SSG 256
by CristaeEpisode 256
On their way to the castle wall, the Avengers were hardly met with any counterattack.
A few spells flew their way, but it was too laughable to even call it resistance. As they got closer to the wall, the retaliation increased a bit, but it was nowhere near enough to stop their charge.
It was so poorly defended, it was a miracle the gate was even closed.
“Take out what we prepared.”
The player who arrived first at the castle gate spoke to a comrade who arrived soon after. The comrade fumbled through their inventory and pulled something out.
It was a Cooking Day brand potion.
“Step back.”
The one who received the potion moved the comrades back and threw the potion at the castle gate.
Bang! Bang!
A loud explosion. It did quite a bit of damage, but it wasn’t enough to breach the wall. Still, that was fine. The rest, they could handle themselves.
“Break it!”
Crash! Crash! Crash!
Several people kept swinging their weapons. Other groups joined in one by one. They swung weapons alongside strangers, people whose faces and identities they didn’t know, but no one cared.
At least for now, they were on the same side.
Crash!
Eventually, the gate was smashed open.
“What the hell are you bastards doing!”
Beyond the destroyed gate, a C.O.T.S guild member appeared. It was obvious at a glance that he was flustered.
The Avengers didn’t answer. Instead, one of them simply shouted:
“Kill them!”
The Avengers began to pour into the castle at once.
“Huh? Huh?”
The C.O.T.S guild member panicked. But as if to assert that he was still a C.O.T.S member, he immediately began responding with his comrades and NPCs.
However, the enemies were simply too many.
“Damn it!”
“Shit!”
C.O.T.S’s forces shrank one by one until finally, they were wiped out.
If things continued, they would become the masters of the city.
But no one tried to occupy the city.
“Destroy everything!”
“Kill them! Don’t leave a speck of dust behind!”
The city began to burn.
Such scenes were playing out in every C.O.T.S-owned city. Suddenly appearing enemies rampaged through the cities as if looting empty houses and left ruin in their wake.
Of course, this news also reached the C.O.T.S players still in the middle of the war.
Willy’s face grew terrifyingly stiff. Mad Hammer, next to him, turned bright red.
“Looks like they’ve heard the news now.”
Unlike them, Yuseong spoke leisurely.
It wasn’t just them. Most of the C.O.T.S players seemed to have heard the news, their morale visibly deflated.
“So, what are you going to do? Go back and protect your city? Or keep fighting here? I don’t care either way.”
Though Yuseong openly mocked them—even though he didn’t actually intend to—none of them could reply.
Because they truly didn’t know what to do.
Even Willy, famed as he was, felt his mind go blank.
Go back? They might be able to defend the city somehow. But then Jemotdaero would immediately attack. The invaders weren’t fools who would just forgive them unconditionally.
On the other hand, if they kept fighting here, it was obvious their base would be totally destroyed. There was no way he could just watch everything—the C.O.T.S they’d secured, the city—be lost.
It was a situation that fit the phrase “caught between a rock and a hard place” perfectly.
But Willy soon made a decision.
“Hey, let’s go.”
“Yeah.”
Mad Hammer must have come to the same conclusion.
Either way, even if they withdrew here, there was nowhere left to run. They’d started this war to solidify their status within the guild. If they lost pitifully and retreated, they would be expelled from the guild.
‘At least in this battle, our force is strong.’
Even if they lost all their cities, as long as they claimed Mordin and started anew, it would be fine. Wasn’t it the best among all the player cities?
Of course, even if they took Mordin, the days ahead would be nothing but hardship, but it was better than having nothing at all.
But Jemotdaero shattered even his last hope.
“Surrender!”
“We just finished talking with Phyton and Apollon! If you don’t want to lose any more, stop fighting right now!”
“We’ll return some cities! It’s a good deal for you too!”
“You should return to your original owners!”
Jemotdaero’s players began to shout first, and perhaps following orders, Jemotdaero’s NPCs began shouting the exact same things.
“What kind of bullshit is this now!”
Willy yelled in a rage. But Yuseong still replied leisurely.
“Did you really think Phyton and Apollon would sit quietly with things going this far?”
“So you mean, really…!”
Mad Hammer muttered in despair. Willy bit his lip.
He found it reasonable as well.
“They helped reclaim the cities and agreed to accept a few of them themselves. It’s to their benefit too.”
“…Do you really think the ones you incited will just back down so easily?”
“Don’t kid yourself. Their targets for revenge are you demon collaborators, not C.O.T.S. And that’s settled because Phyton and Apollon have put a bounty and an execution order on you.”
“……”
Willy couldn’t say a word.
He realized all paths of retreat were cut off.
“So, what will you do? Keep fighting? Or not?”
Yuseong even lowered his weapon as he asked. Already, all around them, people were surrendering to Jemotdaero in droves. With even players stronger than NPCs doing so, the proportion of NPCs surrendering kept rising.
The result was already clear. Even if they screamed for their people not to surrender, there was no way to halt this wave.
Willy drew his sword. Mad Hammer firmed his grip on his hammer.
“Well, so it goes.”
Yuseong raised his gun again too.
“Uaaaaah!”
“Wraaaah!”
Thus, the war that began with Yuseong’s revelation gradually drew to a close.
The war ended. Once again, Jemotdaero won, and C.O.T.S lost.
C.O.T.S had no choice but to give up three cities to Jemotdaero and beg for peace.
But that wasn’t the end of C.O.T.S’s losses.
Phyton and Apollon, having regained their positions, expelled Willy, Mad Hammer, and their fellow conspirators from the guild as the leaders of the rebellion.
No, it was more than just expulsion. Internally, they issued a guild-wide execution order to kill those people on sight, and externally they put bounties on their heads. Whoever killed them and provided proof would receive a monetary reward.
The condition was meant to appease those harmed by Willy’s group, but even if it hadn’t existed, the result would have been the same.
Phyton and Apollon’s anger was just that immense.
But it was also a fact that the expelled members had been in charge of much of C.O.T.S’s combat force. After all, they had been selected from the start for their strong physicality and specially trained.
Of course, C.O.T.S’s fighting power dropped dramatically.
And that wasn’t all. Even the reclaimed cities were left in bad shape. Thanks to revenge-crazed players thoroughly smashing things and killing NPCs, the cities’ development had regressed terribly.
In the end, after a host of overlapping losses, C.O.T.S could no longer be called a top-tier guild.
Thinking about the days when C.O.T.S was always mentioned as the strongest guild in Ark, it was a truly miserable decline.
Furthermore, unlike when usually a big guild’s fall evokes at least some sympathy, hardly anyone pitied the downfall of C.O.T.S.
Most people actually mocked them.
-The little baby brats are finally ruined!-
-Screw those bastards, just remembering their atrocities pisses me off!-
-LOL, that’s so satisfying-
It was the price of all the karma C.O.T.S had built up.
While C.O.T.S was mocked like this, Jemotdaero received every kind of praise.
-They were already number one, now the gap is even bigger-
-Are they recruiting? I want to join-
-Keep dreaming. They were a super-elite guild even before this-
-It’s amazing they climbed so high with that few people-
Those singing their praises. And as time passed and news of the war spread in earnest, the responses only grew.
-Totally played them for fools-
-Jemotdaero’s not just strong because their players are high-level—their strategy’s great too-
-Yeah, Aiden was already famous, but I didn’t expect Yuseong to go that far-
-Don’t forget luck. Yuseong and Luckyguy are seriously lucky-
-Yuseong is everywhere-
-Strong, high-level, smart, and lucky. What a life-
Just as Yuseong had wanted, he became a hot topic again, and his attention score surged.
Jemotdaero transferred one of the cities taken from C.O.T.S to Yuseong yet again. It was only fair, since the whole plan had been orchestrated by him from start to finish.
The city, in chaos from rampaging, furious players, was far below the level of Yuseong’s other cities, but a city was a city. It could bring in substantial profit.
And that would soon lead to Yuseong’s increased power.
After spending a frenzied period immersed in Ark and the war, Yuseong finally went out in real life again.
He was about to proceed with a plan he’d been thinking about for a while.
He asked Messiah to get him a small boat.
Of course, he didn’t plan to cross the sea on it. There was just something he wanted to check.
‘Will there be giant monsters?’
If he were to encounter a giant monster while crossing the ocean, nothing could be worse. So Yuseong planned to confirm whether or not there were giant monsters in the sea.
Yuseong put the boat in the water, loaded a robot on board, and set it out to sea.
‘Neither the boat nor the robot will attract the attention of monsters or beasts.’
They might approach out of curiosity, but if it’s just a machine without life, they’ll soon lose interest.
That boat and robot would follow a set course and return safely.
Unless something exceptional happened.
‘Giant monsters.’
Those things would react even to moving machines. If they saw the boat and robot, they’d probably sink the boat right away.
‘If it doesn’t return, I’ll have to assume there’s a giant monster.’
If so, countermeasures would be needed.
‘I’ll have to kill it.’
It’s much easier to lure the monster to the shore and kill it than to face an oceanic monster at sea.
‘Of course, it’s best if there isn’t one…’
Will luck be on his side this time?
Yuseong kept staring at the boat, now only a tiny dot in the distance.
Yuseong hadn’t prepared just one boat.
He mapped out several courses like a net and kept sending multiple boats.
Fortunately, most of the boats returned safely. A few disappeared, but considering the rough seas of the Bering, that was expected loss.
But the boats mapped to pass through one particular spot never came back.
Yuseong let out a sigh.
‘Looks like it’s there.’
It seemed like there would have to be an intense battle before he could cross the ocean.