Ark-Volume 3 Chapter 5

Operation Bomb the Scorch Cannons

After arriving at the Lord’s Castle, Ark encountered an unwelcome face again. When Ark’s group followed Cross inside, Alan, who was already there, made a slightly surprised expression.

Only the leaders of each raid had received the young Lord’s summons. It wasn’t a place for a regular grunt who wasn’t even the leader of the Militia composed of low-level players. But Alan soon turned his head as if uninterested. His attitude was like a noble ignoring a commoner.

‘That bastard, he’s getting more and more irritating.’ Ark was even more displeased with Alan’s attitude.

Then, the young Lord looked around and spoke, “All of you worked hard to protect Jackson Castle. I’ve sent out summons, even in this busy time, because a pressing situation has arisen. Raymond, explain.”

“Yes, this morning, at dawn, the scouting unit discovered enemies moving towards the plains to the west of Jackson Castle. There are around 600 of them. They are currently divided into two battalions; each is transporting a scorch cannon.”

“Scorch cannon?”

The commanders stared at each other with quizzical looks.

The young Lord explained with a heavy voice, “They are the mobile cannons that intercepted the airship, steel-armored merchant vessel, and tank sent by the three guilds.”

“Those black fireballs back then!”

“You must know their power well, as you have already experienced it. It has been just half a day since a scorch cannon attacked Jackson Castle. The result of that is the current Jackson Castle you see now. We mustered all the magic power from Jackson’s Magic Tower to erect a shield at the castle walls, but it couldn’t resist. If their other mobile cannons had not moved to intercept the three guild’s volunteer troops, the castle may have already been turned to ruins.”

“What a big problem.”

“If the two scorch cannons are left to situate themselves within range, Jackson Castle won’t be able to hold for even half a day. Our only option is the carry out an ambush operation now, while the scorch cannons are on the move, and blow them up. The reason we called you all here is to discuss that operation.”

The young Lord scanned his surroundings before speaking to Alan. “With the situation like this, we must wage an all-out war and stop the scorch cannons without fail. Therefore, when the Sylphid Knights return, they will blockade the front gate and stall for time. During that time, I’m thinking of dividing all our forces in Jackson’s line of defense into two units to attack one scorch cannon each. First, I will entrust the first unit to Sir Alan. I leave the details of the formation and strategies to you.”

With his level, Fame, and his occupation of 1st place in contribution among the volunteer troops , it was an obvious result that the young Lord would entrust the command of the first unit to Alan.

Alan nodded smugly. “I understand.”

“Then, the second unit will be…”

When the young Lord turned his gaze, the warrior in charge of Platoon 2 lifted his head stiffly. He thought he was the obvious choice after Alan. But the person the young Lord chose was a nameless, ordinary player.

“Ark, it’ll be good to leave it to you.”

“Huh?”

Alan and the leaders of Platoons 2 and 3 made bewildered expressions.

This was something Ark had never expected, so he wore a shocked expression. Ark’s contribution points were still struggling in the mid-upper levels. How could he be suddenly entrusted with such a task?

If someone was registered as a commander of a special task, of course they would get additional EXP and contribution. Alan was able to take 1st place in the rankings because of this. Because of this, anyone would want to become the commander of a large operation.

But passing over the leaders of Platoons 2 and 3, who were in the top 10, and giving the position to Ark was something they couldn’t accept. As expected, Alan immediately raised an objection.

“Please wait a moment! That person still hasn’t accumulated enough contribution for this. To entrust such a large undertaking to him, it’s not a sensible judgement. Also, it isn’t fair.”

‘Dammit Alan, you bastard. Saying useless things…’

Ark wondered inwardly. New World was a game, but NPCs thought the same way real people do. They couldn’t act without sufficient reasoning, and this was more pronounced in management NPCs like Lords. They would help someone they had high intimacy with if it was something trifling, but they couldn’t designate command of an operation with Jackson’s fate depending on it without any justification and intimacy alone.

Alan was pointing that out as he demanded a revision. But the young Lord’s decision was a result of factoring in a value that Alan, and even Ark, hadn’t known.

“That’s not it. This task is being entrusted based on operation performance evaluation criteria; according to Raymond’s report, you, the commander of Platoon 1, have the highest operation performance evaluation, and then Ark. Though, it’s just a hair’s breadth from Platoon 2’s commander.”

‘Operation performance evaluation!’

That was the value he had raised while doing Raymond’s quests. He hadn’t even imagined such a thing would come into play like this.

He completed about 30 small sub-quests, thanks to that, his operation evaluation had risen considerably; on the other hand, since Alan and the commanders of Platoons 2 and 3 got contribution and EXP just from being there, they had ignored Raymond’s meagerly rewarding quests. As a result, the only operation evaluation they had was what they had received from being registered as commanders.

Alan clenched his teeth as he looked at Ark. In such a case, there was no way the decision would be reversed.

“Then, let’s continue with the briefing, Sir Alan, Ark. Discuss the formation between yourselves.”

Th-th-thump, a quest window popped before Ark’s eyes.

‘What? The curse skill Ultimatum?’Then, while Ark was tilting his head as he looked at the message—

Along with the message, he heard Roco’s scream from behind.

“KYAA, monsters are crawling up from the ground!”

“H-how can this be!”

A choked scream flowed from Ark’s mouth too. The two hundred or so monsters they had finally managed to kill with the Spear of Thor were raising their bodies as Undead. The Hiptons, Shadows, Avengers. Even… wasn’t that a tattered Narak crawling out from the earth too?!

“Dammit, to think he set a trap like this!”

“There’s no place to run!”

“God dammit, we even lasted until now..”

The faces of people in the Militia were sunken in despair.

But Ark shook his head.

‘NO! There’s no way! There’s gotta be a method!’

Ark had succeeded in several quests with difficulties that were unthinkable with his level until now. If there was something he had learned while doing them, even in a quest that seemed impossible, there was always a clue prepared to breaking free of a crisis if you looked carefully enough.

What would determine life or death was how quickly the clue was found!

Ark stared at an item on the ground.

‘This time, this is the clue. If what I’m thinking is right…’

Ark grabbed the item and ran towards the scorch cannon.

“Shambala, mister JusticeMan. Come into the scorch cannon and blockade the entrance!”

“What? What are you saying? In this situation where we can’t even run away?”

“Just believe in me and follow!”

“… Alright. Everyone, let’s go to the scorch cannon!”

Once JusticeMan made the order, the Guards and Militiamen followed Ark in. Ark raced up the revolving stairs inside the cannon. At the top was a huge room completely open on all sides. After rapidly glancing around his surroundings, Ark soon discovered a machine filling up an entire side of the room. It had several levers, and he saw a keyhole inside.

“Discerning Eye!”

Once he used the skill, the unidentified key’s information appeared.

‘As expected, this was the answer; this key is the master key that moves the scorch cannon!’

Ark ran forward one step and put in the key. The scorch cannon vibrated as four legs protruded from its lower frame, fixing it on the ground. When the stationing ended, a pitch black flame flickered in the window. When Ark grabbed the lever and tried moving it, there was the sound of machinery as the cannon rotated.

‘Shall we try testing its power?’

Ark adjusted the cannon to set the aim on the swaying, swarming Undead. Then he firmly pressed a button attached to the side and the cannon vibrated violently.

Ruummble!

The scorch cannon that had reduced Jackson Castle to ruins and had crashed the airship with a single blow!

The same terrifying force was unfolding before his eyes. Once the scorch cannon heated up, a black energy raged out like a storm. The Undead swarming around the scorch cannon were literally torn to rags and went flying. Undead Narak was no exception either. As soon as it crawled up from the ground, it was swept up into the scorch cannon’s storm and lost at least 50% of its Health in an instant.

‘Huhuhu, this is exciting!’

The Undead that survived swarmed around the scorch cannon. But the steel-encased scorch cannon did not even budge an inch. Then, the recharging was done. The storm of black flames rose once again! Undead Narak couldn’t endure any more either and disappeared. Three hundred undead monsters had been swept away with just two shots.

“A-Ark!”

Having leapt up helter skelter to the top floor, JusticeMan and Roco shouted with deeply moved voices. But Ark didn’t even turn his head and rotated the cannon. There was still something he had left to do. He scanned his surroundings with Eyes of the Cat and spotted the other scorch cannon far away.

‘That bastard Alan failed!’

The scorch cannon’s time limit had already passed. The other scorch cannon was fine and well which meant Alan had failed the quest! Shambala seemed to have checked the scorch cannon as well as he approached from the side, then butted Ark’s shoulder and whispered, “Seems like your wicked trick worked out.”

He was talking about the Howling Seasoned Chillies that had been mixed into Group A’s supplies before departure.

Wordlessly, Ark smiled evilly.

‘He must’ve gotten lots of strength from an unknown source for a while.’

Ark clearly envisioned what Alan had experienced. With the scorch cannon in front of him, Alan likely ate the food to brace himself for battle. And he must’ve been quite satisfied when his Strength strangely increased. At least, until five minutes passed and most people fell into Confusion.

Once he was Confused, he wouldn’t be able to control his character. But before that, he would go around as he pleased blindly firing skills. Then, while he and his teammates were fighting hard in such manner, something would go slightly awry, and the conclusion was obvious.

Confusion generally had the shortest effect duration among the status abnormalities, but if one was to be hexed with it once, then it was treacherous, since there was no knowing how the situation would unfold.

‘Alan, you scoundrel, it would be good if you died…’

It was simply wishful thinking. It seemed like the possibility of Alan’s prospects turning dark were slim considering Alan’s ability, but…

“Holy Knight Sir Alan, I shall accept the quest you have failed.”

Ark aimed the scorch cannon and pressed the button.

A huge black flame gathered before his eyes before shooting off into the darkness. And, a little while afterwards, he saw the scorch cannon slowly collapsing with a roar from afar.

Thu-thu-thump, that was when a resonant drum sounded as the quest was updated.

The cross symbol appeared above Ark and Group B’s heads again. And then a level up, with contribution points and Fame, were added like crazy.

“Keuhaaa, is this what they call leveling up twice in quick succession? An awesome quest like this, it’s a first!” JusticeMan also laughed broadly as he spoke.

“That bastard Alan, I wanna see what his expression will be.”