Chapter 70 - Elven Forest Battle (7) - End

Therin already knew this fight was unwinnable, but he at least wanted to take down Arthur and Len, to prove he was better, that his army was better.

The way he saw it, Len was only winning because she had players who could respawn on her side, while the Rashk Kingdom didn’t have that advantage. Well, technically they did, since there were players in that kingdom too, they just hadn’t used them.

But even with all that fury burning inside him, Therin didn’t charge. He looked up at the sky and spotted a black bird flying toward him. It looked like a crow.

Arthur’s eyes moved to the bird too, and he frowned.

’Something’s off.’

The bird landed beside Therin and transformed. A beautiful woman appeared next to him, wearing a low-cut outfit and sporting long dark hair. A magic tome was tied to her waist.

"Therin, you should fall back," she said close to his ear. "Leave your soldiers here and come with me."

"Abandon them here? Are you serious? A captain doesn’t just walk out on his men like that!"

They weren’t exactly whispering. Arthur could still hear every word, even over the chaos of the battle.

"It doesn’t matter what you think. This is an order," the woman said, her expression clearly tightening with frustration at being pushed back on. "We need you for the war. You can’t die here."

"Tsk." Therin looked at Len one more time and called out, "Today’s not the day you beat me. We’ll fight again."

The woman touched Therin’s shoulder, and her body shifted into a bird. Then she turned and looked directly at Arthur.

Out of everyone on that battlefield, for some reason, she looked at him.

"Interesting," she said, loud enough for Arthur to hear. "We’ll be seeing each other again, handsome."

She turned back into the bird and took off. Therin flew beside her. Two birds, gone from the battlefield just like that.

Arthur, for all he knew about the game, had never seen that NPC before.

’She was way too high-level, her name tag showed nothing but ???. Who was she?’

Len was frustrated that Therin had run off like that. But at the same time, he was thrilled, because it meant the battle was won.

"Men, we’re almost there!" Len shouted, making sure everyone could hear, especially the enemy. "Their captain already ran! Time to finish this!"

As illegal as desertion was, and as much as it marked a soldier as a coward, plenty of them chose to bolt anyway. For some, it beat dying on that field. That was the logic a lot of them went with.

The forest was dense, so chasing everyone down was nearly impossible. The players and the elves focused first on cutting down the soldiers who were still fighting.

Arthur did the same. After topping off his HP, he jumped back into the fight, trading blows with the remaining soldiers, whose morale had already completely collapsed.

Yuki showed up too, using Frost Breath to deal damage and slow the enemies down.

[Your Tamed Beast dealt 250 damage]

"Whoa!" Arthur said, caught off guard.

Frost Breath hit harder than he expected. Yuki was getting stronger, and that was exciting to see.

It took about 10 minutes after Therin’s escape for every last soldier to either die, flee, or give up and become a prisoner of war.

Once the battle ended, every player who’d taken part received their rewards.

+1 level, gold coins, and a random loot drop for each one.

The level was the part they cared about most. Leveling up past level 10 took forever, so getting a free level like that felt incredible.

Everyone cheered, raising their weapons in the air.

"Take that, you losers!"

"Aldora Kingdom is the best!"

A wave of patriotism and pride swept through every player after the win. It was actually something to see.

Several of them came over to thank Arthur.

"Bro, thanks for the opportunity, bro."

This one player kept shifting his weight from side to side, like he was doing a little dance.

"That was insane, bro. Hit me up if something like this goes down again, bro. Name’s Terry. If you ever need a rap for one of your music videos, I’m your guy, you feel me? We’re good, my dude."

Arthur stared at him, baffled. Terry sent him a friend request before heading off with his crew. Arthur didn’t usually accept anyone, but Terry’s personality was so out there that he figured it was worth it.

’This game is full of weirdos...’

Point Blank, Suzy, Tower, and of course Shadow Cloak all came to talk to him, everyone buzzing with energy, especially Shadow Cloak, who had gained a full level and was, once again, sitting at the top of the rankings.

"I’m telling you, you’re not passing me. Don’t even dream about it," Shadow Cloak said.

Tower, who had been pretty quiet for a while since the last time he and Arthur had actually talked, said, "so what do we do now? The mission’s done, right?"

For everyone else, yeah, it was done. But Arthur still had that dungeon near the elven settlement to explore.

And if Imra had been telling the truth and planned to follow through on her promise, every player who had now found the elven settlement would be locked out of that dungeon for 14 days.

"Probably head back to the city, talk to Ray, collect the profit from my shop, and think about upgrading my gear," Arthur said. "That’s my plan anyway. You guys do whatever you want."

Point Blank looked a little sad that she wouldn’t be adventuring with Arthur anymore. Only for a brief moment, though, since she’d be exploring the dungeon with him anyway.

"Wait, what was that about?" Tower asked. "There’s a dungeon for us to run, is that it?"

"Keep it down," Arthur said, gesturing for him to lower his voice. "Yeah, there is, but first we go back to the city and restock. Spend some gold on new items, potions, all that. It’s a level 20 dungeon, so it’s not exactly a walk in the park."

"Level 20?" Suzy frowned. "Then why are we going before we hit level 20? Wouldn’t it be better to just wait and grind first?"

She wasn’t wrong. Leveling up first was the smarter play. But Arthur wanted to get his hands on the blueprints for crafting elven weapons and armor as soon as possible.

He’d have to run the dungeon multiple times to collect all of them, and running it over and over would also net him solid EXP along the way.

He explained his reasoning so they’d understand where he was coming from.

"Makes sense," Tower said, putting his hands on his waist. "And don’t worry. With a tank as good as me, we’ll be fine. That dungeon doesn’t stand a chance."

Tower was at it again, acting like tanks were the answer to everything and like he was the best one around. Arthur wasn’t even surprised anymore.

"Should we head back to the elven settlement and teleport from there?" Suzy asked.

"Can’t, not yet," Arthur said. "Since it’s a secret location, the spawn point is there, but no teleport has been set up yet. Players will have it marked on their maps now that it’s been discovered, though."

Getting there was going to be a bit of a pain because of that.

Ray already knew as much. Which was exactly why he appeared above the battlefield not long after the fighting had ended, hovering in the air.

"Anyone who wants to return to the city, I can teleport you back. Gather in the middle of the battlefield."

Plenty of players made their way over, including Arthur and his group. The next step now was getting ready to be the first party to clear the dungeon.