Chapter 145: In the Middle of the Scramble of the Holy Grail (2)
Ring-.
• The ‘DarkRuna’ Guild has succeeded in occupying the first base in the central continent.
• The Guild’s Fame has increased by 100 thousand.
• Base Rank: None
• The desolate base must be developed, and the base rank must be raised.
• Suppress the surrounding monsters, and begin internal affairs.
The Guild Master of the DarkRuna Guild, Ilahan, was the strongest person in the Korean server of Kailan both in name and reality.
Ilahan, who put in the first flag in the middle of the central continent, wore a satisfied expression.
“Good. It looks like us DarkRuna Guild will be able to preoccupy this large update as well.”
Ilahan’s class was known to be the hidden class ‘Magic Swordsman’.
However, because there was no other user besides Ilahan that had this ‘Magic Swordsman’ class, there was very little known information on it.
No one even knew besides Ilahan whether it was a hidden class derived from the Magician-class or a hidden class derived from the Warrior-class.
Because even Ilahan put all of his information on a private setting like Ian, he didn’t pop up on the ranking list either, so no one even knew of his level.
If Ilahan’s exact class was revealed, the users speculated that between Red-Flame Magician Remir, who was first place in the Magician rankings, and Shyakran, the Titan Guild Master who was first place in the Warrior rankings, one of them would be pushed back a rank.
“Ilahan, it looks like we will be able to expand to about two more bases soon. Shall I command them to expand more?”
At the words of the man that looked like he was one of the people in the executives of the DarkRuna Guild, Ilahan shook his head.
“No, I don’t think there will be a need for that. Since even if we were to increase our bases more, we don’t even have enough power to spare to protect it. For now, just suppress the surrounding of the occupied base, and put strength into growing it.”
“Yes, understood.”
As the man that responded turned around and went out of the base station, Ilahan opened his mouth towards a female user that stood next to him.
“Sollin, have you found a lead related to Holdream’s Holy Grail?”
At Ilahan’s words, the female user called Sollin nodded her head as she replied.
“Yes, I’ve found it, Master.”
Ilahan asked again with a pleased expression.
“Good. What about the location?”
“The grave of Holdream is inside the ancient ruins that are near the middle area of the central continent. I presume that you will be able to obtain the Holy Grail there.”
Ilahan nodded his head.
“Okay. Sollin, I will pack up about 30 people and head over first. Follow us immediately.”
At Ilahan’s words, Sollin momentarily hesitated as she opened her mouth.
“However, Master, there is one problem.”
“What problem?”
“That… There seems to be users that went into the ruins before us. Looking at their flag, I think they are Luspel Empire users.”
The moment he heard those words, Ilahan’s eyes shone.
Ilahan opened his mouth with an interested expression.
“Oh-ho…? Were there any guys that had enough ability to enter the middle area of the central continent this quickly amongst the Luspel Empire users?”
Sollin asked carefully towards Ilahan.
“What shall we do, Master? Don’t you think we should move as quickly as possible right now? If we lose the Holy Grail, our plans will be quite twisted.”
However, different from Sollin, who wore a slightly impatient expression, Ilahan was wearing an incredibly relaxed expression.
Ilahan grinned as he spoke.
“There’s no need to rush, Sollin.”
“Huh…?”
The corners of Ilahan’s mouth slightly curled upwards.
“It doesn’t matter if we go slowly. We just need to make sure we don’t lose them.”
“That means…”
“If they come out carrying the Holy Grail, we just need to steal it from them, so I’m saying that there’s nothing to be worried about. Instead, it has become more interesting. I was worried that it would be too boring, too.”
Ilahan untied a sack holding a blue sword that he had wrapped around his waist and handed it to Sollin.
“Head over first with this sword. Don’t go into the dungeon, just guard the front. So that you can hit them as soon as they come out, that is.”
Sollin took the sword and asked.
“What kind of item is this sword?”
“It’s an item the king has given. It’s Offensive Power and Options themselves aren’t that good, but it has Summoning Magic on it, so you’ll be able to use it quite well.”
Sollin nodded her head as she replied.
“Understood.”
Ilahan called Sollin.
“Sollin.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Luspel scraps, you’ll be able to face them even though I don’t go there personally myself, right?”
Sollin smiled coldly as she replied.
“Of course, Master.”
The place that Ian’s party came into was a place that was the same as a treasure house with glittering gold light decorated everywhere.
However, the problem was that the space was just showy, and in reality, there weren’t many luxurious items to be seen.
Even the piles of gold looked like a lot at first, but after distributing it, each person could only take about a little over 50 thousand gold.
Hiding his disappointed heart, Ian moved his feet towards the innermost platform.
‘Still, there’s the Holy Grail, fortunately.’
On the platform, the golden Holy Grail, which was about the size of a winning trophy of a sports competition, was perched there, and Ian grabbed that.
Since the most important thing right now was Holdream’s Holy Grail.
Ring-.
• You have obtained ‘Holdream’s Holy Grail’.
• You have satisfied the clear requirements of the ‘Exploration of the Historical Site of Shikar’ Quest.
• Clear Rank: S
• As you have successfully cleared the quest, you have obtained 25 million EXP.
• As you have successfully cleared the quest, you have obtained 100 thousand Fame.
• A new connected quest has activated.
And following that, a quest window popped up in front of Ian’s eyes.
• Base Occupation Using Holdream’s Holy Grail.
You have successfully killed Holdream and put the Holy Grail into your hands.
The holy water inside Holdream’s Holy Grail makes the growth of central continent bases 2 times faster, and it reduces the time it takes to occupy a base by half.
Using the abilities of the Holy Grail, occupy a base.
Quest Difficulty Level: None.
Quest Condition: Unknown.
Time Limit: 7 days
*If the Holy Grail is lost or stolen, the quest will be failed.
*In the case that the stolen Holy Grail is recovered, the quest can be restarted.
Ian read through the message that popped up in a calm and orderly way as he nodded his head.
And for a moment, he was submerged in his thoughts.
‘Looking at the fact that there’s a precondition in case the Holy Grail is stolen, that definitely means that there is another power existing that is after this Holy Grail… Are there NPCs or monsters that are after the Holy Grail?’
Ian, who had no idea that quests related to the Holy Grail were activated here and there, firstly assumed that there were NPCs or monsters that had their eye on the Holy Grail.
Since it was impossible for a normal user to know of the existence of the Holy Grail if it wasn’t for the quest.
And that wasn’t exactly a wrong assumption either.
Even if other users were deducted, NPCs that were after the Holy Grail like Ian thought existed.
Ian asked towards Hellaim.
“Leader, how are you going to move now?”
With the king’s command, the royal knights were to help Ian just up to the Exploration of the Historical Site of Shikar quest.
As he had no idea whether they would continue to help him even afterwards, he had asked.
And it was just as Ian thought.
“Us royal knights must meet the second party and build the front line of the front now, Viscount.”
“I see. Where will the front line be built?”
Hellaim’s words continued.
“We do not know yet. By tossing and turning with the Kaimon Empire Army, the front line will probably be formed.”
Ian nodded his head.
“I see.”
And he diligently put his brain to work.
‘Then we need to occupy a base closest to the place the army of the empire is staying at in order to protect it safely…’
The Lotus Guild had grown at a blinding rate during that time and was strong enough to be close enough to the top 100 guilds now, but despite that, it wasn’t a fighting power that could enter this quickly into the central continent.
Since, compared to the guilds in the top 10, it was still the difference between an adult and a child.
‘No, rather than overdoing it and proceeding with the quest, it might even be better to concentrate on growing.’
Ian, who finished organizing his thoughts, quickly organized his equipment, and in order to move again, he called his guild members over.
“Fiolan, from now on, it could be really dangerous.”
At Ian’s words, Fiolan asked with a puzzled expression.
“Why’s that?”
“It seems that it will most likely be difficult to receive the help of the royal knights now.”
And Fiolan suddenly wore a flustered expression.
“Hul…”
Herz was just as surprised.
“Yo, there’s only ten of us and there’s no way that we can occupy and guard a base with this fighting power. It will be hard enough to even just hunt the field monsters with the guild’s fighting power.”
Herz’s words were an obvious.
Since the average level of the ten guild members here right now was around the mid-120s, but the levels of the field monsters were at 140 no matter how low it was.
Ian had an outrageous PvE ability, but the fact that it wasn’t enough was the reality.
“That’s why, I think for now we need to raise our levels a bit while hunting.”
Fiolan asked with a quizzical voice.
“Hunt? The quest was shared with us as well right now, so we saw it pop up… Don’t we need to occupy a base as quickly as possible? There’s even a time limit.”
However, Ian shook his head.
No matter how much he thought about it, running around so rashly right now was too dangerous.
He decided instead that it was better to grow as much as they could inside this grave, where, on top of becoming familiar with it, their first discoverer’s buff overlapped twice, and they could obtain 4 times the EXP.
‘It’s the same whether we fail the quest 7 days later, or get the Holy Grail stolen from us and fail the quest.’
Ian opened his mouth.
“Fiolan. You know that with this fighting power, if we go out and meet a Heroic-rank field boss, then we will be annihilated immediately, right?”
If it was a Heroic-rank boss monster of the central continent, its minimum level would be at least lv 170.
Fiolan sighed deeply.
“Whew… That is true.”
“To be honest, even if we were lucky and somehow were able to go to an empty base, with just a couple monster attacks, it will all be game over for us like that.”
If the base was established, the monsters in the surrounding gathered together in large-scale sizes and raided the base.
The fighting difficulty level itself would increase significantly in comparison to just wandering around the field and hunting.
If they had a defensive wall to at least attempt in a defensive battle, it would be a different story, but in a base with desolate land, there was no way that such a thing would exist.
Herz, who was silent, asked towards Ian.
“So, what are you saying we should do? Are we giving up on the quest?”
Ian nodded his head.
“Yeah, I think you would have to consider giving this up for now. Since we’re going to be hunting in here for a full week, and if we do that, then we’ll just have a day left within the time limit… Occupying a base within that time is going to be difficult by the looks of it.”
Fiolan licked her lips.
“Hm, that’s a little disappointing. My heart was fluttering because I thought that if we succeed with the quest, then we will be able to get hit by another EXP bomb.”
Ian smirked.
“Rather than that, you will probably gain 100 times more EXP hunting in here for a full week while gaining 4 times the EXP. Since there are no boss monsters that are Heroic-rank or more in here, even if we move with just ourselves carefully, we should be able to hunt continuously.”
Fiolan also agreed with Ian’s words.
“That is true. Based on the fact that I’m already at lv 129…”
And one of the guild members that had gathered nearby before they realized and heard what they said asked Ian.
“Then what level are you at now, Ian?”
Ian grinned as he replied.
“I just leveled up one level, so I hit 132.”
Herz opened his mouth with a baffled expression.
“132? Are you sure you’re not going into the top 10 of the general rankings like this?”
Ian shook his head.
“No, probably not that. Wouldn’t the top 50 users probably all be over lv 140 by now?”
“Is that so?”
“They probably are. Since when I checked the rankings before we started this quest, the user that was about 50th was at lv 138 or so.”
Fiolan mumbled as she spoke.
“But it’s basically a definite that Ian is first place in the Summoner rankings… then who could be in second place? Looking at the Summoner ranking list that popped up in the community last time, first place was marked as a lv 115 user.”
Because Ian’s information was placed as private, his name had never gone up in the Summoner ranking list.
And because they couldn’t guarantee that there wasn’t a Summoner user that maintained private settings up until now like Ian either, Ian shrugged his shoulders as he replied.
“Well, there could be another Summoner that’s a similar level as me. Since that we don’t know.”
However, Herz shook his head wearing an expression as if it didn’t make sense while he shook his head.
“Crazy, there couldn’t be anyone that exists like that. There’s no way that there’s another lucky wacko like you.”
“Yo… To call me a lucky wacko…”
Fiolan also nodded her head as if she was agreeing with Herz’s words.
“His expression was a little extreme… But I also completely agree.”
Ian replied with a sullen expression.
“Ha, even you, Fiolan…”
However, while they murmured and shared a conversation…
Plop-.
Bbookbbook, who ingested all of the meatballs that he received from Ian before he realized, came down to the ground and crawled towards somewhere.
Bbook- Bboo-bbook-!
However, because close to about 100 people were in maintenance, the grounds were incredibly noisy, so no one could discover the disappearing Bbookbbook.
And just when about 10 minutes passed.
Ian was able to discover the fact that Bbookbbook had disappeared.