Chapter 34. Cave of Giants(1)

When Sanghyuk arrived, the six guilds had already defeated the guards and had invaded the inner castle after breaking the gates.

Some of them had already become malefactors due to killing the guards. However, they were all prepared to become malefactors from the moment they decided to assault the inner castle. Even the users who haven’t become malefactors yet had become criminals in status so they would become malefactors with just a few more evil acts.

The reason they pushed themselves so far meant that they really wanted those treasures in the inner castle. However, in fact, there was no such thing as treasures in the inner castle.

What was inside was only the frightening Typhoon Knights of Falcon City. And their Knight Commander, Parayan, was a master knight.

Master knights were level 100.

Even if NPCs are worse than users at their own level, level 100 was enormous.

Level 100 was something that the highest-ranking users would have to grind with all their effort for more than a year.

In other words, there were no users that were able to block Parayan’s way.

“Who dares to cause a commotion here!”

*Bbbbbbooooom!*

Parayan appeared like a storm. Gripping on his beloved weapon, the Storm Spear, he charged against the maggots that crawled inside the inner castle.

*Bbbbbbbooooooom!*

Parayan charged alone against 450 users. In fact, the Typhoon Knight Order was standing around him. The Typhoon Knights were incomparably stronger than the ordinary security guards.

The average level of the guards was 50, while the average level of the Typhoon Knights was 65. The difference was only 15, but it was a very large difference in terms of might.

However, those knights did not move at all. They only passed by the users and blocked the now-destroyed gates of the inner castle.

Their objective was to block any users from entering the inner castle. There were many users who had already followed the six guilds alliance in curiosity.

Unfortunately, they would get pulverized by the human shredder.

‘Hmm, so this place is blocked by the Typhoon Knights……. So this was why everyone said it was a pie in the sky in my previous life.’

Sanghyuk could not enter the inner castle. No, to be exact, he had the opportunity to enter, but he did not.

If he entered now, he would get smothered by Parayan.

Sanghyuk had an opportunity to watch Parayan fight up close. What he felt at the time was shock itself.

Almost all NPCs in EL could be hired as mercenaries. Of course, not anyone could hire anyone. Many elements came into play, such as the familiarity with that NPC, the value of that NPC, and the abilities of the user that would hire the mercenary.

Especially in the case of high-grade NPCs, the price to hire them was enormous, and the conditions of hiring them were also very difficult to fulfill, so no one could just hire them.

In that sense, the operators of the ‘workshop’ in his previous life were amazing.

They had hired the ‘Storm’ Parayan and the entire Typhoon Knight Order. At the time, users were trying to conquer a very strong named monster in the Heroic Lands, and the operators of the workshop hired Parayan and the Typhoon Knight Order and did the entire raid.

However, almost all the loot from the raid was stolen(?) by Parayan, so they did not hire mercenaries if possible after that incident.

*Bbbbbbooom!*

Parayan started shredding. This meant that all users would die and turn into light particles within 10 minutes.

‘I think I need to go in there…….’

The situation on the inside couldn’t be seen at all from the outside, but the screams were very realistic.

“Aaaaagh! Save me!”

“it’s a freak! A freak has appeared!”

“Everyone run. He’s not someone you can win against!”

Users shouted with voices full of despair, and Sanghyuk stood on the outside while listening to them quietly.

‘A way to sneak inside……. a way to……. oh! That’s it.’

Sanghyuk suddenly thought of something good.

‘The prefix effect of the Shadow Duke of Falcon City title……l have a chance with that!’

Sanghyuk was planning to make the pie in the sky fall towards him.

‘Once Parayan’s massacre is over……. I’ll invade the inner castle after erasing my presence.’

Sanghyuk slipped in among the front lines of the users that waited outside the gates of the inner castle and waited until the commotion inside the castle died out.

The situation was really easily finished. Parayan showed them what overwhelming power was as well as the realm of masters.

450 users, no, 500 users including those that slipped in with the 6 guilds couldn’t even scratch Parayan’s body and were blasted to smithereens by the razor-sharp aura of wind that was emitted from his spear.

Like that, they scattered enormous quantities of light particles and turned this day into Bloody Monday.

The time Parayan needed to turn 500 users into pulp was merely around 5 minutes.

“Whoa……. NPCs aren’t something to be looked down upon.”

“Wow, awesome! I saw that old man NPC before just walking around, but he actually possessed such an amazing power!”

“What do I need to do in order to raise familiarity with that NPC? It would be awesome if I could hire him as a mercenary.”

Users all commented after watching Parayan’s overwhelming show of might.

*Swooosh.*

The wind stopped after all users had disappeared. The ‘Storm’ Parayan put away his spear and shouted very angrily.

“Malefactors shall be killed! As long as I exist in Falcon City, no malefactors shall cause a commotion!”

Parayan shouted in a loud voice to the users gathered outside the inner castle before entering the castle again. Along with his exit, the Typhoon Knights had also retreated as well. However, it wasn’t like the users could enter either.

At the same time the Falcon Knights receded, the Falcon guards blocked the way to the inner castle.

“Ah…… such a pity. It would be awesome if I can get in there.”

“We don’t know if there are any treasures in the inner castle or not, but at least there will be some treasures just beyond this wall.”

The reason the users said that was because the 500 users that died inside would have dropped their items.

Since the majority of them became malefactors, they would have dropped more important items in larger quantities, and those items would be piled up inside the inner castle.

items dropped on the ground would disappear within 24 hours if no one picked it up.

NPCs never touched the items belonging to users, so the drops from 500 users were just piled up inside the inner castle.

This was why it was ‘pie in the sky’.

‘But it will be different this time around!’

Sanghyuk was going to wait for his opportunity.

When time passed, the spectating users gradually scattered. Some users couldn’t throw away their regrets and kept waiting, but there was no way for them to get inside. The gates of the inner castle may be open, but as long as the guards kept standing there, there was no way for them to get in.

No matter how greedy they were, they could not forcefully break through the guards. They just watched how 500 users shredded to bits a few hours ago, and no one was foolish enough to challenge again.

Eventually, time kept passing and the users all scattered while licking their lips in disappointment.

Darkness pervaded Falcon City, but the guards were still there. They looked as if they would keep standing there until the gates of the inner castle was fixed.

It had now been 7 hours since the 500 users were shredded to bits. With so much time passing, there were almost no users left. Only the extreme minority kept watching in regret. However, they weren’t users that could do something but had nothing to do anyway as they were of low-level.

‘Should I start now?’

Sanghyuk felt that the gates of the inner castle may be fixed if he kept waiting, and thought that this was the right opportunity since the skies had turned dark and there were no people around to take an interest.

First, Sanghyuk moved the ‘Shadow Duke of Falcon City’ from suffix to prefix. Then, the effect of the title instantly switched between the two. His transformation was undone, and his original figure showed itself.

In that state, Sanghyuk took out the Silversword and the Moonblade and seeped into the darkness.

Thanks to the effects of the Silvermoon Fragments, Sanghyuk could seep into the darkness in even more secrecy, and he started to walk towards the inner castle quietly.

Actually, even if Sanghyuk seeped into the darkness, it didn’t make sense for the guards to be unable to find him.

However…… the guards protecting the gates could not find him at all.

The reason was simple. The prefix effect of the title, Shadow Duke of Falcon City – this.

Honestly, if it was Parayan, no, anyone from the Typhoon Knights, it was very likely that Sanghyuk was going to be discovered.

However, the guards were different. They were easy opponents even for Sanghyuk, so the effects of the title worked really well.

The guards didn’t notice anything as Sanghyuk passed by them. And the low-level users who were still watching couldn’t find him either.

Making his presence fainter worked to some extent against the users as well, and since Sanghyuk was concealing himself in darkness as well, the low-level users hadn’t found him at all.

‘Even though my presence was erased, I need to be cautious at least.’

Sanghyuk moved only among places where it was very dark and could enter the inner castle in 20 minutes.

‘Wow!’

Exclaimed Sanghyuk after seeing the spectacle inside the inner castle.

There were piles of items. The 500 users had disappeared after leaving their items and not their corpses.

NPCs seemed as if they couldn’t see these items at all, so the items were just scattered across the ground.

There was an uncountable number of magic-grade items, and sometimes, he could see rare-grade items as well. Recently, the crafting-class users had advanced forward in both quality and quantity, so the items scattered here were of considerable quality.

‘Let’s see, there should be a unique-grade item somewhere…….’

What Sanghyuk was looking for was the ‘Shadow Cloak’ that the guild master of the Lightning Guild, Thunderbolt, had dropped.

Although there wasn’t an article yet, Thunderbolt would write a long article in the InGamez forum across a few days, and there would be a mention of the Shadow Cloak in his writing.

‘Shadow Cloak……. Shadow Cloak……. Oh! There it is!’

Eventually, Sanghyuk found the cloak.

It was buried under many items. Sanghyuk put the item inside his spatial expansion bag first and started taking the rare-grade items as well.

The spatial expansion bag Sanghyuk possessed had the highest expansion rate of all bags in Falcon City. And just in case, Sanghyuk had emptied his bag before coming here.

Despite that, his bag became full since there were so many items.

He couldn’t even take 10% of the items here.

However, the items that he couldn’t acquire were of low-quality anyway so it wouldn’t matter even if he left them behind.

‘This much is plenty!’

Sanghyuk judged that it wasn’t worth the risk of getting found out to come back here and take the remaining items.

Having filled his bag to the brim, he sneaked his way back outside. He had succeeded in making the pie in the sky fall to the ground.