Azimuth: The Elden Throne (New Version)

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/At the same time, within a private room of the Mercenary Guild…/

/SPLAT!/

As the video of a player being smashed to a pulp by a massive green guy played, a man calmly drank some rough beer with a serene gaze.

He wasn't alone, as next to him were 7 others, all wearing different clothing that represented their Classes and jobs.

They all had the same emblem on their chest… A red emblem…

If it wasn't clear already, everyone was watching a Livestream from one of the many players participating in the 'raid' of the Field Boss of the fields.

/Sip.../

After taking a large sip, he said with a small chuckle:

"How brutal."

/Slurp…/

"You seem pleased." Someone else said as he looked at the man drinking

"Of course I am, look at them, those greedy fucks, they didn't properly access the situation, and that's what they get."

'They likely believed we were going to move, but they couldn't be more wrong.'

/Slurp/

The man's cheeks were a little red, and next to him were 5 more empty mugs...

Seeing this, a girl with a pair of ponytails asked:

"Are you... Drunk?... Did you turn that configuration on again you son of a B? Didn't Boss tell you not to?!"

"Ahh, you're such a bore! I'm not drunk sheesh..."

"Besides, what's the fun in drinking if I can't even feel the kick? Having just a simple status notification is such a bore..."

"..."

But before this girl could say anything else, the man took another sip and said:

"Heh, you know what happens when you lose your items next to Dale, right?"

"His nickname is 'Dale, the Gale' for a reason, as before you know it, your items are gone."

A girl wearing a hood replied in a smug tone:

"Of course, we know... He's a menace."

"He'll kill any player with a negative Karma outside of the Village if he meets them, and not long after, their items will be seen being sold by one of the NPC street merchants."

She turned her gaze to the live stream.

"It isn't difficult to imagine what'll happen to those players' items… The ones that weren't stolen by other players will likely be appearing in the market soon enough."

"We should definitely take a look later, see if we can find anything useful, especially since those guys are there, they'll try to recover their items with everything they have after they fail this."

"And since they'll be locked out of their accounts for a day or two due to the death penalty, they'll likely use their lower-ranking members to pool some money."

"We just need to outbid them."

"You talk as if they are going to fail."

"You think they'll survive?"

"Nope."

"Then don't talk... In any case..."

"You forgot one thing."

One of them interrupted, a girl with long and smooth black hair:

"Dale does give some of your items back if your Reputation is above 25, but only when you had no negative Karma during the time of your death, or during special circumstances like when we lost our items in the Dungeon…"

"At that time, we had to buy them off him, albeit it was pretty manageable, it was still a bit pricy."

"Still, the fact we were given the option to do so is something we need to look out for, if we seek trouble with them before we can confirm if we can even get their items, we could end up at a moral loss."

The other girl with the hood shrugged, finding her comments funny.

"Come on, do you really think any of those guys have such a high Reputation?"

"It took us dozens of Dungeon dives and Quests to reach our current ones, it would be incredible if even one had such a high value…"

'With the Reputation penalties, they would have had to farm soo damn much...'

"Probably only those guys from the big Clans have it, but that would only be for one character..."

"Still, seeing how Dale himself isn't attacking the monster, he'll likely not give the items back to them."

"It seems this matter is deeper than it seems… I smell something big."

Everyone nodded, it was clear this wasn't some simple matter…

As they did so, she smiled wickedly... Thinking about how miserable those people would become later this day once they logged again after the death penalty...

"Heh, I want to see their expressions once they try to get their items back only to see that someone already bought them... I call dibs on the Red Staff, I've been wanting that for a time."

'A Unique item that was dropped by luck in the shallow parts of the forest...'

'Because we've been only hunting underground, we haven't had the chance to try and farm some of these more well know items.'

'Though, in that sense, we know what kind of items our enemies have but they don't know ours very well.'

"... We'll move." Rodi said as he got up from his chair

"Already?"

"Yes, those players won't last ten more minutes, so we need to rush there just in case something does happen."

The girl wearing the hood asked:

"Isn't it dangerous? That gorilla guy won't attack us, right?"

"Different from you perverts, I play with the pain settings on the low end of things, but that doesn't mean getting hit by that cleaver will be tolerable..."

But Rodi shook his head while he ignored her second comment...

"Unlikely, if you rewind the stream, you'll see how at first, the monster was trying to communicate."

"But after some misunderstanding, one of the players attacked it by 'mistake' and this mess started."

"Seeing by how the main NPC didn't attack it and instead, talked with it, we can determine this is likely a major event in the storyline of this Village…"

"Given what is happening around us, I say this is part of the event that is going on in the background."

Rodi smiled, looking at everyone sitting at the table.

"So don't you all think it's our job to be at the forefront in regards to this?"

They all smiled.

"I hope it doesn't take too long, I have to eat something soon…" A skinny man replied as he stretched his arms

"It shouldn't take long, so stop whining, and let's go!"

…

/Back in the fields…/

/Whistle~/

As if he was strolling in the woods, Dale casually whistled away a popular song as he collected the shiny loot on the ground, gathering them onto a large pile on the side.

/Chaos!/

Until all players were dead, he couldn't store them in his inventory, and even if they were occupied fighting the berserk guy over there, who knows?

He had an excuse if he did need to, but he didn't want to resort to it yet.

It would be best to wait for a little and once everyone was dead, swoop in everything at once.

Until then, he would pile everything up on the side.

'As always, there doesn't seem to have anything interesting for me to get...'

'Still, I'm impressed at how the players evolved, these aren't the same pieces of gear from the tutorial, these are completely different.'

'Monsters can drop gear apart from materials, even if only for Standard players... That is likely where all of this came from.'

'Most items are actually of Slightly Rare Quality, above Normal and Special.'

'I can even see some Rare and Very Rare items, together with a few Unique items here and there.'

'Nothing useful to me, but it's quite the haul.'

'Sometimes I think it's unfair, players can grind the same monsters for hours to get some High-Level item, while I need to go to the ends of the Earth in the most inconspicuous places to find some...'

'And now that the base level of this area has increased, the quality of the items dropped will likely increase significantly... If they are lucky of course.'

'An Unlucky player will only drop Low-tier items regardless of their area...'

'While Lucky players will continue to drop High-tier items.'

'I should be happy that I can... Borrow these items from them and not be locked from their usage.'

'One day...'

/Boom!/

A massive explosion that made even the air tremble shook Dale out of his thoughts.

"Phew… That guy sure is something."

He could see the faint figure of a large warrior holding a cleaver with one hand as he swept the ground with it from beyond the dust raised by the explosion...

'But… He seems quite manageable…'

"Cough!"

'I shouldn't underestimate him, what he is showing is definitely not everything he can do.'

'These players should only amount to some light exercise and warmup at most.'

Dale felt no anger or some selfless sense of unity after seeing his fellow Humans die at the hands of the beast... Something easy to say considering they were players.

Instead, he was very much interested in the outcome of their clash, of everything he faced so far, this warrior seemed to be the closest to him in terms of combat style and strength.

He can't use everything he has in the middle of the forest against a monster with bizarre anatomy, but this one is humanoid, and he uses a cleaver and martial arts, it's almost too perfect to be true...

He stared at his Quest screen for a few more seconds before thinking:

'Still… Just because it says "optional", it doesn't mean I shouldn't do it.'

'Just like he isn't using his full strength to deal with those players, neither was I considering my full capabilities.'

'My current stats, plus this armor, all of the Accessories I can currently equip, and my two rather good weapons, I should be able to fight him to some extent…'

'If not outright defeat him.'

'The problem is the penalty the other players are receiving… Would it also be applicable to me? Would I have to fight that guy to the death?'

'It doesn't seem to be the case, but there is no harm in thinking… Albeit I tend to overthink.'

/CLANG!/

"Holy…"

/Sparkle…/

With a final swing, the Karkavan Warrior killed the last player, and a shiny bow dropped on the ground.

"Oh, a Unique item..." Dale said as his eyes sharpened

"Hm? %$^%!"

The warrior, on the other hand, didn't seem pleased, perhaps even… Unsatisfied.

It wanted more… So it looked around in search of more enemies to fight.

And it finally turned its face to Dale, noticing he was the last one standing.

Wasn't he the perfect partner? Already fully equipped for a fight?

"..."

Dale immediately felt a faint pressure weight down on his shoulders as the Karkavan turned his gaze to him.

He knew what he wanted… And his reply would be...

'How troublesome… But maybe this was inevitable.'

'Though... It's such a shame, the players could've at least forced him to use a Skill...'

With a faint smile on his face, Dale approached the Giant man.

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Notes