Episode 157

3.

"Wow."

"Holy crap."

Buja and Seora stared in awe at the wall-sized screen, which displayed China's raid via a 4-star video transmission magic item. Purchased from the Gold Shop for 2,000 gold, it even had a stealth function.

"They're screwed," Seora remarked.

"Yeah, this is bad," Buja agreed.

Each casual comment was delivered lightly, but every word carried genuine weight. There was no other way to describe it. It was simply an overwhelming force.

This wasn't just a case of the statues themselves being strong. If they were only strong and tough, there would always be a way to defeat them. The levels and stats of the players in the video were more than adequate, and as they themselves boasted, their numbers were nothing to scoff at.

Even so, they were collapsing in an instant because of the statues' additional abilities. A debuff that, for a brief moment, cut all stats in half. A penalty that forced them to carry a stat-reduction debuff for the entire duration of the raid.

To be honest, this was a situation one could easily run into when clearing any dungeon of Rare grade or higher. The problem was that they weren't facing monsters in their own level bracket.

That was why there was nothing to criticize. The Chinese players hadn't done anything wrong. Their only mistake was being so drunk on confidence that they had decided to ram their way into a Legendary event—the one and only Catastrophe Gate in the entire world—hoping to hog it all for themselves.

Aside from that, it was truly an irresistible force. Even if you brought in Fly and his entire guild, it was the kind of situation that would make you sigh and wonder where to even begin.

And there was an even more despair-inducing problem.

"It looks like stopping the Catastrophe in advance is going to be tough," Seora said.

"Mm, I agree. If the very top rankers had all gotten the intel at the same time and gathered with a single purpose, maybe they could have found a way to at least take that dog's head off…"

"But we have no idea if there's a phase two, phase three, or phase four, or how far it goes."

"Exactly."

The moment that soldier statue, which hadn't so much as twitched yet, stood up, the raid would enter a whole new stage. One enemy versus two. Everyone knew, without needing it spelled out, the kind of devastating synergy that could create, especially if the soldier statue turned out to be even stronger.

Assuming they couldn't completely destroy the dog statue before the soldier rose, the only options left would be to run or to die.

Of course, there might be another answer. There had always been, and over the past five years, players had grown by finding those answers. The dungeons and holograms were designed with that level of precision, and there were so many hidden pieces that countless players were willing to risk their lives to find them.

However, at least for now, it didn't look like there was enough time left to find a solution and stop the Catastrophe in advance.

No, this wasn't even the time to be worrying about that.

"Anyway, I get the feeling those Chinese bastards are going to try to handle the Catastrophe all by themselves."

Whatever the case, Buja had watched China's failure through a Gold Shop item, but that was his own private viewing. Most people didn't even know that a Catastrophe Gate had spawned in China. Only now was the country announcing an entry ban. Circumstantial evidence would start to surface, and people would eventually catch on, but that wouldn't change anything.

The preliminary attempt had failed, but China itself had not collapsed.

They would try again, if only to make up for the losses among their many rankers.

"Hmmm."

Buja began to mull it over, though it wasn't a huge dilemma.

'Should I find some way to go?'

He was torn between getting there no matter what it took to grab a piece of the action and avoiding stirring up trouble for nothing.

The answer was already decided.

"It's better not to go, right?" Seora asked.

"It's not that I shouldn't go. I can't go."

"…If this were just a game, I'd go over there and wreck the place, no question. I'll have to sit this one out."

He had to distinguish between game and reality. In his head, he was picturing himself standing tall and soloing both statues in front of that ragtag Chinese mob on the screen. In reality, he was in a body that would struggle in a stat-difference fight even against one of those rankers.

On top of that, not only was there an entry ban, but he had no way to secretly slip into China alone and then travel all the way to the Catastrophe Gate.

'There's just too much I can't do.'

He was dying to grow stronger as fast as possible so he could freely bring to life the scenes he imagined in his head.

[The Gate of Catastrophe is opening.]

A hologram appeared, along with a 48-hour time limit.

He wasn't overly worried.

"There's no way they're going to pour out monsters like those Guardian Statues, but if the difficulty is anywhere near that, there's no chance China can handle it alone."

Opportunities had a way of popping up anywhere, anytime.

* * *

As expected, China took a hardline stance.

—China declares it will stop the Catastrophe alone.

—Have they lost their minds? Trying to monopolize the event?

—Who cares about monopolizing it? If they fail and it blows up, other countries get hit too.

—Well, they're not idiots. They must have decided they can handle it. If they screw up trying to hog it, their own country goes down first.

—Man, I wanna go on an expedition and farm some points too!

—Just hold the line for now. We don't even know the difficulty. I heard China put out a notice to gather 20,000 rankers. Lowbies who try to leech might end up getting all their teeth kicked in.

Naturally, the players pushed back, but China had justification on its side. They didn't even need to come up with some other excuse.

—Since the dungeon gate appeared in China, China will clear it first.

With that firm and simple statement, the major powers, including the United States, and even top rankers like Fly, kept their mouths shut. Everyone else just accepted it with a shrug. What else could they do? This wasn't a dungeon; this was Earth, and on Earth, you had to follow Earth's laws.

In exchange, under heavy pressure from neighboring countries, China agreed to make one concession.

—We will make the entire process of stopping the Catastrophe public.

It was a reasonable and convincing conclusion, enough that you could even applaud them and say that, for China, this was a surprisingly considerate move. Since they couldn't go anyway, players were satisfied with at least being able to preview the event's contents.

[The event has begun.]

[All players can spectate the Catastrophe region.]

As it turned out, that consideration was unnecessary. Even so, public opinion wasn't bad.

In the end, players only wanted one thing: safe rewards.

From a results-oriented perspective, the event labeled "Catastrophe" hadn't even exploded in their own backyard. There was no need for them to be the first to throw themselves into an event with zero information; China was volunteering to show them firsthand. There was only one condition: China couldn't just breeze through and monopolize the event in a pathetic anticlimax.

When players tuned in to spectate the Catastrophe region, they let out collective sighs of relief.

—How the hell are you supposed to kill that?

—Wait, shouldn't we be stopping China? We probably need Fly plus the top 10,000 players worldwide.

—This is an event? Looks more like an end-of-the-world scenario.

The despair that washed over them, along with that relief, was beyond words.

A blazing legion of flame knights, and at its center, a Flame Death Knight. The creature, which looked every bit like a Catastrophe Monster, was as large as the statues had been. Its sheer size was overwhelming, and the thousands of knights and assorted monsters surrounding it made the scene look, as someone had said, like a war at the end of the world.

People swallowed hard.

—Shouldn't we be stopping them?

But it was obvious at a glance that China was also going all out, gathering an enormous number of players.

Countless monsters and countless Chinese players.

A war of human-wave tactics that looked like something out of a movie was about to unfold, not in a film, not in a dungeon, but in reality.

And as Buja watched, analyzing the process more closely than anyone, a guest arrived.

A face he was seeing in real life for the first time.

Fly asked, "If China fails, we've arranged to take the next shot. Would you like to join us?"

* * *

The question came out of nowhere.

Showing up at his front door wasn't surprising; for someone like Fly, finding his address wouldn't be hard, and he probably had several private jets in his name, so flying over was no issue either.

It was the timing, the fact that this was their first meeting in reality, and the very first thing out of Fly's mouth.

Fly's deadly serious expression contrasted with Seora's curious gaze from the side.

"That's pretty sudden. Come on in."

Feeling that this was not a situation where he could afford to say the wrong thing, Buja kept his composure and invited Fly inside. China's event hadn't started yet, and there was still plenty of time to at least hear him out.

Of course, he could guess the gist of it.

"China has no intention of yielding the gate that appeared on their soil to any other country," Fly began. "The monsters pouring out of the Catastrophe are roughly 5-star, and we're estimating the Catastrophe Monster itself at up to 7-star. Considering the nature of the event and various variables, it's a fight we believe we have a real chance in. Of course, there's also a very real chance of failure. So we negotiated for the next attempt. We could have applied pressure, but thinking about the future balance of power, this seemed like the better route, and China agreed."

A backroom deal. After getting burned once by the Guardian Statues, China had no reason to refuse that kind of insurance.

Whatever the case, the reason he had come all the way to a Korean like Buja to say this was obvious.

"I want to scout you. I know you're unlikely to join my guild, so I'm limiting the offer to this event only. If you don't want to, or if you feel you're not ready yet, you can turn me down."

A test. Or an observation. He wanted to use this as a pretext to gather information on Buja's class, which he had acknowledged as a rival after their one-on-one clash. From Fly's perspective, if he had judged that the event was clearable, there was no real reason to bring along a low-level player like Buja. He even added that if it looked impossible, they didn't have to do it.

On the surface, it might sound like he was doing him a favor, but to Buja, it was clear what this was.

'Can you do it?'

Even though he was only level 14.

He wanted to see if this was a class with enough potential and explosive burst to participate and show its worth, even with a 7-star monster as the final boss.

"Hm."

He fell into a brief thought.

To be honest, he was lacking. If he wrapped himself in items from head to toe, he could probably pretend to pick off some regular monsters and at least secure some contribution. But anything beyond that would be too much.

The Flame Death Knight and the knightly order guarding it. He would probably die just from getting clipped by the hooves of the horses those knights were riding, never mind the knights themselves.

Was there any need to go and show his hand? He didn't care how this would make him look to the Jeong Cheol Guild. He simply thought and judged from his own perspective.

Which choice would be more profitable?

"Alright."

The decision came quickly.

* * *

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.