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[We will be attempting a faster upload rate starting tomorrow. Just one for today. The RIM team is going to be helping out with this series.]
Great Ancient Mage, Destroy (1)
Evan acquired a small piece of rock in the dungeon he first entered. It contained serious energy, but the other members aside from him couldn’t perceive it properly.
“Whoa, this contains energy.”
Then, Evan was surprised at the fact that he could identify the item which he acquired.
“What is it, Master?”
“It’s an item that will help in enjoying a game that has a vast area. There is another one like this in a nearby dungeon. I’ll tell you once I acquire it.”
The dungeon they just cleared was a course for intermediate/advanced adventurers whose existence levels must be at least 100 based on Yo-Ma Great War Zero. However, it was bound to disappear if it weren’t cleared in the first-half phase of the story, so it could be considered as a bonus factor that could only be cleared in the second try. It was an official cheat sheet placed by the production team for the players to catch up with the elevating difficulty of the game.
“And this…”
As Evan cleared another dungeon that was hidden nearby, a rock like the earlier one was found. Evan put them close, and they simultaneously shined with a faint light as they resonated with each other.
“Ah…are these, perhaps…?”
Finally, Maybell reacted. She had seen a magic tool that gave off similar mana in the past.
“Aren’t these the warp gates?”
“Bingo.”
Wrap gate, the ultimate magic facility built through tremendous money, sweat, and blood from magicians. It was the crystallization of the Fantasy where fast travel was made possible through linking distant places with mana. Although it was a useless item for Evan, who could travel anywhere with just one step with his Annihilation Step, it would be greatly used to the others, such as the allied forces.
“Oh, my, the gate in Sher…in my hometown was barely activated through mana from piles of mana stones and treasures…”
“This is an object miraculously made by the Divine Realm in the process of stopping the Demon Realm from connecting to Middle Earth.”
“But the presence of the dungeons here means that the Divine Realm has failed.”
“Well, that’s right.”
To be blunt, this object was a fragment of the Space god. The Space god detected the possible connection between Middle Earth and the Demon Realm. He took immediate action, but he failed in the fight with the Devil. Moreover, the Divine Realm was being connected to the other worlds due to the influence from the Spirit realm, so the Space god gave up on Middle Earth and did his best in protecting the Divine Realm instead. At this time, a fragment of his power that fell off during his clash with the Devil was coincidentally found in the dungeon of Middle Earth. The Great Ancient Mage gained the chance to utilize it in fighting against the Devil after acquiring two of them.
“Fayna will pass out when she finds out.”
“The regions under the jurisdiction of the Space god and the Great Mother Earth are different, so they won’t bother.”
“Putting it that way makes them sound like ruffians.”
Evan thought deeply while looking at the map; then, he placed the warp gate on a vast plateau. This would allow the allied forces to use this gate to clear the nearby dungeons in the future…the warp gate could recognize the owner, so it was possible to completely make it hidden. However, it couldn’t stay hidden during its activation, so the users had to be cautious when to use it.
“But I have alchemy with me.”
“You shouldn’t use alchemy as if it’s your trump card.”
“With the help of the tools made by the dwarves…”
“That goes the same with the dwarves, Master.”
Evan hummed as he installed the anticrime device around the warp gate. With these, the gate’s situation would be briefed to Evan, regardless of his distance from the gate. It even could shoot down uninvited guests.
“Good, and the remaining one…I’ll be back.”
Then Evan held the remaining rocks and moved his feet. He was right in front of the World Tree.
“Our King!?”
“Ah, I’m here to install the gate. This would do, wouldn’t it?”
“Gate…!”
“Your Majesty, have some Elven tea.”
“I’m fine; it’ll be soon over.”
Evan quickly installed the gate like a technician installing an air conditioner in an apartment, then after briefly explaining the gate to the people of the Forest—he silenced the elf that stubbornly tried to offer him Elven tea—he went through the gate.
“It’s working normally.”
“Great, amazing…”
“Connecting two places isn’t something to be amused by.”
Mirole would have taken his words as humility, but Maybell was different.
“Is there something more?”
“You two seemed to have fought severely. There are two more left.”
Once again, the background of Yo-Ma Great War Zero was vast! Because it was mainly about fighting against demons, dragons, and other creatures in the world where there were no distinctions at all, such as borders or countries!
“But they can’t be done as of the moment, so this will suffice. Now, let’s clear one more dungeon.”
“Is it another artifact?”
“Not sure.”
Evan pretended not to know. They had only cleared two dungeons out of the many, and they found the warp gates in both of them, so neither Maybell nor Mirole could ask a question to him, although they were still in disbelief.
“Zero could be searching for the atmosphere inside the dungeon.”
“Oh my, such a good excuse existed.”
“…Maybell?”
“I think you are right! Master’s abilities are beyond expectations!”
However, what they found in the last dungeon wasn’t an artifact, sadly. It was humans who were barely surviving.
“You…ah, are you humans?”
After Evan crushed the dungeon boss, Cursed Cyclops, with just one swoop, they revealed themselves from the secret area hidden within the dungeon.
“Oh, hello.”
“George, it’s dangerous. Watch out.”
“Everyone…stay back. I’ll, I’ll handle it. You, I’m asking if you are human!”
“Whoa.”
Unlike those that didn’t have any sense of organization whom he had encountered so far, this group had an individual who was leading them. He was a young man with dark-grey hair and shining purple eyes. That man was staring at Evan, although he was shivering while clenching his teeth. In his hand was an iron sword that seemed to have been made in a primitive way.
“He is a human. Looking at your appearance, it doesn’t seem to matter to you whether I’m a human or not.”
“It does.”
The man’s shining eyes glowed as he shouted at Evan.
“If you’re human, follow me!”
“Nope.”
“Grgh!?”
The man received a huge shock and took a step back as he faltered. The humans that followed him looked at Evan in surprise.
“He ignored George.”
“It isn’t a human, after all! Look, he even has an elf!”
“There’s a woman with strange wings. It’s not a human!”
“Run, we need to protect George.”
They were clearly weaker than the man they called George, but they were willing to protect him. It meant that George was enforcing his absolute domination over them. It wasn’t because of his popularity, contract, or compassion, but just a simple ability.
‘It’s an ability that becomes extremely effective towards the same race….’
God’s Era was the time where amateur abilities wouldn’t help in survival. How did weak humans stand their ground and not become extinct? It was because of the appearances of the mutated ones, like this George. He had the innate ability to make his fellow humans follow him. George utilized his skill to form a group and desperately extended his force in this harsh world.
Of course, he couldn’t manage to survive with just that ability. And that was when he met with the Great Ancient Mage. If George didn’t meet with the Great Ancient Mage, he would die within the gate. The entire group would be massacred by the monsters as they lost their foundation…the country of the Silk Line would cease to exist as it lost its founder, George L. Silk Line.
‘Top priority to rescue…’
Even the Sherden Household had a bit of the Silk Line royal family blood, so if he died here, everything ended for real.
‘Yo-Ma Great War Zero got a lot of blame because of this person…’
In fact, half of the curses Yo-Ma Great Zero received from its players were due to its difficulty, and the rest were because of him. Weak. Too weak. Too weak in the end. Despite being weak, he had the tendency to rescue and bring people to his side, so without proper restraint, he even jumped into hell as long as there were people in it. His thought of founding a kingdom of humans was surely an excellent idea. He deserved to be called the representative of all humans.
But that wouldn’t justify his ignorant acts.
‘I’d love to tie him up and put him in a safe place in the middle of the Ancient Forest…’
And doing so would make the country’s Silk Line perish before it even could be founded. George L. Silk Line was able to found a country because he was a reasonable man.
“What, what are you planning to do to us?”
George’s body shook as he felt Evan looking at him. Evan responded indifferently.
“Weren’t you the one who tried to do something funny to me? Activating your strange mana to make me follow you, right?”
“Argh, It’s because…I will establish a kingdom for all humans!”
“So?”
“So…I need help from people of talents like you! In order to establish the country for humans, who are above all races!”
Surprisingly, he was trying to persuade Evan even in that desperate state where his ability wasn’t working. In the game, a path existed where the player chose to become a follower of George but doing so would lead to a bad ending. The Great Ancient Mage stood strong as an individual, and he would lose his power once he became a pawn for the army. He may be a commander but never a pawn. That was the characteristic of the Great Ancient Mage.
“This world is wrong; don’t you think so? Only pain and death are waiting for us from the moment we were born! I will tear such an unfair system and establish a country for humans where they can live peacefully…”
“Ah, putting that aside.”
George’s view of a nation, which went on for 10 minutes in the game, was shortened to just 10 seconds by Evan.
“You, be my follower.”
“…Huh?”
“Or else, you’ll die.”
Evan lifted one of his hands. A rock nearby the corpse of the cyclops was crushed and turned into a pile of sand due to his swift action.
“Will you die or be my follower?”
“…Your, your follower.”
To George and his men, they had no other choice when they encountered Evan. Evan felt his long-awaited problem of Yo-Ma Great Zero being solved, and he smiled brightly.