The Final Boss Has Returned – Episode 9
Holy City Pantheon.
The capital of the Holy Kingdom of Lightness and a massive metropolis home to the Grand Temple where the gods of the Pantheon were enshrined.
Today, as always, the eastern district of this holy city bustled with countless users and NPCs, and standing there was a resplendent mansion visible at a glance.
It was none other than the guild house of the Light Wing Guild, the guild of the Hero Yujin.
The conference room on the first floor of the Light Wing Guild house.
Around a large, pure-white round table sat Yujin and his guild members.
Hero Yujin.
The fighter, Muscleman.
The elven archer, Sharp.
The saintess, Erena.
The sorceress, Berda.
With these five in total comprising the entirety of the Light Wing Guild, all five members were currently gathered around the round table.
“Yujin. Are you really going to leave Drakan alone like this?”
The first to speak among them was the beautiful elven archer Sharp. She had long, golden hair and carried a quiver and bow on her back.
At Sharp’s words, Yujin spoke slowly.
“He promised in front of the crowd. That he wouldn’t repeat his wicked deeds.”
“You believe that right now?”
“Yeah. I believe him.”
Sharp grumbled at Yujin’s words.
She’d always thought that he was great in every way, but too nice for his own good.
She couldn’t bring herself to believe Drakan’s words at all.
No matter how she looked at it, his behavior and manner of speech were far removed from those of someone who had turned over a new leaf.
Furthermore, just thinking back to six years ago made her shudder to this day.
Drakan and the Ironblood Alliance, and the Guild Alliance!
They had ultimately won the war against them, but the process had been difficult and arduous.
If luck hadn’t continuously been on their side, Drakan was by no means an easy opponent—he was dangerous to the point where he might have ended up being the victor instead.
He was an extremely dangerous opponent.
Dangerous enough that they couldn’t just let him go like this.
“Besides, it’s a promise he made to me in front of the users, so if he breaks it, the users will judge him before I even have to step in.”
Of course, Yujin wasn’t as naïvely innocent as he had been as a high schooler six years ago.
His decision to deliberately meet Drakan in front of a massive crowd had been calculated.
“Well, at least you’re thinking.”
“Also, I don’t want to harm someone who hasn’t done anything yet.”
Yujin said, looking at Sharp.
“Because that would be a wicked deed.”
Sharp’s face turned red as she met eyes with him.
He was so oblivious that he didn’t even know how she felt about him, yet in this regard, he was so stubbornly unyielding that no one could bend him.
But Sharp thought that such a side was also the reason she liked him, and she quickly pulled her hood down over her face to hide her flushed cheeks.
Just then.
Sitting opposite Sharp, the silver-haired witch in a pointed hat, Berda, spoke in a calm voice.
“Then, how about steadily gathering information on Drakan in preparation for a worst-case scenario?”
They couldn’t punish him in advance, so they should maintain surveillance and quickly eliminate him in an emergency.
Softening those words, Berda proposed this to Yujin.
“That much… should be fine.”
Yujin agreed with Berda’s opinion.
Collecting information on rankers and named players was something they were already doing.
Adding just Drakan to the list changed nothing, so Yujin accepted Berda’s proposal without much resistance.
“Thank you.”
Hearing Berda’s thanks, Yujin clapped his hands.
“Alright, anything else to talk about?”
At Yujin’s question, everyone at the round table nodded.
“Then let’s go run some dungeons.”
At his words, the sorceress, the archer, and the saintess all flushed slightly, but the oblivious Yujin didn’t notice.
And so, the Light Wing Guild’s meeting concluded.
* * *
[The Demon King of the Sea smiles and sponsors you 200 points.]
[The Demon King of Hatred sponsors you 300 points for the sight of you refusing the hero’s handshake.]
[The Demon King of Despair gazes at you and lets out a sinister laugh.]
As soon as Yujin left, the Transcendents’ messages scrolled down before my eyes.
Notification windows stating that the Demon Kings of Bokmajeon were pleased with my actions.
It seemed the reason the message windows had been so quiet earlier was because they had been watching to see how I dealt with Yujin.
[The Demon King of Destruction expresses dissatisfaction, asking why you didn’t provoke the hero more aggressively.]
Well, not all of the Transcendents were satisfied.
The Demon King of Destruction.
This Demon King, famous for being violent, impulsive, and hot-headed, had grumbled to me about why I hadn’t gone harder, but I ignored that message lightly.
If I had gone harder there, I might have been beaten to death by the users.
To that extent, Yujin’s popularity pierced the heavens.
[The Demon God of Darkness watches you.]
With the Demon God’s meaningful message as the last, the notification windows fell silent once more.
‘This level is just right.’
I went over my meeting with Yujin and my response to it once more.
If I held onto my position to some degree while not overly provoking Yujin and his group, as well as the users, then this level was the most appropriate.
Even so, I couldn’t help the surge of anger.
I calmed my pounding heart and took deep breaths repeatedly.
If I were still a top-class ranker like in the past, that bastard Yujin would never have been able to force a promise out of me while riding on public opinion.
Even if he had, it wouldn’t have been a problem at all for me to openly blow off his promise and hit him back with an even stronger provocation.
But right now, I had nothing.
The massive guild, the Ironblood Alliance, that had moved in unison at my command; the backing of the Guild Alliance; the various Legendary-grade items I had been equipped with; my level, stats, and all the titles and achievements!
Because all of that was gone, I had no choice but to accept that bastard’s promise.
‘I’ll endure this humiliation for the sake of the future!’
I ground my teeth.
My current situation, having essentially nothing compared to the past, was miserable.
I still had no power, no forces.
Therefore, I had to endure and get through it for now.
But I would never forget this humiliation!
Thinking so and composing my mind, I looked around.
The countless users who had filled the square earlier had now almost all disappeared.
Since Yujin was the one who had brought them, and he had left, there was no reason for them to remain.
Of course, not everyone had disappeared.
“Lord Drakan. How about joining our Crimson Moon Guild? We will treat you with the best conditions.”
“Please join our guild. Our Cyrus Guild always welcomes Lord Drakan!”
“Lord Drakan. I have admired you since the previous game! If you join our Eurena Guild….”
Users equipped with decent gear crowded around me.
They were a group of scouts trying to recruit me into their guilds.
They were moths to a flame, gathered to recruit me after seeing the saga I possessed, the notoriety surrounding me, and my skill that had reached 6th place in the tutorial rankings.
In fact, in the previous game, recruiting a beginner user into a guild would have been absurd unless you had the connections.
But in Ard Saga Second, unlike the previous game, a character had only one life.
In other words, if any guild member lost their life during a dungeon raid, siege war, or territory war, it meant that much combat power was permanently lost.
Therefore, the guilds of Ard Saga Second were always focused on recruiting talent and reinforcing their forces, dispatching scouts even to Stronghold to recruit those who possessed high-grade sagas or users who had been granted excellent unique traits.
‘Of course, most of the guild scouts who come all the way here are nobodies anyway.’
Because of the hardcore system, guild rankings fluctuated greatly in the mid-to-upper tiers.
The scouts hadn’t come all the way to Stronghold to solicit for nothing.
However, the rankings of the top-tier guilds rarely changed, so they didn’t dispatch scouts to Stronghold.
Anyway, unlike the previous game where level was king and skill proficiency or items were next at best, Ard Saga Second had far more variables affecting character performance than its predecessor—such as contracts with Transcendents, sagas, and unique traits granted to each character.
And the strength of rankers who possessed all these variables was incomparably powerful compared to ordinary users.
Thanks to this, power inflation had occurred upon entering Second, and the power polarization between ordinary users and rankers had become far more severe than in the previous game.
The presence of rankers was like nuclear bombs, and the top-tier guilds possessed these nuke-like rankers. So even if ordinary guild members died, their combat power hardly suffered a scratch.
Furthermore, thanks to the recognition and fame of top-tier guilds, users wanting to join them overflowed, so there was no reason for them to send scouts.
“I’m not joining a guild, so move.”
I said to the scouts gathered before me in a cold voice.
It was better to act alone than join some random mediocre guild.
The scouts’ expressions crumpled at my words, and I tried to leisurely slip through them.
At that very moment.
“If not a guild, then how about management?”
Someone spoke from behind me.
I turned around.
And there, a beautiful woman with dark blue hair cut in a bob was staring at me with a confident expression.