Clearing the Game at the End of the World - Chapter 75

Chapter 75 – In the Name of Honor (9)

Notum looked at the humans surrounded by the ‘bad guys’ and wondered for a moment whether or not they were sent to give her the horses.

‘Not metal human. Not big small human. So those horses, not mine.’

Notum was a good troll, so based on the experience in the forest where she was given horses for not hurting humans, she had a vague idea of what a deal was.

‘Save the humans → get the horses. Clean the forest path → get more horses. So if I save thin humans, those horses are mine.’

Notum was incredibly hungry, and not only did the bad guys she ate on the way taste terrible, but they stung her tongue so badly that she had no choice but to spit them out. And if she ate humans, she would no longer be able to receive good horses, so trading with those thin and wealthy humans was the best way for her to fill her stomach.

‘Grawr. Notum is smart.’

After organizing her thoughts, Notum jumped in front of the humans, who were trying their best to protect the carriage and separate the mutes from the people.

Thump!

“Grwur.”

“I–it’s a troll! Knight sir! A troll is blocking our way!”

“Damn it! Just when we’re escorting the miss too! Villak! Darren! You two go back and pull the carriage! Everyone else, block the mutes! I’ll deal with that guy and open up the road!”

Woosh!

The man who made the orders quickly took off his leather armor, which was stained with blood, and then pointed his sword toward Notum.

‘A metal human becomes a normal human when they take off their shell.’

Notum nodded as she looked at the shells of the metal human scattered on the ground. It looked like humans didn’t like being touched by the bad guy’s blood.

‘When I first came out of the forest… and the human told me they are not my enemy… They did this?’

The humans reacted sensitively to Notum, but she let it go. Small lifeforms are usually loud when they’re about to die. So she decided to calm them down by copying what the human she met in the woods did.

Thump.

“W–what even is…”

The knight couldn’t believe his two eyes. He had no armor and was already tired out from the multiple battles. He needed to put his life on the line to fight in a state like this. So he stood there, prepared to fight until his last breath, but the troll that was blocking their way kneeled down and put their hands up in the air. It looked like it was surrendering.

“Naked human. I will help. But give Notum the horses.”

“Y–you can talk?”

“Yes. So give me horses.”

The knight was so shocked that he could not think for a moment. So, a troll just appeared out of the woods, surrendered, and promised to protect us? In return for the dead horses?

“Graghh!”

“No, Nex!”

The situation was hard to understand, but there was no more time to think. To them, they needed to accept any help they could get.

“…Fine! If you help us, we will give you what you wish for!”

To the knight’s promise, Notum stood up with a satisfied expression. Notum could easily kill those weak, bad guys as long as they didn’t surround her.

Notum positioned herself in front of the carriage, pulled out a tree, and let out a massive roar.

“Groooahhhhhgh!!!”

The knights and soldiers standing behind her were watching in awe, and the girl shaking inside the carriage was now watching, her eyes sparkling.

At some point, the mages sat down around Notum and reacted to Notum’s story.

“Those were probably knights, not normal humans! They took off their armor to avoid getting infected by the mute’s blood!”

“S—so. Did you save them?”

To the question of the mages that at some point came to listen to Notum’s story, she nodded.

“I saved them. I got all four horses tied to the wooden box in return. They were tasty.”

“Four horses tied to a wooden box… Oh my! It was a four-in-hand!”

“You saved a noble! To think a talking troll saved a noble lady, it’s just like a novel!”

Professor, who had also been listening to the story next to them, nodded in agreement.

‘Yeah. That’s a hell of a story, alright. It’s just like a fairytale.’

Looking at the mages who were talking among themselves to figure out who the noble lady was, he calmly thought to himself.

It was really like a fairytale. A troll from the woods popped out before a knight and noble lady in danger and saved their lives. A story just like a scene from a heroic poem sung by the bards in taverns.

– Soygaybar : Soldiers, what is the analysis of the current situation?

– Speedwagon : Don’t add unnecessary commentary. I’m recording the entire stream right now.

– Mukaba : If only he wasn’t tied to the church, it would have been interesting just to follow around Notum too.

– takealook : nah, Notum is tied to the church now too. it’s better for them to follow prof in here like this

– Jokass : Exactly, this looks like their own storyline anyway.

Hero Units. Hero. As the name suggests, they are a war hero. A hero is not made by oneself but by the promotion of others. All Hero Unites have a storyline they went through to become a hero. The countless Hero Units within GG are not just companions of the player but characters that develop through their own experiences and histories.

So Notum’s current story looked like it was part of her unique storyline.

‘This guy has something. And something very important at that.’

His Wasteland survivor senses were tingling. This is important. And if I lose it again this time, then I’ll regret it for sure!

– professor : Mister Speedwagon? How many Hero Units are there in World 3 with all of their storylines revealed?

– Speedwagon : Depends on which seed you started with. Professor, did you start with the official? The World 2 Clear Seed from Rabbit Princess?

– professor : Mhm. I bought the official clear seed back when I had my warrior character. I still had some money left over back then. This one’s also started with the official Rabbit Princess World 2 Clear Seed.

– Speedwagon : Then it’s 34. Since the only World 1 Clear Seed used is from that rabbit girl, it’s all included in World 2. Then Nolec Lataya, Pam Lataya, and Gundar Lataya are base, and there are about 15 from the inheritance family, the Princess Family. And the Roman Gachia Manson guy can make his own history wherever you put him, so you can count him in. There’s Charlotte. And Castleknight is still going sturdy… There are about 34, just from what I know. Now it’s 35, including Notum.

– professor : Just 35? Weren’t there over 170 in World 2? Why’s there so little in World 3?

– Noru_is_Druig : And Emperor Qianliu didn’t need any of that to clear it~

– Jokass : It’s because that guy ignored all of the Hero Units he could save and cleared the world that World 4 is a f***ing dystopia. The base is all wrong. It’s because he didn’t do any farming that World 4 became that state. You’re doing great, prof. Just keep going like this.

– Soygaybar : There’s a lot of talk between the rankers these days about how they should start World 3 over again since the future for the current World 4 is darker than our future. I heard there are a lot of rankers that watch your stream. Many casual watchers left because you suffer too much, but you’re the pathfinder right now for people who are earnestly trying to clear World 3 with achievements.

The chatroom was full of compliments. Looking at the bright chatroom environment, Professor’s expression only hardened.

‘That’s very nice and all, but I need more in-game information right now. Isn’t this basically telling me that there’s no information I can get because I’m the first one doing everything in World 3?’

It’s nice to get more viewers. And even better if those viewers are rich rankers. But I have a pretty good amount of cash now. The guy I’m living with has a security key worth 10 million Shillings. I don’t need money anymore. All I want to do is to clear this game and go to the Gedroit’s Company so I can get this ticking time bomb called Hyde out of my head.

[Do you really have to finish the game to go there? Isn’t there another way?]

‘I do have a couple of ideas, but they’re all impossible to execute at the moment.’

I’m weak right now, which is why I’m with these weaker guys, but GG is a fantasy genre game, so there are all sorts of mythical beings, like gods and dragons.

First of all, dragons. These guys have overpowered magic called ‘Dragon’s Tongue’, which can make any wish come true. The concept itself is actually very simple, but in this world, the will of the individuals need to gather to regulate the laws of the world. The NPCs are the GMs themselves. But looking at the titles that the dragons usually had, it’s usually something like ‘One that Represents the Will of the World’ or the ‘Carrier of the World’s Weight’. They have a completely different scale of resources. Even if a million humans come together, they still can’t affect the world as much as a dragon’s will.

The Dragon’s Tongue was basically the action of a dragon, who is a Game Master, putting their will into words.

Here’s an example:

There is a person called ‘Finn’. Even if everyone that Finn knows, including his family, friends, and people he sees at work, believes that [Finn is well and alive], the moment a dragon believes that [Finn is dead], the GG world interprets that ‘there is a bigger belief that Finn is dead’ and Finn actually dies. This is how the dragon’s most representative command, the Power Word of Kill, works.

If you want to face one of them, you at least need to be a hero that every single person in the kingdom knows of or become an important noble or king that’s connected with everyone politically and socially that the moment they die, it will affect the entire world. That level of influence is needed to have a similar influence to a dragon. There’s no reason for a dragon to listen to a dead man’s wish.

‘They probably also can separate Hyde and me. They’re technically like the system control panel in the game.’

But in order to ask such a favor to those greedy and lazy dragons, he needed to prepare to pay the corresponding price. In his current situation where he needs to follow the church’s order to ‘Go die if you don’t want to die!’, there was no chance that was happening anytime soon.

[A dragon, you say… sounds fun. You said idea ‘s’, right? What other ideas do you have?]

‘The other ones are similar too. Asking the god of a large church like the Light’s Order. The pope should be able to arrange a meeting like that. Dragons represent the world’s will with their individual selves, but gods’ powers are based on their number of believers. Just comparing the influences, Ro Haram probably has a little bit more than a dragon. And another one is going to the elf village directly west from here at the edge of the Blue Line Mountains. The elves can guide us to the elves’ holy land, and then I can make a wish there.’

The ultimate spell from the spirit magic type spells, ‘Wish Upon a Star’, also known as the wish spell. No one has used the spell before, and it’s just a spell left in the ancient elven history records. They say that the caster’s will is engraved into the foundations of the world using the power of the World Tree, but no one has used it before, so who knows if it is true or just the elves exaggerating the truth.

He still kept it as an option, but it was right to consider it close to impossible.

Anyway, whether it was a dragon, god, or World Tree, they’re all end-game content, so he didn’t even need to think about it at the moment. Since they were also all not guaranteed methods, the most straightforward method, [All Clear —> go to GC and make them help me], was his priority goal.

‘And to reach that All Clear, as the people in the chatroom said, I need to consider multiple parts of World 3 and increase my power in this world.’

And to do that, he needed to obtain as many Hero Units, like Notum right here, as possible. Even if they didn’t become his ally, they would still do something as long as they were alive.

“…..Grawrr. And that’s how Notum got here.”

“Wow…”

“Oh my…”

Darn it. Notum finished her story while I spaced out.

– professor : Now then, friends? Can anyone who was listening give me a TLDR?

– Speedwagon :

Got recommended by the nobles she saved and joined the western defense lines in Kingsland. The daily wage is two horse corpses.

Lived close to a month as a pretty famous soldier but found a noble beating up a young hybrid. Eats them.

But it turns out that he was the second son of a famous marquis family. Just before she got executed, the family of the noble lady she saved + Light’s Order defended her and decided to forgive her if she worked with the church and finish the ‘holy mission’.

– professor : tyty

He knew it. He knew it for sure now that he had heard the story. Notum isn’t just any other Hero Unit. My character has a decent storyline, but it’s only about ‘My family had fallen. I will rebuild it!’ Look at Notum. The depth of the story is on an entirely different level.

Looking at the summary of Notum’s story that Speedwagon wrote, Professor guessed what type of Hero Unit Notum was.

‘An individual still closer to the wild who had just stepped foot into civilization. Kind, but not naive, and she even has a clear sense of good and evil.’

“Notum. Why did you kill that noble?”

“Grawr? That’s not even a question. A weak and useless adult male attacked a furry human child. Humans like that should not live. So I ate them before they hurt more children. The leather was soft, but they were bony and tasted weird. But just throwing away corpses of humans like that will make the soil bad. So I ate them.”

‘Just like when she first met me, she has a strong urge to protect weak and young beings. And she treated hybrids just like humans. She’ll have a lot of conflicts if she continues to live in Rodrick since there’s a lot of discrimination between hybrids here. You can just walk to the alleyways of Tobrune to see orc slaves everywhere. And that last sentence… That’s a troll tribe tradition. Was Notum in a tribe before? But there aren’t any troll tribes near Rodrick.’

What’s with this never-ending sausage link of events? If the story’s getting this long, there’s no use making all these predictions. An assumption without any key information only complicates things.

‘But one this is certain. Notum needs to be taken out of Rodrick.’

He doesn’t know who it was, but the reward for saving a noble lady was the permission to go out into battle. And the mission to get forgiven was basically a suicide mission. No matter how much she tried, Notum would not be accepted here.

Things got out of hand the more he tried to organize his thoughts.

‘Hm. I can think of this after the death squad mission is over. Let’s just keep it in mind for now and put it away. The death squad is what’s important right now. Five Reedflow Academy mages and an armed troll. So far, it’s… eh. The balance isn’t right.’

Notum can definitely become a useful ally. She has high value because she’s a Hero Unit, and as a sturdy close-range warrior, she can be used as an all-rounder. But the mages… can have a lot of flaws. They are strong, but their use in an infiltration mission like this is questionable.

‘It should be fine if the others could support them…’

Next would be the bald monk and the hybrid man that were roaming near Notum with a very curious expression after listening to Notum’s story…

Professor stared at the man with a muscular body and dark blue beastly fur with an expectant look. A hybrid. There’s one thing to get from a hybrid like him.

“Oy, what’s the name of our furry friend over here? What spirit do you follow?”

Professor carefully chose his words and kept a decent distance in his tone as he called to him.

You need to choose your words carefully when talking with a hybrid. The Light’s Order always talked about shining light equally upon all or something but had a s***ty doctrine about how every race except the humans should be treated like beasts. As the church’s influence spread, race discrimination worsened, so sub-species like hybrids didn’t really like humans like me. The humans insult the hybrids, saying that a beast like them shouldn’t be using human language or that they are dirty and stink. Even I would have hated them if that was the case.

Asking what spirit they followed was asking about what form of animal they changed into. If I just asked them, ‘What do you change into?’ they would have gone berserk, saying, ‘You think that I’m just a beast too, don’t you?!’ and completely close up. And the bright future of a peaceful death squad life would have also gone down the drain.

My efforts must have worked a little because the man that had been turning away from me with his arms crossed quietly answered my question.

“…I follow the spirit of the wolf.”

‘Oh! A wolf, Lycanthrope! Don’t tell me!’

Hybrid. Werewolf. If he just got one more right number, it was a winning lottery ticket. Please, please!

“A—and your name?”

“…Borka. Borka Dalrune.”

‘Aghhh—so close!’

– Speedwagon : It’s a dud.

– Jokass : A Lycanthrope with a wolf form seriously looked like it would be a Lataya.

That was also what I wanted. A lineage of hybrid heroes with a long history starting from World 1. The wolf hybrid, Lataya clan. They were guaranteed to be a Hero Unit once they were revealed into the world. He had hope because there was Notum and all, but sadly they were just a normal hybrid man. I didn’t even need to ask why he came to this place. There were countless reasons why a hybrid would get captured in Rodrick, the holy land of discrimination.

Since they’ll have a lot of time going north anyway, he could ask the questions later. If he’s a hybrid, and a wolf form at that, then he’s also a frontline…

‘Three melees, five mages. That’s a s***ty balance.’

And the last man was undoubtedly a priest, so they had six rear troops.

‘No, wait. He had a robe with a bald head; is he a monk?’

Monks were combat priests that appeared once in a blue moon. They were a bit different from paladins since they first started as priests and worked diligently in the priesthood, but at some point believed that just sitting around wasn’t enough. Hence, they begin to pray during the day and polish their martial arts during the night, thus becoming monks. It wasn’t hard for a Player to develop an NPC as one, but it was extremely rare for one to develop naturally. A monk was an all-rounder that could heal and fight.

“Uh…. Excuse me, mister priest, sir?”

“…”

No answer. He’s a cranky one. Monks are a sort of mutation from priests, so that’s understandable.

“Mister priest? You might have heard from the church, but I’m Warrior Professor. I’ll be the one leading this mission. I have no relation with any heretics, so please let go of your concerns and…”

Snap!

“How dare you!”

Professor attempted to approach him gently, but the monk glared at him and then started yelling as he took off the white robe he was wearing.

“Who are you calling a priest?! How dare you call a man that delves in the taste of dark mana with the name of those little moths!”

Huh? Wait. Is he not a priest?

“D—dark mana? Then, a dark mage?”

The water mages must have also realized this, as they all looked shocked by his sudden announcement.

“Then why are you wearing that robe? And that hair, that hairstyle with just the middle shaved out, looks like the hair the priests in the—”

“Those damned moths stole my staff! And burned my robe, then went on about some nonsense about cleansing me, then put this robe on me and shaved my head!!!”

As if proving the old man’s claims, there was blackish mana emitting from his body. So he really must be a dark mage.

‘Then… six mages and three fighters? We need these nine to pass through three captured cities, get past the countless mutes in the queen’s nest, and kill the Queen without a single healer?’

We’re screwed. No way this will work. Going to the mute’s base guarantees a melee battle, and if that happens, occupations like mages become complete deadweight after the first big hit. In the first place, mages are used in a stable rear base where they build up large hits and alter the battlefield to their advantage. They don’t fit at all with a small elite infiltration group mission.

‘How am I supposed to get through this?’

“Arghhh, these clothes, this building! It’s too bright. I—I can’t take it!”

Looking at the old dark mage taking off even his underwear and crawling under the table to find shade, Professor ultimately gave up.

“Log out.”

Ding-!

Once Professor nodded his head, his surroundings started to darken.

‘I don’t care anymore—stupid game. I’ll come back after drinking out of my mind. There’s definitely some booze in Ian’s stuff.’

The despairing Gyosu decided to come back and think after a good night’s sleep.