Chapter 172: Quad 11. The Battlefield Where Ill Fate is Fulfilled
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 172: Quad 11. The Battlefield Where Ill Fate is Fulfilled
Seo-un donned the Cloak of Stealth, which he hadn't used in a while, and vanished as he melded into the darkness.
There were three reasons why he had chosen to capture the castle alone.
First, it was still the very beginning of the game. Since it was the early stages, it was certain that the enemy's troop farming would be insufficient.
Second, the nighttime environment. Since it was the first night of the game, there was a high probability they wouldn't expect an attack. Even if they were preparing, they would likely assume the assault would come tomorrow morning at the earliest; he wanted to catch them off guard.
At midnight, the entire map—except for the castles—would be trapped within the Force Field. Attempting a siege at night was a massive burden in itself. Since the enemy would think the same, he believed this surprise attack was worth the risk.
The final reason was the rules of the siege.
In a normal siege, one would have to bring down the castle and suppress all enemies, but Cloyd’s sieges were different. If you killed the Fortress Lord or simply broke the flag hanging at the top of the inner castle, the siege was over.
This difference was monumental.
His teammates seemed to be overlooking this unfamiliar game rule, but the implications of this rule in the early game were enormous.
‘It means I can just snatch the castle and run.’
A smirk played on Seo-un’s lips as he recalled the game rules he had scrutinized after taking the first castle, Goyoji.
—A Squad that fails once in either siege or defense becomes "remnants" and cannot attack that same castle again for 24 hours.
In other words, if he could take the castle through a surprise attack, or even just repel an enemy attempt once, they would be safe from that specific Quad for at least 24 hours.
When defending, one had to either kill the leader of the enemy Squad or drive the enemies more than one kilometer away from the castle for it to count as a successful defense. But a siege was different.
‘I just have to sneak into the inner castle and cut the flagpole.’
Between the Castle of Gangryeong-ji to the left and the Castle of Dareung-ji to the right of the recently captured Paryeong-ji, Seo-un chose Gangryeong-ji.
Based on his frequent checks of the map, Gangryeong-ji had turned blue about thirty minutes later than Dareung-ji. That meant their preparations were bound to be slower.
Seo-un looked up at the moonless, pitch-black sky, where a faint orange glow spread like a bruise, and checked the digital watch on his left wrist.
‘It’s getting tight.’
The time here didn't align perfectly with the watch, so there would be some margin of error, but about four hours had passed since sunset. He wasn't sure exactly what time the sun set here, but it was clear that the time for the Force Field to activate was drawing near.
Just as he began to feel anxious, a castle overwhelmingly larger than Goyoji or Paryeong-ji loomed in the distance. Five beams of bright magic light shot out from the watchtowers, illuminating the castle's perimeter to guard against any potential enemies.
Avoiding the lights that crossed each other at regular intervals, Seo-un began his approach.
As he carefully scaled the castle walls, Seo-un held a special item in his right hand. It was a transparent crystal with writhing red smoke inside.
[Caint's Nightmare: Traps an enemy whose stats are less than half of the caster's in a nightmare identical to reality for 4 hours.]
It was one of the items he had looted from Kim Chi-sang. For some reason, that guy had an unusually high number of items like this.
In truth, it wasn't a very efficient item within Cloyd. You couldn't kill the enemy player while they were trapped in the nightmare because their physical body was pulled into the crystal along with them. Furthermore, if an enemy's stats were less than half of yours, it was better to just kill them cleanly rather than trapping them.
‘But for me right now, it’s a huge help.’
With that thought, Seo-un vaulted over the wall the moment a searchlight swept past his head.
‘Huh? No sentries...?’
He had been quite tense, expecting mages and guards to be stationed given the heavy searchlights, but he felt the tension drain away. He couldn't understand why they had bothered installing magic lights if they weren't going to post guards.
Seo-un carefully surveyed the inner courtyard of the outer wall. As he suspected, it was empty—not a single soldier or player in sight. He climbed down from the wall and moved into the darkest corner, where he activated Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils.
In the black darkness, a single red dot began to glow intensely.
‘Thirty-six... no, thirty-seven.’
He could see the players gathered in a large meeting room inside the inner castle, sitting around a round table and holding a discussion. Confirming that the defenses were far more lax than expected, Seo-un began to move slowly.
He slipped through the inner castle gate, which was left open just enough for one person to pass. He climbed the wall near the third-floor meeting room where the enemies were conferring and pricked up his ears.
"With this, our guild has taken four castles. This one is the largest among them. We can hold up to 15,000 soldiers here. The problem is the provisions and the request from the main unit..."
"I don't care if the main unit has the executives; isn't it unreasonable to ask for 2,000 soldiers this early in the game? Honestly, I'm meeting most of these guild members for the first time. Even if they're executives, I've never even played a game with them. To suddenly demand soldiers... and it's not like they waited until this castle was stable enough to defend before asking."
"Exactly. Considering the scale, defending this castle—the largest we have—should come first. Just because the main unit is there doesn't mean their castle is the biggest. They registered the Fortress Lord under an executive's name and now they're siphoning off our troops? That's too selfish. Especially when that Jin Seo-un is in the neighboring castle."
The female warrior's voice was thick with resentment toward the executives.
"Honestly, I think it was a mistake to report our early troop farming so transparently. We finally got our hands on Bronze and Steel Cavalry, and now we're about to lose them."
"But we couldn't exactly lie to the main unit..."
"I joined this guild to help each other's play and increase our survival rate, not to boost the executives' survival rate while being exploited. To provide those troops tomorrow, we'd have to hand over all our provisions. The only reason we haven't registered the soldiers yet is because we're short on food. Just because the main unit's castle is small, they want us to hand over our registered troops? They're basically asking us to empty our stores to protect their castle. No matter how I look at it, I can't follow this order."
Most of the guild members nodded at the martial artist's words. Watching this secretly from outside the window, Seo-un curled his lip into a smirk.
‘Not a shred of camaraderie or loyalty. Well, a ragtag bunch brought together by necessity wouldn't be united by trust or bonds.’
When they were helping each other and creating synergy, they could exert the power of numbers. But once conflict arose, a guild like this was bound to scatter like grains of sand.
To minimize these weaknesses, the roles of the guild leader and executives were crucial. They had to establish clear rules that members could trust and follow, lead by example, and strictly refrain from any behavior outside those rules.
But from the sounds of it, this guild was nothing like that.
Smiling, Seo-un decided he had heard enough and leaped toward the top of the inner castle. Crouching as he watched the flag fluttering in the night wind, Seo-un cast his gaze into the distance and waited.
After a long wait, he saw the Force Field activate outside the castle. He had always seen the Force Field shrinking, but seeing the entire world—except for the castle—swallowed by it for the first time felt like a new experience.
Looking out at the vast expanse of the blue Force Field, he swung his hand.
Snap!
Nature Aura erupted from his lightly swung palm, cleanly severing the steel flagpole. As the flag fluttered to the ground, a notification rang out.
[Jin Seo-un’s Quad of the Castle of Goyoji has seized the Castle of Gangryeong-ji from Parkin’s Quad.]
At that moment, the enemies rushed out of the inner castle and stared blankly at their fallen flag. Belatedly looking up at the top of the inner castle, a mage pointed at Seo-un and screamed.
"There he is!"
The moment the mage spoke, the enemies' gazes converged on Seo-un.
"Expel."
Just as the players were preparing their respective attacks, ready to pour their fury onto him, Seo-un uttered the command, and they vanished from the castle.
"Idiots. You should have checked the rules properly."
—Remnants who have lost their authority over a siege or defense cannot remain inside the castle without the Fortress Lord's permission. Upon activating the Fortress Lord's 'Expel' authority, all remnants are kicked out of the castle.
Deciding he would go out and farm as soon as the Force Field finished its activation cycle, Seo-un began to check the castle's information one by one.
‘Troops are at zero, but they registered 8,000 units of provisions. A Magic Lighthouse? That was an item too. Did they build an Armory? I guess there are items to upgrade the castle as well.’
After reviewing the large castle's information for a while, Seo-un started the team voice chat.
—Sa-gwang. You and the teammates guarding the castle start farming as soon as the Force Field cycle ends. It looks like there are items to upgrade the castle, so focus on farming supplies needed for defense.
—Understood.
—Great job.
—Nice work!
—Well done, Priest.
—If we can just take the Castle of Dareung-ji, we'll have a solid front line on this side. We'll be safe for a while.
—Yeah.
Ending the team chat, Seo-un set his digital watch to 12:30 AM the moment the Force Field finished activating and headed outside.
‘It should be around here...’
He searched the area where he had felt the enemies' life signatures vanish upon expulsion and found 37 boxes scattered about. He obtained a mix of Steel, Bronze, and Ocher Orbs.
The provisions were low compared to the surprisingly high number of troops, but Seo-un didn't mind.
‘If you hoard it, it goes to waste. Troops here are consumables anyway. What matters is farming to ensure a stable flow of supplies.’
Seo-un was playing the game like the strategy simulations he used to play. Establish a safe home base, farm for resources, and then constantly pour those resources into overwhelming the enemy.
‘Quantity has a quality of its own. I can overcome the lack of players with early-game numbers.’
Having finished his thought, Seo-un immediately registered all the troops he had farmed.
[Castle of Gangryeong-ji]
[Troops: 400 / 15,000]
Leading all the available troops out and leaving the newly acquired large castle empty, Seo-un marched toward the Castle of Dareung-ji without hesitation.
—...
—Then, let's meet up near Dareung-ji in five hours. Everyone on this side is cavalry.
—Yes!
After finishing his conversation with the teammates guarding the Castle of Paryeong-ji, the teammates at Goyoji, who had been focused on farming, asked anxiously.
—Will you be okay without us?
—It’s enough for now. Focus on farming as much as possible. If items stop dropping, cross the bridge and farm there.
Answering Dump’s question, Seo-un encouraged the cavalry—a mix of Steel, Bronze, and Ocher—to pick up the pace.
‘I see, the speed varies depending on the troop grade.’
The Ocher soldiers were slower than the Bronze, and the Bronze were slower than the Steel. The speed difference between each grade wasn't massive, but the gap began to widen, and the difference between the Ocher and Steel soldiers became quite significant.
However, Seo-un didn't bother to align the ranks; he just kept running. He wanted to start the siege before sunrise to catch the enemy off guard.
Preconceptions like "There's no way" are dangerous.
There's no way a player would start a siege right after the game begins without even gathering troops.
There's no way an enemy would invade a castle at night with the Force Field about to activate.
There's no way an enemy would start a third fight immediately after finishing two sieges without resting.
In a famous match between pro gamers in a strategy simulation game, a perennial runner-up who lost to a "Triple Bunker" rush later said:
—I never dreamed he would come three times in a row.
‘Keep letting your guard down with your "no ways."’
Thinking this, Seo-un galloped forward and finally rendezvoused with the group that had arrived near Dareung-ji before dawn.
"Hyung!"
Gi-chan was the first to approach and welcome Seo-un. Seeing him return after successfully capturing an enemy castle alone and leading a troop of soldiers was more reassuring than anything.
"The Bronze and Ocher soldiers will arrive soon."
"Are we attacking immediately?"
"Yeah. The enemy's troop count probably isn't much different from ours. The plan is the same. Scale the walls, open the gates, and push straight through to the inner castle. I'll approach first and scout them out, so charge as soon as I give the order. I'll be the key that opens the gate this time."
With those words, Seo-un ran swiftly toward the Castle of Dareung-ji visible in the distance.
*
"Ill fate is ill fate indeed."
At the top of a massive inner castle, a man stood beside another who was looking down at the soldiers filling the courtyard.
"I won't lose to him this time."
The man identical to him nodded and spoke.
"You are right, Lord. War is our specialty. In the Empire, no one has experienced more war than our brothers and our Lord."
"Yes. If I lose to him again, the name 'Madman of the Battlefield' will be a disgrace."
Senrurk and the Twin Brothers assisting him listened to the notification that Jin Seo-un’s Quad had won their third siege, their eyes burning with intensity as they glared toward where Goyoji would be.