In one of the rooms in the Lotus Kingdom,

Next to the desk in the King's office, Herz stamped on a golden letterhead.

As soon as the seal was stamped, the letter started to glow and levitated to the air. It then turned into a white powder.

"Could this be possible…?"

While Herz was mumbling to himself.

Before he could even continue what he was saying a few system messages emerged into Herz's view.

[The Lotus Kingdom's King's pin has been used.]

[The whole population of the Kingdom will be notified of this]

[The war against the Elrika Kingdom has been declared.]

[At this very moment, the Lotus Kingdom can attack any of the users and NPCs from the Elrika Kingdom without facing a PVP penalty.]

[At this very moment, The state of the Kingdom will be set to 'Emergency situation'.]

[By using the 'Conscripts' tab, you can recruit level 100 to 200 users and soldiers.]

[The maximum number of people who can be drafted at the moment is: 54250.]

[At the time of recruitment, you will have to pay gold every day for LV*20 (In the case of recruiting users, you will have to pay according to their playtime for LV*15.)]

[Set the number of recruiters to be drafted.]

Herz who was reading the system messages decided to try to maximize first the number of conscripts.

"Conscripts to the maximum."

System messages appeared once again.

[Please set the User/NPC ratio of the troops to be drafted.]

This was where Herz was having a bit of trouble the most.

'Users are definitely better than soldiers…'

Although it was slightly different if they were a bit higher in level, a common level soldier didn't even have half the power that the same level user had.

It was stated that NPCs were showing the same capabilities regular users had according to research articles recently.

However, in a large-scale war, intellectual users were much better than AI-based NPC soldiers.

Although the payments for users were higher than that of an NPC, it was worth hiring them.

"Hmm…"

Herz who was in deep thought while holding his chin said,

"User 20%, NPC 80% for match."

20% was around 50,000 in actual numbers, and there were around a million users who are for recruitment normally.

However, an unexpected system message popped up.

[Currently, there are 5798 people who are available for recruitment in the Lotus Kingdom]

[The user percentage needs to be reduced.]

Herz scratched his head and responded again,

"Then… 10%?"

[Recruitment is possible.]

[Result being calculated.]

[Estimated consumption cost: 288742450 gold (approximate figures may vary by 10%)]

[The recruitment cost includes all the expenses including food and medical equipment.]

[Do you want to proceed with the recruitment?]

Having confirmed the cost of recruitment which was more than a billion per day, Herz paused for a moment.

"Uh, why does recruiting people so expensive?"

Actually, the recruitment was never expensive.

The taxes that were being paid each month to the Kingdom were over 50 billion gold.

It was a figure that had been doubled since the time when the Kingdom was first built.

So even if they had a war for the whole month, they could hold it with the tax they got after merging the other territories and guilds.

They should also consider using up all the taxes they had collected.

From the perspective of recruited users, the gold that would be given to them wasn't that much.

At most, they would receive around 2,000 to 3,000 won.

However, users should also consider the fame and items they would get if they partic.i.p.ated in the war.

Herz was a bit worried but proceeded anyway.

"Yeah, well… if we win this war we will get back more than the amount of gold that we spent."

What Herz's said wasn't an exaggeration.

If the Lotus Kingdom won the war and conquered the Elrika Kingdom, their Kingdom's territory would be doubled.

Restoring the Kingdom would take place after the war and would cost them more gold. However, the tax money they would get would be doubled once they had successfully conquered the Elrika Kingdom.

It would be great if the Lotus Kingdom would win since they were planning to expand into an Empire.

"By the way, Ian that b.a.s.t.a.r.d of a King, where the h.e.l.l is he? At such crucial moments…"

Ian was needed in order to minimize the cost of the war.

They needed to finish the war as soon as possible, or they would exhaust the taxes they had collected.

They would surely have a great boost in their morale if Ian was there.

"Huh, I'll give him the best treatment when he gets back."

Herz grumbled while he was holding onto a golden light in his hand.

His power and authority weren't that different from the King.

Ian said that he didn't want to be King, and Herz knew why now.

"Uh uh… all of these are worthless. Why complicate things so much?"

The war between the states, and between the nations were also of a different magnitude.

Which was why the King was an interior part of a Kingdom. Herz went out of the room and went onto the balcony to look at the entirety of the state.

Tring-!

[Everything has been ready for the 'war'!]

[Do you want to leave?]

Finally, all the preparations were done for a full-scale war between the kingdom of Lotus and Elrika.

* * *

Moving to the north of the northern continent, the number of undead were getting higher and higher.

Because of that, Ian and his party experienced a lot of lag, but they eventually made it to the north end of the Elcaric Mountain.

[Arrived at the 'Elcaric Mountain'.]

A simple one-line message appeared once they had arrived.

"Phew, why is it so hard to move in the north?" Hoonie grunted.

Levya replied,

"I know. It's as if we're in the Heinz plateau, right?"

Levya wasn't being exaggerated when she said that.

When they were near the Elcaric Mountain, they couldn't help but notice that the level of the undead monsters had risen close to 400.

Moreover, their number was so great they thought that the Heinz Plateau would've been easier to deal with.

Lugarix who was polymorphed into a kid joined their conversation.

"Keu, you guys wouldn't have managed to come here if it wasn't for me."

They would have managed to come to the Elcaric mountain without Lugarix, but his help had surely come in handy for them.

Hoonie immediately denied what Lugraix was saying.

"Not really? Nope—No!"

There was no proof for it nor was there any logical basis for what Lugarix was saying.

Lugarix was stubborn though and refused to agree with Hoonie.

"Keuk!"

Ian and Levya looked at each other with a smile, and Hoonie seemed to be in a good mood too.

Ian secretly sent a message to Levya.

[What are those kids doing?]

[That? Well, I don't know either…]

Hoonie and Lugarix totally forgot why they came to the Elcaric mountain because of their bickering while they were following Ian and Levya.

The mountains were so wide that finding the lair of Elcarix didn't seem like an easy job.

It wasn't possible as well to disperse their familiars and ask them to explore the mountain as it was too wide.

Plus, there was too many Undead on the mountain.

However, there was someone in Ian's party who could make their lives easier.

Ian then issued an order to Kaka.

"Kaka, I'm ordering you to find Elcairx's lair."

"I understand master. I will share my vision through the Dark Lord."

"Please!"

Ian sent Kaka off to the west, and they went to the mountain's eastern side.

Around thirty minutes later, Ian felt something strange.

"Uhm, why did the number of undead monsters went down in this side?"

Hoonie responded to Ian with a silly look on his face,

"Who cares why? Don't you think that our search would be easier if they decrease?"

Lugarix was the one who responded to Hoonie instead of Ian while snapping his fingers,

"Ian wants to fight the legion of the Richie King, you coward Monarch of Darkness!!"

"I'm not! I won't let you..."

"Swoos.h.!.+"

On the other hand, Ian just kept thinking of their situation while the two of them were bickering.

'Maybe… hundreds of undead monsters are protecting Elcarix's eggs?'
Ian thought of the battle that was going on in the North.

'When I think about it, the undead monsters have only appeared in the direction of the undead army.'

There was the Richie King's army throughout the northern continent.

However, his army was mostly composed of undead monsters that could be easily hunted down by any user.

However, it was only on the Elcaric mountain that high-level undead monsters were blocking the mountain's path.

'I feel like we're not on the right path. Before entering the Elcaric mountains, we were talking about the Heinz plateau.'

If that was right, then Ian and his party were heading in the wrong direction.

If the Richie King's legion was indeed protecting the Elcarix's lair, then more powerful undead monsters would be near the lair.

'I'll just go with my instincts for once.'

Ian who arranged his thoughts looked at his party and spoke,

"I don't think we're heading in the right direction."

Both Hoonie and Levya responded at the same time,

"Huh…?"

"What? Why?"

Once Ian started to explain, both of them started to get convinced.

"Oh…! You really think so?"

"Yeah, well, I don't think that what Ian was saying is completely wrong, right?

Lugarix, who was hysterically looking at the three of them, looked at Ian.

"Smart, you're a smart human…! How did you come to that?!"

Lugarix who had admired Ian's reasoning looked at him with his mouth wide open!

Ian's party members all agreed with Ian and moved west.

Whether Ian was right or not, the number of undead monsters started to increase as they further go west.

They could advance quickly at first, but their pace began to slow down eventually.

About three hours after entering the Elcaric mountains, Ian began to get suspicious.

'Why is that Kaka not coming up with anything? If the path was right, she should have discovered something, right…?'

Ian glanced around and looked at Hoonie.

Ian didn't contact Kaka, but he wanted to see her view.

The moment Ian was about to say something a system message popped up.

[Slave 'Kaka' has suffered catastrophic damage!]

[Kaka's vitality has been exhausted and died.]

[A deceased slave can be recalled after 72 hours.]

"…?!"

Seeing the system messages that he had never thought of, Ian began to panic.