V51C3P3 – Weed’s Song

♪♫♬ The night has grown dark.

The meteors fell, and the plague is spreading.

Tsschk.

Is it because of the darkness?

We are falling into sadness. ♪♫♬

Following Weed’s improvised lyrics, Marey and the other Bards began to play their instruments in a quiet tone.

‘The words aren’t as bad as I expected.’

‘I guess it could have been worse. At least this sounds like a song.’

Thanks to the Bards’ voice amplifying skill, Weed’s tune reached smoothly into the distance even when he was singing quietly.

‘As surprising as it is, this is actually quite pa.s.sable as a song.’

♪♫♬ Bring it on, world.

Tchtchtch, Choochoochoo. ♪♫♬

Suddenly, the song began to pick up tempo. If the first few lines were to be compared to a leisurely stroll, now he was at a full sprint.

♪♫♬ Swords, blades, spears, axes, bows, maces!

I will swing anything to destroy you!

Tsshhtt!

Spells, Spirits, Summoning, Curses!

I will use anything to crush you!

Tchtchtchkk!♪♫♬

Weed used Lion’s Roar and yelled at the top of his lungs. The real fun of singing was to shout the lyrics loudly and pa.s.sionately — he was demonstrating all the skills that he had learnt from the drunken pa.s.sersby during the early hours of dawn.

♪♫♬ Come, come at me.

I’ll wipe out all of you and get the spoils.

It’s mine once I’ve picked it up.

Kill them all. Kill them all!

Tcchhiiiit!!♪♫♬

Weed’s Lion’s Roar resounded throughout the Garnav Plain. What he was doing was more like speaking out what he wanted to say rather than singing, but this still sounded exciting to people somehow. It was a merry tune that seemed to blow away people’s worries about having to fight the powerful Hermes Guild.

♪♫♬ Let us fight all night until the morning comes,

Eat, and drink, and eat, and drink,

Tchchchitt!!

We are going to be rich today.

I came, I saw, I ate!

Let us fight shoulder to shoulder.

Everyone fight together!

Tchwichwichit!!♪♫♬

Moved by Weed’s cheerful tune, Marey and the Bards were ecstatically continuing their performance. They were busy playing their instruments to keep up with the lyrics shouted out in Lion’s Roar. Eventually the song came to an end with a loud, nasal note, and silence fell.

Only after they finished playing did the Bards come to their senses, as if a bucket of ice cold water suddenly poured on them.

‘That was a complete and utter failure in front of a hundred million people.’

‘How humiliating… It was so cringe-worthy my whole body is about to be permanently twisted. I’m going to beat up my pillow in embarra.s.sment before I go to sleep tonight.’

‘I’ve just left a dark spot in my personal history that I’d never be able to forget.’

The Bards looked at Weed who had just finished his song. Still in the form of Karichwi the Orc, he was spreading his arms widely as if we was about to embrace the whole world.

‘Crazy. He’s crazy.’

‘Ah… I want to run away. I’m so ashamed.’

At that moment, someone in the crowd began to clap their hands, which soon turned into thunderous applause.

“Hooray for Weed!”

“We will wipe out that petty Hermes Guild!”

“Gra.s.s Porridge, Gra.s.s Porridge!”

His lyrics and pitch were all terrible, but his song still sounded cheerful and energetic. Most importantly, it was none other than Weed who was doing the singing in such a loud and confident voice, which in turn infected the audience with the same optimism.

“Woooaaah!”

“This is what I’m talking about, man.”

“Yes, what’s there for us to lose? Some days you’ll just have to endure hard time and fight.”

The users who were currently in different regions while watching this through crystal b.a.l.l.s also felt their worries and frustration go away. They had all been growing quite afraid inwardly after they’d seen the attacks from the Hermes Guild.

Death, defeat and conquest — many grim words were lingering in their minds, but Weed’s merry song was enough to rid their hearts of such negative emotions.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

If they could fight without regret, that would be enough.

Weed let out another Lion’s Roar.

– Time to wake up. Everyone, attack!

Most of the users in the Garnav Plain who were watching the broadcast cheered at this.

“Let’s go and smash everything down!”

“Kill them all!”

“Feast, and play!”

***

Calcus the Slayer, leader of the 4th Legion!

The area which he was in charge of was closer to the impact site of the flaming meteors.

“We will penetrate the enemy camp quicker than everyone else.”

Having been stationed in the Tullen Region, where the rebel forces had a strong presence, the Fourth Legion had undergone a constant reinforcement and enhancement of its troops. The imperial legions varied in their military strength, and the Fourth Legion was second only to the First Legion in terms of the size of its forces.

“The Knights have broken through the enemy lines!”

“The Rangers have reached their a.s.signed location.”

“Wipe out everything in the area near the base.”

The Fourth Legion moved around decisively. Reducing the numbers of the Northern users was not the focus of their mission; the Hermes Guild users and the Knights opened up a path, and the rest of the troops followed their lead. Their advance had not been delayed one bit in the outskirt of the Garnav Plain, nor did they slow down when they were penetrating their way through the crowd.

“Their numbers are all they’ve got. This is not even an army.”

Calcus smirked darkly.

The sight of the Knights tearing apart the tightly joined throngs of users — that much was enough to terrify the novice players standing nearby, rendering them unable to show proper resistance.

“I might as well beat up little kids; this is too simple.”

Kill, and kill again.

The more users rushed to strike at them, the higher the mountain of bodies the legion left behind as they pushed forward.

– Steer: Weed has appeared!

He heard the news of Weed finally showing up, but that also failed to stir any sense of urgency in him. Calcus was feeling disappointed because of the weakness of the Northern users. There was a minority of users at level 400s or 500s, but all they managed to do was throwing themselves upon his troops in small groups only to be crushed by the force of the legion. After a few encounters followed by overwhelming defeat, even the high-level Northern users were busy fleeing from the battle.

“Go. Prove that we are the mightiest legion in the Imperial Army!”

A commander who had never experienced defeat, Calcus encouraged his soldiers to march forward.

“Let’s fight back!”

“Stop the Imperial Army, everyone!”

“Do not fear. We’re not fighting to the death anymore; we’re choosing to die in style!”

Then, before he realized, the flow of the battle had suddenly turned. One moment the Northern users were all falling before them hopelessly, the next they were aggressively lunging at the Imperial troops.

“Oooehooeh!”

“Here we come.”

“Wipe them all!”

The same crowds of users who had been watching the advance of the Imperial Army in awe and terror were now rus.h.i.+ng in to fling themselves at the troops. Like moths to flames they all turned to grey as they lost their lives, but there were even more users running towards them from behind with any weapons they could find in their hands.

“They’re still worthless newbies.”

“Knights, break through them!”

Calcus’ army dealt with the users striking at them from all directions. But even as they continued defeating the enemies, they were beginning to feel the difference between swimming in a calm sea and fighting against fierce waves.

***

People who heard Weed’s song through their crystal b.a.l.l.s grabbed their weapons.

“We’ve come here to fight, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

“So what if we’re at disadvantage? I don’t want to be so calculating while I’m in game.”

“Let’s go, wherever we can!”

Once a few users first stepped forward to take initiative, they were joined by countless more, gaining in numbers frighteningly quickly.

“We’re heading to the First Legion.”

“Then we’ll attack the Second!”

“We need to go fight the Third Legion, too, but they are too far away… I trust our brothers and sisters in the nearby areas will find a way to deal with them, so let’s get to the closest ones, first.”

“Yes, let’s just go somewhere. We can at least die fighting them.”

There was no one to take command of these people; high-level users were often seen following the lead of novice players.

“Wow, what is this sudden change of atmosphere?”

“I know, this is so thrilling.”

Hegel, Bella, Rumi and Nide.

The students of the Korea University’s Virtual Reality Department also found themselves carried along by this s.h.i.+ft in mood.

The crowd was walking towards the directions from which the Imperial Army was attacking, with weapons ready.

The drive and energy coming out from the sight of the enormous number of people marching decisively to battle!

They had been taken aback by the unexpected crises such as the meteor strike and the Alkin disease, but the moment Weed had made his appearance everyone regained their will to fight.

“I don’t think they can win this. Do we really have to go and throw away our lives like this?”

When Hegel remarked with a frowned face, Rumi lightly kicked him in the s.h.i.+n.

“Hey! Why do you have to be so negative? We’re just saying we should fight with these people.”

“And why should we do that? It’s only our loss if we get killed.”

“Is everything about profits and gains with you?”

“Yes. I want to avoid any losses if I can help it.”

Hegel was going to stay back and watch, when he suddenly noticed something in the sky.

*Shuuaaaaah.*

‘Is this the wind blowing?’

Something was obscuring the stars.

– Quuuack!

– Tweeet!

They could hear the sound of the chattering birds.

“Dancing Lights!”

A ray of light conjured by a mage in the crowd shot up into the air, and people could see that the sky was completely covered by birds, with a warrior riding on the back of each of them—the Avians, and a squad of airborne troops who were the selected few among the Northern users. Possessing high mobility, they began to envelop the night sky with their wings soon after they appeared.

Gulp.

Hegel swallowed nervously.

The Haven Empire and the Arpen Kingdom!

The two main forces of the Versailles Continent were really about to collide with each other.

‘Maybe I should take part in such an important battle? This would be a story I can proudly tell people anywhere I go.’

Being lost in his own thought, Hegel belatedly realized that all of his other friends had already left and hurriedly rushed off to join them.

***

Zest, the Mage of Truth.

Having started Royal Road in the Central Continent, his name had long been widely known to the public. He was one of the top 3 highest-ranked Mages of the game, and had spent his earlier days in the Haven Kingdom because Haven and Kallamore were two powerful kingdoms that had far-reaching territories during the beginning stage of Royal Road. This later led him to join the Hermes Guild as well, but some time ago he had decided to move over to the Arpen Kingdom.

“Sure, the Hermes Guild provides any support you need, but not for free.”

When the Central Continent was going though the time of turmoil, he naturally played an important part in many wars, but as the Haven Empire came to oppose the Arpen Kingdom, he decided that he wanted to remain an honorable person to his friends. He would not sell his honor to become one of the lackeys of the Hermes Guild.

“Purification of Propagating Flames!”

From a distance, Zest cast a spell targeting at the 8th Legion.

A long-range magical spell!

Cleansing flames fell from the sky upon the Haven Empire’s camp and burst into great blazes.

“The Fall of the Earth.”

Seeing the empire’s Knights charging towards people, he again cast an earth-binding spell. The ground upon which the Knights were marching split into two and swallowed them.

< Your mana has been depleted.

The current remaining mana reserve is 4%. >

The long ranged area-of-effect spells consumed a lot of mana.

“I’ve done what I can; I should take a rest for a bit.”

Just as Zest took a step back, there was a s.h.i.+ft in the formation of the 8th Legion — the users of the Hermes Guild began to run towards Zest’s position.

“Oh, drat! Fly!”

Zest used a flight spell to retreat, but the chase of the Hermes Guild was extremely swift. Users with professions that involved high speed such as Thieves, a.s.sa.s.sins and Rangers were running after him. As the distance between Zest and his pursuers was about to close, the Northern users who had seen this came to his aid.

“Stop them, we need to stop them!”

“Quickly, run!”

Whenever the Hermes Guild users used their skills, a ma.s.s of Northern users were killed as they blocked the attacks with their bodies. Despite that, they were trying to buy some time for Zest to escape even if they had to sacrifice so many lives.

“We must kill him now.”

“Zest! You won’t be able to run from us.”

Mage — the profession capable of killing hundreds of enemies with a single spell. The Hermes Guild members that belonged to the 8th Legion continued their chase persistently.

200 meters, 100 meters… The distance between them was closing fast.

“Urgh.”

“Kuuargh!”

“Aargh!”

But while penetrating the Northern users in high speed to pursue Zest, the Hermes Guild users suddenly began to fall and die on the spot one by one.

“There’s an a.s.sa.s.sin here!”

It was already too late when they realized it: the a.s.sa.s.sin was hunting the guild members amidst the crowd of the Northern users. In no time there were only ten of them left standing, and they were in the middle of the enemy troops.

“Fall back!”

The Hermes Guild users tried to get back to rejoin the 8th Legion.

“Stop them!”

The Northern users blocked their path once more. Not wanting to delay their retreat even a little, the Hermes Guild users tried to escape the battlefield using powerful area-of-effect skills. However, the deep gloom of the early dawn was upon them. A blade sprang forth from the shadows, slas.h.i.+ng their legs, waists and throats in quick succession.

“*Gurgle*…”

“I can’t die like this…”

One by one, they were wiped out down to the every last member.

The subtle disguise, sneak attacks, and the strike in the dark using illusion skills; it was an a.s.sa.s.sin wearing a black garment that emerged from the bodies of the dead Hermes Guild members.

It was Seasoned Crab, the shadow that brings death.

(Continued on next part…)