Chapter 403 - 397 : Brewing Currents

(AN : Chapter 396 is two chapters behind. Sorry for that. It's a slight error that will take sometime to fix.)

[[ World-wide server announcement :

Congratulations to the team, Seven Star Glory, for completing the achievement [First Kill] by slaying the world-class BOSS, the Kobold King [Angas].

Rewarding players… 

1 World Renown Point

1 Gold coin to each player

Title [Warrior]

+ **** Experience Points ]]

"How..."

The Snow Goddess Yukino, [Berserker] Black Tempest, [Assassin] Ore, [Druid] Kylian as well as the others who made up the subjugation team were wall stunned at the notification.

"That quick?" Griffin couldn't help but be surprised.

Even though it was on its last leg, the Kobold King was still a world-class BOSS. It wasn't some cannon-fodder that could be taken lightly.

"We played right into their hands." Kylian sighed. He was the only one who could maintain a calm expression in the midst of this surprise.

"What do we do now?" Ore couldn't help but ask.

"What else can we do? We have to find them and deal with them. How dare they take us lightly." Yukino frowned.

As a core member of the guild, she knew how much was sacrificed for this raid. A lot of the guild's finances had gone into funding this raid and for all of it to end this way, she couldn't help but be angry. To Yukino, the guild was her family and she couldn't tolerate anyone messing with her family.

"Calm down and stop being so  aggressive." A deep voice exhorted.

Surprisingly, it came from one of the least expected individuals, Black Tempest. He, who was well known for being hot-headed and having an aggressive personality was actually urging someone else not to.

"Rushing forward is pointless now. Those guys should be pretty smart for pulling this off. I'm guessing they already have a prepared escape route and have already begun making their way there. It's very likely that we won't catch up to them or find them so why bother."

"Then, what should we do?" Griffin asked.

"Isn't it obvious? We wait for the next set of orders." Black Tempest suddenly stopped low and took a seat on the floor.

"...eh?" Everyone stared at him with wide eyes however, they still got the meaning behind his words.

"He's right." Kylian said as he also decided to take a seat. However, he didn't go straight to the point like Black Tempest did but had found a small boulder close by and sat atop it.

While everyone decided to take a break, Yukino gripped her sword tightly as she was close to lashing out. It was at that moment that Chesces' call came in.

"A call from Chesces." Ore said.

"That's our cue." Black Tempest replied.

Following that, Ore accepted the call and put it on speaker as Chesces' voice sounded.

"You guys should have already seen the announcement. I won't waste your time. Meet us at this point. We're going to take the settlement and see if we can get anything there. See you soon."

The call immediately cut after that and the team was left with a short moment of silence.

"Let's go." Black Tempest said.

No one said a word as they all followed him. Just from Chesces' call, they could feel the attitude of everyone on the other side. The raid was a failure and one that would forever remain in the records.

Two guilds, 1 super guild, and another a top 1st tier guild had both lost to an unknown team of players. What's more, they were held back by one player and had lost a lot of men to that player. If that wasn't bad enough, the said player had actually managed to escape unharmed despite being imprisoned in a barrier and surrounded by players.

Their rivals would definitely not let go of this opportunity to humiliate them and the news would definitely be spread by the gaming press. This was not just a failure, but a humiliation.

.  .  . 

"The Kobold King is dead already?"

Players on the outside began to react to the worldwide server announcement with shock, especially the players in Black Rock province. They were the ones who were the closest to the centre of attraction and also the ones who supposedly received first-hand information yet, some unknown team had actually taken the kill without them knowing.

"Who or what the heck is Seven Star Glory? Have you guys ever heard of them?" One player asked.

"Nope. Never have."

"This is the first time I'm hearing of them. Are they some noob team?" Another player asked.

"Are you stupid? Didn't you read the announcement or are you seriously dumb? How could a noob team take on a world-class BOSS and come out on top? This is something no guild has achieved so far? How could they be a noob team?"

"Who knows, maybe they stole the kill?" The player countered.

"... you're definitely stupid."

And so, an argument broke out between two players and it suddenly increased to 4 participants then 5 and finally 10. Unbeknownst to Sato and the others, they were slowly growing fans all over the world.

Some players were tired of seeing top guilds trend all the time. It had already been part of the status quo for such first kill achievements to be done by either a big guild or a big club, which was roughly the same thing. It was only was quite rare for those achievements to be done by a solo player or even a random party or team. Hence, some players had begun wishing for the time such will happen because the underlying meaning meant that the position of the big guilds would be threatened and their authority might be reversed.

This would lead to a lot of fierce encounters as well as increasing rivalry and the entire player ecosystem in that area could possibly be threatened with its peace. Therefore, it was usually players who wished for chaos that would hope for such scenarios as they would find it fun and enjoyable.

On the other hand, the actions of the Seven Star Glory team were taken by some players as a challenge to the big guilds, especially those of Black Rock province. If the top guilds couldn't react fashionably and in time to this, it would be seen as a sign of weakness and they would encounter a lot of difficulties especially from the side of the solo players, guild-haters, and most importantly, dark players.

Hence, while some didn't like Sato's team, others appreciated their actions and even blew it over, forging stories about how they had won as well as claiming that the team was all made up of God-level Experts. This would rally the public's support of teams and parties, reducing the number of people willing to go into guilds as well as weaken their standing in the hearts of players. In other words, this was all psychological play from the guild-haters and dark players.

Unbeknownst to Sato, this had resulted just from his team's simple act of slaying the Kobold King. A storm was brewing but he wouldn't its direction.

.  .  .

White Valley Town, Angelor Province, Belarusia Kingdom.

White Valley town was a region extremely far from the boundaries of Fallen Heart Kingdom, much less its novice town Riverdale town. However, similar to Riverdale, it had experienced a 'lucky' encounter that had changed its position in the hearts of players.

The town's players had just concluded the monster wave battle that occurred twice a year at the town. As for the final BOSS of the wave, it shockingly turned out to be a world-class BOSS. Though they weren't prepared for this, under the leadership of the Sovereign guild's guild leader, Frost King of the Red Sea Kurosaki Genma, the town's players had managed to come out on top. However, as Sato's side had slain theirs first, no one apart from the townsfolk knew this and so, this led to a dejected atmosphere among the players despite their impressive achievement.

Sovereign guild's headquarters...

*Bang*

"Damn it. We were so close, so close to making history!" A [Berserker] hit the table before him with his fist.

The monster wave was stronger than they had imagined; there was even an absurdly powerful NPC in the ranks and the town was almost lost. Luckily, an old man showed up and battles the NPC till he ran away and the town's players were slowly able to turn the battle back in their favor. However, due to that interruption, it took longer than expected to take down the world-class BOSS, and so, they had lost the achievement of the first kill.

"Stop stressing about it. We did well out there and kept the town in one piece. Also, our levels have risen higher than predicted and the loot from the kill is quite bountiful. Overall, this was a good thing." Genma said.

"But still..."

"But still what?" Genma cut him off.

"You should recall that we never expected there to be a world-class BOSS so you should be lucky we still made it through. Otherwise, the town would have been lost and the penalties would be haunting you right now."

"I'm sorry." The [Berserker] lowered his head.

"You still need to watch your temper, Milim." Genma sighed.

"Don't worry too much about it. Instead, help me gather information on that team, Seven Star Glory. They seem to be a bunch of interesting folks. If possible, try and recruit them.. Having them form a branch for us over in Fallen Heart Kingdom would be very useful."