Chapter 48. The Appearance of a Legend (1)
Chapter 48. The Appearance of a Legend (1)
If I ask you to tell me where you got that information from…… you won’t answer, right?”
Golgers looked at Sanghyuk with a very stiff expression.
“It might be faster for you to look into where the information leaked rather than asking me, you know?”
Of course, there was no information leak anywhere. Sanghyuk just said that to make Golgers agonized for a while.
“Okay then. I’ll give up on that. Also…… the offer you gave us through the mail…… I’ll accept that as well. However! You need to promise us that you will protect the secrets of our guild. Write that into the scroll of oath.”
“Oh yes, of course. I can do that since you are accepting this difficult offer…… do you think I would really say that? I think you’re misunderstanding something, but the one who wants to put out the fire is not me, but you, Gold Rush. You will accept the offer if I promise to keep the secret? Hah! Some muscle pig tries to harm me from the get-go, and it looks like the guild master isn’t that better off either. I’ll change my offer. Let’s go with 50 times instead of 40. There’s also nothing like keeping secrets.”
“Th, that’s absurd-”
“Don’t interrupt me. This offer only lasts for 5 minutes. After that, it will be 60 times instead of 50 and that will also last for 5 minutes only. I guess I’ll keep increasing it until 100 times. I don’t need to tell you what happens afterward, right?”
Sanghyuk kept raining barrages of attacks. He didn’t take even a small step back. Rather, he took large steps forward.
This was true superiority.
“Hmm…….”
Golgers lost this battle of wits.
‘This madman will never back out.’
Golgers thought that the one he was speaking to was not normal at all. Actually, there was nothing more difficult than taking someone with no common sense as an opponent.
5 minutes was definitely not a long time.
Time flew by in an instant……. Golgers knew that he had to make a decision right now.
“10 seconds remaining.”
He didn’t count down; there was no need to.
“50 times…… I accept.”
In the end, Golgers admitted defeat in front of this madman.
“Okay, then. Let’s go through the scroll of oath.”
“Sir Large Golden Mountain…… I won’t ask you to put anything regarding the secrets of our guild, but wouldn’t it be better for you to keep it to yourself for the time being?”
Golgers knew that asking politely worked better on madmen than threats, so he asked Sanghyuk very politely.
“Fufu, you don’t have to worry about that. I’m not so foolish as to kill the golden-egg-laying goose.”
‘Yes, not now. And honestly, this goldbug won’t flinch just because he lost a few minor grinding mines……’
Sanghyuk wasn’t keeping the secret to himself because Golgers asked. He only kept his patience in order to complete a bigger picture.
Thanks to Blackie’s rampage and Golger’s bet, the price of the item jumped from 40 times to 50 times the market price.
There was no rip-off like this, but they could only endure it now.
Golgers kept reminding himself to endure and could barely sign the contract without going crazy.
***
Yet another scroll of oath was written, and yet another NPC vendor was set in place. This vendor NPC was selling the same items as the NPC vendor on Skies Above Skies side, but Gold Rush had to buy war goods through this vendor.
It was written as such on the scroll of oath, so they would be risking huge penalties if they decide to go against it.
In any case, Large Golden Mountain completed the big picture he wanted with the two contracts he made on both sides. Now, he only had to wait until the war became bigger.
Of course, watching from the sidelines while eating popcorn wasn’t his style either. Another ‘himself’ was about to appear in his big picture.
‘Let’s create an avatar that’s large, and very friendly-looking that is complete opposite of Large Golden Mountain.’
This time, he was going to make the avatar into a warrior and not a merchant, so he made the avatar look handsome.
When he invested around 30 minutes into it, a tall, well-built man that had a different charm from BJ Gale, appeared in front of him.
‘As for the name…… Blake, that will do.’
He also came up with a random name this time.
Having transformed into Blake, Sanghyuk first started getting items that would fit Blake.
Blake’s abilities, according to Sanghyuk’s plan, was going to be based on ‘Bladeknight’. With this as the foundation, he was going to also use some fusion cards as a self-buff type ability.
So, the equipment this avatar needed was slightly different from Sanghyuk’s usual equipment.
Sanghyuk bought some usable items from the auction and equipped himself. Of course, he also found a pretty good sword.
+5 Ogreslayer [Rare ++]
– A greatsword powerful enough to bisect an ogre in half with one strike. With a length of 1.4m, it is not a large sword, and therefore possesses the characteristics of a ‘hand-and-a-half sword’ that could be used with one hand or both hands. This sword has slain over 1,000 ogres and possesses special traits.
This was enhanced 5 times and has acquired powerful strength.
[Basic stats] Attack power 200(+40)(+100)
[Special stats] Strength +40(+8)(+20)
[Special effect] >Ogre’s strength(A) : Strength increases by 10%.Tendon slash(A) : ‘Sharpness’ effect is imbued into the blade and its severing ability increases.+5 effect : Strength +40<
[Bonus effect] (1) Strength +10 (2) HP +15
This was a much better sword than the Traveller’s Treasure Sword that Sanghyuk had used for a while. Of course, it was difficult to compare with the Ten Millennia GOldbone Whip, but in any case, it was definitely a sword that was worth at least 10 million won (10,000 USD) on the auction.
Sanghyuk had bought hand-crafted armor that was created by the same creator as the sword and dyed it red, and finally set himself up with a few fusion cards for Blake.
Having finished equipping himself, he went to the mercenary guild of Falcon City.
In EL, being a mercenary was not a job but a qualification, and naturally, Dimensional Travelers, a.k.a. users, were also able to acquire this qualification.
With a mercenary permit, they would be able to work as mercenaries in various situations, and a guild war was one of them.
Skies Above Skies and Gold Rush were actually recruiting mercenaries as well. Of course, thanks to being ripped off on a huge scale by Large Golden Mountain, they were not able to gather large-scale forces.
However, mercenaries were a must in guild wars, so both guilds were gathering as many as they possibly could.
Sanghyuk received a C-rank mercenary tablet that anyone could receive as long as they were above level 40.
The mercenary tablet had the name ‘Blake’ written on it.
‘I was worried about it being written as Immortal, but I guess I’m lucky. The effect of the title is much stronger than I expected.’
Thanks to receiving the mercenary tablet with the name ‘Blake’, he wouldn’t have to worry about his identity being leaked.
Sanghyuk immediately went to Skies Above Skies with the mercenary tablet.
Gold Rush’s financial prowess was much more powerful than anyone thought, so they could hold on for a long time even after Sanghyuk ripped them off with items at 50 times the market price.
They even had the power to suppress Skies Above Skies on top of that. In his previous life as well, the first one to drag the entire Line into the war was Skies Above Skies.
They were pushed back hard by Gold Rush since the beginning, so they could only borrow power from their Guild Line, and as a result, became the first Line versus Line battle.
There were two reasons for Sanghyuk’s visit to Skies Above Skies.
First was, as mentioned above, to balance the sides out since Gold Rush would crush them if he wasn’t there, and second was because he had the urge to smash Gold Rush himself, so he wanted to vent his frustration a little.
“A running guarantee? Such a thing is possible for mercenaries?”
Chunwoong tilted his head and asked Taemin.
“What’s impossible when there’s the scroll of oath? It’s just that…… no one wanted such a contract until now.”
“That’s true; even I won’t do that if I worked as a mercenary. Asking for money according to the kill count? Just how confident is he? Normally, don’t mercenaries act even more cautiously? What, is he some A-rank merc or something?”
“No, he’s C-rank.”
“And he’s that confident? Is he because he doesn’t know anything?”
“Maybe, maybe not. In any case, it’s not such a loss for us. He wanted a thousand gold for each kill. And after 100 kills, he wants 10,000 gold per kill.”
“Really? Does he not know that mercenary contracts can only be made a month later if he dies and the contract is annulled? What kind of mercenary asks for 100 kills? I think he really doesn’t know anything.”
“He did seem to know about how mercenary contracts worked. And I even kindly told him that most mercenaries only make about 1 or 2 kills.”
“And he still wants a running guarantee? Even though he can get at least 4000 gold a week by being a C-rank mercenary?”
“Yup, that’s what he says.”
“Wow, that’s kinda amazing on its own.”
“For us, it’s not a loss whatever the outcome is, so I just said yes.”
“Of course, you did. We’re going to use them as meat shields anyway. If he wants that then we’re rather thankful.”
Mercenaries weren’t guild members, so there was no need for them to take any price for losing the war. So, they always acted quite cautiously.
That was why the employers of mercenaries didn’t expect much from them either. It’s just that no matter how cautious they were, they were still quite a powerful force, so they couldn’t just not employ them.
“Oh, we are also running out of mana stones and we also need to buy more enhancement stones. We are too lacking in firepower compared to Gold Rush, so we need to make up for that.”
“Urgh, looks like a lot of money will be going down the drain again. How are the funds doing? We can still hold on, right?”
“We can hold…… but I don’t know how long we can hold on for. At this rate, we might have to borrow the power from the Line.”
“I thought you said we shouldn’t do that?”
“Normally, this is definitely a bad choice…… but we can’t just die out like this. The guild war itself is going haywire, so we have to do whatever we can.”
Taemin thought that they came too far.
It was no longer possible to wrap up the situation.
To kill, or to die…… those were their only options.
***
“You just need to remember what I told you before. I also do not plan to ask much of you mercenaries. Just don’t forget that we may ask you for cancellation charges if any of you act too cautiously.”
Kim Sunghoon, leader of Skies Above Skies’ ‘A-4 Battle Group’, reminded the new mercenaries of the warnings and opened his marking book.
“The first area will be Ice Valley. I asked three of you to mark that place yesterday, have you done so?”
There were three places that were in A-4 group’s jurisdiction, and Kim Sunghoon had asked the mercenaries to mark the place beforehand.
Three of the mercenaries nodded their heads. With that, no one was going to be left out in this place.
“Okay then. We’ll move!”
Along with his words, the 11 people including the three mercenaries and Kim Sunghoon were teleported to Ice Valley.
Their mission today was to find and eliminate any Gold Rush users while patrolling their respective areas.
Taemin was planning to attack the ‘workshops’ that Gold Rush was running and was funding their activities.
If Skies Above Skies could eliminate their workshops and cut their line of supply, Gold Rush would collapse from the inside.
Of course, it wasn’t easy to find the secret grinding mines that belonged to Gold Rush, so they were looking all over the Land of Dusk with 10 groups of forces, but they still couldn’t find any.
‘There aren’t any here……. Should I give them some hints or something?’
Blake wondered about how he and his group could meet the members of Gold Rush before they arrived at Ice Valley. He had one objective…… to crush Gold Rush with his own hands.