Chapter 374: New Episode – 3
The grade of the guild had become a ‘Kingdom’.
It was a change different from all the changes that happened to the guild so far.
There was a huge change when they were a Dukedom for the Empire, but the change that had currently happened was very different.
The first surprise they had was the Tax.
In the so-called ‘Kingdom’, the tax that they needed to pay was nearly 200 million gold.
It was three times higher than the tax they were paying when they were still a Dukedom and six times higher than a Duke.
‘This is really huge. It is a huge amount of gold…’
But surely, one would think that a huge amount of gold ama.s.sing 200 million would be an a.s.set for the guild.
That wasn’t the case though.
Even if the minimum amount of gold invested in the internal affairs to run the state—80% of the tax they paid which was 160 million gold—would be fundamentally spent for the state.
It took more than 180 million gold to run any country in a leisurely manner. As it was still in the early stages of development, they would need to invest more gold to develop the Kingdom.
The guild members were needed to be paid for the activities, but there wasn’t much gold left to pay them.
Both Ian and Herz had a measly 100 million gold in front of them now.
“Will this be used as the guild’s capital? Or are these going to be given to the guild members?”
Ian shook his head in response to Herz question.
“Just place it inside the Kingdom.”
“You, sure?”
“Huh. I share leaders.h.i.+p with them so I can’t hand 10 million gold to a person.”
“Then, you’re saying you’re not going to trouble yourself by giving the gold to the heads of the guild.”
“Yep. Besides, winning is the most important thing now. That being said, we haven’t been getting any less attention from the users.”
“Then…”
Ian and Herz were already running the guild interventions for over a year, and they were partly right.
When it always came to running the guild, both of them had well-defined positions.
If Herz was the servant in charge of the guild along with internal affairs, then Ian had an active role in establis.h.i.+ng their goal and external affairs.
The guild members had complete trust in the two of them, they were the driving force of the Lotus Guild.
“Uhm… the guild will go on for the time being without any change… Jinsung, what do you plan on doing now?”
Jinsung just shrugged his shoulders at Herz’s question and replied,
“Plan about what? We’ve decided already. To start from the Elika Kingdom.”
Herx tilted his head and spoke once again.
“No, I mean how are you planning on proceeding with that. We can’t do a pre-emptive strike as we did in the past.”
The new episode destroyed the two mighty empires and being a Kingdom wasn’t so satisfying to them.
The scale of it was small, and the quality of the Knights and the troops weren’t much lower than that of the empire.
For example, the Knights of Elika Kingdom which the Lotus had its eyes on, had monsters close to level 400.
Ian answered after he slowly shook his head.
“Ah, sure. It is my plan to first take over the surrounding small medium estates.”
“Hmm… well, not a bad idea. If we can conquer them, we can then disperse the main force of our Kingdom. So, is the war starting right away?”
One side of Ian’s lips swept up upon hearing Herz’s question.
“No. Not that.”
“…?”
“That can be done, but do we have to shed our blood so quick?”
* * *
Ian was a user who thoroughly a.n.a.lyzed the new contents of the Kingdom.
And its results were…
The part which caught his attention was ‘Diplomacy’.
Before the update, it wasn’t like there wasn’t any content called diplomacy.
However, it wasn’t functioning, and it was an empire-centered world view which was why it was so unfamiliar.
The conflict between the guilds wasn’t something that could be solved by the diplomacy content.
‘It’s a different one.’
The biggest change in the diplomatic content was that it was possible to take advantage of talents such as ‘Diplomat’ and ‘Triple play’.
Small powers, specifically those below Duke, would be able to merge themselves into the Lotus Kingdom without any bloodshed if they had good diplomacy.
It wasn’t an easy scenario.
However, the only possible way to subdue the small and medium territories was by one’s diplomatic skills.
However, Ian was confident.
“Should we move around slowly…?”
Ian who was behind the Lotus Manor summoned Karceus.
Kyahh-!
With one of its greatest roar, Karceus sat down in front of Ian.
[Summoning energy is restored. Should we hunt again?]
The summon energy was the cooldown time for recalling the familiars.
Ian smiled and responded to Karceus.
“No, not yet.”
[This is a bit surprising. We haven’t been hunting for three hours… this isn’t like you master.]
“I have some work to do. Give me a ride to Muran.”
With Ian on his back, Karceus flapped his big wings and began to fly towards the East.
The place he was heading to was Muran, the capital of Luspel Empire in the past, but it was ruined now.
Ian who was on Karceus’ back mumbled in a low voice.
“Thankfully I was able to focus till the end of the video episode.”
What he was thinking of was unknown, but Ian suddenly smiled as he was heading towards Muran.
* * *
Hwark-!
A vortex of huge flame spread through the empty ground.
It was a spiral flame that was heading towards the monsters!
The flames vanished with small flames here and there after melting off many bodies to the ground.
At the same moment, the voice of a woman could be heard inside the dungeon.
“Madness of Heat Wave! Continuous attack!”
Kw.a.n.g- Kwakw.a.n.g-!
Small and continuous number of flames exploded and tremendous heat spread out again.
A connection of wide area attack and magic displayed enormous destructive power.
Numerous monsters were appearing all at once in the dungeon.
“n.o.body knew that there was a sweet dungeon like this in here, huh?”
‘Monarch of the Red Flame’, the only female wizard with a hidden cla.s.s of the highest tier.
She was most known for her sub-cla.s.s, the ‘Red Flame Magician’.
Laughter rose from Remir’s mouth.
She would soon reach level 350, and that made her super excited.
“This is the only dungeon that seems to have given me such pleasure in quite a while…”
She began to hum and collect the items from the many undead bodies that were lying on the ground.
The different bodies of the undead that were lying on the ground ranged from level 200 to mid 300.
“Well, awesome. I looked at this in the episode video!”
Remir was somewhat like Ian.
She swooped until the end of the long dungeon. When she reached the end of it, she hesitated and turned back.
She saw a staircase going down as she reached the end of the dungeon. She wanted to go down those stairs, but she couldn’t.
‘Till I learn the next skill of my tier… but when will that be?’
Remir just decided to go out of the dungeon.
In fact, it wasn’t that she didn’t want to go down the dungeon.
She wanted to go down since she saw a hunting ground that would provide enough merit there.
She was hesitating because there might be a level 300 Death Knight guarding the corners there.
“It has been so long since I did any party, should I try…? I can challenge it if there were one or two ranked tankers…”
The charm of the lower dungeon was enormous, which was why rather than the soloing it she decided to go for a party hunting.
Remir thought of someone the very next moment.
It was like the shape of a human.
‘No, no… not that guy. It will be fine as a solo hunt till the 1st floor… but he loses his rationality when hunting.’
Remir who was feeling better, cleaned up her inventory and went back into the dungeon.
The reason why leaving the dungeon was tough for her, was because of the monsters in the dungeon were more wonderful than any monsters.
It was the biggest merit of the ‘Unlimited instant quest’, from which additional experience points and gold would be given even when continuously hunting the Undead.
“Now, let’s go and do it again.”
With a pleasant expression, Remir started to move into the dungeon.
She was in the middle of casting her spell when she suddenly heard a noise from the dungeon’s entrance.
“Invisibility…!”
Invisibility was an intermediate magic spell that could be learned by wizards once they became level 150.
Remir started to turn invisible right after she finished casting the spell.
It was a sight that only a wizard could see.
Even if it was an intermediate magic spell, there were only a few wizards that could cast it in a short time.
Remir—who concealed herself with invisibility—walked outside of the dungeon.
In order to hide her footsteps, she used double casting and flew out of there.
‘What? Who could it be…? Is there anyone else who knows about this place other than me?’
No one could’ve known the location of this place unless they watched the dungeon with utmost concentration.
Remir who thought that she alone would be there was curious to know who the person could be.
Remir’s eyes grew wide when she saw who it was.
‘Why is he here, when he should be in the Lotus Kingdom…?!’
* * *
Not far from the city of Muran, a huge mountain was there.
It was the favorite hunting ground of beginner users.
Ian remembered that he caught a bear in that mountain region.
However, the Neuron mountains were now a thing of the past.
Kwakw.a.n.g- Kw.a.n.g-!
Ian, Kaizer, and the humanoid form of Karceus were all swinging their weapons with all their might.
“Wah, when did monsters of Muran became level 300?”
Kaizer responded briefly to Ian’s question,
“But, they are still the Undead.”
Ian just laughed upon hearing what Kaizer said.
“That is true, perfectly right.”
They weren’t powerful monsters for them.
They were just swinging their swords with all their might on their way towards the mountains as they wanted to move as quickly as possible.
Ian was looking for the ‘old man’ in the mountains.
‘h.e.l.lim’s bookshelf—Louisei. That’s for sure.’
The Luspel Empire was destroyed, but all the NPC’s empires weren’t completely destroyed.
There were many NPC’s who were scattered throughout the continent, including h.e.l.liem, the chief of the knights who fought for the Empire till the end.
The episode video didn’t reveal everything, but clues were scattered.
Ian confirmed it from seeing clues in the episode, that Lousei was hiding in the Neuron mountains.
“I’m sure that it is on this side…?”
Ian was looking for Lousei.
Suddenly…
Ian’s gaze moved in a certain direction, and his eyes caught something.
‘What is it? It looks like…?’