The Final Boss Has Returned
Chapter 133
[It all began ten years ago.]
A cinematic began with Liberi’s declaration!
The footage showed translucent forms rising one by one from the earth of Castle Voltaha, which was slowly ascending into the sky.
[I, who served the Monarch, along with the Steel Knights, were awakened from our eternal slumber through an unfathomable phenomenon known as the ‘Great Cataclysm’.]
Hearing Liberi’s words, I finally understood why he was still alive now, when a thousand years had passed in game time.
Liberi and the Steel Knights!
They had already died, yet due to the aftermath of the Great Cataclysm, they had been resurrected as ghost-like beings.
‘Seems the Great Cataclysm completely turned the Ard World upside down.’
The Great Cataclysm.
A cataclysmic event over ten years ago, when the dimensional barriers of the Ard World had completely collapsed.
This was the setting that served as the fundamental reason why the Ard World of Ard Saga: Second was completely different from the previous game.
From the continent’s geography to the very concept of dungeons!
The previous game and Second were different in every way; it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say they were practically different games.
Anyway, dungeons with the setting that the dead had been resurrected due to that Great Cataclysm were more common than one might think.
But to think Liberi was such a case.
Even as I was thinking about the Great Cataclysm, the cinematic continued to unfold like a panorama.
[But we were not the only ones who returned. Lewis, the First Knight Division Commander of the Revolutionary Army. He, too, was resurrected alongside us.]
Along with Liberi’s words, the screen changed.
Souls with hazy, fog-like forms, completely opposite to those of the Steel Knights, were shown rising from the ground.
It was the Revolutionary Army.
‘Lewis, you say.’
Lewis.
It was a name I hadn’t heard in a very long time.
Just as Liberi said, Lewis was a major NPC on the Revolutionary Army’s side who had served as the First Knight Division Commander in the previous game.
Lewis, the crown prince of the Kingdom of Luden whom I had personally destroyed, harbored a desire for revenge against me and joined the Revolutionary Army, proving to be quite the nuisance until the final battle.
It wasn’t for no reason that the name had come to mind the moment I heard it.
Well, he had died by my hand in the final battle surrounding Castle Voltaha, but that wasn’t what mattered right now.
[He leads his pack of revolutionaries, has seized the Steel Palace, sits upon the Steel Throne, and to this day insults the Monarch.]
Along with Liberi’s words, the footage showed white souls and black souls intertwined in battle upon the ground of the floating castle Voltaha, where fierce winds whipped about.
[Kill every last one of those resurrected wraiths of iron and blood! Stop them from taking the Steel Palace!]
[We are the Revolutionary Army! Even in death, we shall serve the will of the revolution!]
The Revolutionary Army!
The wraiths of the Revolutionary Army spat out that name as if proud of it, and at their vanguard stood Lewis.
Like Liberi, his form was impossible to make out clearly due to his cloud-like shape, but unlike the other Revolutionary Army wraiths around him, he was shining more brilliantly and was wielding ‘divine power’.
‘Come to think of it, he was a Paladin.’
I narrowed my eyes and watched Lewis in the cinematic.
Lewis.
When he threw himself into the Revolutionary Army, he had fanatically served Eugene, the only one who could match me equally, and his loyalty had been recognized by the Goddess of Light and the Pantheon, changing his class to Paladin.
But that was while he was alive; now that he had become something akin to an undead, it should have been impossible for him to use divine power.
Because divine power and undead were a combination of polar opposites.
Even the Undead King, said to be the pinnacle of the undead, had merely received scratches from divine power during the raid, but the fact remained that he had taken damage.
Of course, being the Undead King, he had instantly restored the damage from divine power without any issue and resumed battle.
Anyway, how could he use divine power even after becoming a wraith?
I kept a close eye on the continuing footage.
The footage showed the Steel Knights and the Revolutionary Army wraiths continuing to clash.
In this battle of wraiths divided into light and darkness, black and white, I realized that Lewis wasn’t the only wraith using divine power.
A considerable number of the Revolutionary Army wraiths were wielding divine power, pressing the Steel Knights’ wraiths back.
Well, the Revolutionary Army’s First Knight Division was an order formed by Paladin NPCs who had fanatically served Eugene.
If Lewis, a Paladin in life, could wield divine power, it was safe to assume that other Paladin wraiths from the First Knight Division could use it as well.
‘Does this mean they might not be simple undead?’
I narrowed my eyes.
Undead that used divine power had never appeared before.
Yet the fact that they could use divine power implied that they were something other than ordinary undead.
Anyway, the Steel Knights’ wraiths began to be pushed back by the Revolutionary Army wraiths wielding divine power.
And so, after the Steel Knights’ wraiths were defeated, the soul that appeared to be Lewis entered the Steel Palace, which bore clear marks of age, and sat upon the Steel Throne now rusted over.
‘The Steel Throne…’
I fell into sentiment as I watched that cinematic.
The Steel Palace, the Hall of Iron and Blood, and the Steel Throne.
Those places where I had stayed in the previous game remained to this day, their original forms intact despite bearing the marks of time.
[My Monarch, I humbly ask that you drive out those who dare to trample upon your dignity and reclaim the Steel Palace. Castle Voltaha awaits the return of its Monarch.]
With Liberi’s words, the cinematic concluded, showing the Steel Palace seized by Lewis and the Revolutionary Army wraiths, and Castle Voltaha surrounded by countless monsters.
Along with it, a notification window appeared before my eyes.
[A quest has been generated.]
[Reconquest]
[Rank: Legend]
- After a long voyage, you have finally arrived at the floating castle Voltaha, where the legend of the Steel Monarch began. But the floating castle Voltaha, which you once ruled, has been unlawfully occupied by the wraiths of the old Revolutionary Army, and Lewis, former First Knight Division Commander of the Revolutionary Army, sits upon the Steel Throne, trampling upon your legend.
Lead Liberi and the wraiths of the Steel Knights to recapture the Steel Palace and expel Lewis from the Steel Throne.
Now is the time to show those wraiths of the past who dare trample your legend into the dirt who the true master of that legend is.
[This quest cannot be refused.]
[You have accepted the quest.]
Now, it was only natural that after the cinematic ended, a quest window appeared and was automatically added to my quest log along with the notification that it could not be refused.
[From this moment, all members of the Steel Knights, save Liberi, shall follow the commands of the returned Monarch.]
With those words, Liberi knelt before me and bowed his head.
Behind him, countless black forms appeared.
They were all wraiths of the Steel Knights.
I looked upon them and smiled.
“Truly, this brings back old memories.”
A Legend Quest.
It was a moment where the meaning of a quest that looked back upon one’s own achievements was truly felt.
Memories of leading the Steel Knights and dominating the entire world flashed through my mind.
I stood there and reconsidered the cinematic and the quest contents.
‘The quest rank is Legend. The original intention must have been for me to sweep away the Revolutionary Army wraiths together with the Steel Knights, all by myself.’
Ard Saga was a game with infinite freedom, but quests had certain patterns, and accordingly, there were proper methods and intentions behind them.
Therefore, veteran players naturally had to possess the technique of reading a quest’s intended strategy and purpose.
And I, a veteran among veterans, could immediately read the original intention behind the ‘Reconquest’ quest by combining its contents with the cinematic.
Legend Quests, barring special cases, were mostly quests premised on being carried out by the Legend user alone.
This ‘Reconquest’ quest I had just received was likely originally a linked quest with its route designed around me completing it alone.
Of course, given its rank, there were quests where you had to mobilize absurd costs like building an airship just to proceed to the next step, but essentially, that was the idea.
‘But I’m not alone now. I have an expedition.’
But I currently had an expedition party.
I hadn’t brought Ignis and JDG, but even so, the expedition’s combat power was considerable.
This meant I already possessed more power than the quest had accounted for.
But I wasn’t stupid enough to lead that expedition on a reckless charge straight into the floating castle.
They were my fans, and this expedition was something like a fan meeting.
Of course, calling it a fan meeting was a bit rough given the schedule, but the important thing was that the main point was to clear the quest safely above all else.
I searched my memories.
Castle Voltaha was one of the most familiar places to me.
Having been the core stronghold and capital of the Iron-Blood Alliance, I had invested an enormous amount of gold into installing all sorts of facilities, including defensive structures.
Those facilities were well worth the money; even the Revolutionary Army during the final battle had struggled greatly to capture Castle Voltaha.
‘And among them was a secret passage.’
I recalled.
Among the numerous facilities I had installed with such vast funds was a secret passage.
A passage leading directly from the Steel Palace to the outskirts of the castle!
It was an installation added in case of emergency, but during the final battle, the situation had become such that using it was meaningless, making it an ill-fated facility that went unused and abandoned.
If that passage, which responded only to me, the master of the Iron-Blood Alliance, still remained, perhaps it would be possible to practically breeze through the quest.
A powerful magical device had been installed so that no one but me could open the secret passage; there was no way the Revolutionary Army wraiths could know of its existence.
Having followed that line of thought, I spoke to Liberi.
“Liberi.”
[Yes, Monarch.]
“Is the Wolf Forest still there, by any chance?”
The Wolf Forest!
A forest in the beginner field near Castle Voltaha, where beginners who hunted animals like rabbits and deer would first encounter aggressive monsters like foxes and wolves.
I too remembered passing through the Wolf Forest to head to other dungeons and fields when I was a beginner in the past.
And the exit of the secret passage I had built was located right in that Wolf Forest.
[Of course.]
“Then guide me.”
[As you command.]
Liberi rose from his place at my words.
I looked at Liberi and smiled.
The Wolf Forest.
It was time to begin the strategy for this quest at the place where the secret passage’s exit lay.