| Author: Starving Wind | Original Source: Joara | Word Count: 4219 characters |
| Translator: Anonymouss | English Source: Re:Library | Word Count: 2245 words |
| Editor(s): Silva | ||
Finally, the time to convene was drawing near. We turned away from having a tour around London city and used the teleportation circle to get to the central plaza of York city that’s our destination.1
It seems each soldier tier had a different assembly area designated, since the central plaza of York city was completely filled with red uniform mercenaries.
Noise of crowds rang out.
It seemed like everyone was having their own conversation, as the crowd kept chattering chaotically. The Chaos guild members who need to control all these soldiers are also having trouble trying to figure out how to control all of them.
It’s understandable, since this should be the first time they would have ever drafted this amount of people, so it was difficult to find a suitable method to control and settle them down. There are high-ranking users among the mercenaries that you can’t easily boss them around, which meant that the central plaza area was a place where they can’t bring it under control.
Bump.
Someone went past where Katalina and I were standing and bumped into her shoulder.
“Whoa, sorry.”
Though they said they were sorry, it was hard to feel any sincerity from the way they talked.
“Please be careful.”
“Ahh, sure.”
Hearing Katalina, the person replied lazily. Though she was annoyed by him, she knew that there was nothing good from arguing with people in this kind of place, so I pulled Katalina to somewhere else as I kept trying to quell her anger.
It didn’t end there, as there were several users that treated us poorly and often picked a fight with us, probably because they can easily assume that we are female users. Most of them have the courage to do this because they can easily blend back into the crowd, or are high-ranking users, but since their ID is obscured, they can act cocky without worrying about consequences.
They were all two-faced behind their masks. If their actual ID and identity is revealed, they probably would pretend as if they’ve never done such a thing.
“You two female users over there with hastily made up call signs, why don’t you come over here and stop being pushed around among all those people?”
A sole mercenary called out to us, who we could immediately tell it was a male user.
“Please mind your own business.”
Katalina spoke with thorns in her voice as she was pretty high-strung.
“Oop. Well, it’s a misunderstanding if you thought I was trying to hit on you, I just thought you’re both in a troubled state so I was trying to help. But if you don’t want my help, then don’t.”
It wasn’t even laughable. His wordings may sound like a gentleman, but it’s extremely unlikely that men who offer generosity are without ulterior motives. Especially generosity offered to women…
“Yes, thank you, but we’re not interested, so please look for someone else instead.”
“Tsk.”
The man clicked his tongue before turning away. Behind him, I saw several male users making a disappointed expression together. I knew it2.
There definitely was some space around them that they probably claimed ahead of time to let in women like us. They also had a bench ready for us, but since it’s nearly time for the convening already, so why not just stand around a bit longer?
[C Tier Quest (Normal) Assembling of 1st class mercenaries has been completed.]Finally, the system message we’ve been waiting for had rang out, and the crowded plaza came to a complete silence. I think I knew why they had disabled the sound notification for that message, since everyone in this plaza was going to receive a notification of completed quest at the same time.
“The guild leader of Chaos shall enter now. Mercenaries, please stay quiet for a moment!”
One of the Chaos users thought this was a chance for them, as they used a magic that amplified their voice as they yelled out back to them.
“Hmph, don’t make me laugh!”
“Who are you to tell me what to do!”
“You cannot suppress freedom of speech!”
There’s always people that act like spoiled children. Most of the crowds fell silent, while some of them yelled out loudly in retaliation.
[Forced quest. Users that are progressing in this quest cannot use voice functionality for 5 minutes.]Immediately, they became completely mute. The only person who can mute people like this is only the guild leader of Chaos as he was the commander of this quest.
“High-level mercenaries that enjoy Blue Sky greatly, thank you for waiting.”
As I expected, a female mage appeared wearing an ivory colored robe, at the podium of the tallest building’s rooftop. Since we were so far I had a hard time confirming what their face looked like, but seeing as how slender her contour and necklines were, I guessed she was a beauty. Her voice was stable, clear and completely trustworthy sounding.
-She’s ‘Wine’, the top 9 ranking users in the whole server and 2nd among all mages.
I nodded my head as I received Katalina’s whisper. I remember seeing her in the past at some fan site. She was the one who showed the most greed when trying to purchase ‘Merlin’s Staff’.
-Then she’s your rival…
-As if. She’s nowhere near my level. My equipment far surpasses her as well~
-Don’t you think she thinks that way of you as well?
-Don’t know. Well, even if she considers me as a rival, I think nothing will change, anyway.
-But she’s also a guild leader of the giant Chaos guild, aren’t you thinking way too little of her?
-Are you worrying for me? Thanks, but there’s no need. In the first place, the two guilds Volcano and Chaos have completely different qualities.
She sounded quite arrogant. Chaos is still one of the top 8 guilds in the server, the same as Volcano, isn’t it?
-You look like you don’t believe me. I’m sure you know that according to the scale, Volcano has an advantage over Chaos, right? Of course, that’s not all. While it’s true, the Volcano guild’s major decisions go through me as the guild leader, while Chaos makes their decisions through a congress of directors. Know what I mean?
-So you mean, it’s the difference between a centralized system and feudal system?
-Feudal system, huh… Well, since each lord is a member of the congress, it would be easier to call it that.
If that was the case, then I could somewhat understand her reasoning for confidence. Even if they are one of the top 8 guilds in the server, there’s a difference in cohesiveness between a guild that has a clear single person with command authority rather than a guild without one.
Of course, if your guild was overwhelmingly more powerful than others like America for example, you could exert your powers over others just from pure strength, but against a guild that has a similar amount of power and have a cohesive singular power, they are at a disadvantage. At the worst possible situation, the government may split into different sides right before a war begins.
The Chaos guild may even be swept up with some internal conflicts right now, even as they announce an all out war against Shining.
-Then how about the Shining guild?
-Shining? Well, that place has a bit of a different structure. But it’s the same that their strength and authority aren’t completely given over to a single person.
They’re different from other guilds in that Shining’s top authority is given to the guild leader and two sub guild leaders. The two sub guild leaders have as much power together as the guild leader themselves, so if the guild leader pushes an action to go ahead, they need at least one of the two sub guild leader’s agreements to have it go forward, at least that’s what I heard. Ah! That’s right, for reference, the sub guild leaders are not inside the top 10 ranking users but they are still high level and are within top 20.
That means that the guild leader is at least not just a scarecrow for the officers to use however they want. This is all I know about their structure so far.
Perhaps their efficiency is better than the Chaos guild, but it can mean that oppositions can take place pretty strongly as well.
Three different guild’s structures. All of them had their own advantages and disadvantages, so it was hard to definitely say which one is better.
-Thanks for the information.
-It’s fine. But I’m not sure why the guild leader of Chaos is making such a long winded and boring speech.
-Wouldn’t you make the same kind of speech if you were in a similar situation?
-Hehe. Well, it’s difficult according to situation, but right now I neeever want to do it.
“…… And those are the reasons we, the Chaos guild, is waging war against the Shining guild. We will punish those Shining guild ruffians with absolute power and justice.
The outcome of this war will be determined by the results of the battles held in both attack and defence in twenty different locations, and the war will not end until one side loses all control of 20 locations, or surrenders.”
I couldn’t hear what the guild leader was saying previously since I was talking with Katalina, but it’s likely she was talking about all the reasons the war between the two guilds had to occur. Even though it doesn’t seem that important to me, giant guilds like these think that justifications are really important to point out. She probably explained these justifications.
But those justifications are probably completely biased towards their own guild, so it’s hard to tell whether 10% of what she said was true or 100% of it was. Even if just 10% of what she said was the truth, any interest group would stretch it out to make it sound like it was 100% their fault for starting the war.
Therefore, you can’t ever make a black or white judgement on either side just from what you heard from one side unless you were directly related with the problem.
“And for the final announcement that I will make here, anyone that kills the enemy guild master will have 10 billion gold paid directly into their account in a lump sum, and if the legendary item that the Shining guild currently holds is dropped, we will hand over that item to the person who made the item drop. Then I shall end my announcement here. Thank you for listening to my long speech.”
The woman named Wine bowed her head before stepping off the podium.
[Restrictions on voice functionality has been released.]Immediately, a wave of chatter rang out. They were way too distracted by the last announcement she made to clap for the end of her speech.
“Did you hear that?”
“Yep.”
I’ve already presumed somewhat the amount of bounty on the head of the enemy guild leader would be around that much, but telling us they guarantee us the legendary item if we were to make it drop was completely unexpected.
The biggest downside of the mercenary system is that the spoils of war don’t get recognised as yours, but you are compensated with the equivalent amount of gold in return, making it somewhat fair in balance.
This makes the guild wars, which some people think would only bring losses for the guild, actually a profit in overall when you consider the spoils of war since the guild gets to keep it. Of course, if they lose they would suffer much more losses, but if they were to win, they would not only gain more territory but also valuable items, so it’s a great reward for the risk they take.
The guild master automatically gains all the items that enemy guild members drop after a mercenary they hired kills them, so they earn a great profit from the mercenaries. Of course, they would have to redistribute the items fairly to all the guild members, but it would also be easy for the guild leader to change their mind and keep it for themselves or the guild’s treasury.
But to give up the potentially biggest profit for the guild, the legendary item drop, is an amazingly shocking announcement. The total amount of known legendary tier items that the Shining guild owns is 2. They are a bow and a cloak which is known to be owned by the two sub guild leaders. Although they aren’t within the top 10 users in ranking, they’re still in top 20. Considering just how much of the top guild soldiers would be constantly protecting them to secure their items, it wasn’t hard to think how difficult it would be to kill them and make the legendary items drop. And even if they were to die somehow, users drop actual equipment items at an extremely low rate, and it’s hard to guarantee that it would be that specific legendary item as well.
However! It was perfect for a motivator. Even if the probability is extremely low, you still had a higher chance of killing a rare enemy sub guild leader and hoping for it to drop the legendary item rather than hoping to ever get a legendary item yourself by adventuring.
I could understand just how motivating it is for the mercenaries.
“But she said there would be 20 locations, even if you make the odds favourable, it’s still 1 out of 20 probability.”
“Not exactly. Once a location has been captured, they could move to another location. So the probability will be much lower.”
Hearing the whispers going around amongst the surrounding mercenaries, I could understand more about the all-out war system. I was in the middle of eavesdropping when…
[A Tier Quest. Declaration of participating in Attacking or Defending locations.Defending locations (Please select a location amongst these 10.)
Attacking locations (Please select a location amongst these 10.)
Warning! If the number of users becomes filled, you cannot join the battle for that location. Please hurry in choosing.]
A quest laid out in front of me.
“Ellie! Choose the defending location, Exter city.”
Seeing the numbers rising exponentially, Katalina yelled out to me after quickly scanning the locations. I quickly clicked the participation request before the numbers could reach the limit.
With the visual effects of my vision being covered by fog that happens when I am teleporting, everything around me becomes black.
Author’s Note:
Why is the story development so slow!? Is what I’m accusing myself with. -_-;;3
Footnotes:
- Robixen: Apparently my internet died while trying to post this and it accidentally posted an older copy of the page (those who read Not Sure, Another World will know that I had internet troubles because I mentioned it in the prechapter ramble over there), sorry for those who couldn’t read this chapter. Annoyingly that means all my random reaction comments were also lost and I really can’t be asked to reread and add them all where I think I put them. Sorry again if you enjoy reading those. Anyway I fixed it.
- Lilith: Not to say sexual harassment doesn’t happen in games, but I’m unsure what these guys would gain by doing this here. I doubt this game has some kind of interaction system.
Annnnonnnyyyymousssss: On one hand, yes it’s a ‘virtual game’ so you’d be able to like, log out or report to authorities and get them banned real quick…
But its also a very realistic game, they can feel every surface and object of the game, so those pervert assholes would definitely inappropriately touch her or bully her, thinking they have the numbers and that she isn’t ‘really that high level’.
but yeah a touchy subject.
Robinxen: Sorry I have too much fun writing that name to not add a billion exta letters. - Robinxen: Oh so you’re aware this pace is worse than a snails?
