Pandora of Fantasy And Reality Chapter 128

Betrayal

It was something that happened when there was a talk in the guild about taking down a fortress.

Ponsuke had gotten the approval in the meeting to work together with  other guilds, so this talk was about the preparation for that.

There were Lighter and Blaze beside him. Prey wasn’t participating.

Prey sent him a message that he was busy and would only participate in the attack.

「……Damn traitor.」

Lighter muttered in annoyance. He was making an expression that a  petite and adorable gnome like him shouldn’t make while reading the  report.

The one bringing the report was SOLOLY who specialized in scouting inside the guild.

Ponsuke sighed at the report that SOLOLY brought.

「So they do this the moment we hand over the information.」

Blaze fell into thought.

「Inviting Hundred is a mistake. But, why are they in such a hurry to take down the fortress solo?」

Ponsuke had invited Rook’s guild the Silver Wings and several other guilds.

But, a famous guild betrayed them and went to conquer the fortress by themselves.

It seemed their attempt ended in failure, but their betrayal in this cooperation between multiple guilds had affected the trust.

Lighter read the information and his eyes stopped on a curious point.

「It seems that they are leaking out a lot of members recently. They  formed a new guild and became independent. Perhaps that’s why the  remaining members are panicking. Well, their betrayal is still  unforgivable though.」

Blaze also nodded.

「Right. But, it’s a problem that a clearing guild failed. Perhaps it’ll be very difficult to conquer that fortress.」

Blaze seemed relaxed, but as expected he also couldn’t forgive the betrayal.

Ponsuke recalled the news.

(Come to think of it, that news mentioned something about Hundred splitting up.)

One of the famous guilds had its reputation tarnished.

But, Ponsuke considered it as a game matter and talked with the other two about taking down the fortress.

「The information might be leaking out. What should we do about the fortress?」

Lighter had the stance of absolutely not letting go of the chance.

「We’ll absolutely take it down! I want some fund for attacking the  capital but, the reward must also be really high with how difficult the  fortress is! Even the level 4 gave a ton of rewards, so the reward from  level 12 will definitely be promising.」

Lighter was full of motivation, in contrast Blaze was calm.

「This is a rare chance so I want to give it a try. As expected, a  somewhat high level of difficulty and something that has never been  attempted by any other players is exciting.」

Blaze wished to play a brand new quest with somewhat high level of  difficulty. Ponsuke smiled wryly hearing that even while deciding to do  the quest just as the two wished.

「Then, let’s keep preparing just as planned.」

Let’s start the quest――it was easy to say, but it wasn’t something that could be started so quickly.

They needed to gather people, items, and did the preparation for clearing the quest.

If the enemy was undead monsters, they had to do the proper preparation to deal with those.

Lighter checked the material storage while saying,

「We have enough materials but, I need four days for preparation.」

Blaze also held the same opinion.

「My side will also be able to level up if we have four days I guess.  The members who are strong against undead will be the core of our force.  How are we going to fight?」

What was important was people, supplies, and then the way of using them.

A guild master was required to make use of those assets correctly.

「It’ll be hard to attack head on. That might be possible if we have  Hundred with us, but there’s no time to invite another guild at this  juncture.」

It took time to do the preparations, so it wasn’t possible to invite  another guild all of a sudden. That guild too would only feel troubled  by it.

Besides, there was a risk of another betrayal that way.

It would be nice if they could conquer the fortress together with the  guilds they invited, but based on Hundred’s information, the quest  would be difficult.

Ponsuke looked outside his office’s window――the floating island that was the guild’s base.

Blue sky and clouds were spreading endlessly around the island.

「……Come to think of it, this floating island is moving isn’t it?」

Lighter nodded at Ponsuke’s words.

「We had tested it and it’s definitely moving. But, it consumes full and only a waste of money――eh?」

Lighter looked surprised in the middle of his explanation and looked up to Ponsuke.

It seemed he had guessed what Ponsuke was thinking.

Blaze laughed.

「Eh? Are you serious? You’re really outrageous Ponsuke-kun.」

Ponsuke shyly scratched his head.

「No, I’m just thinking that it’ll be great if it’s possible.」

The three then refined the plan for clearing the quest before starting to prepare to carry it out.

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The fortress with difficulty level of 12.

Several days had passed since Hundred failed to conquer it. Several guilds joined in the attempt to conquer the fortress.

Hundred had gotten into a really tight spot because of their failure  and so they were selling the info of the fortress’s location to other  guilds.

As the result, several guilds that were aiming to become clearing guild formed an alliance to challenge the quest.

「Hundred too is at the end of its rope huh.」

A guild master said that. A player who was his friend agreed with him.

「True. They were a major guild for a time, but now they’re just barely a mid ranked guild.」

He was using a female avatar and he was also consciously talking like a woman.

However the inside was a man.

The male guild master was used to his friend who was like that. He  looked at the gathered players while resting his great sword on his  shoulder.

The number of mercenary NPCs that they had gathered from all over was also great.

Anyway they would push through with quantity――they too were desperately trying to become a major guild.

「But is this alright? The other clearing guilds will also move won’t they?」

The guild master was concerned from his friend’s opinion, but he  wanted to conquer a fortress no matter what even if they had to strain  themselves.

「It’s fine. First come first served. Besides, even if we look for  other fortress, they will only get conquered by others while we’re  preparing.」

The other guild would come and snatch away the fortress if they tried to search for one and then preparing to conquer it.

A lot of guild had tasted such bitter experience. It was a situation  where guilds scrambled for fortress rather than first come first served.

「But……that group is involved.」

His expression slightly darkened from what his friend said.

「I-it’s fine. We just need to finish everything before that crazy bunch come. Yosh, let’s attack!」

He raised his great sword. The players who were preparing and the  other guild launched their attack to the fortress to take it down.

They had even prepared siege weapons. The players were heading toward the fortress in droves.

Winged monsters came out from the fortress.

「Here they are. Archers!」

It was still too early to use magic.

The players readied their bows and guns. They aimed at the flying monsters and started shooting.

The monsters charged through the rain of bullets and arrows and attacked the players on the ground.

There were also monsters that got defeated by the barrage, but a third broke through successfully.

The friend was making a bitter expression.

「We should just add the magic from the start.」

「Not yet! It’s still too early! Anyway send the close-range combatants to reinforce the men!」

The guild master gave instructions. Then the fortress’s gate started to move when the players acted.

「……Are they planning to charge out?」

The enemies didn’t come out from the fortress when Hundred attacked.

The guild master hadn’t heard anything about this, but he calmly reacted to this development.

「Send the vanguards to the front quickly. Tanks step forward!」

He sent the shielders to the front so that they could deal against  any attack whether it was magical or physical――while he was thinking  that, knights in black armor riding on black horses came out from the  gate in droves.

They were holding spears in their hands and struck down the players one after another.

「Blow them away with magic!」

「――It can’t be helped.」

The guild master decided to use magic. With that the players and mercenary NPCs used their magic.

But, the enemies weren’t annihilated even then.

The guild master got shown just how hard this quest was seeing the  enemies running riot right before him. Then a message arrived from the  other guild.

『They got us. See ya~』

『Ciao』

『Ciao dude~』

The guild that sent this message was a guild that simply wanted to give the quest a try.

They were casual players so to speak. They were fundamentally  different than them who were aiming to be a major guild. What was the  difference? Their seriousness.

The guild master screamed furiously.

「Those shitty small fries, don’t screw with me!」

He invited the guild just to add to the head count, but perhaps that  guild judged that there was no way to win and didn’t want to get death  penalty, so they easily retreated just because of that.

It caused the burden to his own guild to become greater.

The collapse arrived quickly from there.

『Are we lost!?』

『Oi, why is the enemy coming here!』

『Retreat? No way!』

Even when the guild master commented on the chat room, his message  got washed away with tremendous speed and nobody could grasp the  situation.

Unlike the clearing group, their unskillfulness showed up in this kind of small details.

The friend asked the guild master who was at his wits’ end.

「What now? You are the one who need to make the final decision.」

「……Retreat. It’s impossible to recover from here.」

He wrung out his voice to give the order. The friend gave him an understanding look.

As a guild master, he chose to retreat in order to keep the damage to the minimum.

「Dammit! Because of those casual trashes-」

The guild master whispered in frustration and watched the players  running from the battlefield while turning his gaze to the gloomy sky.

At the battlefield, the monsters drew back after the players were defeated. The fortress was still lying untouched.

「Even though we had given it our all to the limit. Our level and  equipments, all of them are sufficient……if only we have a more reliable  guild cooperating with us」

He was frustrated, wishing that they were accompanied by a guild that  was at their level instead of those casuals. But then a floating island  appeared by breaking through the clouds.

「W-what!?」

「I-is it a post-defeat event?」

The guild master and his friend were surprised. Then the floating  island that broke through the cloud sparkled from the sunlight above the  cloud.

There were buildings on the island. It made the whole thing looked like a ship.

Then a field was formed so that other players couldn’t enter. It  seemed the island was challenging the fortress. A thin film of light  surrounded the area around the fortress.

「……Don’t tell me, they were waiting for us to lose?」

He was wondering which guild was this, then the guild master laughed when he saw the flag flapping on the floating island.

He could see multiple guild flags, but the biggest one among  them――the most conspicuous looking was the flag of “Ponsuke and His  Happy-Go -Lucky Friends”――a flag that was modeled after an orc’s face.

「Those guys, there were really insane.」

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Ponsuke who was looking down on the battlefield from the floating island looked back.

「……We did it.」

Behind him were his guild members in full equipment. There were also Rook and other guild masters wearing a faint smile.

Rook spoke up in everyone’s place.

How to say it……he was looking a bit troubled.

「Y-yeah. It’s fine isn’t it? I think it’s a wonderful strategy that take advantage of the system’s loophole.」

The guild master of guild [Golden Eye]――Platina who had decided to  work together with them to conquer the fortress was also looking  troubled.

「Charging at the fortress using a floating island that is a guild base, nobody has ever tried that before.」

Many player must have imagined it before.

But testing it for real was a different story.

The fund that would get consumed for moving the floating island was  an amount that couldn’t be written off as simply playing around. The  clearers wouldn’t test that kind of method in order to cut off any  unnecessary spending.

No, rather……they would rather use the money for such outrageous idea to attack head-on from the start.

The guild master of [Iron Dandy], Dandy who asked to join in when  receiving the invitation had brown skin, muscular body, and shaved head.

「Even if someone want to give it a try, they would rethink it again after finding the requirements for it.」

There was also the guild [Exploration Party] with the guild master [Pinky].

He was a handsome youth with blue eyes and blond hair. He was using the half-fairy race that was hard to use.

「Yeah. Even casual player won’t give it a try. After all you have to give it your all if you want to actually do it.」

Only Ponsuke and his guild members who would seriously give it their  all for something that wasn’t guaranteed to work could do this tactic.

Ponsuke looked embarrassed.

「We have a lot of guys who like to charge full speed ahead to the wrong direction after all.」

Platina’s green hair fluttered while she yelled.

「Manage your members properly if you’re a guild master!」

Rook clapped his hands.

「Okay, stop there. We won’t have this kind of chance often. Besides,  this loophole might get closed with the next update. In that case, isn’t  it better to enjoy this situation instead?」

[Shinsengumi]’s guild master [Isami] who had been staying quiet with  folded arms until now lowered his hands and drew out his katana in  respond to Rook’s suggestion.

It was a guild that was famous in the Capital of Discernment as an  overly serious police poser, but it was undoubtedly an outstanding  guild.

The orcs invited them to this joint effort. Ponsuke and others were surprised when Shinsengumi decided to accept.

「……It’s a dirty tactic that made use of the system’s loophole. But certainly, a chance like this won’t come that often.」

Dandy and Pinky were whispering to each other.

「Why are they here? It’s bad to say this but, they and Ponsuke’s guild are like water and oil.」

「It’s buys work posing as police, so they won’t be able to  participate in capital clearing unless they give it their all in this  kind of chance. You know, it looks like they have their hands full with  the Capital of Discernment after all.」

Shinsengumi was busy doing policing work, so they were seeking this kind of chance.

Isami smiled boldly.

「Shinsengumi, draw your sword!」

A group that was wearing matching haori drew out their weapons and readied themselves for battle.

「First spear――going to battle!」

Isami said that and his group jumped down from the floating island. Ponsuke yelled seeing that.

「Ah, wait! It’ll be safer to wait until we get lower!」

Ponsuke was slightly taken aback seeing Shinsengumi jumping down without any hesitation.

When he noticed, Rook and his members were riding bikes――.

「We’re going too. See you there!」

Mira was riding behind Rook. Then the bikes drove off the floating island.

The other guilds were also split between those who scrambled to jump down and those who waited.

Ponsuke and co directly raided into the fortress on floating island.

Even though winged monsters rushed from the fortress toward the floating island――.

「Hyahhaaa! Massacre ti~me!」

Lighter and the craftsmen used the cannons and guns they had created to shoot down the monsters.

Those weapons that were fixed on the ground were more powerful than  weapons that could be equipped by player. But, in exchange it had the  demerit of being difficult to transport.

However, if the enemies came to them――there wasn’t any problem at all.

「Level up timeeee!」

「Bring the gatling bullets here!」

「Uhhaaa! The level up notice keep ringing up the whole time!」

Before they realized it, only Ponsuke’s guild――and Exploration Party guild were remaining behind.

「What? Is your guild always like this Ponsuke-san?」

「……My deepest apologies.」

The floating island continued to descend rapidly. And then it crashed  on the fortress’s roof and stopped moving. It seemed that it was  impossible to destroy the building with the island.

The moment it stopped too, if it was in reality then there should be a  great shaking, but the island only stopped still. Perhaps the developer  never expected this kind of development.

Pinky started to hypothesize after seeing such movement.

「This is, perhaps not even the dev had expected this kind of thing?  Well, thinking carefully someone who will do this kind of thing  seriously should be few, so there’s no way the dev had anticipated this.  And it’s also only the recent development that it became possible to  create a guild base on floating island.」

Pinky was muttering to himself. Then his guild members called out to him.

「Guild master, do your thinking later!」

「Oops, you’re right. Then we’re going in too.」

Ponsuke too looked back at his guild members who were on standby.

「Let’s go!」

The guild members roared and started running. They jumped down to the fortress one after another.

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