Chapter 65 - Elven Forest Battle (2)

Ray gathered everyone who was joining the battle inside the main square, placing them in a circle he marked out with magic stones.

"Everyone stay inside the circle and don’t step out," Ray said. "Anyone left outside won’t get teleported."

A spell that massive needed an insane amount of mana. Ray had plenty of mana, of course, since he was a very powerful NPC, but even his power had limits.

Arthur watched his movements, noticing he only used a few mana stones to set up the teleportation formation.

’Each mana stone will power the spell. Using so few just shows how much mana he naturally has in his body.’

A normal mage would have to use way more mana stones, and even then, there was a high chance of failing the spell.

As soon as Ray finished the formation, he floated up in front of the players. It looked like he had one more thing to say.

"Listen up, everyone." Ray used his magic to amplify his voice so everyone could hear him.

"Cinder is the commander for this battle, and you must obey his orders OR orders from the elves. If I find out any of you went against this, you can be sure your bad reputation will spread to all 4 corners of this kingdom."

A system notification popped up for the 100 players taking part in the quest.

[Penalty for disobeying Cinder or the elves: -10000 reputation across the entire kingdom]

The notification popped up for Arthur too, but it didn’t count for him. Even so, his chest tightened when he read it.

’-10k reputation? Across the entire kingdom? Taking a hit like that is basically losing your character, holy shit...’

When the players read that, they all got scared of taking that penalty. Most of them were just there to clear the quest for the reward, but about 4 players were only there to mess with Cinder.

They gritted their teeth.

"Looks like we’ll have to wait for another chance to screw him over," one of them whispered.

Arthur had no clue anything like that was going on, but he didn’t care anyway. His focus was on the battle about to start.

Ray channeled his mana, creating magic runes in the air. The sphere, his magic weapon, hovered close to each mana stone on the ground and sucked up their energy. Then it flew toward the magic runes, transferring the power from the stones straight into the spell.

A bright blue light started to shine, wrapping around the bodies of the 100 players inside the formation. Or rather, 101, counting Arthur.

They all vanished from the city of Snow Pine and went straight to the elven forest, appearing right inside the elven settlement.

As soon as the players appeared, murmurs broke out. It was a brand-new area for them, not to mention it wasn’t snowing like the rest of the kingdom, so that alone felt completely different.

"Whoa. We’re really in the elven forest. What a cool place."

"I told you following Cinder was the right move. We’re going to places we never thought we’d see."

Imra and the other elves were stunned when they saw that crowd of players appear out of nowhere inside the elven settlement.

They already knew Arthur went to gather players to help defend the elves, but she never imagined he could round up so many, and in such a short time.

Arthur walked over to Imra, who was surrounded by elves ready to protect her if necessary.

"I can’t believe you actually pulled this off," Imra said, unable to hide her smile, though it quickly faded. "Are you sure they’re trustworthy, though? If they aren’t, we’ll have to release the guardians."

The guardians were powerful NPCs kept beneath the elven settlement. They were safeguards to make sure players thought 2 times before trying to kill the elves and take the elven settlement for themselves.

There were multiple systems in every city or small village to make sure players didn’t completely mess up the entire game. Of course, there were plenty of locations where you could invade and take over as the leader, and players were even allowed to buy land in various spots to start a small town.

But raiding any major city without a specific quest enabling it was a lot more complicated.

Either way, Imra only brought it up because she was worried, but Arthur knew none of them would do anything stupid since Ray had put absurdly high penalties in place.

"Relax," he said. "Ray said he’d make life hell for anyone who screws around here. They aren’t going to betray us."

Only a suicidal player who didn’t care about their character would mess around and take the massive penalty Ray placed on them.

Since every player there was near the top of the leveling ladder, nobody wanted to ruin their character and start from 0. That would be awful.

Arthur got the players’ attention by stepping onto a wooden platform the elves created with nature magic.

Roots and tree trunks rose from the dirt, shaping a platform so Arthur could stand above them all and easily grab everyone’s attention.

Everyone turned to look at him. A lot of them were definitely taking screenshots or recording videos to post on social media later. It wasn’t every day they got to join a small-scale war alongside Cinder.

Len stood beside Arthur, and so did Imra.

"First off, I want to introduce 2 important figures for this fight," Arthur said, doing his best to raise his voice so everyone could hear. "This is General Len, the elf in charge of all the soldiers in the elven settlement, and he’s in charge of you as well. He’s the one leading us into this battle."

The players started clapping and cheering, showing their respect for General Len.

Len, on the other hand, felt a little embarrassed. It wasn’t often he got such a warm welcome.

"And standing next to me is Imra, the current leader of the elves in this region. Every decision goes through her, and if you disrespect her, well, there will be consequences."

The players had already seen Ray, the city leader everyone respected, so they naturally respected Imra for holding a similar rank.

A few players knelt down before her. At first, it was just a handful, but then others followed suit. Within seconds, almost all 100 players were on their knees, showing total respect to the elven leader.

Even Arthur hadn’t expected that reaction. When the game first launched, it took a while for players to get fully immersed and realize this was a hyper-realistic world, not just some ordinary game.

And apparently, they were already getting immersed, showing impressive respect for Imra.

She whispered in Arthur’s ear, "Do I need to say something? It kind of looks that way, right?"

Arthur had to hold back a laugh. Even though Imra was the leader of the elves, she wasn’t used to having so many people kneel before her, especially players, whom she barely understood.

"I deeply appreciate all of your help," Imra said, opening her arms to welcome the players. "Know that you will always be welcome not just here, but in the other elven settlements scattered across the kingdoms."

[Special Quest Reward]

[All players participating in this battle will receive +5000 reputation in all elven settlements]

Arthur was included in this, and it was an insane reward! All elven settlements, or at least 95% of them, were secret, and nobody knew where they were. Well, Arthur did.

With that reputation boost, he could go to any of them and pick up special quests that would usually take him ages to unlock, since building reputation was so hard.

Of course, every player was in the same boat since they would all get the reputation, but only Arthur knew the locations of almost every elven settlement, as well as the elven cities hidden even deeper.

Everyone got even more pumped seeing that extra reward. Some players were practically itching to rush right into battle.

"I want to crush these shit invaders already. My hands are itching," said a tall player with a 2-handed sword on his back.

A lot of them felt the exact same way.

Imra didn’t say much more and quickly handed things over to General Len. After all, he was the one leading the fight, so his speech mattered a lot.

"I’m going to split you into smaller groups," Len said, "mixing you with some of our elves. They plan on attacking us tomorrow night, so we’re going to strike them tonight and catch them completely off guard."

Len split the players into groups, mixing classes to make sure each squad was well balanced.

Of course, in a battle on this scale, it wouldn’t matter all that much. The fight would quickly turn into total chaos anyway, but it was still good practice.

Then the most important squad was formed: the long-range mages.

They would strike first, using a combination of spells to wipe out plenty of soldiers before the main battle even began.

Arthur ended up in the same group as Point Blank, Suzy, Tower, and Shadow Cloak. In other words, all his friends were grouped together.

Shadow Cloak was hyped, bouncing all over the place and caressing her daggers.

"I can’t wait to slit some throats," she said, letting out a little giggle right after.

That woman was scary sometimes...

With all the teams set, everyone marched toward the camp, about 2 hours away from the elven settlement. The battle was about to begin.