Chapter 159: Alliance of Evil
“Is he being dumb or clever?” muttered Cainz.
He was talking about Crockta at the moment.
“He’s not dumb, but he commits foolish acts.”
“I think...”
“I wasn’t asking you.”
Cainz glared at Luin. Luin shut his mouth. It was rare for Cainz to get angry.
Rommel, who had been silent this whole time, spoke up.
“He’s an animal.”
Cainz nodded. “An animal, a fitting yet strange analogy.”
“He’s clever, but instead of following his clever mind, he acts according to his dumb instincts. So, he’s just an animal.”
“Don’t people say that’s what makes someone human?” replied Cainz with a chuckle.
Cainz held Rommel in high regard because there was a part of him that he couldn’t control. Because Rommel was so capable, even the part of him he couldn’t control was worthy of respect.
“I disagree. Are you familiar with the theory that humans sacrificing for others was an instinct born from a need to propagate genes and to survive?”
“I think I read it in a book somewhere.”
“Sacrificial spirit is emotion. Following reason rather than emotion, that’s what makes us humans. Following emotions is what monkeys do. Of course, it’s amusing to say all this about an NPC that’s just artificial intelligence.”
“Interesting.”
Cainz nodded. His response was intriguing. He felt as if he got to know Rommel better.
Cainz liked to manipulate other people. But sometimes he needed people like Rommel, a partner who could think and converse with him on equal footing.
“Luin.”
“Yes, hyung-nim.”
“Will the clan members be arriving shortly?”
“Huh? Yes.”
“The ones we put to sleep...” Cainz stroked his chin. “...tell them we will put them to sleep forever if they get sidetracked. They’d better give it their all. We put one to sleep forever to set an example, so if they don’t want to end up like him, they should do as we tell them.”
“Huh?”
“Did you not understand what I just said?”
“You sent one...to sleep forever?”
Cainz smirked. “Dude, I was just joking. I meant to threaten them. You are good at that. Act like a bad guy and manage them properly.”
“Ahh...” Luin nodded. “Yes, that’s my specialty. Managing them.”
Luin grinned widely and left the room. He left the room in such a hurry he didn’t even fully shut the door.
Cainz clicked his tongue. “Tsk, tsk...”
Suddenly, Rommel asked, “What game is Luin playing?”
“Game?”
“You often compare the people you manipulate to games. You said Akantore is playing the part of an emperor, and Duke Christian is playing the villain game.”
Cainz laughed.
Yes, it was true. He liked to manipulate people, and it was all possible because he gave them what they wanted. To be precise, he made them believe they were becoming who they truly wanted to be.
People performed the roles they desired for themselves and fell for his sweet words.
“He’s playing the part of being a bad guy.”
“Bad guy...”
“That dude probably grew up being looked down on by other people but couldn’t do anything about it because he was weak. So he ended up just pretending to be nice his whole life. Then, when I gave him money and a nice car, I bought him nice things and encouraged him to be bad, he got all excited. Now, he goes around spitting on the ground and pretending to be bad.”
“You seemed to care a lot about him, like a younger brother.”
“I do, but that’s that, and this is something else. I like him. He’s so transparent.”
Cainz chucked. Rommel laughed along and scanned the map of the southern part of the continent on the wall. He didn’t make a name for himself as a War Maestro class by pure luck. He always put in effort.
“What about me?”
“You?”
“What kind of game do you think I’m playing?” asked Rommel as he looked Cainz straight in the eye.
Cainz laughed and opened a bottle of liquor on the table. “You are just having a good time with me. I’m fun to be around.”
In his own way, Cainz was acknowledging Rommel as an equal. He handed Rommel a glass of liquor.
“What about you?” he asked.
“Me? I...”
Cainz raised his glass to Rommel. They would soon lead the emperor’s army to war.
It was the greatest achievement a player could indulge in. Countless messages congratulating their achievement popped up in their feed.
“I don’t play games. This is just me.”
Cainz took a sip of the liquor and smirked.
***
Crockta was writing something.
The world of Elder Lord was truly astounding.
He was writing a pamphlet while thinking in Korean, and yet, his hands produced the strangely shaped letters of the universal language of the continent. And, he could still understand their meaning.
“W-we are doing the right thing, right?”
One of the Praise the Orc members was making a drawing with an uneasy expression. However, contrary to the look on her face, she was expertly maneuvering her pen to form elaborate shapes and lines.
“I have no idea...”
Gilgamesh, who had been listening, shouted, “Is that fear...? Haha, I’m envious...I lost that emotion a long time ago...hahaha...!”
“...”
“Shark should be here...”
Shark, who used to put Gilgamesh in his place whenever he said things like that, was absent. Now there was no one to stop him. They sighed.
“What happened to Shark?”
“He posted in the community forum that something came up.”
Shark wrote on the forum that he wouldn’t be able to log onto Elder Lord for a while. They didn’t think much of it because everyone had their own lives apart from the game.
But because of his post, people found out there were five Praise the Orc members with Crockta right now.
Even though with Shark’s absence there were only four members left, the Praise the Orc community began to refer to them as Crockta’s Five Disciples. The community looked up to them.
“Are there any other people joining us?”
“They said they were planning to. But when I told them we were in the South, everyone changed their mind.”
Some fans had wanted to join them, but when they were informed that the party was currently engaged in a war with the empire, they decided against it.
There weren’t many players who could fight on par with the southern knights.
“I think we will die at this rate...”
One of Crockta’s Five Disciples made a tearful face.
Right now, they were creating a letter together. To be more accurate, rather than a letter, it was a propaganda leaflet intended to provoke the emperor.
They were putting their talents on full display drawing comics and pictures mocking the emperor. The propaganda will then be sent out to nobles, commoners, scholars, magicians, and even to the palace.
The members skilled in disguise and stealth infiltrated the empire and dispersed these letters all over the empire through its postal services.
“We will just send out this batch and then stop. They will try to track us down soon,” advised Crockta.
“Yes.”
Despite her tearful face earlier, she began to flaunt her artistic talents at the mention of it being the last one.
Everyone did their best.
Gilgamesh was also talented in drawing and drew a picture of the emperor being stripped naked and then whipped.
Crockta scratched his head. “This is a bit...”
“Hehe...Crockta-nim, are you...” Gilgamesh lowered his voice. “...afraid of the emperor...?”
“What are you talking about?!”
“Then, it doesn’t matter how far we go.”
“That’s true.”
“So Crockta-nim, add to this drawing and make it more provocative! Until the emperor is furious from head to toe!”
Crockta picked up his pen and began adding his artistic flair to Gilgamesh’s work. He drew an arrow above the emperor who was being whipped naked and wrote: It’s a wig. The emperor is bald.
He was spreading propaganda that the emperor was bald.
“Ahh...!”
Gilgamesh covered his mouth in shock as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Such blood-curdling slander...! This would truly infuriate anyone, not just the emperor...! Hehe...!”
“Get on my level,” replied Crockta.
“As expected...since you have reached the height of justice, you are also capable of reaching the height of injustice...hehehe...!”
Soon, everyone finished up their work.
The bandit class member took the bundle of leaflets and left. He would infiltrate the empire and spread out the propaganda leaflets with the hope that one of them would reach the emperor himself.
“Would the emperor do as we anticipate?”
“Those in positions of power are surprisingly simple.”
Crockta was going out of his way to draw all of the attention onto him to make the enemy focus their attacks on him.
The empire’s military forces were spread out, tormenting the entire southern region. Many villages had already succumbed to their raids and became a part of the empire’s labor force.
If this continued, it would be difficult to win or simply fight against them. It was better for the emperor to gather his forces in a rage.
But others were worried.
“But after the emperor gathers his forces...how do you plan on fighting them?”
Crockta’s plan made sense, but for his strategy to succeed, they had to be able to fight against the amassed army. Without a proper counter-plan, they would be ruthlessly slaughtered.
They trusted that Crockta had a plan for dealing with the imperial army. Perhaps an army of orcs would appear, or the cities that had received help from him would send their forces...but Crockta just shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
“Huh?”
“I haven’t really thought about it. Let’s think about it when the enemies gather their forces.”
“...!”
It was a shocking answer. He didn’t have a plan.
But for some strange reason, they weren’t worried. They felt as if they could succeed in anything with Crockta by their side.
“Let’s think about it later. Hahaha, bul’tar!”
“Hehe.”
“Hahaha!”
They shook their heads.
Indeed, if he was someone who worried about the future, then he wouldn’t have entered all of those battles by himself.
In the video of his fight in Chesswood, Crockta said, “That’s how you humans measure things.”
He had a different way of measuring and assessing things, and in his calculation, the size and strength of the enemy were not concerning variables.
Even as his adversary evolved from a trio to a formidable clan attacking a village, to an entire empire that shook the whole continent, his method of calculation remained unchanged.
How far can this man go?
The players exchanged looks.
“We are all going to stay till the end, right?”
“Of course.”
“Hehe...”
They would die.
From a player’s stance, they were carrying out a foolish quest. It was an impossible mission, an inevitable failure of the highest difficulty, a gamble with a near-zero percent success rate.
But it didn’t matter.
Because with Crockta, Elder Lord was more fun than ever.
“If the emperor ignores all of the villages and comes after us, that’s enough,” said Crockta.
The Praise the Orc members decided to just watch what would happen to Crockta and follow him.
After all, he was a man who did not measure things the way they did.
Before long, they learned the plan was a success. News reached them that the imperial forces of the empire had gathered.
***
“Everyone, listen closely.”
Cainz had summoned the special forces of the Heaven and Earth Clan.
“If things go well with this, Rommel and I will become nobles.”
The members of the Heaven and Earth Clan applauded.
A player becoming a noble was an achievement unprecedented in Elder Lord’s history, it was something hard to imagine ever happening.
“Guys, Elder Lord is fun, isn’t it?” smirked Cainz. “Where else would we steal, kill people, and drag them like animals? That’s why Elder Lord is fun. You can do all the things you’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t.”
The Heaven and Earth Clan members chuckled.
Under the command of the emperor, they crushed those who resisted and looted them.
They carried out questionable acts without hesitation under the pretext of a game.
They could understand why wars never ceased in the history of mankind.
Those drunk on the power awarded to winners began to crave it like a drug.
“Dialph, no, Park Kwang-Chul.”
He called out a clan member. Everyone’s attention was drawn toward him.
Whenever Cainz referred to them by their real names, something important was up.
“Remember I complimented you last time for doing a good job?”
“Yes, sir!”
“I put money in your bank account.”
“Huh?”
“I will kill you if you spend it on something else.”
Cainz approached him and put his arm around him.
“Buy a car. A foreign one. Understood?”
“...!”
All of the clan members understood his intention. He was trying to raise morale before an important event by issuing a reward. He was sending out the message that they could receive a reward like Dialph, and an enormous one at that.
“You better post a pic of your new car online, or else...”
Dialph bowed, looking visibly touched.
“Thank you, sir!”
“Don’t thank me. Thank your parents for giving birth to such an impressive son. I didn’t do anything to deserve thanks.”
“Thank you, sir!”
“Well, everyone, let’s do our best. I’m not stingy on those who do a good job,” said Cainz as he tapped on Luin, who was standing by his side.
Luin puffed his chest and grinned.
“When the war starts, just listen to Rommel. He’s the best.”
Of course, there was no need for him to make a point of this. Rommel’s War Maestro class made it impossible for soldiers on the battlefield to resist his commands.
“Let’s have fun in the game today, guys! For Heaven and Earth!”
“For Heaven and Earth!”
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