The Final Boss Has Returned, Episode 70
Fwhiiiiiing!
A snowstorm blew fiercely, as if slicing through flesh.
A snowfield where one sank deep past the ankles.
An army clad in thick leather garments trudged through that harsh environment.
‘Son of a bitch!’
And Rio, who stood at the vanguard of that procession, spat out a curse internally.
Additional support!
In order to obtain that support, Rio had had to listen to endless nagging and reprimands in the vice chairman’s office.
The gist of that lengthy rebuke was, “Why are you making us invest more money in a place like this for no reason?”
It was, in some ways, absurd abuse of power, but Rio was merely a gamer; he had neither the power nor the guts to defy the crown prince of Simseong Group.
At any rate, he had managed to secure additional support in exchange for enduring that rebuke, but the problem was that as they drew closer to the North Pole, a cold far exceeding their estimated values was crashing down upon them.
‘There’s no way I can retreat at this point.’
Rio sighed.
Having come this far, retreating was out of the question.
Even if he wanted to retreat, Vice Chairman Sin Jeong-hyeok would never permit it.
Vice Chairman Sin Jeong-hyeok was a man whose pride was filthy strong, and who always felt a sense of inferiority toward JDG and Sin Ha-yeon.
For such a man, this war was an event that he absolutely had to succeed in, in order to put Sin Ha-yeon in her place.
The fact that Vice Chairman Sin Jeong-hyeok, who had decided against making unnecessary investments, had ultimately provided additional support while grumbling was also due to that battle of pride.
It was childish, but what could he do? In the end, the one with the upper hand was Vice Chairman Sin Jeong-hyeok!
In any case, retreat was not permitted for such reasons, and all that remained for the expeditionary force was to advance, and advance again.
‘This is unsettling.’
But as Rio moved forward, he felt an ever-growing sense of anxiety filling a corner of his heart.
‘The Undead aren’t coming.’
The Undead, who had come to pick a fight at least once a week until now!
The fact that, apart from a few Undead that came to harass them recently, they had disappeared to the point where one could hardly find hide nor hair of them was stoking Rio’s anxiety.
‘Has the Undead King changed his strategy?’
The NPCs of Arde World were by no means stupid.
Unlike the NPCs of other games, who moved only according to predetermined scripts, the NPCs of Arde World were equipped with super-high-performance artificial intelligence possessing emotions and reasoning perfectly identical to humans—indistinguishable from humans. Therefore, they could move like humans as much as they wanted, and sometimes even more strategically than humans.
And Rio suspected that the Undead King had changed his strategy.
‘If not that, there might be a user who received an opposing quest from the Undead King.’
Winter Forest!
The Druids’ Sanctuary!
Both were zones that the Undead could not enter, but seeing as the Winter Seal had been broken, it was possible to speculate that a user who was not an Undead—one who had received a quest from the Undead King—had destroyed the seal.
It was while Rio was calculating the odds, examining every possibility in the suddenly changed environment in his head.
‘What?’
Beyond the white horizon where biting winds raged, Rio’s eyes caught sight of the Undead army surging forth like black waves.
“Undead! Prepare for battle!”
“Battle preparations!”
“Battle preparations!”
Undead army!
When Rio shouted at the sight of their advance, the soldiers following behind echoed the command and began forming battle lines.
Rio stood his ground, catching his breath and gripping Mistilteinn.
Into Rio’s field of vision came the endlessly surging Undead army.
Skeletons, zombies, and ghouls were a given; occasionally seen Death Knights, and even Liches floating in midair!
And amidst them, the one leading the Undead army was…….
“A user?”
Rio’s pupils trembled as he spotted a group of users mixed proudly among the Undead.
At that very moment, the hypothesis he had just conceived—that the Undead King had entrusted a quest to a user—was transforming into certainty in Rio’s mind.
“So you are the Spear King, Rio.”
A voice as cold as the wind currently blowing gripped Rio’s ears.
Rio looked in the direction the voice came from.
There was a familiar face that had frequently been the talk of the town recently.
A man with rough features, clad in black armor, holding an unusual-looking blue flame sword in his right hand!
Looking at him, Rio cried out that man’s name.
“Drakan!”
Smirk.
The corner of Drakan’s mouth rose upon hearing his nickname.
Along with him, the viewers watching the current situation via live broadcast truly exploded.
* * *
Drakan’s sudden appearance!
The insane presence of Drakan, who had barged in during the Northern Expedition, was enough to collapse in an instant the solid tower that Spear King Rio had built up through gradually drumming up issues and monopolizing the spotlight.
[Whoa. Wow! Drakan! Hyung, why are you coming out of there?]
[Drakan appearance!]
[No, seriously, why is Drakan suddenly coming out there?]
[What? What does this mean? Is he the Undead Vanguard Drakan?]
[No way, he’s not going to fight Rio like this, is he?]
[Just looking at it, they seem like they’re going to fight?]
[Gasp, then isn’t this the first user-versus-user war in Second?]
[Yeah yeah, that’s right, it’s the first]
[Someone just win lol]
Rio spat out a curse internally as he saw the chat window, which he had barely paid any attention to, suddenly being covered with talk of Drakan.
And he realized.
Drakan!
That he was the very one who had received an opposing quest from the Undead King!
“No, now that I see it, Drakan, you weren’t alone.”
And he learned that the users standing on the Undead side weren’t just Drakan alone.
Mabujang, Queen Hani, an unidentified mage user, and finally, Flame King Ignis, who had risen to the position of an Over Ranker just like himself!
Rio frowned as he looked at the users clinging to Drakan’s side as if escorting him.
[‘D’ream team born lol]
[Dream team? That was ages ago. That’s old news. The trend is D-vengers]
[This is crazy. Looking at it now, Drakan didn’t come alone; he brought all the elite Naval Battle members ㄷㄷ]
[Nah, it’s not the elites since Flying Man and Pants Warrior aren’t there;]
Even in that situation, the explosive chatroom reactions updating in real time.
However, a situation where attention was drawn to his opponent rather than himself was a clear warning sign for Rio.
Currently, the Northern Expeditionary Force and the Undead army were facing off breathtakingly on the snowfield!
In the midst of this, Drakan, standing at the center of the Undead army, looked at Rio and spoke.
“Spear King Rio. I have a proposal.”
“What kind of proposal?”
“I think that by now, you must have gained as much as you can gain through the expedition.”
“So?”
“Turn your expeditionary force around now. Then we can resolve this situation amicably without any unnecessary bad blood between us.”
At Drakan’s words, Rio laughed on the spot.
“Ha, hahaha! Hahahahaha!!”
It was a smirk born of absurdity.
The nerve of him proposing a retreat—to whom, exactly!
Moreover, Rio absolutely could not retreat right now.
Because it was clear that Vice Chairman Shin, the de facto master of the Simseong Milky Way Guild, would not permit a retreat.
Therefore, Drakan’s absurd proposal and the like weren’t even worth listening to for Rio.
“You’ve really said some funny things and fallen flat on your face. There’s no need to listen any further. What are you all doing? Attack those Undead bastards, and Drakan and his gang!”
“Attack!”
The moment Rio’s command fell, the Northern Expeditionary Force charged at the Undead army.
Drakan looked at that sight and muttered lowly.
“In the end, you make the foolish choice of throwing the first punch.”
At the single word Drakan spat out, the real-time streaming chat window of Drakan’s official channel, which he had left on, truly exploded.
[He says foolish choice. Look at that shameless tone lol]
[Wow~ I didn’t know Drakan would turn on the stream here. For real, surprise livestream is the best~]
[Drakan. Did you also cause the northern winter?]
[Nah, maybe. Looking at it, it’s obvious he received an opposing quest]
[Ugh, I hate that the north got colder…….]
[Drakan, win!]
Drakan looked at that chat window and smiled.
As he had expected, the users weren’t complaining much.
There were users complaining that the north had gotten colder, but those were merely complaints arising because the season was still summer yet it had suddenly changed to winter.
As expected, in the fight between the Northern Expeditionary Force—which excluded general user participation—and Drakan himself, general users were watching this battle with the attitude of spectators.
It truly couldn’t be a more optimal situation.
Right then.
[Yujin: Drakan. What is going on right now?]
Yujin’s chat appeared in Drakan’s field of view.
[Omg~ It’s Yujin!]
[Yujin is here again!]
[Yuha! It means Yujin hi!]
[Has Yujin completely made up with Drakan now?]
[Didn’t you see the previous interview video? Yujin is the one who picked Drakan back up~]
Along with that, the chat window exploded.
Drakan looked at Yujin’s chat and narrowed his eyes.
Yujin!
Drakan knew the intention behind him asking such a question.
One way or another, that bastard was doubting him.
Drakan!
That he might be trying to wage a conquest war against the users again, like in the past.
Therefore, Drakan needed to resolve such doubts of Yujin’s.
“I received a quest from the Undead King. The goal is to stop them.”
Drakan pointed forward with his finger.
There, the Undead were being ground down like meat shields.
Because Drakan’s position was far from the front lines, no attacks had come flying his way yet at this point where the battle had just begun.
[Yujin: I see.]
“You probably know better than I do that PK penalties don’t apply to collisions occurring while carrying out mutually opposing quests?”
[Yujin: Then it can’t be helped. Understood.]
Yujin barely accepted Drakan’s answer and let it go.
No PK penalties were given between users colliding during opposing quests!
Interpreting these words in detail, it meant that between users carrying out quests that inevitably clashed due to Arde Saga Second’s game system and story progression, PK was legally permitted.
For example, if there was a user who received a quest to defend a village and a user who received a quest to attack it, PK penalties would not apply between the two of them.
Opposing quests were literally a zero-sum game!
In opposing quests, which had a winner-takes-all structure, it was only natural for one side to suffer losses, and above all, numerous opposing quests were still occurring in Arde World.
From Yujin’s standpoint, whose goal was to preserve the game world of Arde World as it was, naturally, there was no grounds to condemn Drakan for carrying out an opposing quest.
In other words, Drakan was still keeping within bounds.
Of course, if Drakan stepped over the line in another sense and controlled things while levying heavy taxes like in the past, intervention would naturally be necessary, but the current Drakan, unlike the past, was collecting only the minimum amount of taxes even in the lawless harbor, and had completely abolished the passage tax on the eastern maritime trade route.
Drakan let out a sigh internally.
Yujin!
Because he felt a sense of self-loathing at the reality of having to explain such things to that bastard one by one.
But it couldn’t be helped.
Arde World still belonged to Yujin, for now—too much so to erect some paltry pride.
That’s right.
For now.
No matter how good-natured and gullible Yujin was, openly baring his fangs wouldn’t do Drakan any good.
Conceal one’s strength and bide one’s time!
For Drakan, this was an era where he had to crouch in the darkness and hone his strength.
Six years!
During that long period, while rolling around at the bottom of the world, Drakan had discarded his arrogant pride and become a man who could sell his pride as much as necessary.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel humiliation.
‘Yujin, I will definitely take Arde World back from your hands!’
The hegemony of Arde World!
Vowing that he would one day reclaim that hegemony which he had once held, Drakan cooled his head.