The Final Boss Has Returned Episode 21
Argan Village!
A countryside village so ordinary it could have been seen anywhere in the East.
The once-tranquil scenery of the village, where goblins, foxes, and wolves used to frolic on the back mountain, was nowhere to be found.
In its place were endless barracks!
Between the military tents and the temporary buildings constructed from virtually every tree cut down from the back mountain, stretching endlessly in a military camp, scarcely a trace of the tiny rural village remained.
Had it not been for the sign reading “Argan Village” at the entrance of the military camp, alongside the JDG flag engraved with both the Jeil Group logo and a dragon, no one would have known that Argan Village had ever existed here.
“Is this Argan Village?”
“Yes. Have you come to participate in the quest?”
Argan Village had changed beyond recognition.
Though the sight caused some confusion among users who had come to join the quest, the JDG guild members patrolling the surroundings in preparation for such a situation thankfully ensured they did not get lost and could receive the quest share.
At the center of Argan Village, which had effectively become a military garrison.
Inside the building that had originally served as the village hall was Drakan.
“Wow, it’s really Drakan!”
“Can I take a verification shot?”
“As many as you like.”
Countless users surrounded Drakan as if they had met a celebrity!
Drakan, who had shared the quest with the users, even kindly struck poses in response to requests for verification shots.
Drakan!
The Steel Monarch!
The leader of the Iron Blood Alliance, a top ranker from the era before Eugene, the pinnacle of the massive guild Cartel, and a star player who had written countless legends alongside a towering infamy during the previous game!
Many users had come to see him, who had now become a legend of the past.
Because, one way or another, Drakan had been the icon of an era.
Drakan treated each and every one of those users kindly, and occasionally even cracked jokes, creating a warm and friendly atmosphere.
“What, wasn’t he a villain back in the day? He’s a better person than I thought?”
“Right? He might actually be a good person if you get to know him. Ah, I should post this verification shot on SNS later.”
The users who met Drakan were generally satisfied, and as word spread on SNS and community forums about how kindly he had treated them, public opinion of him gradually began to shift in a favorable direction.
[(Screenshot) Met Drakan and he’s better than I thought lol. Might be a good person? #ArdeSaga #Drakan #IronBloodAlliance #QuestVerificationShot #CommemorativeShot #EveryoneToTheEast]
[OMG really? I totally thought he was a complete villain?]
[Yeah, it’s true! I don’t know much about the old days, but he’s surprisingly kind now?]
[Title: I thought Drakan was just overhyped as a concept…….]
[But after actually meeting him, he has good manners. It was so unexpected I was shocked lol]
Public opinion gradually turning favorable.
Moreover, as the buzz about Drakan and JDG hosting a war event gradually became a hot topic, rankers and named players who had been active in the East began joining one after another to ride that wave and draw attention, causing the forces gathered at Argan Village to steadily increase.
Once the snowball began rolling, the total number of users who gathered exponentially exceeded Drakan’s expectations!
‘I didn’t know the power of SNS was this tremendous.’
Drakan felt the might of social network services anew.
Six years ago. Back when he was actively playing the game, the sharing of game-related information had mostly been centered around internet communities like the Arde Forum.
The various boards on the Arde Forum had been the main places where users communicated.
But that was no longer the case.
The present, six years later, was the era of social network services.
It was truly an astonishing world—where no matter when, who, or what someone was doing, any fact could become a global topic within just an hour through likes and shares as soon as it was posted on SNS.
A world where if someone took a picture of their kitchen and uploaded it, within thirty minutes the entire nation could find out everything from the number of spoons in someone else’s house to that evening’s menu!
Drakan was experiencing firsthand that this was precisely the revolution and terror of information dissemination that SNS had brought.
‘If used well, it will be very useful!’
Social network services!
Comprehending their greatness, Drakan called Ignis, who was in charge of troop control, the executives of JDG and its allied guilds, and the East’s rankers who had joined the event to the village hall.
Since sufficient forces had gathered, it was now time to decide the timing of the attack.
* * *
Granado, the Lawless Port.
This city at the edge of the East, which had been called the Lawless City in the previous game, was famous in both the previous game and Second as a place where all manner of criminals, outlaws, other evil-aligned NPCs, those cast out from the Arde World, and chaos users gathered from across the entire continent.
A lawless zone where law did not even exist!
A garbage dump, the final destination for those cast out from the Arde World!
The ruler of this massive, chaotic city where only the law of strength applied was none other than Zack.
A ranked user who inherited the legend of the “Foreign Butcher,” one of the high-ranking executives of the Pirate Coalition, and the captain of the Butcher Pirates, a pirate crew created with users at its center.
At the center of the Lawless Port.
There stood a black spire, towering tall.
Just over ten years ago, this spire had served as the headquarters of the Black Ring Society; now it housed Zack and the Butcher Pirates, functioning as the governing body of the Lawless Port.
At the top of that black spire.
Inside the gloomy conference room originally used as the Black Ring Society’s elders’ meeting room, the executives of the Butcher Pirates were gathered.
The pirate crew’s executives wore faces full of worry.
Among them, the Foreign Butcher Zack—a man who appeared to be in his early thirties sitting in the most ornate chair—opened his mouth.
“Just how many have gathered by now?”
“According to the numbers confirmed by scouts, they say it looks like more than 50,000 combined, NPCs and users?”
Hearing the executive’s answer, Zack felt his head throbbing.
Just the gathered users alone numbered 50,000!
Moreover, even now users were increasing in real-time after seeing posts on SNS, communities, and videos, and among them were even rankers—enough to make his head throb.
“Drakan! That bastard is grabbing me by the ankles again!”
Zack felt his insides boiling.
The Lawless Port had neither proper walls nor a systematic defensive magic circle.
Because there had been no need for them.
Because there did not exist a single person, NPC or user, with the guts to touch the Pirate Coalition in the East!
Furthermore, since even the Hero Eugene had declared he would not artificially interfere with the Pirate Coalition, it was practically the same as having no immediate threat.
Of course, there was a kingdom ruling the region in the East, just like other areas.
The Gasan Kingdom.
That kingdom was the ruler of the East.
However, the corruption of the Gasan Kingdom was severe, and the Pirate Coalition had built a mutually beneficial relationship with its high nobles by offering enormous bribes and handling their dirty work in their stead, so the Pirate Coalition wielded an unchecked, infamous power at least within the East.
It was precisely because of that powerful force that Zack had joined the Pirate Coalition.
He still hadn’t forgotten the events of the past.
‘I mistakenly messed with a low-ranking guild member of the Iron Blood Alliance, and because that bastard Drakan mobilized a guild alliance, I was endlessly hunted down and eventually had no choice but to quit the game!’
Zack recalled the painful past from long ago.
During the previous game, Zack had enjoyed his hobby of PK while roaming the Arde World alone.
He felt pleasure every time he slaughtered powerless users and extorted items from them.
Although the karma called PK brought more restrictions upon him the more it accumulated, he didn’t care.
Because having already risen to the rank of ranker, ordinary hunting parties couldn’t catch him.
The Iron Blood Alliance!
At least, until he accidentally messed with that low-ranking guild member.
At first, he thought, surely nothing big would happen just because one low-ranking guild member died.
But Drakan declared maximum vengeance for the death of a low-ranking guild member, and through the merciless retaliation of the Iron Blood Alliance and the guild alliance, Zack realized.
That neither the infamy he had built as the Butcher nor his position as a ranker was of any use against overwhelming force!
So numbers really were everything. The fact that there was no fighting against a mob!
Through the lesson he learned while quitting the game like that, Zack joined a faction as soon as Second launched.
The Pirate Coalition!
Having joined the faction that ruled the East, Zack rose through the ranks with the Pirate Coalition as his backing, delighted at how wise his choice had been, and did not hesitate to plunder, burn, and PK.
Just like in the previous game, Zack enjoyed PKing users and listening to them beg for their lives, and recruited chaos users similar to himself into the Pirate Coalition, finally forming the Butcher Pirates.
Recently, he had been living a happy game life after becoming the lord of the Lawless Port, one of the key bases of the Pirate Coalition.
Moreover, Arde Saga Second was a hardcore game!
Since death was permanent, the weight of death was incomparably heavier than in the previous game, and thanks to that, the pleasure Zack felt in passing that heavy sentence of death was greater than anything in the previous game.
At least, until Drakan appeared.
“Reinforcements! What about the reinforcements?”
An army estimated to reach 50,000.
Not to mention the participation of JDG, a member of the top ten guilds, and the Flame King Ignis, an Over Ranker!
With this level of force, a city without walls like the Lawless Port could be trampled in a single stroke.
It was to the point where calculating the difference in military strength was meaningless.
Therefore, the only thing Zack and his crew could rely on was the Pirate Coalition’s reinforcements.
A battle they could not win if reinforcements didn’t come.
That was precisely the Lawless Port’s current situation.
“I’ve heard they’re on their way now.”
“Who?”
The very moment Zack threw the question.
*Boom!*
As the conference room door burst open roughly, someone appeared.
“Long time no see. Butcher Zack!”
The being that revealed itself from the door was not human.
A creature covered in green scales all over its body, as if a lizard and a human had been mixed together.
It was a Lizardman.
An impressive Lizardman with a massive scar running vertically across his left eye flashed his blade-like teeth and sauntered into the conference room.
A smile spread across Zack’s face at the sight of the Lizardman.
Zack immediately sprang up from his seat.
“Assault Commander Riac, what brings you to such a humble place!”
Assault Commander Riac.
Third in the hierarchy of the Pirate Coalition, and the left hand of the Pirate King Drake!
Bearing the title of the Deathly Sawtooth, he possessed infinite loyalty to the Pirate King who had liberated him from slavery, and was a legendary pirate who had taken the vanguard in every battle and seized victory.
“I heard that the Black Ring Society remnants who had been hiding like rats in some backwater village have shown themselves and conspired with outsiders to dare target the Lawless Port.”
Riac flicked his tongue and smiled, twisting his hideous face.
The Lawless Port!
The Pirate King Drake knew very well how important this port was.
The Pirate King Drake had not formed the Pirate Coalition merely for plundering.
Although the profits obtained through pillaging, murder, and arson were certainly important, their main source of income was the tolls gained by dominating the trade routes of the Eastern seas!
And the various smuggled goods, including stolen items, that came through those trade routes.
Smuggling!
That was precisely the true founding purpose of the Pirate Coalition, and the source of the enormous wealth that Pirate King Drake possessed.
And the Lawless Port was the final destination of the smuggling route managed by the Pirate Coalition.
All stolen goods and smuggled items that arrived by sea came here, and were sold throughout the continent through the Black Market located in the Lawless Port.
Smuggling, and the Black Market!
The Pirate King had absolutely no intention of handing over this strategic point where two core sources of revenue were anchored to a bunch of nobodies.
Sending Riac, the coalition’s third-in-command and his own left hand, carried that meaning.
“But now that the White Shark Assault Squad and I are here, rest easy, Zack. I’ll grind all those bugs up with this saw!”
Riac drew the greatsword on his back and put on a chilling smile.
The Deathly Sawtooth!
His weapon, bearing the same name as his title, was indeed a grotesque greatsword with one edge made entirely of jagged, protruding sawteeth, just like his nickname.
‘With Riac and the White Shark Assault Squad here, we win this war!’
Riac and the White Shark Assault Squad.
The Deathly Sawtooth Riac was a superhuman powerhouse on par with an Over Ranker, and the White Shark Assault Squad was the Pirate King’s direct elite unit of one-man-armies, each possessing strength rivaling a ranker.
If they used the White Shark Assault Squad to lure those bastards inside the Lawless Port and wage urban warfare.
If they used the chaotically built city’s structures and maze-like winding alleys to fight guerrilla warfare with a small elite force, turning it into a quagmire fight!
Zack had confidence that he could win this war.
Having thought that far, Zack looked at Riac and smiled back.
Imagining the war to come, and himself defeating Drakan and JDG in that war, finally grasping victory and the glory that would follow.