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The siege war that began with battles occurring in 11 different locations had reached its conclusion with just one castle being stolen from Camelot. Considering that we were significantly outmatched in terms of troop numbers, it was a very small price to pay, and the fact that we were able to defend the key points of Manchester City and Carlisle City was very favorable for us.

Not only that, the news that one of the enemy guilds that were attacking, the Shining guild, completely surrendered to the Camelot alliance and announced that they would join under their umbrella was met with a huge reaction from everyone.

-Shining guild, submit to Artoria?!
-Leadership of the Shining guild has become divided.

Truth revealed that this war was not spearheaded by the guild leader but rather the leaders of sub-guilds.

As opposed to my concerns, Lucas was true to his word. At the same time that the siege war had reached its conclusion, he announced he would no longer consider our guild as enemies and brought all the members of the Shining guild that followed him to join the Camelot alliance.

Though there were many high level officers and sub-guild leaders who were excluded in those numbers, he had practically brought most of the lower class members with him so it meant that we had basically gained another giant guild rivaling Volcano in size under the Camelot alliance.

“My goodness, just what is happening?”

As soon as she returned to Liverpool City after the siege battle was over, Katalina was confused and agitated over everything that was suddenly happening as she asked what was going on.

“It’s just as the article says though.”

Inside the media information room that was located within the inner castle, one could connect to real-life or Blue Sky news as well as browse fan-sites of the game without needing to log out to view them.

Originally, I would have logged out immediately due to how exhausted I was, but the situation was in such a mess that Katalina kept pestering me to figure out what was going on before logging out. Katalina didn’t know about what had happened in Manchester City, so she was worried about the possibility of a new variable coming up, as well as how much damage it could inflict on us.

But knowing that the Shining guild had already been kicked out of the picture in this war, it meant that I just sat there and read the article leisurely without worry.

“Godlike control? Artoria’s solo stage?” Katalina was reading the article when she turned to me as if asking if I had caused another incident.

“Ah, well, some of the allied soldiers became isolated during battle. So we were in the middle of retreating into the inner castle grounds but I felt that this wasn’t the right thing to do, so I turned back around and went to save those soldiers.”
“…”

The glares she directed at me were sharp and painful. I felt that she was extremely aggravated by what I just said so I hurriedly opened my mouth again.

“Ah! But still, I didn’t make all the soldiers charge directly at the enemies again, I simply moved on my own while sending the rest of the troops back into the inner castle. I did that so that even if I were to die, there were still soldiers that would have been able to defend Manchester City just in case.”
“Are you an idiot?”
“Eh?”
“Do you know how much you’re worth? Why are you comparing yourself to Manchester City? If you had died, the war would have been completely over!”

Oh dear, it seems the excuse I had made so that it sounded like I made a defensive plan instead of charging in recklessly had backfired.

P… perhaps I could have fooled her by saying it was part of my plan? No way. Katalina could easily ask the commanders of the battle and have it all revealed to her, so I felt that if I was going to get yelled at in the future for lying, it’s better to be truthful right now.

“I’m sorry…”
“Ugh! In any case, the result was really good, so I can’t really get angry at you. This definitely was a much better outcome than what I planned after all…”
“See? It was a great result, that’s all that matters.”

But it seemed that Katalina wasn’t that angry because of how great the result of my actions had become. Honestly, she knew it herself that if I had not committed to having that little adventure on my own and caused the butterfly effect, the actual outcome otherwise was actually pretty dire for us.

Since Carlisle City that Katalina was protecting would have been completely taken over, and all the troops that were placed in that battle would have moved over to Manchester City. On top of that, Katalina’s death would have a much larger impact symbolically on the war as well as losing a huge portion of firepower for the troops.

Though I was just happy that she was going to skip lecturing me this time.

“In any case, I really won’t let you go easily next time this kind of thing happens again! Please keep in mind the fact that you’re the lord next time, okay?”
“All right.”

It was best to just agree with her here. Even if I were to argue with the woman it was obvious that I would lose anyways and I knew from previous experience that even if I were to win there was nothing good for me in that.

“By the way, congratulations Ellie.”
“Why the sudden congratulations?”

I looked at her confusedly because I didn’t know why she was congratulating me.

“People have now given you an alias, Slayer of Light¹.”
“What’s that? I don’t like it.”
“Why not? It’s pretty cool! Actually, every top ranking user has at least one kind of alias attached to them, whether it was painting them in a good light or not. Anyway, the fact that you were given an alias is proof that you have successfully achieved power and status other than just by the number of your levels. Though it sounds a bit scary to call you a slayer, it’s still not that bad right?”

I mean, I was just not understanding why I was being congratulated for getting an alias that wasn’t even an official title.

“Tsk. Looks like you still haven’t understood yet. It just means that everyone has admitted the godlike controls you exhibit in the game, and not just some user who’s only good because of their powerful items.”

Only then did I nod in understanding. Honestly, this whole time people mostly judged me for having over-the-top powerful items, overlevel, and reliance on powerful skills.

In truth, I was only able to get to this point due to the display of my skill, but the fact that they were giving me an alias meant that they were willing to completely flip around their assumption that I was just a user with average control over my character. Honestly, I do receive quite a lot of help from my items and stats but it doesn’t change the fact that I still had amazing controls.

“So from what I’m hearing you would have an alias as well, Katalina.”
“Hm…”

Katalina’s face stiffened, a complete shift from when she was just gleefully trying to bombard me with questions just a moment ago.

“Oh? So you do have one. What is it?”

Seeing from her expression that she definitely had one, I asked again.

“I don’t want to tell you.”
“I just need to search it online to find it out myself, you know?”

It didn’t particularly matter if she wasn’t willing to tell me, so I didn’t think to keep pestering her about it. I was just implying I was curious.

Of course, what I had said wasn’t a lie either.

It’s obvious that it would immediately be revealed if I were to search her ID online, but why would I do that bothersome thing when I could get it from her right now?

“… Fire egg.²”
“What?”

It was plainer than I thought.

But why did she want to hide it? And why suddenly an egg? The revelations were
confusing me greatly.

“N… No way…!”

Then the scenery in my mind started to play out, as a man, that was the worst thing that could possibly happen. N… no way, she couldn’t possibly be so brutal. Of course not.

“I’ll pretend not to have heard it.”
“Kay.”

Katalina lowered her head and blushed as if she was embarrassed by it, but I simply felt an overwhelming sense of fear from her.

“For now, please contact me right away if there is an emergency. We’ll end today with just a survey over enemy movements. Great work everyone.”

After giving a brief summary of the situation of the war to all the officers of the Camelot alliance that gathered in Liverpool city, I ended the meeting for today.

“Thank you for your efforts, my lord!”

As all of them had ended their day in victory and come out in a superior position in the war, they all had bright smiles on their faces.

Perhaps due to their mood, their answer to me was much louder than I thought.

As the Shining guild had been practically cut in half with us absorbing most of their power, it meant that we were currently in a much superior position over the enemies and thanks to my brave efforts in the war, there were numerous requests from mid to small guilds that were asking to join the alliance, and their numbers continuously increased. Of course, it was Katalina who had taken care of the duty of organizing that part so I wasn’t that busy.

As soon as the meeting was over everyone left the king’s palace, and when it was just me and Katalina left, we logged out of the game immediately due to how exhausted we both were.

Thunk!

As the capsule opened, I gave my tired neck and arms a light stretch. If you use too much stamina sometimes, even your muscles get tightened and cause pain.

“Ugh, look at all that sweat!”

Coming out of the capsule with her shirt completely drenched in sweat was an unusual sight, Katalina held her nose with her fingers as if it was too stinky.

Speaking of which, I was also quite drenched in sweat though not as bad as Katalina. I knew that I’d have to ask Sara to clean up each capsule seat sooner or later.

After taking a short shower, I looked for the butler.

“What did you need, your highness?”
“How is the progress in taking over the sponsor company of the Shining guild?”
“We’ve secured 35% of their shares and above 16% in friendly stakes.”

It really amazed me how much they were able to achieve. Since it’s the company that’s sponsoring Shining, it’s a giant company that is easily included in the top 10 largest companies operating in England, yet this Kent household’s assets were able to secure over 20% of their shares in that short amount of time, and succeeded in becoming majority shareholders as well.

Though I could easily decide to threaten their rights of management if I decided to, I wasn’t planning to control the company myself and even if I did, there was a question of whether it can continue to be a successful company afterwards so I decided not to initiate a hostile takeover.

“For now, please reduce the holding rate of their shares down to 20%.”
“We will receive quite a significant amount of economic loss if we do.”
“It is not like we require money right now, so please sell those shares while making sure that we suffer the least amount of damage to our wealth.”
“Yes, Duchess.”
“Oh yes! How is it going for the company that sponsors the Chaos guild?”

“The one sponsoring the guild is that the global company RG, because of its scale we are experiencing difficulty in securing their shares. One of the reasons why their finances are so stable is due to that fact.”

RG, huh? It’s a familiar name.

“Is it a Korean company?”
“Yes, Duchess.”

I nodded my head. Though RG was well known throughout the world, it was different from foreign companies in that the family owned 50% of its shares making it the type of company controlled by family members, so it was extremely difficult to successfully initiate a hostile takeover.

Even if I were to use all my wealth to buy up every share available, unless I somehow acquired closed-end shares of the company it is very improbable that I would be able to successfully take over their company. Even so, I didn’t plan to take over the RG company completely either and if I were to continually affect their company heavily through shares trading and they received heavy damage to their assets because of that, I could end up destabilizing the economy of Korea as well. As it was my homeland after all, I felt that even though I may not be giving it any direct benefit, I couldn’t bring myself to harm the nation.

“Let’s give up on RG for now. How much of their shares have you secured?”
“At least 22%. The friendly stake is around 10% as well.”

We still acquired a lot more shares than I thought. It seemed that we had bought up all the shares that were available in the market.

“For now, please keep those shares in hand and don’t sell them in the market. You may never know what happens in the future after all.”
“Of course.”

The Chaos guild had quite a strong supporter in terms of finance when I thought about it.

Though I may be able to threaten the RG company to stop sponsoring Chaos guild with my 22% share stake, this wouldn’t look good on me and may actually have an adverse effect on me.

It was fine enough that we were stopping RG’s support for the Chaos guild via our threats in pretending to take over their company.

They’d need some financial stability to defend their rights of management in the future, so they wouldn’t be able to support the Chaos guild.

All right. Making use of the Kent family’s name this much was good enough. I had to wrap it all up within Blue Sky now.

Viiiiim!

Katalina’s phone that was laying on the table rang loudly as it vibrated. Was it an urgent call? Katalina wasn’t out of her shower yet.

“Hello?”

I cautiously took her call. Though westerners extremely detested someone touching their phone, there were exceptions to people they are friendly with and it may have been related to the guild so I had no choice to make otherwise.

A familiar voice.

“Esther?”

“Why, what is it?”

Something urgent? I didn’t even have anything to eat yet, this situation was way too terrible.

1. Robinxen: Sounds like a villain title honestly.
2. Translator’s Note: Korean pun. ‘Fire Egg’ can mean male t̲e̲s̲t̲i̲c̲l̲e̲s̲.
3. Robinxen: Turns have tabled.