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Chapter 335: Cortaderia Halma
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Zelga was intimidated when Siva took that single step forward. He wasn’t a fool. He had felt this sense of danger before and it came from his past fights against S-Ranked monsters.
Right now, Siva was giving that same sensation; a monster in human form.
“Is he an NPC?”
He suddenly asked this question. Only an NPC is able to give players this sensation of danger.
“My God, is this one of those legendary Ranked Names and Titles?”
Ranked Names/Title = Standalone NPC Bosses that once defeated or befriended will either give a player lead(s) to special Unique-rarity Quests or Missions, or give away items with at least a rarity grade of [Legendary].
Those who were even lucky enough might get MODs after their encounter.
Defeating a Ranked Title or a Ranked Named NPC is sure to yield to special rewards, but being able to befriend them yields more rewards than the former.
As an example, the Forest Guardian in the Forest of Anazon is a Ranked Named NPC Boss. When Siva defeated it, he got the [Sword of Triune] as well as the Chain Quest that started with finding a Dragonnaire Wizard named Zeta.
Right now, the possibility of Siva being that very entity itself was high and Zelga began to regret his actions.
He knew he had driven himself into a corner and he knew that it was all because of his lust and his greed.
But to lose face here was another matter. He had already ridden the boat. He can’t get off of it, now that it’s in full throttle.
“Kingdom Law, Article 1, Chapter 7: no individual nor any object is allowed to fly in the 5km vicinity of the castle. And you have just violated that law.”
Many people were surprised by Zelga’s avowal.
They looked around and saw many people still on their own businesses flying over to and fro in the market area; but of all of them, Zelga chose to make trouble of this particular pair.
Many smart people began to suspect why as they glanced over at Scion.
With her charm, no wonder Zelga will be tempted to make a move against them using his identity.
Too bad, the guy whose arm is being hugged by the woman had two very tall heavy knights as his bodyguards. It was indication that his… no… their statuses weren’t pushovers either.
Then—
“BAHAHAHAHA…. what a load of bullshit!” Siva’s laughter rung in the silent crowd and not only the crowd was astounded and astonished, they also discovered that Siva…. was a brash individual. “I actually thought there was a legitimate reason as to why you would have to bother my business. I gave you your chance to tell me what my violation of the laws is but instead you give me a boat load of bullshit. Do you see me as someone easy to mess with and that you could handle me like some weakling? No, before that, do I even look weak to you?”
“My Lord, please don’t waste your time with trash of such a lowly level.”
“Just give me the word and I shall deal with the lot of these trashes in but a moment.”
When the two large brutes spoke, Zelga became stumped with words and unable to reply. Right now, he could clearly feel that these two heavy knights are monsters of their own rights.
“This guy is really a Ranked NPC!”
Zelga was now sure and now, he had a feeling…
He felt a premonition that this was going to be the case because right from the very beginning, when his status failed to deter the other party, he knew that his plan had already failed.
Zelga was locked between two boulders and he couldn’t back out from the mess he created. He knew he had stepped on a landmine.
But he can’t back down now that everything had ended up this way.
The man whose head was on the ground tried to struggle but the weight of the fully armoured Heavy Knight prevented his attempts. In a way, it was a very comedic scene where someone who can’t die inside the city had his head stuck on the ground by a foot.
The [BM-Smasher] turned its head and through Cortana’s control, spoke to Siva, “My Lord, these are mere insects who thinks they are somebody. I request to be the one to deal with them.”
And then the [BM-Destroyer] bowed as well, “Let this servant be the one to move, My Lord.”
Siva didn’t flinch. This is Cortana’s suggestion; to adapt Akhenaton’s attitude when they are outside the Asgard. For the [Smasher], it was part of its preset settings that Siva added as to not invite a hacker to test the firewall of the tower.
And as for the [Destroyer], it’s only because there is an [Auricle] installed inside it that through voice manipulation programming, Cortana could use the active call and speaker function to give the notion that it was also a living person.
—these were all advanced conning techniques that Siva devised factoring in Cortana’s abilities.
Scion, from the side, was surprised. She thought these two were just puppets but who would have thought that they are actually people as well? or at least, she thought they were NPCs.
“R-Rex… these guys…”
Siva looked at her and although he felt that it was a sin to lie to her, but these are all for her safety.
He gently tapped on her head as she tightly hugs his right arm.
“They’re my retainers.”
She didn’t say a word next and only glanced back to the [BM-Destroyer] to give him a slight bow.
“My Queen, it is my duty to protect you. Please treat me as if I didn’t exist.”
Scion felt embarrassed and buried her face to Siva’s arm, not rebuking nor defending her title.
It was a conversation on the lowest of volumes but the request for ‘dealing with insects’ insulted Zelga to the limits.
“How dare you insult a King Candidate!” he yelled with wrathful energy. “Knights of the Kingdom! By my authority as a King Candidate, upholding to my sworn role as a knight of The Wall of Jeremiah; as with the power of the laws of the Kingdom and my titular authority as a King Candidate, I demand the arrest of this individual for violating the laws of the Kingdom and disrespecting a Knight of the mighty Kingdom of Jeremiah! Bring him to the cellars and tie every limb from his body! Give him 30 lashings everyday until he begged for forgiveness!”
With a clever play in words and twisting of reality and roles, Zelga erupted into his role and carried a mighty dignity as he gave the order.
“…”
Siva didn’t budge nor did he move but Cortana felt his murderous intent so through her, she gave the command to execute.
The [BM-Smasher] took a step forward and this implanted the head of the guy further in. It was only thanks to the [Safe Zone Effect] that he was still able to move and resist.
Seeing the deteriorating situation, the Kingdom Knights patrolling the perimeter finally moved in.
The guard captain in charged to the squad called out with a calm and honorable voice: “My Lord, please hold your hand.”
*****
It was an NPC talking to an NPC —as the players saw it. It was an event and many with keen eyes all saw through the uniqueness of Siva’s identity.
“Perhaps this is the prologue of an event?”
“Geezer’s Mice! It’s one event after another!”
“And Panorama Corp. hasn’t announced any one bit of these events!”
“This is driving me nuts. There are so many event triggering things happening in Terroa.”
“I can’t keep up anymore! My head hurts!”
Many were becoming aware that a great storm is being brewed under the radar. But the more of these unannounced events occur around them, the more they become aware that Terroa is indeed changing.
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Not only there are new harder quests and no easy missions to tackle, but there have been a steady increase in many new things being discovered.
There are items, places, new cities, new places, dungeons, ancient ruins… all of these could’ve been very easy at first but for some reason, the difficulty of the quests and missions attached to them were all very high.
And there’s Siva and his Grand Quest, then the events in Alexandria… in fact, many smart people are even expecting that because he destroyed a part of the moon, many NPC scientists of the City of Jeremiah will demand his head with a bounty.
His actions were triggering many things and many players are indiscriminately being affected by his every move, thus, leading to the increasing amount of dissatisfaction.
These unhappy Users needed a vent and the obvious first choice was Panorama Corporation.
But now, for the first time, an event that’s not in any way connected to Siva had appeared in the City of Jeremiah so they are obviously interested.
Many had long since recorded these happenings and many are also streaming it live.
The forums began to explode as they discovered the livestream.
”Holy crap! Is there going to be another event in Terroa?”
“It’s happening live in Jeremiah!”
“Let’s go to the 3rd District, West Central Market!”
“I won’t get left out in this event this time!”
While there are those focused on the content of this event, there are also observers who were in the middle of connecting dots regarding these unheard of events.
Then, someone’s little comment garnered a focus of attention.
A picture was posted in the forum regarding a group of ‘floaters’ that came from the Forest of Oz in the Walled City of Aarun.
In the lead was a white-armoured knight and he looked the same as the one in the livestream vid, except, that his mask is different.
But the two heavy knights and as well as the girl NPC’s dress were the same as the ones that was following the white knight captain.
Yet that’s not the most crucial part of the picture that was posted. It was the caption that caught the attention of the readers.
[A very strong NPC-group appeared in Aarun and carried a written missive from the Grand Elder Mage of The Mansions. The very arrogant High Magister of the local Mansion actually bowed his head to him, leading him inside the Inner Sanctum of The Mansion.]
|…Whoa! First!
|__|……irrelevant comment
|____|………more irrelevant comment
|…Aye, I was there when it happened!
__ |……So what happened?
_ ___|………alright, read carefully…
Very quickly, the story of the NPC Knights that appeared in Aarun also spread in the local Net of Terroa and this news quickly spread to the people in the pubs and the bars.
The story was as follows: as many people already knew that of the factions that was in Jeremiah, the tenth unofficial faction, the Enchantment Temple, was but a force that was made up Enchanters. But now, old rumours began to erupt regarding a very elite group of Knights groomed exclusively by the Enchantment Temple and was called Magic Knight Division… loyal only to The Mansions, and is only answering to the call of the Grand Elder Mage.
Although it was a farfetched story, there was a high possibility of this happening because there are an increasing number of Users who pledged the truth about the things they heard the Magic Knight Leader said: he was directly summoned by Grand Elder Mage.
Those in the know backed this up that in the nine noble factions of Jeremiah, although Pistareen can ‘request’ knights to do missions on his stead, he wasn’t actually titled to ‘directly summon’ them as he pleased... and even with haste and urgency.
And thus, the rumour about the Magic Knights of the Enchantment Temple had been established.
Of course, there will be the existence of those skeptics that won’t believe it until they see it.
“More bull crap rumours!”
“Rumours are nothing more but gossips.”
“These bunch’f bastards doesn’t have a life!”
“You get a life!”
“You get a girlfriend!”
“Screw you!”
“Filthy shits easily swayed by rumours.”
“You got that right. If rumours about a Golden Crow being born out of the sun erupted, I betcha they’d believe it with exceeding interest.”
“Ahahaha… they might even build a kingdom to commemorate that rumour!”
“BAHAHAHA…”
“LOL”
“Trolololololol…”
“Best comment! Build a Kingdom of Gossipers!”
“All hail the kingdom of rumor mongers!”
Still, the fact remains that there was a connection between these groups of NPCs. They wore the same clothes as the ones that appeared in Aarun.
*****
“Boss, I’m going to feed you the information I’ve just found out in the Net.”
When Cortana gave her warning, Siva gave his consent and prepared for the sharp sting that will come after.
With a slight pain on his head, Siva frowned but because the information was just a tiny bit, the pain wasn’t that much painful.
But the pain was wort it in exchange for this small bit of information.
Beneath his mask, he smiled.
In the office of the Guard Captain, there was an arrogantly seated and deeply frowning Zelga.
Siva was, however, just standing there with Scion still hugging his arm and the two ‘guardians’ cross-armed standing on the sides.
With their towering heights and ‘presence’, even the Captain of the Guards couldn’t help but feel intimidated by them. Especially when they are this silent and Siva demanding for the King Candidate to kneel down and ask for forgiveness, or else, he will have to pay compensation for him being late to his appointment.
“I will give you a proof then.” Siva said, “Bring me a member of The Mansion.”
Since there was no member of The Temple here right now, no one minded this derogatory term but still demanding a member of The Temple is a bit too much for a mere Patrol Guard Captain such as him.
Having understood these thoughts, Siva pulled an item —a piece of paper enclosed on a jar— from his inventory with but a thought.
This ‘magical action’ surprised everyone present in the room.
He didn’t pull out a panel window and just directly summoned an item from out of thin air. Isn’t this high-level spatial magic?
Is he a member of The Mansion?
While they asked this question on their minds, the person himself spoke, “I am a Magic Knight that’s directly a subordinate to the Grand Elder Mage. I suggest before you get banned from ever going back to The Temple for official business, you get a member of The Mansion here and show them this official summons without a single word.”
Siva spoke thus with a commanding tone layered with irritation, and then adding a more direct kind of blatant warning to Zelga.
“And you, I will make sure that you will regret ever provoking my patience. You’ve cost me a lot of trouble today. I will make you remember this for the rest of your life.”
Zelga’s lackey whose head was planted to the ground growled angrily in response to his finger.
“Impudence! How dare you address his highness with such a tone! I will cut you down now.”
He was about to pull his sword but the [Smasher] unfolded his arm and this action, alone, made the man stop from unsheathing his sword.
He wasn’t blind. Even the Captain of the Guards is intimidated by him, especially that there are two of them who looked like they can turn just anyone into a bloody pulp if the safe zone would allow it.
Zelga was unhappy with this but he could only shut his mouth as he thought of the content of his warning.
Magic Knight?
He wasn’t aware of it but when the Captain of the Guards heard it, he shuddered. It was a very small and very tiny reaction but it wasn’t able to get out of Zelga’s vision.
Zelga had to mentally take not of that word.
A Guard Element hesitated but eventually took the piece of paper, looking at the Captain of the Guards who gave him a nod.
The element scrammed with haste and only after 20 minutes passed did he return with two people in tow.
One of them wore a High Magistrate robe uniform of the Enchantment Temple and the other… a tall female knight of the same uniform as Zelga.
“You?” Zelga felt surprised. She was a familiar face. In fact, she was another King Candidate.
Siva was also aware of this woman’s identity. They met before in Billion’s office. But he didn’t expect that he would see her here under these very ugly circumstances.
The female knight in question was none other than Lady Brea of the Wall of Jeremiah.
When she entered the room, she was just following behind the man in the High Magistrate robe uniform elder.
The old man bowed at Siva and this alone proved everything Siva had warned them earlier.
Even the guard element had an awkward look on his face when he whispered on his Captain’s ears.
“Captain, we’ve really just offended a high-class VIP… as soon as I approached the temple, I didn’t even have to enter the Temple when the High Magistrate rushed forth to welcome me.”
There was no need to tell the rest as the ugly look on the captain’s face crumbled further and further while his eyes eventually landed on Zelga.
Zelga, of course, had an uglier face as he was the one who caused all of this mess.
Siva beamed widely under his mask.
In fact, he didn’t care if no one in the mansion will believe him. He would just raze this city to the ground using the element of surprize.
With his current strength, there was nothing that he feared here in Terroa.
This was the true source of his confidence.
When the High Magistrate entered the room, his glance first landed on Siva and a look of surprise flashed on his face before it came back to its usual indifference brought by his status.
But then, his gaze landed on Scion and his face showed an obvious look of shock.
Scion was shocked as well. She pulled his player window and pulled out a token with the emblem of the Circle of Magi on it.
The old man did the same as he pulled out the same golden token from his own Inventory.
But while the two had the same insignia of the Circle of Magi, Scion’s obviously had a unique red and blue glow in it.
“Archmage!” the old man made a bow.
Scion immediately made a gesture for the old man to stop his bow but the old man still did it.
“Archmage, my name is Cortaderia Halma, Outer Circle member… it is my sincerest honor to be graced by your presence.”
When she was addressed as an Archmage, the entire room fell into a shock.
She… is an Archmage? An honorable, venerable, esteemed magician of the Terran Civilization of the highest kind… an existence that demanded the most and utter highest of respects... and yet...
As the NPC’s thoughts landed on this side, their eyes that carried real hostility drifted towards the cause of this utter disrespect: Zelga.
He fucking did it alright.
Not minding this small event... Scion panicked and looked at Siva for help.
He gave her a nod but that didn’t help her one bit.
Yet, she wasn’t stupid and given their situation, they just needed to be out of this place as soon as possible.
“Please, Venerable Halma, stand up. I don’t think I am qualified to receive a bow from a highly respectable person as you. We have been stuck here because a person sought us with ill-intent towards me that’s why we needed the help of your Temple to prove our identities.”
When she spoke at this part, a surge of very strong and heavy Mana erupted from the High Magistrate and as he rose to his feet, his gaze landed directly on Zelga.
By now, all his air of majesty vanished and what was left is but the look of a pig awaiting its time on the slaughter machine.
“King Candidate, is it?” his voice was cold and old but the intent and crushing pressure bore towards Zelga without impedance on its momentum. “Who gave you the rights to vaunt your qualifications in the King Test like a golden tail, hm? Is it that old buffoon called Draco? Of all the people that you have to offend —and to a pathetic reason as lust at that— you just chose someone with the highest status in the entire Terran Magical Civilization. I’m really wondering why and how such a moron of your caliber is even chosen as a King Candidate.”
The old man’s tone didn’t hide the raging fires of his wrath as he unleashed one agonizingly soul-depreciating insulting phrase after another.
He was clearly offended by Zelga’s actions and of all the people he had to point his lust to, he just had to choose a historical and cultural living treasure of the Terrans… an Archmage.
Adding to that, Zelga is from The Naturals, and this is another reason why all the Terrans in the room had their hostility focused on Zelga.
Siva, on the other hand, looked at Scion and she stuck out her tongue when she raised her head, before burying it on her base on his arm after.
“Why are you embarrassed?!!”
He knew she added gasoline to the fire.
She was cleverly evil this way.
—and he honestly loved it.
.
.
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ZELGA IS BURNIIIIIIINNNGGGGG….!!!
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