Encounter (4)
Eight thousand detached troops of the Thunder King and the Archmage continued to march toward Fort Poltaron.
Accordingly, the Allendia Army of Fort Fieldrocks was dispatched. It was to join forces with Poltaron’s allies and attack the enemy back and forth.
Naturally, the Kaldris-Mado Alliance also moved to restrain them.
It was the reason why they had sent detached troops rather than the main camp separately.
Sabine Asil, the Templar Lord of Althea, led 12,000 Allendia troops.
Tonitrus, the supreme commander of the Kaldris troops, led 14,000.
The two sides clashed on the Hwaren Plain.
It was a field halfway between Fieldrocks and Poltaron.
Shouts burst throughout the battlefield.
“Charge! Charge!”
“Kill them all!”
Both the enemies and allies had a more vibrant atmosphere than usual.
It might seem like a contradiction at first glance, considering blood, screams, and death were vigorously traveling through the battlefield.
But everything in the world was relative.
It was a battle without the Top Four, Upper Draconium, or Aliens of Akhtarun.
Strategists set up operations based on common sense, and knights and soldiers galloped bravely through the battlefield, revealing their incompetence.
“The black Wyvern in the sky doesn’t bomb indiscriminately!”
“The muscled monster doesn’t cut dozens of people in a single cut!”
Hundreds of fireballs didn’t rain down and burned the entire battlefield before they could do anything.
Gigantic magical missiles didn’t demolish the castle, either.
Hence, they could fight properly and bleed properly.
They waged nothing but a common war!
Knights from both sides delivered their war cries.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})“Allendia, forever!”
“Let’s go! Kadris soldiers!”
“For the glory of the Rune!”
* * *
At the same time, the detached troops led by the Thunder King and the Archmage were positioning themselves at the foot of the Krails at the southern tip of the Landea Mountains.
They were about two days away from Fort Poltaron and hundreds of kilometers from the Hwaren plain.
Nevertheless, Garhan and Genovia had a vivid picture of the war.
To be exact, the ‘death’ would take place there.
Leaning on the chair of the command barracks, Genovia hummed.
“Hmmmm~”
A screen of light was floating in front of her eyes.
[Genovia Rune Spellmaster: Mage Lv. 155
Skills in Possession: Cannot be verified
Mana 1,680, Spiritual power 1,560, Concentration power 1,980, Intelligence 1,910, Mental Strength 1,830, Wisdom 2,700.]
Kaldris soldiers cut down Allendia soldiers on the battlefield.
A message popped up.
[Lv.48 Warrior cleared. You have earned 183,240XP.]
[Current XP: 328,309,100/378,290,577,100]
The Allendia knights cut down the knights of the Mado kingdom.
There was another message coming up again.
[Lv. 62 Magic Swordsman cleared. You have earned 3,918,400XP.]
[Current XP: 332,227,500/378,290,577,100]
The Mage of the Rune Kingdom burned the templars of the six denominations.
The message kept popping up.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"}) [Lv. 64 Spearman cleared. You have earned 4,223,100XP.]
[Current XP: 336,450, 600/378,290,577,100]
On a battlefield hundreds of kilometers away, the enemies killed allies, and allies killed the enemies.
It didn’t matter who died.
There was only ‘experience’ death.
“We gather them little by little.”
He pushed the screen of light to the other side of the view, and Genovia grinned.
“I thought there was a limit for that many a mickle makes a muckle…”
And she looked back at Garhan sitting opposite her.
“As expected, many a mickle makes a muckle. No, is this a little weird?”
“It’s very strange.”
He was also checking the Guideline.
Suddenly Garhan shook his head.
“Too bad, if we had completed this system earlier, we wouldn’t have lost Hollien.”
Genovia shrugged her shoulders.
“We couldn’t do that. We didn’t feel the need back then.”
* * *
More than a decade ago, she studied the Aliens’ Guidelines.
Genovia was feeling the fundamental question all along.
“What are the criteria for obtaining experience points?”
Hollien asked again, wondering.
“If you kill the enemy, you get it. Why is that?”
“So, what’s the standard for killing the enemy?”
“Standard?”
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"}) Garhan’s expression stiffened as he watched Hollien, who was still confused.
“Death of the Enemy… it doesn’t seem to be that.”
With the research data spread out on the table, Genovia crossed her arms.
“I know that when an opponent dies, they get energy or experience in the Aliens’ terms, but killing an enemy in real life isn’t that simple.”
Assuming that there was a wizard Alien who fired a flame spell at the enemy and hit it.
“If the enemy burns to death, the Alien will surely gain experience. But what if the enemy escapes with burns?”
Hollien replied as if she didn’t understand the reason why she asked such a subtle thing.
“Of course, there would be nothing or experience.”
“Yes, but…”
Genovia suddenly recalled something that gave her a significant smile.
“What if the runaway enemy suffers from burns and dies about ten days later?”
“… Oh, my.”
Hollien blinked her eyes.
It was the Aliens’ magic that surely caused death.
But even after ten days of illness and death, would the Alien have any experience?
“I don’t think so. It’s been too long.”
“So what’s the standard of ‘time’ then? If ten days is too long, what about three days? How about five days? You think he will get experience points until the third day, but he won’t get any experience points on the fourth day?”
“Well, I see your point. It’s a little weird.”
Hollien was speechless.
Garhan gave his opinion.
“Shouldn’t the Alien kill the enemy within a certain distance?”
“So how far do you think is that certain distance?”
“Far from the arrow? Even if Aliens kill their enemies with arrows or magic, they gain experience. Roughly hundreds of meters.”
“What is the clear standard of distance? Suppose the effective distance is 500 meters. If he shoots him to death within 499 meters, he’ll get experience and not at 501 meters?
Garhan was left speechless as well.
He realized how many parts he didn’t understand were taken for granted.
“There’s another question.”
The strongest Mage on the world murmured with her chin resting on her hands.
“The act of ‘finally killing an enemy’ is too vague.”
“What does that mean?”
“The Alien who finally killed the enemy takes the experience point, right? So when the hell is it considered as murder?”
Assuming that a knight fighting with an Alien was driven to a moribund state and that he cut his throat with a sword at the last minute, saying he would rather kill himself than die at the hands of an evil Alien.
Who the hell killed him in that situation?
The Alien? Or the knight himself?
“I can assume another situation.”
The soldier who was fighting with the Alien was fatally injured and collapsed.
An allied Spiritist failed to heal him, and at that moment, he died.
So, was it the Alien or his colleague that killed him?
“Of course, it’s the Alien in both cases, right?”
“In terms of morality, yes. But Omphalos couldn’t have set Latna’s morality as the basis for the Guideline.”
Once taking a magical approach, the situation became ambiguous.
“Not to mention the range of applying tools.”
“Tools?”
“Yes, Aliens kill their opponents using weapons such as swords and spears.”
Weapons were an efficient tool for killing.
In other words, even if an opponent was killed using a tool, Aliens could gain experience.
“So, what’s the standard for the said tool?”
If the Alien killed an enemy by using his subordinate, of course, there would be no experience points from the person killed by the subordinate.
“What if the Alien grabs his fellow Alien and swings him to beat the opponent to death?”
“Huh?”
“For example, grab one leg of a subordinate and swing it. Garhan, it’s a piece of cake for you, right?”
“Well, that’s true.”
It was simple for a superhuman like the Thunder King to grab a man and use him like a club.
“What if you use another person to break your foe’s head? Do you think you killed him or your man killed him?”
“Oh, I killed him.”
“Now consider the situation in reverse. What if you used the same person, but this time, your man’s head was smashed because your foe was too sturdy? Do you get experience for killing the soldier?”
“In that case, I killed my subordinate. Even if killing an opponent by throwing, the Alien gets to experience. I can’t say I killed him, not the land killed him.”
“So, what do you think about this case?”
The experiments that made one think were one of the fun things to do for a Mage.
Genovia, excited, continued to ask questions.
“What if you were swinging your soldiers at your target, and your men thrust their swords out and stabbed them in the heart and killed them instantly? Did you kill your foe, or did your men kill it?”
“… Well, that’s certainly confusing.”
“There could be situations like this. The Alien gives his men the magic of self-destruction and commands them to stick to the enemy.”
They were brave to run toward the enemy, having the will to kill. But the magic of Aliens exploded the moment it reached the opponent.
“Who killed it then?”
Hollien raised her hand.
“Uh, I’ve seen that before. The magic that led to the death is recognized as a murderous act, so it goes into the experience.”
“Really? Well, what if I help kill the enemy by placing an auxiliary spiritual art on a fellow Alien’s sword? What about that?”
“… I don’t know. Do we share the experience point?”
“The premise changes when you share your experience. The Alien said the last man who killed the enemy gets the experience.”
“Not necessarily, Genovia.”
Garhan intervened in the conversation between the two women.
“There’s a Guideline featured called party play mode. They say it’s a system that divides experience equally.”
“Really? I’ll have to check it out later.”
With a nod, Genovia straightened her back. And she alternated between Garhan and Hollien.
“Anyway, this is what I am curious about.”
The last person who killed the enemy got the experience.
At first glance, it seemed like a simple concept, but when she thought about it, it was a ridiculous rule.
It was only possible in online games that Aliens often talked about, but in reality, it was impossible.
“But it’s a real phenomenon.”
It meant that was not the real rule.
There was something else, a fundamental criterion.
“But those stupid Aliens don’t even understand the principle of what they use, damn…”
Several questions had been asked to the New Great Earth to gather more information, but there had been little success.
They had surprisingly not questioned the Guideline system.
Even when asked why they didn’t question it, the answer was the same as always.
-I didn’t feel that interested in it. That’s what games are supposed to be like…
Shaking her head, Genovia sighed.
“We can only conduct indirect investigations until we implant the Guidelines to ourselves, but that’s what the parties are like…”
At that time, it wasn’t yet time to impose a ban on Akhtarun’s Aliens. New Great Earth was the only one who listened well.
Only then did Garhan say he was convinced.
“Is that why you’ve been framing the Ancient Dragons of Upper Draconium lately?”
Genovia straightened her shoulders.
“I have no options.”
It was already widely believed that the Aliens’ ability to absorb experience was a copy of Latna’s Dragons’ energy absorption power.
“Direct research is impossible, so we have to look for the source and approach it indirectly.”
