So You Had a Plan All Along (1)
The passage of time in the field felt swift for the players. More precisely, it was never enough for those summoned back to the field for the losers' revival, while it dragged on relatively long for those defending their flags against relentless assaults.
Hundreds, sometimes thousands, were eliminated each day. When night fell, some of them returned as the fallen, seeking vengeance. Battles erupted repeatedly, and with each passing day, the intensity only grew thicker.
Yet even amid this chaos, there were coordinates that somehow maintained a fragile peace. A tranquil lake. The merfolk base, fortunate enough to have escaped the field's collapse zones, had become an impregnable natural fortress that no one else could breach.
— How many flags have we seized today?
At the center of the lake, in the makeshift dwelling prepared for Geumrin, Cheongrin received the day's report from the merfolk who had returned from battle.
— We have seized flags from a total of three coordinates.
The voice came from a merfolk whose prominent green scales stood out on his forehead. They did not open their mouths during conversation. Instead, they simply vibrated the membranes near their gills to transmit sound. It was the merfolk's unique method of precise communication underwater, something most surface-dwellers never understood.
— What about the enemies who were prowling around?
— They still cannot leave the lake. However, the number of those who actually jump into the water has definitely decreased.
At night, the players the merfolk had eliminated would appear near the lake, watching for any chance to steal the flags. It was only natural. If they could reclaim even one flag, they could absorb all the stats the merfolk had accumulated and attempt a comeback.
It was a visible threat. Yet Cheongrin did not seem particularly concerned whether the fallen players came or not.
— By the way, Sir Cheongrin… why are you leaving the fallen as they are? If they form an alliance, even a lake like this could become dangerous.
One of the merfolk, unable to contain his curiosity, asked the question. No matter how he thought about it, he could not understand Cheongrin's intentions. Still, he did not believe the royal knight would do anything that would truly threaten his own people.
— They will not form an alliance. Or to be precise, they cannot.
— Pardon? What do you…?
— Exactly as I said. You mentioned the number of those jumping into the lake has decreased, correct? Do you know why?
— Is it not because they have judged that humans cannot fight merfolk in the water? Besides… it is realistically impossible for a human with the same stats to defeat a merfolk underwater.
Yet even merfolk had their limits. If their ever-growing numbers launched a coordinated assault all at once, even the merfolk could find themselves in genuine danger.
However, Cheongrin shook his head lightly at those words.
— A reasonable thought, but only half correct. It is true they may hesitate to attack because of the unexpected strength of our kind. The moment they enter the lake, they would clearly see just how powerful a merfolk becomes in water.
But how strong merfolk were in water was only half the issue, just as Cheongrin had said.
— Do you know why they are gathered here right now?
— Is it not to reclaim the flags we took from them? To rejoin the competition through the losers' revival?
— Then let me ask again. In that situation, who is their true competitor? Us merfolk?
The merfolk who had posed the question tilted his head at Cheongrin's words, then nodded in realization. The decisive reason those who had once forced desperate assaults before large groups gathered now hesitated to enter the water recklessly.
— They do not want to have the prey they suffered to hunt stolen by others. If one coordinate had shown the possibility of reclaiming a flag first, they might have rushed in to seize it. But we merfolk have already gained the upper hand against human attacks. No—we have achieved total victory.
What dominated the players' minds now was the certainty that jumping into the water first would mean they would not even glimpse a flag while only doing others a favor.
— Has your curiosity been satisfied?
— Ah, y-yes!
— Then you may go.
At Cheongrin's words, the merfolk quickly scattered. Their task from now on was to defend the lake while waiting for the final daytime phase of the team competition.
'If the flags are in the lake, even that man from the Earth coordinate will have no choice but to give up.'
Kim Siin's face suddenly flashed through his mind. The most dangerous outlier since the individual round. It might be too greedy, but to catch him for certain, Cheongrin could only pray that this lake would become the final battlefield.
At that same moment, in the Holy Kingdom's camp.
“Haa… Is it just me, or have the fallen increased dramatically?”
At someone's casual remark, the other knights jerked their heads up and chimed in.
“The frequency of their attacks has clearly gone up too.”
“Exactly. I mean, it's one thing for the ones who lost their flags to come charging in, but the ones who showed up earlier didn't even have faces we recognized.”
It was just as the knight said. At first, they wondered if they were simply imagining things because they were exhausted. But no. As time passed and days went by, the number of fallen visiting them at night kept increasing. The Holy Kingdom players were struggling desperately to protect their flag.
“Thank goodness those two are here, at least…”
“I can't disagree with that.”
Their gazes turned toward the Saintess and the Red Knight. The Red Knight displayed martial prowess on an entirely different level despite having the same stats. Moreover, the Saintess was using her holy power to strengthen the knights. In a team competition where stats were fixed, it was almost impossible for them to lose.
“Scouts, move to your positions! The rest of you, rest for a while!”
At Red Knight Landon's shout, the knights who had been chatting dispersed in perfect order. Although the recent battle had just ended, the night was not over yet.
“Saintess, are you alright?”
“…Yes. Thank you.”
At Landon's question, the Saintess lifted her head with a faint smile. Beads of sweat had formed on her forehead. She said nothing, but she was clearly pushing right up against her limit.
“You are overexerting yourself. Please rest now. I will handle the cleanup around here.”
“It is fine. There are still injured people, so I must push harder.”
“……”
The Saintess staggered to her feet and walked toward the wounded knights. Landon's heart ached at the sight, but he could not bring himself to stop her. He knew it was her mission, and that not blocking her path was the greatest respect he could show her.
'Still…'
Something felt off. They had seized quite a few flags from other coordinates, so he had expected a large number of players to come. But just as the knights were saying, the number of attackers far exceeded expectations. Even fallen who had nothing to do with the Holy Kingdom were suddenly rushing in.
'Damn it.'
Without knowing the cause, there was no way to respond. He could only guess that it was some scheme of the constellations. He had no way of knowing.
And he would never have any way of knowing.
That the suffering they were enduring was nothing more than a work created by two people from Earth.
“Ahjussi, how many this time?”
“Roughly thirty.”
Deep in the forest. Han Gamin and I sat perched on a tall tree, watching a small group of players heading off to wage war against the Holy Kingdom.
'We got lucky.'
Finding the Holy Kingdom players on the morning of the third day was nothing short of a stroke of fortune for us, who had not yet joined up with our coordinate.
'I suspected as much, and sure enough…'
The players appearing at night were being guided by the system like a navigation app, showing them the location of the coordinates that had absorbed their flags. I had wondered how those people had ever found that cave we had hidden so thoroughly. The fallen who had located us in this vast field, in the pitch-black night. If the attackers had been beastmen, I might have understood to some degree.
It was a situation ripe for suspicion, and my earlier guess turned into certainty as I watched the people engaged in nightly bloodbaths with the Holy Kingdom.
“Just hiding like this seems like it would be enough to place in the upper ranks, don't you think?”
“……”
Han Gamin spoke in a slightly excited tone. But I remained silent. Her words were not wrong, but the faint hope I was beginning to see had sparked greed in me.
“Don't tell me… you're aiming for the win? In this situation?”
When I stayed quiet for a moment, she seemed to read my thoughts and carefully floated the question.
Of course, when I had first started diverting the fallen toward the Holy Kingdom, my thoughts had not been all that different from hers. In a situation where we did not even know where the Earth coordinate players were, continuing to be chased by the fallen was far too dangerous.
But.
Lv.16 Flag
Raises all stats by Lv.16.
Looking at this now, I no longer felt like settling for an appropriate finish. When there was a chance, I did not want to give up. Besides, the key point was that the person holding the Earth coordinate's flag was not me. It was not possible right this moment, but stealing Landon's flag and getting eliminated was a scenario worth seriously considering.