SSG 228
by Cristae‘That trash has nothing but pride.’
Apollo ground his teeth as he glared at Vesuvius.
He was the one who stabbed them in the back, but he felt no guilt about it. In this world, getting stabbed in the back meant you were a fool. What annoyed him was merely that Vesuvius and his subordinates didn’t die as quickly as he’d wanted.
But that wouldn’t last much longer.
Calamity’s forces had nearly all been wiped out—especially the NPC soldiers.
‘Those guys tend to surrender once their morale drops.’
He carefully stored this new piece of knowledge in a corner of his mind. He might have need of it someday.
Thwack!
Even the Calamity players who had hung on until the end began to fall one by one.
Apollo could see Vesuvius, surrounded by the C.O.T.S. forces. As expected of a guild master, he was holding out for quite a while even though he was surrounded by enemies.
But it was clear he’d reached his limit.
Suddenly, their eyes met.
“Apollo, you son of a bitch!”
Came the loser’s outcry. Vesuvius shouted every curse he knew, but Apollo didn’t so much as blink.
Instead, he lifted one corner of his mouth and raised his chin arrogantly, mocking Vesuvius even more.
Vesuvius raged furiously, but in the end, he didn’t last much longer and met his death.
The rest of Calamity’s remnants were wiped out soon after.
But the battle was not over yet.
‘Only Mordin’s forces are left.’
If he could just break through Mordin, it would be straight to City Hall.
“Victory is right in front of us! Kill every last one of those Mordin bastards!”
“Waaaghhh!”
C.O.T.S. forces began to clash in earnest with Mordin’s troops.
Thus began the final battle of this war.
C.O.T.S. pressed Mordin’s troops mercilessly. Even Apollo himself stepped up to fight with his sword. They achieved some results, but Mordin’s lines refused to break.
‘These NPC soldiers are nothing like the ones from our cities.’
Apollo thought this as he cut down one of Mordin’s NPC soldiers. They were strong and their morale was high.
‘We have to take City Hall quickly….’
Even though they’d made it all the way to the city hall’s front, it felt ominous that neither Yoo Sung nor any of the other Reckless players had made an appearance.
‘I don’t know what happened to the other guilds, either.’
Ark College went silent after sending a message asking for help, and so did Agora and Gunwoonghoe.
‘Maybe I should’ve kept my watchdogs on them after all.’
He’d recalled all observers to throw everything at finishing Calamity and then heading straight for city hall, thinking that would be best.
Now he regretted that choice.
‘The enemy’s reinforcements keep arriving.’
Before ambushing Calamity, the Mordin soldiers fighting them had already regrouped with the enemy right in front of them. Now, the new reinforcements must be troops who’d been fighting the other guilds.
‘Looks like all the others got wiped out. Useless idiots.’
They really were no help at all.
‘But at least they died quickly, so there’s no one left to argue over shares.’
That much, he was pleased with.
But that would only matter after taking the city.
Apollo glanced back.
There was no one behind him. But would it stay that way?
‘If enemies come from behind, we’re finished.’
Earlier, when they’d attacked Calamity from behind, the surrounded Calamity soldiers had surrendered en masse.
If Mordin’s forces, having finished off the other guilds, now flanked from behind, his own soldiers were likely to have their morale collapse and surrender as well.
“City hall is right in front of us! Do whatever it takes and break through!”
City hall. City hall. If he could just take it, everything would be solved.
Apollo put more pressure on his troops.
But Mordin’s soldiers only continued to hold the line. Players led the charge, trying everything to break through, but Mordin’s side was desperate.
‘If it was our soldiers, they’d have broken long ago….’
Was this the difference in troop quality? If he got back, the first thing he’d do was find a way to raise his soldiers’ proficiency.
Then it happened.
Bang!
A familiar gunshot. The faces of the C.O.T.S. players all hardened.
‘Yoo Sung!’
Yoo Sung, who had been unseen until now, was charging in with a squad. Apollo bit his lip as more enemies rushed in yet again.
‘At least they didn’t come in from behind.’
Yoo Sung joined from the city hall side.
At least his NPCs wouldn’t lose morale and surrender from behind. But the city hall’s defenses were now even stronger, making it harder to break through.
Most of all, Yoo Sung was a headache.
Thud!
“Guh!”
A C.O.T.S. guild member about to cast a spell was shot and staggered.
That wasn’t all. Yoo Sung thoroughly targeted guild members, interfering with their attacks. Since the only reason the less-experienced C.O.T.S. army could push Mordin’s troops was due to guild members, their overall power dropped sharply.
“Anyone with ranged attacks, target that bastard! It’s fine if you don’t hit—just keep him from attacking!”
At Apollo’s command, several guild members attacked Yoo Sung.
But most of their attacks didn’t reach. Their range was too short. The few that barely reached, Yoo Sung dodged easily.
Meanwhile, Yoo Sung’s bullets kept flying.
“Damn it!”
Nothing was working. Apollo swung his sword with mounting emotion. But that didn’t improve things.
Then, for the first time, Apollo wondered if this plan might fail.
‘No way!’
That couldn’t be.
It was a war he’d started with his own force without consulting the guild. If he pulled back with nothing but losses, his standing in the guild would tank.
Even if not, Pyton would make sure of it.
So, at the moment battle cries rose from behind him, Apollo could only panic.
‘What now?’
For a second, he even hoped a surviving allied guild had come to rescue them.
But the instant he saw Aiden and other Reckless guild members at the front of the group storming in from the rear, that hope was crushed.
“Kill the Cots scum!”
“Slaughter them all!”
Beauty Art and Barbarian shouted, their faces clearly relishing the war. They shrieked provocative taunts.
The other guild members charged in silence, but that didn’t mean they weren’t fighting with full force.
“A-Apollo! What should we do!”
Asclepius asked, flustered. But Apollo couldn’t answer. He just stared absent-mindedly at the enemies coming up from behind.
“…What are those troops?”
He barely managed to speak.
Asclepius looked at the rear enemies, then back at Apollo, his face awkward. He couldn’t grasp the question’s intent.
But he had to answer somehow.
“T-they’re enemies.”
“Do you think I’m asking because I don’t know that?!”
Apparently that was the wrong answer.
“How the hell do they have that many troops?!”
At last Asclepius understood, and looked between Mordin’s forces in front and the rear.
He didn’t know the exact numbers. But just from what he could see, the force far exceeded all their estimates for the total size of the Reckless guild.
“Weren’t we dealing with the Reckless Alliance? Why are there more of them bringing in troops?!”
“M-maybe, like us, they allied with other guilds?”
“Are you sure?”
“Well…”
“Who did they ally with?”
“……”
“Answer me!”
“I-I don’t know!”
How could he possibly know? Without even basic information, it was impossible to guess.
But Apollo had no interest in understanding how Asclepius felt.
“Useless bastard!”
Thud!
“Argh!”
Apollo kicked Asclepius and shouted.
“Break through to city hall—no matter what! It’s our only chance!”
Apollo had mocked and ridiculed Vesuvius, but now in the same situation, his order was no different than Vesuvius’s had been.
C.O.T.S.’s troops frantically tried to break through the front under Apollo’s push. But with Yoo Sung and the added reinforcements, Mordin’s defensive wall showed no sign of breaking.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Instead, the damage from Yoo Sung’s gunfire kept piling up.
Thwack!
“Shit!”
Mad Hammer, swinging his giant warhammer in the thick of the battle, cursed.
He’d performed spectacularly in this fight.
With the stats he’d gained by buying dungeon locations and his natural physical gifts, his skill was among the best in Ark.
He was no longer just a promising rookie.
Alongside Willy, he was the top product of C.O.T.S.’s new talent training project.
Of course, in the past, his mistakes and the veteran officers’ cliques meant he still wasn’t treated properly, but at least within C.O.T.S., no one doubted his skill.
That’s why he welcomed this opportunity.
He’d hoped he could repay the humiliation Yoo Sung had inflicted on him.
But what was this?
‘Again! He’s dominating me again!’
The idiot Apollo was taking his frustration out on Asclepius with no plan, and Asclepius just mumbled without a word of protest.
He’d always known this was the character of the group, but watching it now, during a crisis, was enough to drive him mad.
‘So much for being C.O.T.S.’s next master! So much for being Ark’s greatest guild!’
He was so angry, he even briefly felt disillusionment for the guild he’d sworn to take for himself.
Bang!
“Ugh!”
A distant bullet struck him in the head. That devilish aim just never stopped.
Mad Hammer quickly ducked, using a nearby allied NPC as a shield. Dodging was useless. You couldn’t avoid Yoo Sung’s shot just by moving. Only escaping his range or hiding could save you.
Thud!
“Ugh!”
A guild member a little ways away took a bullet and groaned. Mad Hammer gritted his teeth.
‘Damn it!’
At least before, he got to fight hand-to-hand. Even if he got thrashed, he got to swing his hammer at the guy.
But now?
His hammer couldn’t even touch Yoo Sung’s shadow. Meanwhile, Yoo Sung’s attacks struck him with ridiculous ease.
It was like being hunted. The problem was that he was the prey.
“Goddamn, what a shitty game!”
He knew that, as a gamer, saying this meant he’d already lost—but he couldn’t help himself.
Bang!
The answer was another bullet to the head.
Apollo looked hollow-eyed at his remaining troops.
There was no sign of the pride and glory they’d had when attacking Mordin at the beginning. Most guild members lay dead, and the NPC soldiers were dead or had surrendered.
In contrast, the enemies surrounding him remained numerous.
A rain of bullets, barrages of fire, and curses swept over his troops. As their spirit broke, the other Reckless guild members and their soldiers charged in.
Watching his subordinates fall in real time, Apollo had no choice but to accept a reality he desperately didn’t want to admit.
That he had lost.