Chapter 70

[Vulcan Orc Fortress (General ~ Rare) has been cleared on Hell difficulty!]

[Guilds can apply for siege warfare if they meet the conditions first!]

[A shabby Saturn (General) has appeared!]

[The shabby Saturn (General) is upgraded to a neat Brick Castle (Advanced)!]

[The neat Brick Castle (Advanced) is upgraded to a splendid fortress (Rare)!]

[The splendid fortress (Rare) is upgraded to a perfect fortress city (Hero)!]

I instantly poured 70,000 diamonds to upgrade the castle to Hero level.

‘Diamonds are exploding away. There will be many castles to occupy in the future.’

However, it wasn’t possible to not upgrade the castle due to money concerns. In order to deal with the incoming ice monsters, my soldiers had to fight from within the castle.

If I equipped a high or rare grade castle and it was overwhelmed, the situation would become serious.

“With insufficient numbers and average strength, we must at least overwhelm them geographically.”

I emerged from the feudal lord’s castle and descended to the central square. There wasn’t a single person present in this fortress city. After the siege ended, all the orcs disappeared along with the humans they had captured.

‘Even if there were any left, they would be dead.’

The robust orcs trembled due to the cold, so ordinary people couldn’t have survived.

Kwah-chaeng!

At that moment, a sound echoed from the south. It wasn’t difficult to guess its identity.

‘A golem.’

Only the orcs had vanished; the ice monsters remained. After being pushed outside the castle upon dungeon clearance, they seemed to have returned and were now pounding on the gates.

“Let’s see… Chat with Stonestone and Hundred.”

[20 weeks → 8 weeks]

As soon as the chat connected, my stocks decreased. Despite this, I continued speaking:

Han Jae-yeon: The siege is over, and we’ve established our castle. Enter through the north gate upon arrival. Prepare for the defense battle.

Stonestone: We have confirmed the castle’s location.

Hundred: We’ll get there as quickly as possible.

After receiving their responses, I headed towards the south gate. They weren’t moving fast, which wasn’t surprising since destroying hero-level gates isn’t easy, especially when guarded by a formidable presence.

“Kraaaaaah!” A bloodied yeti let out a terrifying roar, disregarding its own wounds as it charged forward. Its fists, the size of human heads, swung like lightning bolts. With such ferocity, it could likely kill even a wild bear with one blow.

Klang!

The rapier bent as it struck the yeti’s fist, causing its massive frame to stagger momentarily. The sword then recoiled like a fish swimming upstream against the current.

Shhhk!

A small hole pierced the yeti’s head.

“Die, impudent wench…!”

Surrounded by icy air, the goddess emitted her mournful cry and charged forward but was torn apart before she could even scream due to the sword energy. For entities like the goddess, who were almost ethereal, sword energy posed a significant threat.

“They’re fighting well.”

As expected of creatures wielding frost magic, the ice monsters had efficiently traversed beyond the vast distance known as Gaiji (垓字). They created an ice bridge leading directly to the castle gates.

However, as these elite monsters approached and struck at the castle gates, they were cut down by the gatekeeper standing guard there.

A Sword Master…

I was surprised when she transformed after receiving her class as a Sword Master.

Advancing to a higher level just by acquiring memories feels somewhat strange… I wonder if it’s due to partial synchronization.

When Haze obtained the Duelist class, she acquired all its unique skills and is utilizing them exceptionally well. It makes sense since these skills originated from her own techniques.

Zzzt!

Like lightning, sword energy penetrated deep inside, piercing through the core of an ice elemental.

Crack!

She severed the ankles of an ice golem, causing it to lose balance.

Crack!

She stabbed her rapier into the thick body and silenced it instantly.

“Sigh…”

Suddenly, there was a lull at the castle gate. The overwhelming martial prowess prevented the ice elementals from easily attacking again.

“I will open the gates.”

“Ah! You came? Wow, I heard about it but it is really amazing. A castle of this size can appear like magic.”

Grrrck!

The castle gates opened as I manipulated the interface. It might seem crazy with thousands of monsters waiting outside, but neither Haze nor I cared.

Thud! Crack!

The drawbridge lowered, breaking the ice bridge. Haze gracefully moved to my side, her face flushed with excitement.

“I’ve become incredibly strong! Maybe even stronger than before? Wow! I got stat points after leveling up.”

“It seems to be your first time obtaining a class.”

“Of course! It took me to the brink of death just to reach this level?”

It was understandable considering there was only a one-in-a-hundred-million chance of acquiring a class card by defeating monsters. Even Revenge, with its automated hunting system capturing thousands to tens of thousands daily, rarely saw such drops. In Ardenia, without the Favor of the Goddess, it’s even more challenging.

“The ability to move faster when deflecting enemy attacks is insane. And this skill…I think I could defeat Khan Slasher now!”

Seeing her excitement, I chuckled.

“The problem is we’ll have to face many more enemies beyond him.”

“That! That…you’re right.” The excited Haze became depressed.

I patted his shoulder and stepped forward.

Hweeeoooh!

The elite monsters swept away by Haze caused ice elementals to surge like waves. I could see frost forming on the cold ground.

“In a straight line…very good.”

I formed a hand seal. It was a simple four-step seal: Body (身體), Acceleration (加速), Heavy Gate (重門), Release (開放). Body Acceleration.

As a fairly common chakra technique manifested, the movements of the incoming ice elementals slowed down. In this slowed time, I took out Bone Sword (Ordinary) from my inventory. As Inner Force was injected, the bone sword trembled.

[Fatal Strike!]

The flying bone sword advanced by breaking the core of the ice elemental at the front. The next one was hit on the head, the following one on the shoulder, the next one in the chest and then the shoulder again for the one behind it. Then there was another hit to the head. After that, the sword missed its target because I thought I had thrown the bone sword horizontally but it gradually increased its height towards the sky.

‘Ah, lower the angle slightly.’

I launched the second bone sword. It passed through 20 elementals before burying itself in the ground. In the last moment, fragments of stone flew up with great lethality, but unfortunately, the range was too short.

‘This time, increase the rotation.’

He threw his third bone sword. It spun horizontally through the air as it advanced forward.

Around this time…

…the sound finally arrived.

Bwoooom!

The air exploded, and shattered fragments of ice elementals scattered everywhere. But jae-yeon didn’t care about that. There was only one thing on his mind:

How can I throw my bone sword parallel to the ground for maximum distance?

The third bone sword flew around 492 feet before soaring upward. The spinning motion generated an updraft, causing it to lose its trajectory.

But reducing spin too much is also problematic, since it affects stability during impact.

It wasn’t an issue now due to the sheer number of enemies, but low accuracy wasn’t ideal.

If I throw it from lower…

I threw it again and again until I found the answer.

[Sword Energy Manifestation]

The sword energy, created not by enlightenment but as a skill, disappeared horribly fast once my hand left the bone sword, vanishing without a trace within one second.

‘One second.’

It was enough time for the bone sword to fly 700 meters.

Poom! Poom! Poom!

Kwahhh!

The surging wave of cold air collapsed with holes punctured everywhere, leaving behind long scratches and overturned earth that transformed the landscape into chaos. All this happened in just a few seconds. However, the final result was that the last bone sword cut through monsters in a straight line before embedding itself deep into another monster’s body far away.

“Phew… Success. It went over 500 meters.”

”…”

When I turned around, I saw Haze gaping at me with his mouth wide open.

“His neck is visible.”

“W-What…what is this? Isn’t he completely monstrous?”

“He is stronger than most monsters.”

I shook my right hand. My entire right arm was bruised from continuous throwing. Even the tips of my fingers burst due to the pressure during the throw, causing blood to flow steadily.

“No…this isn’t the fight I imagined.”

“What did you imagine?”

“I thought you would show off your excellent swordsmanship. You are the genius swordsman who revealed the strongest sword art on the continent, Heavenly Dragon Sword Art, to soldiers and perfected it by observing the training methods of the Starlight Marquis Family.”

”…”

“Ah! It seems you don’t need sword techniques anymore because you have become too strong!”

”…”

It seemed that Haze had a big misunderstanding about me. However, just as I was trying to explain, some text appeared:

[For unknown reasons, your stamina has increased by one point!]

[For unknown reasons, your health has increased by one point!]

“Good. Instead of being plagued with an eternal disease, it is training. It isn’t like I am a biological energy cultivator.”

I took out Songpyeon from my inventory and ate it.

[You have consumed Mugwort Songpyeon (High Grade)! For four hours, recovery and mana recovery will increase by 100 points!]

‘Ah, it is almost running out. The Seolnal rice cake soup event gave hope but there wasn’t much quantity.’

Fortunately, there was also a food event on Seolnal, which involved rice cake soup! However…the amount of rice cake soup I could obtain was merely(?!) several thousand bowls.

‘It can’t compare to the hundreds of thousands of Songpyeon.’

In fact, the drop rate of Songpyeon was due to a patch resulting from a bug. The management never intended for players to recklessly discard Songpyeon on the ground.

‘Now they’ve decided not to fix it and leave it as is.’

Subsequently, the drop rate of rice cake soup appeared normal, so there wasn’t much waste. Even if I diligently collected them, there were limits to how many I could gather.

‘It would be nice if there was an event here… Wait?’

A sudden thought crossed my mind, and I spoke up.

“I’m going to take a break; please guard the castle gates.”

“Leave it to me.”

As Haze walked away, I watched his retreating figure momentarily before muttering:

“Delete chat.”

[8 weeks → 20 weeks]

Then, while still in that state, I declared:

“I want to activate the Chuseok Songpyeon event.”

Instantly, the countdown jumped from 20 weeks to 0 weeks and back to 20 weeks, indicating impossibility. However, I realized something crucial:

‘The speed is different.’

Stocks didn’t decrease immediately. It wasn’t going from 10 weeks directly to zero but rather, nine weeks, eight weeks, seven weeks… this was how it decreased until reaching zero. In other words, by calculating the speed at which stocks were decreasing… I could derive the amount of stock needed for the [Patch].

“Let’s see.”

I sat down and started calculating. Using the six-week chat consumption time as a reference point, I listed out other patch items. The result came quickly.

“For the Chuseok event… approximately 12,000 shares.”

For reference, one share of Nemesis’ stock now exceeded 10 million won.

In other words, the value of stocks needed for the patch was…

“Even if I want to eat and die… there isn’t enough…” Damn fools…

It was at least 120 billion won.

“Sigh.” I let out a breath of amazement before suddenly realizing something. “Wait, what about NPCs? How much is needed for shop NPCs in one city?”

As soon as I spoke, the stock dropped to zero again before returning to its original level. The calculation completed instantly, but it seemed slower than before.

“34 shares!”

A mere 340 million won! Tears of emotion welled up in my eyes. It felt like encountering a celestial maiden.