Part 9. Ted's Siege (1)
That day.
Cheon Gyeong-u woke up after a solid seven hours and thirty minutes of sleep.
Today was the day the siege began for Ted, but for Cheon Gyeong-u, it was a morning no different from any other.
‘Mmngh….’
In the 21st century, humanity invented a time machine.
Unfortunately, it could not go to the past. It was a time machine that only traveled to the future.
And the name of that time machine was… the Internet!
‘What kind of dogshit is this….’
While eating breakfast and checking gaming news on an internet community as usual, Cheon Gyeong-u’s eyes practically popped out of his head.
A post linking to a shocking article had appeared.
‘Good grief.’
For the past few years, Alibaba and CGTV had joined forces to conquer several territories. Ted knew this much.
But now, the two guilds had devoured an entire kingdom overnight.
‘They freeze my bank account while they feast and thrive among themselves?’
Pwuk! Pwuk!
Ted gripped his fork and stabbed down repeatedly. The boiled potatoes and boiled eggs that had been his breakfast were soon smashed to pieces.
‘Oh boy, they’re putting on a show….’
Having swallowed up dozens of territories in the Tilt Kingdom, they had ultimately devoured the Tilt Kingdom itself. And then, they had apparently changed its national name to
Seething, Ted scoured the community and looked up every bit of related information.
...Damn. Looks like CGTV and Alibaba are trying to build a post-China inside the game….
“Ugh….”
Slowly processing the information, Cheon Gyeong-u felt nauseated.
By his estimation, the power of the two Chinese guilds had already begun surpassing that of several kingdoms on the Face Continent years ago.
However, seeing the results made him feel incredibly unpleasant.
‘Sigh… Damn, I spent two hours reading this shitty news, so now I’m two hours late to the siege. What’s going to change if I get mad now? The answer is to hurry up, level up, and collect the Liuwang Xingzuo skill set.’
To focus on his work, the answer was to stay away from internet forums. To think two whole hours had passed without him realizing…!
Coming to his senses belatedly, Cheon Gyeong-u resolutely donned an adult-sized giant diaper.
Because depending on what would unfold, he might not be able to log off for more than a day.
‘I’ll end this siege in the shortest time possible.’
* * *
When Ted logged in, someone was looking for him.
It was none other than Count Ssaullon’s adjutant.
Ted followed him to the temporary command post near the inner wall.
“Senior Brother. You’ve arrived.”
“Raiden.”
Upon entering the command post, Raiden greeted Ted.
He seemed to be in charge of guarding the command post.
“I was just about to come find you, but here you are. You have completed the 2nd advancement course as of today. Here is your certificate.”
“Thank you.”
The siege had already begun.
As proof, a small status window had appeared above Ted’s head.
Ted : 0
Ted had roughly heard information about the siege from the adjutant.
Unexpectedly, the situation was turning out to be quite interesting.
“Yes? You’re saying some foreigner broke the outer wall gate all by himself?”
“To be exact, he didn’t break it… but more than half of its durability was reportedly shaved off. I find it hard to believe as well, but he seemed to be a foreigner with an extremely tough body. His equipment was also top-grade.”
“Ah, so you’re saying he was that tough?”
Unfortunately, it seemed they hadn’t found out who it was.
When a siege began, the status windows that normally appeared by default did not show. It was to conceal information from both sides as much as possible.
‘Wait, if that’s the case… maybe I can make quite a killing here?’
Anyway, Ted focused on the Count’s summons.
If Count Ssaullon hadn’t called for him, Ted would have immediately rushed out to the outer walls of the Count’s territory, applied to become a combatant, and started sniping.
Because that was the best he could do on his own.
But the Count was looking for him personally?
Anyone who wasn’t a fool could tell. In this board set up by the Count and Chalsu, it was a situation where the weight of a third party like himself could grow even greater.
“Count, I have brought the foreigner Ted.”
The adjutant who had accompanied him spoke and opened the door.
Soon, the office door opened, and a middle-aged NPC with a solemn face was watching Ted intently.
No lengthy epithets were needed.
Just two syllables. Count. That was enough to explain his dignity.
“Musketeer Ted. I greet Your Excellency the Count.”
“Do you know of the current situation?”
“Yes. I heard from the adjutant on the way here.”
“Then this will be easy to explain.”
At the Count’s gesture, the adjutant brought a contract.
“Become the sword and shield of House Ssaullon in this siege defense.”
—Sub Quest Triggered—
You have received a mercenary employment offer from Count Ssaullon’s territory.
Will you accept?
Hire participation. It was a procedure Ted knew all too well.
There was no reason to refuse.
‘Yes.’
Afterward, the Count explained the situation briefly and told Ted what he wanted him to do.
Summarized, there were three things.
1. Participate in siege defense for at least 15 hours a day.
2. No contract payment, but final siege defense merit point rewards are tripled.
3. The contract is completed at the point when the siege defense against
This was contract content that ordinary users would find bewildering.
Because the moment they lost the siege defense, the hired party couldn’t gain any benefit at all.
But… to Ted, who didn’t even entertain the thought of failure from the start, this was a huge opportunity.
‘To think the board would roll itself over for me like this.’
Was he unusually lucky?
‘No, luck my ass. I’ve done things up until now, so this is only natural.’
He pondered briefly before quickly nodding his head.
Even just yesterday, he had achieved a considerable feat. He hadn’t expected it, but this treatment was only natural.
Now there was only one thing he needed to worry about.
‘How can I seize the greatest profit from the center of the board?’
Ted resolved to take everything he could from this siege.
As he began to rack his brains in concentration, a good idea came to mind.
The best possible move that no one else could do, but only Ted himself could pull off!
“Might I make one request?”
“Speak.”
“I plan to go to the outer walls and snipe Pateuk’s camp, their powerful tanker included. I will see the job done with certainty, so please assign one hundred shamans to me.”
“What? Does that even make sense, foreigner!”
Unlike the Count, who had been listening silently, the staff officers raised their voices.
One hundred shamans.
That was nearly 30% of all shamans participating in the siege defense.
If they were urgently pulled away like that, there would be gaps in combat power where they were needed.
“…Why do you need such a number of shamans? And by what means will you strike the enemy camp?”
“Time is of the essence right now. Do I really need to explain?”
The staff officers bristled at Ted’s words.
“You foreigner brat, daring to be so insolent before His Lordship!”
“I am speaking for the sake of House Ssaullon.”
Ted looked at the staff officers nonchalantly.
Rank and status were useless. It was the Count’s territory that was hard-pressed right now.
Count Ssaullon, who had briefly checked the documents containing Ted’s information, let out a sigh.
His abilities were certain, at the very least.
His rude attitude was absurd, but given the situation, he had no choice but to trust him.
“Very well. Prepare one hundred shamans. However, my adjutant will accompany you, so be aware.”
“Thank you. I shall head out immediately.”
Ted thus headed to the outer wall, accompanied by one hundred shamans from the inner citadel.
“I look forward to working with you, shamans.”
Ssaullon had assigned shamans comprised of users to Ted for convenience.
It was the concept of a sort of siege defense special unit.
On the way, Ted gave two orders to the shamans.
“You fifty-five shamans here. Please continuously cast mana recovery hexes on me so my mana doesn’t run out.”
“The rest of you, please continuously cast hexes that reduce my skill cooldown.”
“Yes.” “Understood.”
The shamans could roughly tell what Ted was going for.
‘He wants to spam skills continuously.’
‘Filling up his mana on top of that. But is that even possible?’
However, that only made them even more confused.
To deal damage to the enemy encampment, the spell or skill would need to be A-rank or S-rank. But such skills cost at least thousands in mana.
Even if shamans cast mana recovery hexes, recovering thousands of mana would take quite a lot of time.
If there was one thing shaman buffs were better than magic buffs at, it was that they could stack.
The downside was that there were almost no hexes that recovered mana by percentage unless they were grand hexes.
Therefore, the higher the level, the rarer it was to use shamans as buffers.
‘And the skill cooldown is the same.’
A skill that could turn the situation around would definitely be a large-scale skill.
The downside of A-rank and above skills is that, being finishing moves, their cooldowns are long.
Even if forty-five shamans cast cooldown-reducing hexes, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. A one-hour cooldown might only become fifty minutes.
‘What on earth is he trying to do?’
Harboring such doubts, the one hundred shamans followed Ted up the outer wall.
“Hoo, it’s a mess.”
The land near the gate below the outer wall was scorched earth. Countless skills unleashed to face the user in blue heavy armor had hideously smashed the ground.
Ted raised Black and White.
Now was the time to fire the bullets that would catch three rabbits.
‘Looks like that guy is already gone.’
Information he had heard from a scout on the way.
That the opponent, a monstrous user, wore blue heavy armor covering his entire body.
The bastard had slashed the gate’s durability by 60% and escaped leisurely.
It was said that even Viscount Ryanghaen, the
Defense and attack power that defied understanding even taking into account the various shamanic hex arrays the viscount had cast.
The staff officers had probably figured out who he was by now, but the majority of ordinary users didn’t know who he was.
However, Ted, who had memorized all information about world rankers, could think of exactly one person.
Blue full-body heavy armor, a style of breaking gates alone… there was one such user in Japan.
‘Tenichi… I guess this will be the first time I meet him in person.’
Doubts welled up.
Tenichi, the Japanese ranker, belonged to the guild
The Great Japanese Empire couldn’t quite enter the Face Continent’s Seven Great Guilds, but it was one of the twelve guilds evaluated to be right below them.
Moreover, it was a guild active primarily in the Pixie Kingdom, where many Japanese users gathered, not here in the Caron Kingdom where many Koreans were.
Why would such guys suddenly send support to a third-rate guild like Pateuk that didn’t match their level?
‘Well, that’s not something I can know. Anyway… his defense was that high?’
When it came to attack power, Ted himself was the one.
Even though Ted wasn’t fond of fighting, his competitive spirit flared slightly.
‘Well. I’ll run into him if I fight long enough. More importantly, is it okay for me to do this here where so many people are watching?’
Ted recalled the attention that would be focused on him after this.
The biggest problem would be China’s two great guilds. Alibaba, CGTV.
But thinking of the article he had seen that morning, it didn’t seem like much of a problem anymore.
‘From the standpoint of guilds that have begun newly operating a nation, anything related to me must have been forgotten by now.’
There wasn’t even a direct causal relationship.
Even if someone found out, it would only be to the extent of creating a suspicion that the current him was similar to Ted of the past.
If it was only that much, there was no big problem in revealing himself now.
Ted was certain.
“Shamans.”
Ted nodded toward the hundred shamans who had followed him.
“Yes!”
Soon, the shamans began forming hand seals. It was the motion for casting hexes.
Bwoong—
Bwoong—
Then, one hundred hexes began piling up layer upon layer on Ted’s body.
Fifty-five
Ted’s mana, which normally rose slowly by 4 per minute, began recovering by 389 at a time.
Forty-five
Now all preparations were complete.
Ted aimed his musket at Pateuk’s camp, which was quiet as if still gauging the situation.
“
A massive electric current began gathering at the muzzle of the +19 Black and White.
Pazzzzt!!
Immediately, a massive lightning bolt burst from the muzzle.
In that instant, Ted was pushed back nearly 2 meters. At the same time, the muzzle overheated to a red glow.
The bolt soon reached and struck the enemy camp.
The powerful lightning zigzagged as it flew, inflicting considerable damage on the camp.
‘This is it.’
A considerable amount of EXP rose in one shot.
Because in a siege, experience rises when you kill enemies.
Additionally, siege defense points began to increase.
Ted : 473
Points gained from killing a normal soldier were 10.
Ted had killed approximately 47 soldiers just now.
‘Not bad for the first shot. Now, up to here, that was two rabbits….’
What Ted had gained: experience and points.
He checked the status window that had popped up last.
‘Current proficiency is 71%. It’ll be soon. Let’s finish it today.’
The third rabbit was beginning to be safely caught in Ted’s hands.