CH 263

“What did you just say? Installments?” Siegfried doubted his ears.

“Are you seriously asking me if you can pay the compensation in installments?” he asked once more just to make sure.

“…”

“You want to pay partially?” Siegfried reworded his question.

Chae Hyung-Seok went silent, but he was trembling in embarrassment. He could have never imagined—even in his wildest dreams—that he would end up making such a shameful request to Han Tae-Sung, whom he considered to be nothing more than an insect.

“Yeah… Can I pay in installments?” Chae Hyung-Seok asked once more.

“Hey, Hyung-Seok…” Siegfried muttered before he smirked and said, “That’s so embarrassing.”

“…!”

“Hey, come on~ You shouldn’t be making these kinds of requests~ Chae~ Hyung~ Seok~”

An uncontrollable rage welled up from inside Chae Hyung-Seok.

‘I want to kill him… Should I just stab him?’ He felt the urge to kill Siegfried—no, Han Tae-Sung.

He would have probably picked up a knife from somewhere and stabbed Han Tae-Sung’s stomach with it numerous times.

No, he would have probably done much more than stabbing him numerous times if Han Tae-Sung were standing in front of him right now.

The request he had made to Han Tae-Sung was that humiliating for him.

“Wow~ Who could have known that the great Guild Master of the Genesis Guild, the mighty Chae Hyung-Seok, was going to ask such an embarrassing request to an insect like me? Am I dreaming right now~?”

“Hey, you fucking bastard!”

“Hmm… Should I let you pay in installments?”

“Fuck off! You son of a bitch!” Chae Hyung-Seok finally snapped and started cussing him after realizing that Siegfried had no plans of letting him pay in installments. The latter was even using his request to make fun of him.

‘I shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place…’ Chae Hyung-Seok thought while gnashing his teeth. He wouldn’t have brought it up if he had known that Siegfried would use it against him.

Asking one’s enemy such a favor would obviously not end well, but Chae Hyung-Seok had his own reasons for making such a humiliating request.

He was in a bad financial situation. It was so bad that Chae Hyung-Seok—who was once touted as a cash king—had to take out loans from the bank just to pay the bills for his numerous businesses.

However, he suddenly had to pay compensation of more than two billion won?

And of all people, he had to pay it to the insect in front of him?

“I’ll pay you in one month,” Chae Hyung-Seok said before disappearing into his warp room.

“A month… Hmm… Well, I guess I should give him that much time since 2.25 billion won is not a small amount. I’m sure the man sitting in the big chair will agree that it’s a fair timeline, too,” Siegfried muttered. He would love to take the money right now, but he knew that was unreasonable, as it was going to take time to prepare such a large sum.

‘Would fifty thousand gold be enough to alleviate Michele’s stress? Hmm… I should give him forty thousand gold and keep ten thousand for myself,’ Siegfried thought before entering his warp room.

***

While Siegfried was on his way back to the Proatine Kingdom, the Mercenary Guilds on the continent were thrown into an uproar because of an unprecedented influx of requests.

“G-Guild Master-nim!”

“What’s the ruckus?”

The branch manager of a Mercenary Guild grimaced at the rowdiness of his staff.

“Is there a fire or something?” he asked.

“T-That is…!”

“Hmm?”

“We have received requests from the papacy and the imperial family of the Constantine Holy Empire at the same time!”

“D-Don’t tell me…?” He grimaced before asking, “Is it what I think it is…?”

A branch manager of the Mercenary Guild was bound to have access to a lot of information, so he immediately saw through what was going on.

“I think it’s… both the papacy and the imperial family have placed requests to recruit a ridiculous amount of mercenaries!”

“Oh my god! Has a civil war finally broken out?!”

The Constantine Holy Empire was established three hundred years ago after the papacy that worshiped the Nameless God acknowledged a man as their emperor.

In other words, the empire was ruled by both the imperial family and the papacy.

The recent strife between the pope and the emperor divided the country into two, namely the East Constantine and the West Constantine, and they were as good as two separate countries, even without breaking out into civil war.

However, both the papacy and the imperial family suddenly placed requests to mass recruit mercenaries from the Mercenary Guild. Anyone could tell what was going to happen very soon—a civil war.

This request was proof that the battle for supremacy within the holy empire was about to start.

“This… is not something I can decide by myself. Let’s make a report to the higher-ups,” said the branch manager.

“Yes, sir!”

The branch manager stood up and went to the communications room.

***

“Fuck this…” Chae Hyung-Seok cursed under his breath after getting stabbed in the back by the emperor and after being humiliated by Siegfried.

However, his anger didn’t last that long.

This novel is available on bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

“Damn it… How am I supposed to prepare 2.25 billion won in one month? I’m already squeezed as it is… Do I have to sell some of my properties…”

Chae Hyung-Seok was so stressed with his finances that he didn’t even have the luxury of feeling angry. He felt like his head was going to crack open from trying to come up with ways of coming up with the compensation money within a month.

His guild’s main source of income—the vineyard—had just been razed to the ground, and many people were leaving his guild. ‘What should I do? Should I go and raid smaller guilds? Or should I just go raid villages?’

There was a saying that some habits would never die, and it seemed to be true as Chae Hyung-Seok started thinking of the numerous criminal activities he had previously engaged in to make some money before he became a guild master.

In fact, one of the first criminal activities he did in BNW was plundering small villages inhabited by NPCs and erasing all evidence by burning those villages to the ground.

‘Ah, fuck… I won’t have much left after dividing the spoils with the guys… It’s impossible to make 2.25 billion won like that…’

Chae Hyung-Seok was trying to come up with a solution, but he couldn’t think of anything.

Ding!

A message suddenly popped up in front of his eyes.

[Alert: A message has arrived from the ‘Mercenary Guild’!]

[Alert: Please head to the communications room to check it!]

“What the hell?”

It was quite rare for the system to send a message without any interaction with an NPC, so Chae Hyung-Seok immediately went to the communications room to read the message.

The message had already arrived at the communications room.

[Recruitment Notice 1: Looking for Holy Warriors.]

[Client: Papacy of the Constantine Holy Empire.]

[Content: Looking for Warriors of Justice to punish and subjugate the heretic emperor that went against the will of God!]

[Reward: To be discussed.]

“Holy Warrior? Warriors of Justice? Pffft! What kind of bastard wrote this message? is he trying to buy justice with money?” Chae Hyung-Seok laughed at the message before opening the second message attached to the Mercenary Guild’s message.

[Recruitment Notice 2: Mercenary Recruitment.]

[Client: Imperial Family of the Constantine Holy Empire.]

[Content: Looking for mercenaries to join the civil war.]

[Reward: To be discussed.]

“This is much better,” Chae Hyung-Seok muttered with a smile. He liked the second message. It was short and straightforward compared to the message that the papacy had sent, which sounded pretentious at best.

“But it’s quite strange that NPCs are recruiting Adventurers for their wars… This has never happened before—Wait!” Chae Hyung-Seok exclaimed. His eyes narrowed as he checked the message once again.

“Constantine Holy Empire? Those bastards… are they fighting each other?”

***

“So… I received forty thousand gold, but our protection period has been reduced by one year,” said Siegfried. He had decided to meet with Michele upon returning to the Proatine Kingdom.

“What do you think? It’s not bad, right? I actually think we profited,” said Siegfried with a smug look. He was obviously fishing for praise.

Michele pondered for a moment before he replied, “Hmm… Losing a year of the protection period isn’t a huge loss because we still have another year left… I don’t think we’ll have any problems bolstering our military strength within that remaining year.”

“Right? Right?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, but…”

“Hmm?”

“I hope you did not receive fifty thousand gold and kept ten thousand for yourself…?”

“N-No! It was forty thousand gold! I swear!”

Michele’s eyes narrowed as he observed Siegfried closely, like a snake eyeing its prey.

“Your Majesty?”

“W-What?”

“Are you sure it’s forty thousand gold?”

“I-I already told you!” Siegfried retorted. He frivolously waved his hand and added, “Why would I keep some for myself? I should bring home the paycheck I earn, right? Hahaha!”

“Hmm… Why is it so unconvincing… Oh well, if Your Majesty says so, then it must be the truth.”

“Y-Yeah! That’s right!”

“I am certain Your Majesty needs some pocket money, too.”

“Hmm?”

“Please spend it wisely.”

“Spend it wisely…?”

“Then, I will excuse myself since I’m busy,” Michele said with a bow before leaving the office.

“I think he knows…” Siegfried muttered and covered his face with his hands.

***

Siegfried decided to do some paperwork for the entire day.

Bam!

Most of the documents had already been checked and revised by Michele, so all he had to do was sign and stamp the documents with his seal.

[Alert: A message has arrived from the ‘Mercenary Guild’!]

[Alert: Please head to the communications room to check it!]

A message popped up in front of his eyes.

He put his paperwork aside and went to check the message.

“Ah, the Mercenary Guild has sent a request.”

Mercenaries above a certain rank could receive quests without visiting the Mercenary Guild.

“Let’s see…”

Siegfried checked the contents of the request.

“Constantine Holy Empire… One is from the papacy, while the other is… Huh? It’s from the Constantine Holy Empire? The emperor is looking to recruit mercenaries for his war? Oh, this is a civil war…”

Siegfried quickly saw through the crux, just like Chae Hyung-Seok.

“Hmm… The Adventurers are going to go at it against each other on a battlefield? That sounds extremely fun. Adventurers give a ton of experience points when they die, and they drop items, too.”

Hunting monsters was fun and all, but the real power leveling was killing other Adventurers. To make the deal even sweeter, an Adventurer had a ninety percent chance of dropping an item whenever they died, unlike monsters, so item farming other Adventurers was much better than monsters.

Most of the fights between Adventurers were in the form of guild wars or PVP, and there had been no cases of a mass war between Adventurers for the sole purpose of leveling up. However, what if there was a stage where countless Adventurers could fight in groups and kill each other to their heart’s content?

It would be a great source of content for the game!

“This is the first time the Adventurers are going to fight on a battlefield in a war on the continent, right? I don’t think something like this happened before…”

The nations on the continent had never involved the Adventurers in their wars until now, and they would only hire a handful of them if necessary. The mass recruitment of Adventurers for the sake of war was unprecedented.

In other words, this civil war would be the Adventurers’ first taste of participating in a war between nations on the continent.

“This is pretty great. Hmm… I think I’ll join. I need to level up as well.”

Siegfried decided to accept the request from the Mercenary Guild, but the problem was choosing his side.

The papacy?

The imperial family?

He had no connections to the holy empire, so he couldn’t immediately make a decision.

“Hmm… Which side should I join…?” Siegfried muttered and pondered for quite a while until he recalled a magic spell that Koreans often used to guide them to the right choice whenever they couldn’t make up their mind.

“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch, a, tiger, by, the, toe, if, he, hollers, let, him, go, eeny, meeny, miny, moe!”

Siegfried’s finger was pointing at…

“Oh, it’s the papacy…”

His finger was pointing at the papacy of the Constantine Holy Empire.