Chapter 307: Episode 307_Betrayal Is an Art (2)
2.
Before entering the raid, Kenji had checked everything with painstaking care.
“Have you confird that Han Simin isn’t here?”
“Yes, Guild Master. We confird it while organizing the units, and we also checked all the warlocks we received as support.”
“Even so, keep checking. Under no circumstances can we allow him to participate in this raid.”
“Understood.”
Obviously, Kenji did not trust Han Simin.
As a businessman, he didn’t fully trust anyone.
The only people he trusted were his family, and even then, if the day ca when he had to treat them as business partners, he would deal with them as he did anyone else.
For that reason, Han Simin was both an excellent business partner and a rival he had to constantly keep in check.
It was a relationship you would be hard-pressed to find even in the real world.
They helped each other like partner companies, yet they were in the sa line of work, locked in a war that wouldn’t end until one of them was gone.
Of course, that was only how Kenji saw it. In any case, he did not trust Han Simin.
’The information might be real, but he could betray us at any ti.’
This was the normal and obvious way to think.
Their deal had included no promises against interference or betrayal, and they were hunting a Dragon, a Holy Dragon at that.
He had been handed a golden opportunity on a silver platter; how could he not be tempted to stab his benefactor in the back?
If their positions were reversed, Kenji would have thought the sa way.
He just wouldn’t have been able to actually go through with it.
Not after a deal involving sixty million dollars, and not when Han Simin was publicly positioned as his sworn enemy.
That was why he needed to be even more wary.
Han Simin would obviously try to sucker-punch him sohow, in so way, without getting caught.
If he did it openly, they could at least try to block him, but for now, they had to focus solely on preventing him from joining the raid in the first place.
So, right up until the mont the raid began, they watched Han Simin’s stream and checked his location.
“He’s sowhere he absolutely can’t get away from until the raid is over.”
“Good. Still, you never know. Don’t let your guard down until the very end.”
“Yes, Guild Master.”
Kenji knew that Han Simin had a Dragon.
He couldn’t be sure if that Dragon could use continent-to-continent Teleport, but for his own peace of mind, he thoroughly confird everything one last ti before entering the raid.
Naturally, in the middle of a chaotic raid, there was no way to check for Han Simin among the thousands of people present.
He just wanted to believe.
’He’s co this far without pulling anything, so he must not intend to stab
in the back here. Right. This is the key to the main quest. Interfering now would be crossing a line.’
So he forgot about it for a while.
When the Hatchling was at its weakest and hope appeared, the thought didn’t even cross his mind.
As far as betrayal went, Kenji had considered the most dangerous mont to be when the warlocks broke the Hatchling’s buff.
But they had carried out their task flawlessly and had even squeezed out the last of their dark magic to support the assault.
Kenji was elated.
’The title of the first Dragon Slayer on the continent. I’m going to get it.’
Given Fantastic World’s system, the user who landed the last hit didn’t monopolize everything, but the one leading the expedition was Kenji.
Even if so other user or NPC landed the killing blow, he would ultimately be the one to receive all the glory.
Others had contributed greatly, but none of that compared to leading an expedition of over ten thousand to successfully raid a Dragon.
Buoyed by anticipation, Kenji’s Legendary-grade sword felt even lighter in his hands.
With its magic sealed, the Holy Dragon Hatchling let out a wail.
“Graaaarrrr!”
There was a note of grief mixed into its roar—the lant of a lonely creature facing death.
“Ah, that’s kind of sad.”
“A Dragon really is a living creature, huh.”
“For sothing so big, it reminds
of my dog Choco back ho.”
“Poor thing.”
Hearing that cry, the players couldn’t help but feel a pang in their chests.
No matter how much of a life-or-death battle it was, that was just human nature, at least for anyone who had adapted to Fantastic World rather than being hardened by reality.
It was easy to empathize with the dying creature, to feel a sliver of pity for your enemy.
But that was as far as it went.
“Still, better it dies than .”
“If we kill this, how much Gold do you think we’ll get? I want to eat nothing but fried chicken for the next three months.”
“I want to secretly pry off a few scales and sneak them out.”
In the end, one’s own happiness ca first.
The misfortune of others was certainly sad, but if that misfortune had even the slightest connection to their own happiness, they wouldn’t hesitate to see it through.
All the more so here, in a ga.
The NPCs swung their swords rcilessly to survive, and the users did the sa for the rewards, even as they felt a twinge of pity.
As ti passed, the casualties mounted, but the Hatchling’s movents visibly slowed, its exhaustion clear for all to see.
Fifteen minutes. Their golden opportunity.
It was all thanks to the effort and sacrifice of everyone pouring their strength into that window of ti.
Just when success seed within reach.
And when the Hatchling finally laid its massive body down on the ground.
The joy of victory was just beginning to bloom in Kenji’s chest when a group of people in hooded robes miraculously entered his field of vision.
“...Huh?”
’What the hell?’
On the surface, there was nothing strange about them. There were nearly fifty Warlocks gathered here, after all.
But sothing about them felt wrong for Warlocks.
Since when did Warlocks have the strength to charge in and fight a Dragon head-on?
In the chaos of the crowd, he couldn’t make out the details, but he still couldn’t understand how he had failed to notice such a peculiar group until now.
His doubt didn’t last long.
GROOOOAAARRR!
It was the Hatchling’s final, desperate rampage.
As everyone scrambled to dodge its twisting body and whipping tail, the robed group vanished from his sight.
Sothing felt wrong.
’What is it?’
The Hatchling raid was ending in success, yet this uneasy feeling wouldn’t go away.
It was like setting the table for a feast, only to step away for a mont with a stomachache and return to find your trusted roommate had already picked out and eaten all the best dishes.
’Don’t tell
Simin is here...’
And even though this hypothetical roommate was wearing a mask, he had the distinct feeling it was the one he knew all too well.
No, not a feeling. It was him.
He only had one roommate.
Just as Kenji hurried to shake off the ominous premonition—
“Grrr...”
The Hatchling’s last spasm ended, and it breathed its last.
Brilliant light flared from the bodies of the surviving users.
Proof of victory.
The result.
The reward.
For a user, it was the most blissful light imaginable.
Their HP and MP recovered.
Their characters grew stronger, and their levels—the absolute goal of the ga—rose.
“Woooooaaaaahhh!”
A roar of triumph swept across the battlefield.
Out of more than ten thousand people, fewer than two thousand had survived.
Most of the dead would resurrect, but that hardly mattered. The joy of raiding a Dragon—even if it was just a Hatchling—and the pride of believing they could now rescue the Heavenly King and protect the continent from the Demon King’s grasp flooded through them.
Caught up in the fervor, Kenji forgot his unease and thrust both hands toward the sky.
As the expedition leader, he had to see his role through to the very end.
“We have won! But this victory is not the end! This is where it truly begins! We will not let our guard down. We are still exposed to many forces of evil. From this mont on, I will not allow any group or individual to approach the Dragon’s corpse. Anyone who disobeys this order will be deed a Warlock acting under the Demon King’s orders and will be executed on the spot!”
Of course, he couldn’t just brush off that nagging feeling. Too much was riding on this to vaguely assu everything would be fine.
Even for Kenji, who had money to burn, assets valued at six hundred billion won—a sum that could easily be worth more in real estate—was a significant amount.
And even if he wrote that off as a business loss, this quest was sothing he absolutely could not afford to lose.
’I need to act on the assumption that soone’s going to stab
in the back.’
Kenji’s guild mbers and the soldiers quickly ford a periter around the dead Hatchling.
Users and NPCs who had been hoping to sneak in close and pry off a scale for themselves swallowed their disappointnt, but no one acted rashly.
As he had just declared, anyone who moved carelessly and got branded a saboteur wouldn’t survive the wrath of the remaining crowd.
The excitent died down, and a fragile peace settled over the field.
Kenji posted only his most trusted people around the Hatchling.
Then, they began their search.
However, even after combing the area, they found no sign of Han Simin, the man Kenji had been worried about. Nor did they find anyone connected to him—not Specialist, not any of his pets.
They even finished checking the Warlocks in the hooded robes, but nothing seed out of place there either.
He stood in silence.
He was absolutely certain he hadn’t imagined it.
Even so, he couldn’t keep the search going any longer. The man simply wasn’t here. Dragging this out would be a terrible choice for both his honor as expedition leader and his content as a strear. It would ruin the triumphant finale.
“We have won!”
“Woooooaaaaahhh!”
Their celebration went on for a long ti.
During that ti, no one paid any attention to the Dragon Hatchling’s corpse.
No, there was no need to.
At least from the outside, it looked perfectly intact.
The Dragon had died from massive damage, but its scales were still hard, and the stains of its blood—a valuable reagent in its own right—only served as proof of the corpse’s imnse value.
“We’ll transport it as is! With this as evidence, we will change the minds of His Majesty the Emperor and His Holiness the Pope and drive out the Demon King!”
“Woooooaaaahhh!”
The massive corpse of the Holy Dragon began to be moved with great care.
*
After teleporting back with Squeaker’s magic, Specialist was breathing heavily.
“Phew. I thought we were going to get caught.”
She let out a sigh of relief, then noticed the small bump in her level and smiled in satisfaction.
At the sa ti, worry crept in.
“Do you think he’ll be alright?”
“I believe so...”
Jeong Seolah felt the sa.
Her days with Han Simin were nothing if not spectacular, but this ti had her nerves especially on edge.
It wasn’t the tension from secretly leeching EXP from the Dragon raid.
It was the reason Han Simin wasn’t here right now. The reason only he and Kardian were absent.
That was what worried her.
“He has to get it out safely.”
Even so, she had faith.
He would pull it off.
The idea of Han Simin failing at sothing like this was simply absurd.
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