The Next Move

*Bang* 

"How could you lose? Lord Talas, tell us the process!" A skeletal fist struck the table. 

A black-cloaked skeleton was sitting facing a round table. Besides him, a pale gentlemanly man in a suit, a semi-transparent woman in a white dress, a huge fully metal armored man, and a relatively normal-looking guy with a rotting odor came from his body were sitting around the table.

A skeleton that had long limbs with a black grab was standing in front of them. His physical characteristic was somewhat not proportionate, his arms and legs were way too long compared with his torso. He answered in an angry tone, "Lord Barton, the dragons were not weak at all like the devil has said.

At first, we surrounded them with our superior numbers. Because it was impossible to attack their barrier, we provoked them every day. However, they seemed smarter than humans. They just ignored us. It made us looked like fools. So we decided to implement the B plan.

In the darkest hour of the night, my units could infiltrate their barrier without problems. However, we then realized that most of the inhabitants in the valley were strong. Even some of my elite subordinates could be defeated easily by the teamwork of theirs.

As I saw it was impossible for my units to hold on, so I ordered them to come back to the main force. 

However, the dragon chased us. At first, I thought they wouldn't dare to chase us to the outside of their valley, because our force was more than 500 thousand. However, they rushed directly to the main force that was led by Lord Ashley and Lord Cory.

At first, we thought they were frustrated because we had already besieged their valley for more than a week and our infiltration made them mad and irrational. However, when the two troops clashed, I started to feel strange, because the few hundreds of them could push us immediately. 

Lord Ashley, who faced their king, Dragna was overwhelmed in an instant. As a note, at that time, I and some high-level elites also helped him. However, the dragons also had some elites that assisted their king. 

At the back, Lord Cory continued to arrange the troop, so somehow, we could hold on. 

However, I somewhat wondered why the dragonlings still hadn't come out. I knew very well that it should be them and not dragons who were the main force. As they were several times more than dragons, although they were far weaker. That is the norm, right, that the war should be done with numbers.

An hour later, everything was clear. More than ten thousand dragonlings came from our rear and sandwiched us. Among them, some high-level elite of dragons confronted Lord Cory directly.

After battling them for a few minutes, Lord Cory ordered the troop to retreat."

Talas then sighed, he then continued his story with a dark expression, "After that, Lord Ashley with tens of thousands skeleton army tried to hold the dragon king and his troop for a while, unfortunately, he was dead as a result.

With Lord Ashley, we could somehow break the encirclement. However, some floating Islands blocked our retreating route. Thousands of angels showered us with holy spells and arrows.

At that time, I knew, we were done for. So I took the initiative to bring some agile undead to run. It seemed only us who returned safely. I wished Lord Cory could run away too, but it seems not. 

You can blame me for being a coward. however, I believed that someone should tell you the news. I will accept any punishment from the council. Even death."

The room was quiet for a minute. The atmosphere was so heavy, it made Talas nervous. 

*Sigh*

A pale man in a suit said, "I think what Lord Talas had done was the best choice. For us, raising a lord is ten times harder than other races. Good job Lord Talas. I think you deserve no punishment or reward. Any objection?"

Everyone who was sitting facing the round table was silent. It made Talas sighed with relief. Unbeknownst to him, the pale man sent a certain signal to the rest, who were sitting.

After waiting for the other's response for a few seconds, the pale man said to Talas, "you can take a rest. Lord Talas. Good job!"

***

*bang* 

The armor-wearing man furiously kicked the big round table until it flew and crashed the stone wall. It was broken apart into several pieces.

"A piece of shit. He should be killed at least ten times to atone for his failure," the armored mad shouted in anger.

"Geez, you brainless armor! It was my favorite table you know," the semi-transparent woman protested.

"What!? You want to fight, bitch?" The armored man pulled out his sword.

"Hohoho… That will be fun. I love to torment your soul at least once, hollow head," The woman smiled creepily.

"Hugo, Mary, stop! Do you want our headquarters to be destroyed?" The stinking man stood up between them.

"Shut up Arthur! Or do you want to taste some slashes too, zombie?" The armored man, Hugo shouted.

At the side, the cloaked skeleton and the pale man seemed to ignore the ruckus in front of them.

"It seemed the devils tricked us. However, we should expect it, as they are devils," The skeleton sighed.

"In every thousand of truths, they hide a lie. I somewhat understand it now. It is thanks to your caution. If we sent a larger force, I'm afraid we would lose them all. Good job Zen," The pale man smiled.

"It is still annoying to be deceived. If we have shadows, maybe we wouldn't lose so many. Sigh…," Zen said with a regretful tone.

"Don't be greedy. We had to choose back then between shadows or ghosts. They are like water and oil, no one could force them to make peace. Hugo and Mary have already proven their worth. You better not say anything about it again," The pale man said in a low voice while looking at Hugo and Mary who were still fighting.

"Sorry, Victor. It's my bad. So we can not trust demons and devils. They will only use us as pawns. At least, we wouldn't fight them in a short time, looking at how slippery they are. They don't have the ambition to invade other races in the near future.

The problems now are the beastmen and the parasites. I prefer to invade the parasites next. The bugs somehow always make me wary. Their ability to infect other races is somewhat like us," Zen said.

"However, they have a major flaw. They maybe can infect monsters or low intelligent insects. However, they won't be able to infect intelligent races," Victor said in confidence.

"You see, most undead has low intelligence," Zen said.

"...," Victor was speechless.

"It is impossible to invade the South anymore at the moment, because of the dragons and angels. Although dwarves and elves are good targets. The thickness of the mist in that forest is annoying. So, it left us with two choices, parasites or beastmen. Who is better?" Zen asked.

After a short time of silence, Victor answered, "Okay. Parasites then. Let's stop their idiocy. We can not be idle for too long."

Victor then walked forward to end the fighting in front of him.

***

No. 145 Sanctuary, 5 February 131 A.R.

"Hey George, this morning I overheard my dad and mom were discussing whether we should restart our characters or not," Irene, the girl who lived next to George's house said in a low voice.

"Why?" George said in a rather loud voice.

"Shh! My mom will hear it," Irene said.

After that, they were talking with really soft voices, making the two women behind them couldn't hear them anymore.

"What happened Evelyn? A few weeks ago you said you enjoyed your current life. Just some days ago, you said you got more than 1,000 credits by selling the diracs you had gotten from hunting," Nicole asked the woman that was walking beside her that should be Irene's mother, as she was somewhat similar to Irene.

"Sigh… It's because of the Golden Union. It is a guild that was recently created. More than half of the players in my village joined it," Evelyn said with a bitter smile.

She then continued, "At first, they appeared nice. They didn't mind other players' business. However, as their guild became bigger and bigger, they started to do bad things, like chasing away players that were hunting in an area, PK-ing players that offended them, and then a few days ago, they notified everyone to sell dirac only to them. They prohibited us from selling it to the system. 

Of course, other guilds ignored them. As if they have already made a deal with them. But for common players like us that don't have a guild, we are pretty much helpless.

And then, last night, not only we should sell our dirac to them. They bought it lower than the market price. We can not endure it anymore."

"So they have started, huh?" Nicole said in a low voice.

"What did you say?" It appeared that Evelyn couldn't catch what Nicole had said.

***