CH 170

The quest system in BNW wasn’t a special quest system. It was just a tool to guide users in their journey throughout BNW, and that was it.

Quests could be obtained by having a conversation with an NPC or from events between an Adventurer and an NPC. It was rare for quests to change on their own.

However, the quest actually changed on its own…

‘I’ve heard of this before…’ Siegfried somewhat had an idea of what this meant.

He could still remember a gamer’s question about this in a past conference hosted between gamers and the developer of BNW, Hive.

This was the response of Hive’s Vice Chairman, Oppenheimer…

“A change in the quest details does not mean that it was altered by the quest system itself. It’s triggered by an alternate consciousness of the system.”

“An alternate consciousness…?”

“You may think of it as something like a foreknowledge.”

“…!”

“Just like how some people would have déjà vu in real life. You may think of such unnatural events that you experience in the game as something created by the alternate consciousness of the system, just like how you might experience something inexplicable in real life.”

“T-That…”

“Quest details changing without any interaction with NPCs or events means that the alternate consciousness of the system had changed the quest details. It’ll be easier to understand if I say that the game system is trying to tell you something by changing the quest details.”

This was probably what Oppenheimer meant.

It felt like the game system knew what was going on and was trying to tell him something. If he had to make an analogy, then this was probably when Zhang Fei saw Guan Yu in his dreams before the latter died in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Therefore, Siegfried decided to pick up the pace.

‘Maxim has probably died, and the quest system is warning me that Scarlett is in danger as well!’ Siegfried gritted his teeth and ran as fast as he could.

“Hey, Hamchi! Use that!”

“Use what?!”

“That thing you do! That sensing magic thing!”

“I’m using it right now, but this place is too big. The trees are getting in the way, too!”

“Argh! Keep trying! It’s an emergency!”

“Okay! Kyu!”

Hamchi cranked up Meerkat~! to the max at Siegfried’s request.

‘Argh! What the hell is this quest?! Why did it turn like this all of a sudden?!’ Siegfried cursed inwardly.

Hamchi suddenly shouted, “Kyu! I found it, owner punk!”

“Huh?”

“Seven kilometers to your left! There are many humans over there!”

“Okay!”

Siegfried ran as fast as he could toward the direction that Hamchi had pointed out.

***

Siegfried finally managed to find the base of the 101 Ranger Corps, but what greeted him was bad news.

“Missing?” Siegfried muttered in disbelief.

“Yes, they joined a reconnaissance party and went to scout out a small titan lair, but we lost contact with the entire party,” the Ranger Captain replied with a serious look.

“Oh, my god…”

“We formed a search party and went to look for them, but all we found were the seven remains of our rangers…”

“Could the titans really kill them? The titans are strong, but the Rangers had to be quite skilled as well…” Siegfried had to ask because he couldn’t imagine Shakiro’s disciples losing to a bunch of titans.

It turned out that his hunch was right.

“I thought so as well, so I did some investigation. I suspect that the titans weren’t the culprit…”

“Is it by any chance…”

“Based on the tracks… I think they were ambushed by humans.”

“Humans?”

“Yes, but there was something strange about it.”

“What is it?”

“I only saw one set of footprints belonging to their enemy, but their wounds seemed as if they had been attacked by many different weapons…”

“…!”

“Their enemy’s footprint was pretty huge big as well. It was around 290 millimeters, so I think the attacker is at least 190 centimeters tall.”

“Hmm…”

The Ranger Captain’s words bothered Siegfried

‘Okay, so an assailant taller than 190 centimeters attacked the Weapon Maestros Maxim and Scarlett using many different weapons?’ 

He couldn’t quite grasp the situation.

“Fortunately, we didn’t find the remains of Maxim and Scarlett, so there is still hope that both of them are—”

Siegfried did not bother listening to the rest of what the Ranger Captain had to say.

‘Maxim is already dead, even if his remains are still missing. I have to hurry up and save Scarlett…!’

He had no time to stand around and talk about hope when time was of the essence.

Siegfried hurriedly started looking for Scarlett.

***

While Siegfried was busy roaming Vaxen Mountains in search of Scarlett, the Weapon Academy decided to close temporarily in preparation for Shakiro’s funeral

Actually, they didn’t really have a lot of things to prepare. Shakiro was an orphan and a former gladiator at Dondegiri. He was single, and he had no children as well, so there weren’t many people to invite to his funeral.

Most of his acquaintances were spread all over the continent, so it was pretty difficult to send invitations to all of them. Therefore, Hakken decided to host a modest funeral with only the disciples.

However, that did not mean that they didn’t have to prepare anything. They still had to prepare all sorts of funeral tools to appease Shakiro’s spirit in the afterlife.

“Can you go to the Temple of Justice and invite a high priest, Velkanto?”

“Of course, Senior Brother…”

“I’m just your brother now,” Hekkan said with a smile before continuing. “I’m no longer the Senior Brother now that Senior Brother Siegfried is here.”

“Ah, yes… I made a mistake… Hahaha…”

“It is quite distant, so make haste and accompany the high priest here.”

“Yes, brother.”

Velkanto left White Town and rushed to the Temple of Justice.

***

The next evening, Velkanto was making his way back to White Town with a high priest from the Temple of Justice at Condor.

“Who’s there?”

Velkanto suddenly sensed that someone was tailing them on their way to the Weapon Academy. This was a road less traveled, so he was certain that whoever was following him had bad intentions.

“Did you just ask me who I am?” said a low voice.

The person following Velkanto emerged from the darkness.

Seuk…

Then, he pulled back the hood covering his face.

“You! You bastard…!” Velkanto exclaimed in horror.

“Hey, aren’t you being too much by calling me a bastard?”

“Oh, my god…”

“I should teach you a lesson.”

“Heok!”

The skill that the assailant displayed shocked Velkanto.

***

Siegfried wandered all over Vaxen Mountains for almost half a day before he finally tracked them down.

“Over there! Around five kilometers! But it’s dangerous! Something heavy is stomping on the ground and attacking a human! Kyu!” Hamchi shouted while pointing to the right.

Siegfried immediately understood Hamchi’s words.

‘Someone is being attacked by a titan!’ Siegfried concluded, and he immediately rushed toward the direction Hamchi was pointing at. He ran so fast that he ended up using half of his Stamina in the process.

He finally arrived at the location and found an unarmed woman being attacked by a group of titans. The woman was in a very bad state, but she was still fighting for her dear life against the titans.

[Scarlett]

[Weapon Master Shakiro’s fifth disciple.]

[Her main weapon is a scythe.]

[Level: 205]

[Class: N/A (Lost)]

[Affiliation: Weapon Academy]

[Position: Scythe Maestro]

[Titles: Chilling Scythe, Cruel Beauty, Neat Executioner.]

Siegfried used Rune of Insight and discovered that the woman being attacked by the group of titans was indeed Scythe Maestro Scarlett.

‘Where’s her weapon? What happened to her class?’ 

He noticed something strange about her status, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it because the situation was turning dire.

He cast Shadow Swamp. This was his first time using a debuff field after equipping the Quad-Turbo Set.

However, his skill didn’t immediately activate.

‘What’s going on…?’ Siegfried was perplexed.

However, his confusion was resolved when the Quad-Turbo Set started glowing.

Shwaaa…!

Wooooong!

The Shadow Swamp spread out, covering a much larger area than usual.

[Alert: The Quad-Turbo Set has enhanced the effect of your debuff field!]

[Alert: A slight ‘turbo lag’ of 0.2 seconds has occurred after casting your debuff skill!]

The message in front of Siegfried’s eyes explained the slight delay.

Turbo Lag.

The delay seemed to be the drawback of the Quad-Turbo Set, but the set’s effects were more than enough compensation for the delay.

The size of his debuff field astonished Siegfried, but he was even more shocked when he saw that his skill managed to significantly slow down the four-meter-tall titans to the point that they looked like they weren’t even moving anymore.

However, the most shocking of all these was the shadows that emerged from Shadow Swamp. The shadows stood as tall as the titans, and their combat prowess was on a whole new level compared to before.

They suddenly knew how to perform all sorts of submission moves on top of the arm bar, such as figure four leg locks, sharp supers, guillotine chokeholds, twisters, triangle chokeholds, et cetera.

The shadows completely immobilized the titans.

‘Wow… The turbo lag doesn’t really matter at this point, right?’ 

Siegfried wasn’t bothered about the turbo lag because it only affected his debuff skills. His debuff fields were also not that reliant on timing, so a delay of 0.2 seconds wouldn’t make a significant difference.

However, Siegfried couldn’t continue to stew in his amazement as he immediately activated Blaze Field as well.

Fwaaaaaah!

The Flames of Destruction erupted from the ground and set the titans ablaze. The flames stubbornly clung to the titans as well as if titans were doused with gasoline beforehand.

“The meat has been marinated…” Siegfried said. He gripped his hammer and ran toward the titans while shouting, “Time to mince them!”

“Kyu! Mince those bastards!” Hamchi exclaimed and grew into a giant hamster.

***

It only took Siegfried and Hamchi five minutes to dispose of the eleven titans. Blaze Field and Shadow Swamp were simply too overpowered because of Siegfried’s overpowered gears. In the end, they only had to hit the titans a few times to kill them.

“Hey, Hamchi! Go and harvest their tendons for me!”

“All right!”

Siegfried gave Hamchi the task of collecting the Titan’s Tendons, which was one of the quest materials he needed to complete a quest.

He then ran toward Scarlett, who was lying now on the ground.

“T-Thank you for… saving me…”

“Don’t mention it. Drink this first.”

Siegfried held Scarlett’s head and poured a healing potion into her mouth.

“Cough! Cough!”

However, her wounds were so severe that she couldn’t swallow the potion.

“Slowly, drink it slowly.”

“W-We do not have time…”

“Huh?”

“C-Can I ask you a favor…?”

“What is it?”

“Maxim… is dead… White Town… Weapon Academy… Must warn them…”

“What…?”

When you're just trying to make great content at bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

“Must warn… my brothers and sisters… danger…”

And that was it…

Scarlett’s head tilted to the side, and she closed her eyes.