Chapter 291: Episode 291_A Ga of Nerves (4)
4.
Originally, the warlocks’ Gate to the Demon World was supposed to be opened at the Great Temple. That would make it easier to manage and to prepare for any unforeseen circumstances. It was the heart of the Empire. It was potentially the most dangerous location, but they were confident they could handle it. They believed they could keep the warlocks under control.
However, in the end, the Gate to the Demon World was not opened at the Great Temple.
No, it could not be.
The captured warlocks alone were not enough. Their power was lacking.
Of course it was.
Even a Gate opened with the blood of hundreds of thousands as a sacrifice had been knocked off course by the slightest interference.
But to draw a magic circle and open a Gate in a completely unfamiliar location, without Grokile’s guidance, was a feat beyond the combined power of every warlock on the continent.
Without a proper frawork, it was impossible.
So, they changed their plan.
They moved to the site of the ancient war.
Leading a horde of warlocks, they traveled to the location now recorded only in history books.
It was a land devastated by the aftermath of war, where a lightless, black magic circle still remained.
The captured warlocks were shoved, one after another, onto the circle.
The ritual, which tolerated not even the slightest error, proceeded under nerve-wracking tension.
Perhaps the heavens were on their side.
The ritual progressed flawlessly. The magic circle that had failed even under Grokile’s personal supervision, after drinking the blood of hundreds of thousands, now began to shine as if to erase the sha of its past failure.
It felt as if the blood that had seeped into the ground back then was only now unleashing its power.
Countless onlookers, including the Imperial Princess, swallowed hard as they watched the transformation.
They had managed to activate the warlocks’ magic circle, but they were far from relaxed.
They had no idea what would happen next.
At that very mont, the Great Temple was also attempting to open a Transfer Gate to the Celestial Realm.
They didn’t know which Gate would succeed, or if only one would open.
What if this was all for nothing?
Or what if demons erged from the Gate—or worse, the Demon King himself?
They had prepared for every contingency.
And then, they waited.
They watched as the magic circle slowly began to glow, a current of darkness seeping from it. A pitch-black night spread out, threatening to cover the entire world.
Just like during the war.
The darkness surged in, so thick they couldn’t see what was right in front of them.
Just as the thought crossed their minds that sothing was about to happen—
The darkness vanished as if it had never been.
As their pupils, which had adjusted to the dark, finished adapting to the light, the first thing the Imperial Princess and the others saw were the cold corpses of the warlocks who had been standing on the magic circle.
However, they paid the bodies little mind.
They didn’t matter.
Had the warlocks survived, they would have been executed on the spot anyway. They were scum, their lives worthless.
What mattered now was whether the magic circle had produced what they desired.
Had Han Simin, the hero of the continent, returned safely through the Gate?
Eyes filled with a mixture of expectation and worry turned toward the center of the circle.
There, silhouettes that had not been there before were beginning to take shape.
*
anwhile, Kenji was launching his Kingdom Conquest War.
Dawn. That dim, gray hour.
It was the optimal ti to launch an attack.
For the side that had received the declaration of war, it was both their most vulnerable ti and the ti they had to be on their highest alert.
But that kind of vigilance could only last for a day or two.
They couldn’t keep their entire army awake every night, endlessly on edge, just to monitor the Kenji Guild, which had declared war only to severely restrict its movents and leak no information.
Besides, it was just a single territory.
Kenji’s forces had been expanding at a frightening pace, but their target this ti, while not particularly large or powerful, was still a sovereign nation.
A kingdom with its own king and countless territories.
And they intended to conquer it.
It was true that two of the kingdom’s territories had already fallen into the Kenji Guild’s hands.
But that was the extent of it.
The kingdom had accounted for those variables and prepared accordingly.
Moreover, they were resolved to never lower their guard against a direct assault on the royal capital—a move that could topple the kingdom in a single blow—no matter how long it took.
Any large-scale troop movent would inevitably be noticed.
Especially an approach on the royal capital, where the bulk of the kingdom’s forces were concentrated.
They believed they could stop it.
They were confident.
It was this very confidence that Kenji was now challenging.
He wasn’t taking them lightly, either.
The more formidable the opponent, the more thoroughly he prepared.
To prevent information leaks, he shared military secrets only with his most trusted confidants and invested more money into this war than any previous Territory War.
If Han Simin’s request hadn’t been ninety percent blackmail, he would have genuinely refused.
Finally, the preparations were complete. The ti for the decisive battle had co.
He’d had a bout of bad luck right before the operation, leaving him with a vague sense of unease, but what could he do?
’I’ll just think of it as getting the misfortune out of the way early,’ he decided.
In the anti, users began to gather one by one.
This was his trump card.
The operation he had prepared in secret.
It was nothing fancy.
In fact, users watching the stream might not be particularly surprised, perhaps even laughing it off as an obvious strategy.
But that was a perspective only possible for a third party watching from the outside.
Anyone who had played even a little of 『Fantastic World』, who had passed level 50 and spent more than half their day in FW, would not have co up with this idea so easily.
Because that place was another reality.
A world where NPCs truly lived and breathed.
And in that world, they were about to attack a kingdom.
In real-world terms, it was like the inhabitants of a tiny island deciding to invade and conquer a country like the Philippines.
It was an utterly unrealistic notion. Yet, because this world was both reality and a ga, it was also possible.
In this ambiguous world, walking a tightrope between the two, Kenji had devised a stroke of gar genius.
A user-only commando unit.
Even thinking about it again, it was brilliant.
’How did I even co up with sothing like this?’
“...Guild Master. Is this for real? It’s too perfect.”
“Ten minutes until the operation begins. We attack exactly on schedule.”
The users appeared one by one, gathering in a small forest not far from the royal capital they planned to attack.
Their numbers were approaching one hundred.
A party composed purely of users, with no NPCs.
They were the original mbers of the Kenji Guild.
Gars who played under his patronage and drew a salary from him.
And they had made it to the very doorstep of the royal capital without a single casualty.
Of course, this was no ti to celebrate.
There were fewer than a hundred of them, and they were still outside the capital, needing to break their way in.
No matter how early it was, or how many people were asleep, the city walls were not so poorly defended that a hundred n could breach them.
The guards would be formidable.
And yet, Kenji was smiling.
He couldn’t help it.
This alone was a monuntal achievent.
They were barely over a hundred strong.
His original plan had been to slowly and overwhelmingly crush the kingdom’s territories one by one with his assembled forces, then proceed with the Kingdom Conquest War.
That had been his plan until yesterday.
Until Han Simin contacted him.
But after their conversation, his mind had changed.
Kenji had certainly agreed to the request because he couldn’t withstand the thinly veiled threat, but he had received compensation as well.
This was it.
A way to drop a hundred users into a quiet spot like this, not far from the royal capital, without arousing any suspicion.
“To think he would exploit the user system like this.”
The thought still made him marvel.
Han Simin had used Kenji to relay a ssage to the Temple, and the Temple had paid Kenji for fulfilling Han Simin’s request.
It was almost no risk to them.
And they still upheld their rule of neutrality in war.
“I think we can use this from ti to ti.”
“Looks like we’ll have a lot more to keep an eye on going forward.”
The plan was simple: embed the users within a large procession of priests heading toward the royal capital. Once the users logged out, the priests would abandon their soulless avatars in a secluded location.
Naturally, the users’ avatars, left outside a safe zone, would simply disappear.
If anyone had been monitoring the priests’ procession, such a large-scale group movent would have been impossible, but who would suspect and watch priests?
That was how they had gotten here.
“We’re here, Guild Master.”
“Let’s go.”
It might end up being a one-ti strategy.
Since he had paid for it in full, it would be broadcast as his strategy on Han Simin’s stream. Other users would nod, thinking, ’So that’s a viable thod,’ and try to use the tactic themselves.
Whatever the case, what mattered was the here and now.
Kenji’s forces had reached the front of the royal capital perfectly intact.
The real problems started now.
The obstacles they faced hadn’t disappeared.
Even so, there was one reason he was overflowing with confidence.
“Shall we go back to our old guild days for a bit?”
“I’d love that.”
In terms of overall power, Kenji’s territory was weak.
He had to commit his full strength just to deal with a kingdom like this.
However, the Kenji Guild—
As a single organization, they were strong.
They had been rising stars in the past, and now they had grown into a force that even NPCs couldn’t take lightly.
Kenji was decked out from head to toe in Legendary gear and special items.
Dino had completed his second Awakening at the Legendary grade.
The guild mbers had all the levels and equipnt they needed, thanks to the river of money that had been poured into them.
They were confident.
Confident that they could smash down that city gate—which was nothing compared to the Rich Territory’s gate—and seize the royal capital right now.
VWOOM—
Dino’s glowing staff split the sky open.
It was the opening salvo that signaled the start of the war.
*
5.
“Stop!”
Unfamiliar silhouettes.
Eleven figures stood on the magic circle that led to the Demon World.
As everyone stood on edge, warily facing one another, a desperate shout rang out from the distance.
An unexpected figure appeared, shattering the explosive tension.
“Ah...!”
The Imperial Princess turned her head and drew in a sharp breath.
The face she had longed to see was running toward her.
“My love!”
In an instant, the taut wariness snapped.
Without even checking the silhouettes, she spun around and bolted toward him.
Her life’s sole objective had been Han Simin’s safe return.
She had fallen for him so completely, so deeply, that nothing else mattered.
The warlocks lay dead on the magic circle, but the sight of Han Simin alive and well made her happier than anything else.
A radiant smile blossod on her lips.
Seeing the Imperial Princess for the first ti in what felt like an eternity, Han Simin opened his arms and caught her as she rushed into his embrace.
He let out a sigh of relief.
“Phew. We made it in ti. Those disgusting bastards. I honestly didn’t think they’d chase us all the way here.”
“Huh? What do you an?”
The truth slipped out before he could stop himself.
He had been so shocked when he heard that a Gate to the Demon World had been opened.
’There’s no way they’ll follow us all the way here,’ he had thought.
But they really had co.
They had co, and yet they didn’t radiate the overwhelming presence they had in the Demon World.
Just like Epia, their wings and other features were gone.
“Heh. Heheheh.”
They never would have expected this.
Han Simin himself hadn’t been entirely sure.
Just because the Celestial Gate worked that way didn’t an the Demon Gate would follow the sa rules.
Fortunately, the sa restriction applied.
The terrifying Heavenly King and Demon King, whose movents had been too fast to track, who had smashed everything in their path, were not here.
Which ant only one thing remained.
Revenge.
Bloody revenge.
Revenge for the Sanctuary.
Of course, he wasn’t going to step forward himself.
He wasn’t that much of a spoilsport.
There were more than enough people here who would gladly take revenge for him and reclaim the Sanctuary.
Han Simin shouted.
“The Demon King! That bastard, the Demon King, chased us all the way here!”
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