𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟓𝟓
“Apostle spotted ahead!”
“Damn it, what are you all doing!? Get ready for battle! We must defend this line!”
“Put up a wall with summoned beasts first! We need to block as much as possible!”
The players were moving busily as if they were in a war.
Actually, it wasn’t wrong.
Because beyond the defense line, thousands of Beluin’s Thoughts and Apostles were approaching.
And seeing that force, I couldn’t help but sigh.
‘Yeah, I knew this would happen.’
Since the quest was to defend the line, I had thought that this might happen. Realizing that nothing in the world is easy, I carefully watched the approaching Thoughts.
‘Will it be breached?’
Unfortunately, there weren’t many players gathered at this defense line.
They were all challenging the Trial of Light.
Because of that, I wondered if the Trial of Light was actually a trap.
Frankly, how many players wouldn’t challenge it if it offered great power upon completion?
As a result, almost all the players had challenged the Trial of Light, and because they were stuck there, there weren’t many players who had received the defense line quest.
At most, maybe 500 people had gathered.
‘Well, not all of these people would have passed the Trial of Light.’
There would be people who didn’t take the test, and there would be people who brought their guild members, but that wasn’t important.
“Do you think we can win?”
“Well, it’s hard to say for sure.”
I gave a not-so-confident answer to Yua’s question and coldly assessed each other’s strength.
There seemed to be about 2-3 thousand Thoughts, so I roughly estimated 2,500.
Compared to that, there were 500 players, five times fewer than the Thoughts.
It was hard to be sure if we could win even if we fought like this, and with the Apostles mixed in, it was practically the same as having almost no chance.
‘What should we do?’
There’s no chance of winning, so retreating is the right thing to do.
The quest also said that if it failed, only the request details would change, so there was no need to force it, but strangely, I was stuck in my place, unable to leave easily.
It felt like if we retreated, things would get more difficult.
‘Well, could there be a more difficult situation than this?’
Anyway, apart from that feeling, I didn’t feel like staying in a battle with no chance of winning.
“It doesn’t look like we have a chance. How about we just retreat?”
Then I heard Sina’s words, who had come to a similar conclusion as me.
“I was just thinking about it.”
“Is there something to think about?”
“What will happen if this defense line collapses?”
One thing was for sure: if all of the Emperor Guild, including me, withdrew, this defense line would collapse 100%.
So when I questioned that, Sina thought for a moment and then answered casually.
“If the defense line collapses, we won’t be able to install the Sacred Relic, and then we’ll follow the same path as the Pronia Kingdom.”
‘The Pronia Kingdom……’
For reference, the Pronia Kingdom, which had passed some time, was on the verge of destruction.
It wasn’t that it was destroyed because all the players died, but rather a destruction that occurred because they couldn’t use the village facilities.
‘Come to think of it, if a village is captured by Beluin, you can’t use the facilities there anymore, right?’
What was a little surprising here was that the village facilities included mansions, which also meant that movement through Return Scrolls wouldn’t work.
Furthermore, since various buildings like banks and quest guilds couldn’t be used, I heard that the Pronia Kingdom players were inevitably moving to other countries, but I didn’t really feel it.
“Is only the capital left in the Pronia Kingdom?”
“It’ll probably fall tomorrow, right? I heard they’re attacking now.”
“Then they’ll come to the Ronda Kingdom after that.”
In a way, isn’t this the crisis of the continent, just like the NPC who first gave us the Second Main Scenario said?
If you can’t use all the village facilities in a country, you’ll eventually have to move to another country like the Pronia Kingdom players.
However, apart from that crisis, there were 500 players gathered here.
Moreover, this was just my guess, but I thought about half of them were players from other countries.
“Sigh, what are the Top 10 Guilds doing?”
The Top 10 Guilds I mentioned here were the 10 or so guilds that received the First Main Scenario.
“They’ll be hiding somewhere. Actually, even if the village falls, if you just get rid of Beluin, everything goes back to normal, right?”
“……And who’s going to catch that Beluin?”
At my question, Sina smiled at me with an unreadable expression.
However, I could understand the meaning, so I let out a deep sigh and cursed the Top 10 Guilds inwardly.
It simply meant waiting until I, or the Emperor Guild, caught Beluin.
“Vice Guild Master.”
“……?”
Suddenly, I turned my head and saw a guild member approaching me.
“It doesn’t seem like we have a chance. Wouldn’t it be better to retreat?”
“Retreat. I’ll fight a little and then leave.”
The outcome of the battle was obvious, so I had no intention of forcing the guild members to participate.
So I openly told them to retreat, but the guild member who heard my answer looked at me with a puzzled expression.
“Aren’t you going, Vice Guild Master?”
“It’s a shame to come all the way here and retreat without doing anything. I’m going to try and get some experience points.”
My words about getting experience points were not a lie.
Right now, I could gain 20% more experience thanks to the Necklace of Growth I got from the Luxury Shop Box. Because of that, I could gain over 100,000 experience points every time I caught a Thought.
Moreover, there were 2-3 thousand of those Thoughts out there.
The four Apostles were bothersome, but if it seemed dangerous, I could just run away. So with the intention of gaining as much experience as possible before that, I spoke, and the guild member nodded as if they understood.
“It’s true that the Thoughts give a lot of experience.”
“Should we catch a few and then leave?”
“Do as you please.”
I wasn’t used to giving orders, regardless of my position, so I left them to act freely and turned my head back towards where the Thoughts were.
‘They’re almost here.’
It seemed like the battle would start soon.
‘Hmm?’
And at the same time as that thought, I saw the slowly approaching Thoughts suddenly charge as if they were attacking. I realized that the battle had begun, and the players also started to fight back.
“They’re coming! Everyone get ready!”
“Get a hold of yourselves and prepare your skills!”
Well, I should get going too.
“Ah, Yua-nim, don’t overdo it.”
“Don’t worry.”
I nodded at Yua’s words not to worry and immediately ran towards the Thoughts.
Yua wouldn’t rush forward and fight like a berserker, and Sina was also beside her, so I didn’t worry too much. I ran towards the Thoughts and raised my shield against the oncoming black wave.
“Jayer’s Guardian Shield, Battle Awakening. Shield of Light.”
Pabak!━
At the same time, I used the skill that could deal the most damage to the Thoughts, and then used one last skill and put strength into my running feet.
“Giant’s Sprint!”
Kwaaaang!!━
[Skill Damage! 44,480.]
When I collided with the Thoughts using Giant’s Sprint along with the support skills, they were flung in all directions without any resistance.
‘Oh.’
The feeling was strangely good.
If I could easily fling them away with Giant’s Sprint like this, it meant that the Thoughts could no longer inflict any damage on me.
Well, even if they did, I would recover quickly.
Also, in this black-stained scene where I couldn’t see anything but Thoughts, I unknowingly smiled and raised my shield again.
* * *
[The quest details have been changed.]
‘Tsk.’
In the end, the players couldn’t stop the surging Thoughts and had to give up the defense line. I, who had been dealing with the Thoughts until then, also had no choice but to retreat.
No matter how much I swept them away with Giant’s Sprint, I couldn’t stop all thousands of Thoughts.
Anyway, the Thoughts I missed rushed straight into the defense line where the players were, and the players seemed to have done their best to block them, but as expected, the numbers were overwhelming, and they were pushed back tremendously.
‘But I gained quite a lot of levels, so I should be satisfied with that.’
100,000 experience points for each one I caught.
I caught at least over 200, so I gained at least over 20 million experience points.
And as if to prove that I gained that much experience, my level had also risen considerably.
[Level: 146]
‘If I fight like this for about half a month, I might even reach 200, right?’
That’s how fast my level was rising.
However, I thought there wasn’t anything I could gain even if I reached level 200, so I let go of my desire for levels and checked the changed quest.
[Go to Bishop Arus and listen to his story.]
Explanation: You have failed to defend the line. Please inform Bishop Arus of this and receive further instructions from him.
‘This isn’t even a quest.’
It was just like delivering a letter before, an errand to receive the next quest.
Anyway, after checking the quest, I turned my head to look at Yua.
“What should we do? He’ll be disappointed to know that the defense line has collapsed.”
“Are you talking about Arus?”
“Yes, the Bishop.”
“We did our best, so he’ll probably let it slide.”
Of course, he wouldn’t just let it slide and would give us a new quest, but……
Anyway, the current quest was to go to Arus, so we inevitably headed to the Church of Light. Soon after, we met Arus and told him that the defense line had collapsed.
“Huh-huh, is that so?”
At those words, Arus let out a somewhat hollow laugh and then nodded.
“Lamenting won’t bring back the already collapsed defense line. We must move for the next step.”
“What’s the next step?”
“We must prevent the Beluin and his Apostles who are currently attacking the Pronia Kingdom from joining forces with the Apostles here in the Ronda Kingdom.”
‘Ah.’
Was that it?
I had a feeling that I shouldn’t retreat from the defense line so easily, and after hearing Arus’ words, I think I understood what it was.
Joining forces with Beluin.
Currently, there were Beluin and four Apostles in the Pronia Kingdom.
What would happen if the Apostles in the Ronda Kingdom joined them?
‘That would mean a total of 8 Apostles attacking.’
At this point, where I wasn’t even sure what would happen if just Beluin came, if 8 Apostles gathered, all the countries after this would likely collapse like dominoes.
Frankly, every time they destroyed a country, Apostles would join, and in the last country they reached, there would be nearly 20 Apostles. That would practically mean the Main Scenario was over.
‘Sigh, should we have fought harder?’
There were two chances to fight the Apostles in the Ronda Kingdom.
One was when we retrieved the Sacred Relic, and the other was when we were defending the line just now.
However, I chose to run away both times. Feeling that the situation was becoming increasingly difficult, I looked at Bishop Arus.
‘Well, he said we need to stop them from joining forces, so there must be a good way, right?’
At least if we just got rid of the Thoughts on the wide plains, it would be manageable.
With that thought and expectation, I waited for Arus’ next words, and soon, he opened his mouth.
“We will activate the Sacred Relic.”
“The Sacred Relic?”
“Originally, we prepared it to confine Beluin, but the defense line has collapsed, and the Apostles are still invading, so we have no choice.”
‘This……’
It seemed like the original plan was to defend the line and catch the Apostles.
If we did that, we could have used the Sacred Relic on Beluin when he arrived, but now that the defense line had collapsed, it seemed like they had no choice but to use the Sacred Relic to catch the Apostles.
“Even if we catch the Apostles with the Sacred Relic, what about Beluin afterwards?”
“The other countries are diligently preparing their defenses, so we’ll leave it to them.”
“……”
No, but what if the defense lines in other countries collapse too?
Along with that thought, a country came to mind where even if they built a defense line, the Apostles wouldn’t be able to invade.
It was none other than the Harpe Empire.
‘If all the other countries fall like this, the final battleground seems like it will be the Harpe Empire……’
Well, I decided to think about that later. I asked the next important question.
“What kind of power does the Sacred Relic have?”
If it just increased stats, it wouldn’t be meaningful.
However, listening to Arus talk about the abilities of the Sacred Relic, I realized that it was much more amazing than I had imagined.
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