clan War? We're Going for the Top Spot!

"All right...! I've eaten a proper meal, so let's kick off this clan war in high spirits!"

On the desk in front of my computer were the energy drinks and snacks I'd ordered through delivery yesterday.

I’d also had tuna sushi worth fifty thousand won delivered for dinner, so I was feeling more stuffed and satisfied than ever.

"Hng-hng, hng-hng...♪"

Humming under my breath, I squeezed a generous dollop of moisturizing cream onto my fingers and slathered it all over my face.

Then I squeezed out a good amount of body lotion and carefully worked it into my arms and legs, even the backs of my knees.

It felt a little like I was making a fuss over becoming a woman, but it would’ve been such a waste to let this well-kept body go to pieces.

So, for now, I was using all the things on my vanity that I understood well enough to apply on my own, and I was doing it every day.

...If I didn’t do this, I’d basically be throwing away the chance to be a twenty-six-year-old chaebol heiress beauty into the trash with my own ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hands, right?

"Anyway, the clan war was supposed to start at noon."

It was 11:55 a.m.

I’d assumed things like this would open the moment daily quests reset, but thankfully that wasn’t the case.

Then again, if the clan war started at 6 a.m., it’d be a little too much of a hardcore-player hour, wouldn’t it?

"To get a high score in clan wars, I said the clan leader had to keep tight control..."

At first, I’d worried I might not be up to the job, but it turned out to be surprisingly manageable.

Since this clan had been recruited from the gallery, I couldn’t use open chat or Discord without risking the dreaded "socializing" problem, but that didn’t matter.

Since Galaxy Train was a game where clan war was the endgame PvE content, it naturally, logically supported clan chat.

Well, if I thought about it, there was no way a game that pushed clan war as endgame content wouldn’t support that much. In this day and age, there was no way a trash game would fail to provide even the basics.

"First, let’s see how the clan members I worked so hard to gather are doing!"

... ... Did I recruit the wrong people?

After checking the chat logs from while I’d been asleep, all they’d been doing was spouting nonsense!

Could I really get first place with a bunch of degenerates like this?

For now, calm down. The clan war had only just begun, and every one of them had the kind of combat power that would make them aces in another clan!

Hmm... chatting like this doesn’t feel too bad either, does it?

At least they were all normal people, right?

For now, I should check how the clan war was progressing.

The clan war consisted of a single stage broken into four phases.

As the stage went up, the bosses’ HP and attack power honestly scaled right along with it.

Players had to clear the bosses placed one by one in each phase in order to move on to the next.

In other words, you had to finish four boss fights to complete one stage, then circle back to phase one again.

"Oh? As expected of our clan! This is looking good!!"

〔2/4 phases in progress!〕

While I was only thinking for a moment, the phase-one boss went ahead and died.

Goblin Trio (Easy, Multi-Target)

So it really was just an easy boss, huh? Not a match for our clan members, each of whom had a fully broken five-star character?

They cleared it the instant they went in?!

Haa... I guess I can just relax and watch this at my own pace.

Unlike I’d feared at first, the clan members were sharing information on their own and carrying the clan war forward.

So this was what it looked like when people had spent at least a little money on the game and got serious in content like this?

"There’s no need to worry about the rank right now. It’s not like the real sorting begins until Hard difficulty anyway!"

* * *

Today, Chief of Staff Lee Eunbyul hadn’t sent me any special phone calls or messages, so I was able to focus fully on the game.

That let me wander through anonymous communities all over the place and leisurely watch livestreams, so I could see just how hard the clan war was and how much suffering it was causing people.

The Galaxy Train gallery had descended into chaos the moment clan war got moving and the Very Hard difficulty opened.

On Easy and Normal, most players could earn three stars with even four-stars, collect their carryover reward, and move on to the next boss.

But!!! Starting from Very Hard, a completely different world began to unfold.

"The gallery is losing its mind because it can’t beat it...!"

But our clan was different!

Ragnarok’s Female Warrior (Very Hard, Single Target)

My carefully gathered clan members were, as expected, incredible.

Having automatically absorbed even the strategy posts that had been uploaded to the gallery, they racked up an absurd number of points on their own.

Thanks to that, our clan was able to hit 128th place on the very first day.

"Didn’t I say that because everyone gets the same points for content anybody can clear, the rankings would start separating clearly as time went on?"

From Stage 1 to Stage 15, honestly, anyone could clear it.

Whether you challenged a boss you could clear with five thousand combat power, ten thousand, or even one hundred thousand, the score was the same.

Everyone got three stars. Everyone got carryover. There was no room for score differences.

But starting from Very Hard, that changed.

"Some people can’t clear it! Some people can only barely clear it! And strong players like me can three-star it, then use a carryover party to three-star it again!!!"

Under my clan members’ expectations, I clicked into the first party to take on Ragnarok’s Female Warrior.

Party 1 (Seri Carry Party)

It was Very Hard, the kind of difficulty where you needed one well-built five-star and three four-stars just to clear it, but I was different.

“I’ll end this in an instant!”

The moment I entered the boss fight, full-dol-ful-jae Seri immediately used her combat skill on the enemy.

The target had enough bulk that it didn’t die in one hit, but its HP was shredded so dramatically that it vanished in a satisfying spray of damage.

"And then if I hit the ultimate right away...!"

“Scatter with the butterflies!”

With a screen flashing so brightly it hurt my eyes, the boss fight ended in an instant.

I’d also cleared the three-star conditions without any trouble, so Party 1 (Seri Carry Party) could be used once more.

Riding that momentum, I immediately sent Seri into Goblin Trio (Very Hard, Multi-Target).

This one was a boss fight where three goblins popped up to be obnoxious, unlike before, but...!

"Hah, hahahaha! Seri gets an extra turn when she defeats an enemy, so multi-target fights are no problem!!!"

Even though Seri’s class was clearly Hunt and should have excelled at single-target fights...!

Thanks to that absurd passive, even multi-target battles were cleared in the blink of an eye, as easily as eating cold porridge.

"Heh heh heh, and I still have two parties left... I can’t believe we’ve already climbed this far!"

I was thinking exactly the same thing!

Princess Medusa (Very Hard, Gimmick Type)

This boss could only be cleared if you performed a special action.

You had to do whatever the boss demanded—like purifying a buff on the enemy or purifying a debuff on yourself.

"So for this Medusa, I absolutely need to cleanse the Petrifying Gaze debuff the enemy inflicts...!"

But a MeiLing with two dupes or more didn’t need that kind of support.

There was no need to slot in a bothersome Preservation character with a cleanse function.

That was because MeiLing with two dupes or more became immune to enemy debuffs whenever she took a Counter Stance!

"Just go in and tap auto, and then...!"

“Everything becomes one! The Mountain’s Strike!”

"Nice! And next! Next!"

Golden Gate Keeper (Very Hard, Single Target)

Unlike the goblin brothers, this one spawned only a single enemy.

Free-to-play and light-spending players were famous for cursing the game starting here.

Because this bastard didn’t have any grand strategy to speak of.

You’d think that meant it was easy, but in games like this, the fewer counter-strategies there are, the more every single pattern turns into complete garbage.

So this guy just repeated two patterns.

1. Hit hard.

2. Heal.

It was the kind of boss where if your party couldn’t outpace the enemy’s attack power and healing, you simply could not clear it.

That was probably why it was called a “gatekeeper”...!

“Everything becomes one! The Mountain’s Strike!”

“Hitting hard” is just a nice little story when you’re a counter character like MeiLing!

"Phew... There you are again, Ragnarok’s Female Warrior."

Ragnarok’s Female Warrior (Very Hard, Single Target)

Since it was single-target, Haeunlich, who specialized in multi-target fights, had no choice but to show some unhappiness.

But who cared! Our Haeunlich at home was full-dol-ful-jae, after all!!!

“With the power of necromancy...!”

The flesh golem Haeunlich summoned didn’t even spend a full turn before crushing the boss’s skull.

"Nice... We didn’t gather on Discord like those livestream clans and hit it every second, so 54th feels like a total jackpot!"

The real ranking battle, after all, was the last day of clan war.

By the way, I understood perfectly well that our clan was ranked 54th, but what about the score I, Kwon Seah, had personally made?

Surely I was first in the clan, right?

"Whoa... I’m ahead of second place by three thousand points?"

I was super-carrying.

Our clan wouldn’t function without me.

"U, uhh... aahhh...!"

Just like an exclamation bursts out after drinking something delicious, my body shivered dangerously.

My face flushed bright red, and without meaning to I tightened my toes and fingers so hard that my thighs pulled slightly.

"Seah! Let’s carry this all the way to first place!!!"

Overcome with joy, I stood up, clapping my hands and making a complete fuss.

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