Chapter 70
Whiiiiiiiiiing!
A blizzard blew fiercely, biting at exposed skin.
The snow was thick, reaching up to their ankles.
Through this harsh environment, an army clad in thick leather marched forward.
‘D*mn it!’
Rio, at the head of the procession, cursed inwardly.
Additional support!
To secure that support, Rio had to endure seemingly endless nagging and reprimands in the Vice Chairman’s office.
The gist of that long tirade was, ‘Why are you making me waste more money on this pointless endeavor?’
From a certain perspective, it was an unreasonable abuse of power, but Rio, a mere gamer, had neither the power nor the courage to defy the Crown Prince of the Simseong Group.
In any case, he managed to secure the additional support in exchange for enduring the reprimands, but the problem was that the closer they got to the North Pole, the colder it became, exceeding their initial estimates.
‘We can’t turn back now.’
Rio sighed.
They couldn’t retreat after coming this far.
Even if they wanted to, Vice Chairman Shin Jeong-hyeok wouldn’t allow it.
Shin Jeong-hyeok was a man with an incredibly strong sense of pride, and he always felt inferior to JDG and Shin Ha-yeon.
For him, this war was an event that had to succeed, a way to put Shin Ha-yeon in her place.
The reason why Shin Jeong-hyeok, who had decided against unnecessary investments, grumbled but ultimately provided additional support, was also due to that pride.
It was childish, but what could they do? Ultimately, Shin Jeong-hyeok was the one in charge!
For that reason, retreat wasn’t an option, and the only thing left for the expeditionary force was to advance, and advance again.
‘I’m uneasy.’
But as Rio moved forward, he felt a growing sense of unease in his heart.
‘The Undead aren’t coming.’
The Undead, who had been attacking them once a week!
The fact that they had almost completely disappeared, aside from a few who came to harass them, was fueling Rio’s anxiety.
‘Did the Undead King change his strategy?’
The NPCs in Ard World were by no means stupid.
Unlike NPCs in other games that only moved according to a set script, the NPCs in Ard World were equipped with super-advanced AI that possessed emotions and reasoning indistinguishable from humans. Therefore, they could move strategically like humans, and sometimes even more so.
And Rio suspected that the Undead King had changed his strategy.
‘Or maybe there’s a user who received a conflicting quest from the Undead King.’
Winter Forest!
Druid’s Sanctuary!
Both were areas where the Undead couldn’t enter, but seeing that the Winter Seal had been broken, it was possible that a user who received a quest from the Undead King, not the Undead themselves, had broken the seal.
Rio was considering all possibilities and calculating his chances of winning in this suddenly changed environment when……
‘What’s that?’
Beyond the white horizon where the wind howled, Rio saw the Undead army swarming in, black as night.
“Undead! Prepare for battle!”
“Prepare for battle!”
“Prepare for battle!”
The Undead army!
Seeing them advancing, Rio shouted, and the soldiers following him responded with a roar, starting to form battle lines.
Rio stood still, catching his breath and gripping Mistilteinn.
He saw the endless hordes of the Undead army pouring in.
Skeletons, zombies, ghouls, as well as the occasional Death Knight, and even Liches floating in the air!
And leading the Undead army in the midst of it all was……
“A user?”
Rio’s eyes wavered as he spotted a group of users boldly mixed in with the Undead.
The hypothesis that the Undead King had entrusted a quest to a user, which he had just formulated, solidified into conviction in Rio’s mind.
“You must be Changwang Rio.”
A voice as cold as the wind blowing around them pierced Rio’s ears.
Rio looked towards the source of the voice.
There, he saw a familiar face that had recently been the talk of the town.
A man with a rugged appearance, clad in black armor, wielding an extraordinary-looking blue flame sword in his right hand!
Looking at him, Rio shouted the man’s name.
“Drakan!”
Smirk.
Drakan’s lips curled upwards upon hearing his nickname.
At the same time, the viewers watching the situation live through the stream went wild.
▄ ▄ ▄
Drakan’s Sudden Appearance!
Drakan’s insane presence, barging in during the Northern Expedition, was enough to instantly topple the meticulously built tower of Changwang Rio, who had been slowly building up the hype and monopolizing the spotlight.
[Whoa. Wow! Drakan! What are you doing there?]
[Drakan’s here!]
[No, seriously, why is Drakan suddenly appearing there?]
[What? What does this mean? Is he the vanguard of the Undead, Drakan?]
[Surely he’s not going to fight Rio right now, is he?]
[It looks like they’re going to fight.]
[Gasp, then wouldn’t this be the first user-versus-user war in Second?]
[Yeah, that’s right, it’s the first.]
[May the best man win lol]
Rio, seeing the chat window, which he hadn’t been paying much attention to, suddenly flooded with talk about Drakan, cursed inwardly.
And then he realized.
Drakan!
He was the one who received the conflicting quest from the Undead King!
“Now that I see it, Drakan, you’re not alone.”
And he realized that Drakan wasn’t the only user on the Undead side.
Ma Boo-jang, Queen Honey, an unknown magician user, and finally, Flame Sorcerer Ignis, who had ascended to the position of Over-Ranker like himself!
Looking at the users surrounding Drakan as if escorting him, Rio frowned.
[‘D’ream Team is born lol]
[Dream Team is so outdated. The trend is Dravengers.]
[Crazy. Now that I see it, Drakan didn’t come alone, he brought all the elite members from the naval battle lol]
[No, it’s not the elite without FlyingMan and PantyWarrior;]
Even in that situation, the explosive reactions in the chatroom were being updated in real-time.
However, the situation where attention was drawn to his opponent instead of himself was a clear red flag for Rio.
Currently, the Northern Expeditionary Force and the Undead army were in a breathtaking standoff on the snowy field!
In the midst of all this, Drakan, standing at the center of the Undead army, looked at Rio and said,
“Changwang Rio. I have a proposition for you.”
“What is it?”
“I believe you’ve gained enough through the expedition by now.”
“And?”
“Turn back the expeditionary force now. Then, we can amicably resolve this situation without unnecessarily raising tensions.”
At Drakan’s words, Rio laughed on the spot.
“Ha, hahaha! Hahahahaha!!”
It was a hollow laugh born out of absurdity.
Who dared to suggest a retreat to whom!
Moreover, Rio couldn’t retreat now.
This was because Vice Chairman Shin, the actual owner of the Simseong Milky Way guild, would definitely not tolerate a retreat.
Therefore, Drakan’s absurd proposition wasn’t even worth listening to for Rio.
“You’re spouting absolute nonsense. I don’t need to hear anymore. What are you all waiting for? Attack those Undead bastards, and Drakan and his gang!”
Attack!
As soon as Rio’s command fell, the Northern Expeditionary Force charged towards the Undead army.
Watching this, Drakan muttered under his breath,
“So, you’ve made the foolish choice of striking first.”
With Drakan’s single utterance, the chat window of his official Drakan channel live stream exploded.
[He says foolish choice. Look at his shameless tone lol]
[Wow~ I didn’t know Drakan-nim would turn on his stream here lol. Surprise live stream is so much fun~]
[Drakan-nim, did you also cause the northern winter?]
[No, probably. It’s obvious he received a conflicting quest.]
[Ugh, I hate that the north is cold……]
[Drakan-nim, win!]
Drakan looked at the chat window and smiled.
As he expected, the users didn’t complain much.
There were users complaining about the cold north, but it was just a complaint about the sudden change to winter-like weather when the season was supposed to be summer.
As expected, the general users were watching the fight between the Northern Expeditionary Force, which excluded general user participation, and himself as spectators.
It truly couldn’t be a better situation.
Just then.
[Eugene: Drakan-nim. What is this situation?]
Eugene’s chat appeared in Drakan’s view.
[Hul~ It’s Eugene-nim!]
[Eugene-nim is here again!]
[Yoo-ha! It means Eugene hi!]
[Eugene-nim, are you completely reconciled with Drakan-nim now?]
[Didn’t you see the interview video before? Eugene-nim helped Drakan-nim up~]
And with that, the chat window exploded.
Drakan narrowed his eyes as he looked at Eugene’s chat.
Eugene!
Drakan knew why he asked such a question.
One way or another, he was suspicious of him.
Drakan!
He was wondering if he was trying to start a war of conquest with the users again, just like in the past.
Therefore, Drakan needed to alleviate Eugene’s doubts.
“I received a quest from the Undead King. The objective is to stop those guys.”
Drakan pointed his finger forward.
There were the Undead, diligently being ground down like meat shields.
Since Drakan was far from the front lines, no attacks had reached him yet at this point, just as the battle had begun.
[Eugene: I see.]
“You know better than I do that there’s no PK penalty for conflicts that occur while carrying out conflicting quests, right?”
[Eugene: Then it can’t be helped. I understand.]
Eugene barely accepted Drakan’s answer and moved on.
There is no PK penalty between users who clash while carrying out conflicting quests!
To interpret this in detail, it meant that PK was legally permitted between users who inevitably clashed due to the game system and story progression of Ard Saga Second.
For example, if a user received a quest to protect a village and another user received a quest to attack the village, there would be no PK penalty between them.
Conflicting quests are literally a zero-sum game!
It was natural for one side to suffer losses in a conflicting quest with a winner-takes-all structure, and above all, countless conflicting quests were occurring in Ard World even now.
From Eugene’s perspective, whose goal was to preserve the game world of Ard World as it was, there was no basis for punishing Drakan for carrying out a conflicting quest.
In other words, Drakan was still staying within the lines.
Of course, if Drakan crossed the line in a different sense and started controlling things like in the past, imposing heavy taxes, then he would have to intervene, but the current Drakan was, on the contrary, only receiving minimal taxes even in Lawless Port and had completely abolished the tolls on the eastern sea trade routes.
Drakan sighed inwardly.
Eugene!
He felt a sense of self-deprecation at the reality of having to explain even this to him.
But it couldn’t be helped.
To maintain a meager sense of pride, the current Ard World was still Eugene’s.
That’s right.
For now.
No matter how much of a pushover Eugene was, it wouldn’t do Drakan any good to openly bare his fangs.
Bide his time and build his strength!
Now was the time for Drakan to lower his head and hone his skills in the darkness.
Six years!
During those long years, rolling around at the bottom of the world, Drakan had discarded his arrogant pride and become a person who could sell his pride whenever necessary.
However, that didn’t mean he didn’t feel humiliated.
‘Eugene, I will definitely take back Ard World from your hands!’
The hegemony of Ard World!
Vowing to one day reclaim the hegemony he once held, Drakan cooled his head.
