Chapter 49: Fallen God
Gordon got off his wagon. Something strange was going on. The Chesswood he knew had consisted of beautiful villages.
“What is this...?” muttered Gordon.
The family he had brought to Chesswood also looked around at their surroundings for a while. This was not the Chesswood they had decided to come to. Everything had been burned down to the ground, and there were corpses sprawled everywhere. The father covered the children’s eyes and sent them back to the wagon with his wife.
“My god... What happened here...?” exclaimed the father.
“Not sure...” Gordon replied.
“I’m sorry... but do you mind driving us farther?” asked the father nervously.
He adopted a cautious attitude toward Gordon after having witnessed how Gordon had handled the looters.
The family had prepared a house for themselves at Dandelion Village through a relative dwelling in one of the Chesswood villages, but Dandelion Village was currently in total ruins. The father was so flabbergasted that he didn’t know how to react. He decided he had to check out another village first and figure out what was going on.
“What a disaster...” the father commented.
“Wait,” said Gordon.
His sharp senses could hear noise from the battlefield far away. Gordon’s eyes grew cold. The sounds of battle were coming from the southwest, around Zinnia Village. No, it was past that. They were coming from Chesswood’s center—Edelweiss Village.
Gordon went to the driver’s seat and grabbed a sword. The father tensed up at the appearance of a weapon.
Gordon spread his arms and laughed. “Haha. Please wait here for a bit. I will find out what’s going on and come back. There seems to have been an accident...”
“Yes...”
“Don’t worry. I will just go see what’s going on and come back.”
Gordon released one of the four horses that were hitched to the wagon. After he put the saddle and other equipment on the horse, he got on the horse.
“Please rest in the wagon. I will return quickly.”
“Yes. Thank you so much.”
Gordon kicked the horse to get going.
First, he headed toward an inn situated on the outskirts of Azalea Village. It was where Rachel lived. Yet, when Gordon arrived, he found Rachel’s inn reduced to ashes from the fire. There were unidentifiable bodies and remains among the rubble of the building.
Rachel and Gordon weren’t lovers; they weren’t in an exclusive relationship. However, they were closer than friends. He was saddened by the thought of not being able to see her bright smile ever again.
Gordon mounted his horse. His sensitive hearing continued to detect noises from the battlefield in the distance. He kicked at the horse and headed toward the other villages. He went past Dandelion Village and went to Chrysanthemum Village. It was in ruins. Then he headed toward Zinnia Village. It too was in ruins.
?He went farther and saw a line of defense centered around Edelweiss Village and an army trying to push through it. It was war—chaos with endless death and killing. Gordon saw the white stars on the foreheads of the invaders and immediately understood what was going on.
He caressed the hilt of his sword while thinking, ‘Those people don’t know anything.’
Gordon got off the horse and tied it somewhere safe. The horse, frightened by the noise of the battlefield, snorted and squealed. Gordon stroked the horse’s mane and placed his forehead against the horse’s.
“Wait for me. I will return soon.”
The horse looked at Gordon imploringly as if telling him not to go.
Gordon tapped its cheek. “Don’t worry about me.”
Then he headed toward the frontline.
The defeated villagers had lost their morale and were running away from players. Gordon approached the edge of the battlefield and chopped those players’ heads off one by one. No one noticed Gordon’s presence as he had immersed himself in battle without a sound. The enemies he encountered slowly turned into white particles, one at a time.
“But I realized that what I’d been searching for was at the place I’d known all along...” Gordon suddenly heard someone singing amid the sounds of battle.
He raised his head and discovered a man holding a spear. The man was covered in blood as he blocked some players from chasing after the fleeing villagers. After seeing the villagers safely run away, the man grinned. While he stopped the players as if he were the guardian of this place, the man continued to sing his song.
It was then that Gordon realized the man was bracing himself for death. The man had the eyes of someone who had let go of any attachment to life. Many factors had to come into play for a human to completely set aside their life. No one could judge the threads woven into the fabric of this man’s life, but had the invaders considered what his life had been like for even a second?
Gordon chopped down some players as he approached the man holding the spear, but other players clung to him. His blade pierced their throats without hesitation.
“I can’t see...” Gordon murmured.
His sword moved like beams of light, but there were still many players between him and the man with the spear. Despite Gordon’s efforts, the man with the spear crumbled to the ground after his stomach took a direct hit. His singing stopped. What was the next line of the song he had been singing?
Another life had faced an irreversible death. It was saddening, and Gordon looked up at the sky sorrowfully.
If a child pulled the trigger, it was the adult’s fault for giving a gun to a child who didn’t know anything. It was possible to be understanding toward the child, but shouldn’t someone at least give the child a firm scolding... since the gun had caused someone’s life to perish?
Gordon swung his sword.
[Your assimilation is increasing.]
[Your assimilation has reached its restricted limit.]
[Current assimilation: 89%]
Gordon’s glistening blade dominated the battlefield, and the frontline collapsed. It was a massacre executed with a cold weapon.
The battlefield around Gordon fell quiet. Regardless, he continued to trudge forward. Everyone on the battlefield was looking at him now. They couldn’t understand what had just happened.
Several high-rankers blocked his path. Their nervous breaths were almost tangible.
“What is this all of a sudden? He seems to be a Named-tier NPC.”
“Where did he come from...?”
The strongest-looking man out of the bunch came forward.
“Let’s attack together. We can take him on slowly.”
“Yes, brother.”
“We have a high-ranker. We can win.”
Five players surrounded Gordon. They all seemed to have high-ranking positions within their clan. Nevertheless, Gordon smirked and then swung his sword again. The world seemed to stop for a second. The blade moved slowly, but Gordon’s opponents were unable to circumvent it. This split second felt like an eternity to the opponents. Gordon’s sword broke down the rules of the universe and charged toward its enemies with ease. It was a sword that bit off chunks of space to merge the space between itself and the enemy.
‘Slowly. Carefully.’ Gordon sent the heads of the five players flying into the air while savoring the sensation of the blade meeting skin.
As soon as the heads of Gordon’s opponents were separated from their bodies, time and space returned to normal. Fountains of blood gushed out from their necks. The enemy troops were shocked. The high-ranker and members of the clan that they had confidence in had lost their heads and collapsed in an instant. The enemies couldn’t even discern what had just happened with their eyes. The bodies of the high-ranker and his fellow clan members turned into white particles and scattered in the wind.
Gordon walked forward. The enemies retreated.
The mark on his forehead stung. It whispered to him.
‘That dreary voice,’ Gordon thought.
He killed another player and smiled. These people didn’t know anything about the curse of the stars but were carelessly committing terrible sins with the same mark as his on their foreheads. They stabbed this world with their ignorant blades as if they were entitled to everything in it.
***
Crockta was running toward the northeast frontline. It was Blackmore’s area.
Crockta had heard the news that most of the battlefronts had received additional support and won. However, when he found out about Blackmore’s loss and the villagers’ retreat in the northeast, Crockta—who had been the first to achieve victory—headed straight there.
“...!”
When he arrived, Crockta saw corpses sprawled everywhere in front of him. Allies and enemies alike were all dead. There was only one man standing.
“You are...?” Crockta approached him.
The man stood with his head facing the ground and hands across his face. Crockta’s heart thumped. For some reason, the man seemed familiar to Crockta. It was as if Crockta knew the man; Crockta felt a sense of closeness toward him.
Then the man raised his head, and their eyes met.
“You are?” asked Crockta again.
The man’s eyes widened as he swept a glance over Crockta. His eyes came to a stop at the sight of the bandana wrapped around Crockta’s head.
Instead of answering Crockta’s question, the man asked, “What’s your name?”
Crockta realized that this man was the one who had gotten rid of all the enemy troops here. He could tell that much from meeting the man’s gaze.
“Crockta,” Crockta answered.
“Crockta...” the man muttered. He looked at the sky again, seemingly lost in thought. Then he smiled and said, “Life is so strange.”
“What do you mean?” asked Crockta.
“How long has it been since you started playing Elder Lord?”
“...”
This was the first time someone had immediately identified Crockta as a player. Crockta looked at the man with solemn eyes, but the man was still smiling.
“Around three months...”Crockta replied.
“According to this world’s time?” said the man.
“Then five times that amount.”
“Is that so?”
Suddenly, Crockta discovered a familiar face behind that man. It was Blackmore. He was lying in the middle of the battleground as a cold corpse.
Crockta ran toward him while calling out, “Blackmore!”
Even though Blackmore had died from a pierced stomach, his face looked at peace with a smile on his lips.
“Blackmore...” Crockta called out again.
Crockta’s heart ached. Regardless of Blackmore’s past, Crockta thought Blackmore had been a good man who loved singing and his hometown more than anyone else. He had been a musician who had admired and had even been inspired by Crockta’s singing.
“Are you sad that he died?” asked the man behind Crockta. “Even though he is just an NPC?”
Crockta turned around to look at him. The man was not mocking or laughing at Crockta. In fact, he also had a bitter expression on his face.
Crockta replied, “All deaths on the battlefield bring sorrow.”
He knew that better than anyone else. Whether it was an enemy or an ally, all deaths were sad. Crockta could see villagers and orcs running toward them from afar. It seemed that the battle was completely over now. Ingram’s and Jeremy’s faces appeared in the distance as well. Everyone had won. Only Blackmore remained here as a cold corpse. If Blackmore had been alive, they would have sung together in celebration of their victory. They could have made a new song together.
Crockta suppressed his sadness and rose from his spot.
The man said, “Crockta, listen to me carefully.”
“...?”
“There’s a temple of the fallen god in the north.”
‘What was he saying?’ Crockta wondered inwardly while looking at the man.
The man was wearing a strange smile on his face.
“If you are truly saddened by all of the deaths here...” the man said, turning around to gesture at the corpses surrounding them, “...head to the temple of the fallen god.”
“What..?”
Crockta tried to get a hold of the man, but he was already far from Crockta.
“...!”
As if time and space had folded, the man moved farther and farther away in leaps. Crockta was dumbfounded as he watched the man leave. He didn’t even know the man’s name.
“Temple of the fallen god...?” murmured Crockta to himself.
However, he had no time to think. Jeremy and Ingram had already approached him.
“Brother! You are alive—” Jeremy wrapped his arm around Crockta cheerfully but immediately shut up once he saw Blackmore’s corpse.
Ingram kneeled down beside Blackmore. He caressed Blackmore’s cheek and began to tear up, but he wiped away his tears.
Numerous villagers had died, not just Blackmore. Everyone was holding onto the corpse of someone they knew and mourning their loss. Chesswood was brimming with anguish. It had been a sad battle, but they had won. Yet, only grief awaited them now.
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