"So you finally woke up, sleeping beauty," Hayden muttered as Zack's eyes slowly fluttered open.
He say up straight on the couch while looking around with a disgruntled expression.
"So, what happened? Did you manage to defeat all of them?"
"Well, you are still alive and not tied so yeah," Hayden replied before stretching his body and glancing at Snowie.
The dragon girl was calmly sipping coffee without paying any attention to the two males.
"Well, we managed to interrogate quite a few of them when you were out. All of them were, well... sent by a god so that's the business god's alternative.
Furthermore, I have managed to secure the position of the ruler of the center as well and managed to obtain news about the entire kingdom."
At the moment of truth, Hayden fell silent as he wondered how to break the news to Zack.
The black-haired boy calmly waited for the news to be told while examining his nails.
"The quest about the king of the kingdom being replaced was launched at the same time in every kingdom, named differently based on the royal families. Except for Eizenburgh kingdom, all the others have long since been captured..."
"So that's why no one was replying." Zack suddenly stood up as he glanced around at Snowie.
The dragon girl finished her drink and stood up with a nod.
"We have to tell Jonathan about that right now."
***
Back at the Eizenburgh kingdom, Jonathan stood on the balcony of his room as he looked at the setting sun.
A white light flashed behind him once as a sigh escaped his lips.
"So war is inevitable huh. Even he lost the connection with the other Guardian beasts of the four kingdoms."
Jonathan had just finished talking with the ruler of Arnia and had to find out that the king could no longer communicate with the other beasts protecting the royal families of the other three kingdoms.
This could only mean that they had fallen and could no longer do anything.
Jonathan knew that he was the only person in the eastern continent who still had his kingdom under his rule.
He was starting to wonder how long that will remain.
After all, the one conquering the other lands had designed the quest for a specific reason.
Before he could dive even deeper into the thought, a knock was heard from the door of his room.
Jonathan sighed once again as he turned his back to the setting sun.
Darkness was about to come soon enough.
***
"Then that confirms that both of us are correct," Zack said while resting on a chair.
Both he and Jonathan had shared all the information they had while Hayden managed to affairs of his new empire.
"It's quite unfortunate that the current population of the underworld barely reaches five hundred thousand," Jonathan said while clicking his tongue.
Hayden had told Zack that the underworld's current population had been decreased by many folds.
The people there had already been brought to their kingdoms and were never heard from again.
Only a few were struggling to hide or they too would be taken to the unknown.
Even if Hayden could unite them all, many of them were hardly trained to fight making them useless meat shields.
"Zack, A war is coming and we are not prepared for it," Jonathan said while looking into Zack's eyes. "Do you think we will survive?"
"Survive, what's that? Can I eat it?" Zack replied with a smile. "We won't just survive but win it if a war comes."
After saying that, he stood up and left Jonathan alone.
The king of the kingdom could only sigh as he wondered what would come next.
He had already evacuated every single citizen and had them safe and sound in a place with food for the next two years.
Jonathan had prepared for such things in advance and now the only thing that remained was the battling.
***
"I wonder if I will be able to say that calmly in the future." Zack thought with a sigh as he went out of the castle and started moving towards his guild.
He had fought in many wars before or at least had the feeling that he had done it before.
However, he wasn't that confident that he would be able to do it knowing that things had changed too much.
"I just need a few more memories and I would be set," Zack muttered while entering the white room of the guild.
He then sent a message to Hayden, Lisa, Emma, and Ken, asking them to join him in the room.
Zack was about to summon Marcus and Jack as well but instead decided to let them keep experimenting.
After a while, all of them were gathered together in the guild room as Zack told them everything he knew.
Once he was done, the entire place plunged into silence.
Zack and Hayden on the other hand started discussing what they would do with the remaining position of the underworld and how to involve Ken in it.
Zack already trusted Ken since he was bound by an oath of existence and could never do anything against him.
"So, we are basically about to be stuck in a life or death situation and we can actually die considering how many have started dying in the real world due to Hikari?" Lisa asked in a sincere tone.
There had indeed been many instances where humans have died due to dying multiple times inside the game.
This was instilling fear inside people but without leveling inside the game, no one could advance in the real world too.
"Yes, we can die but that's not what we should be worried about. If the kingdoms are overtaken, we can basically be taken as slaves which will restrict us from playing Hikari or we might just die."
After explaining a few things, Zack managed to convince them to fight in the war as though their lives depended on it and they actually did.
"Now, let's talk about that in real life."
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