Chapter 131
[Title: Can I Visit Adrian?]
(Selfie pic in the lively Kellierton plaza)
I'm a gallerybro who hopped on the Kellierton migration meta; my hometown is Adrian.
I want to visit there for a trip sometime. How's the situation? Is it okay to visit?
[Upvotes 24] [Downvotes 0]
- Yeah, come if you want to die
- That's what it says on your gravestone?
- Is this the Golden Goblin event? Nice.
- (You're welcome anytime! bandit emoticon)
Adrian's current situation was far from good.
Corruption had festered and burst, leaving every institution unable to perform its proper function.
It was a sort of transitional period centered around the Hero Darian, who was cutting out the rotten parts.
“Well, it does look like things will definitely improve...”
The problem was that the process was far too radical.
Even a cornered rat will bite.
- Wow, fuck, the screams just won't stop
- It's insane; I've never seen a guillotine blade break before
ㄴ You're still enjoying this, right?
ㄴ Hehe
The guillotine never got a break.
As many as several dozen officials were executed in a single day.
When even Adrian's traditions—bribes and connections—stopped working, the side effects had finally begun to appear.
- Breaking) His Majesty the Emperor of Adrian has been taken hostage
ㄴ ? No, this is real
ㄴ So who did it?
ㄴ The court mage
ㄴ (Is this for real? commoner emoticon)
In the end, the cornered court mage had taken the emperor hostage in the audience chamber!
- But what do we do now?
ㄴ ...?
ㄴ What?
ㄴ No, what do you do after taking the emperor hostage? There's nowhere to run.
But the audience chamber was located at the very top of Adrian.
Knights were stationed all around it.
There was nowhere to escape, so it was ultimately only a matter of time.
- Boom!
The problem was that Helian was a mage.
He was planning to fly away through the air.
- Uh, fuck, how are they supposed to catch him like that?
- Can't they shoot him down?
ㄴ Good luck shooting him down when he's holding His Majesty hostage.
If he escaped into the air, there was no way to stop him.
“No, it's not like there are no options at all.”
Dragon Dragon Will Die: My liege, do you require my assistance?
Head Mod*: Oh, nice.
Of course, our sub-mods could easily handle an aerial unit too.
The problem was...
Head Mod*: But can you kill only Helian without hurting the emperor?
Dragon Dragon Will Die: ^^
Head Mod*: Hehe.
We couldn't kill only Helian.
Helian was clinging tightly to the emperor and using him as a shield.
If anyone even threatened him, he could simply take the emperor with him to the afterlife.
Dragon Dragon Will Die: My liege, human lifespans are short anyway.
Dragon Dragon Will Die: Or is that little emperor necessary for your amusement?
Vampire Till Death: Yeah, the lizard's right. You don't negotiate with criminals.
More than anything, these sub-mods didn't seem to feel any particular need to keep the emperor alive.
“Seeing it this way, it really hits home that they're nonhuman.”
They talked to me often, but to them, humans were no different from ants.
In the end, it was difficult to expect help from the sub-mods in this incident.
Head Mod*: Nah, I'll handle this myself.
So I stepped in personally.
“Hmm, this is a little tricky.”
Helian was, after all, the court mage.
First, I needed enough physical force to ignore a magical barrier.
I also needed to move faster than a mage could perceive, so he wouldn't be able to react.
Finally, I needed a weapon that could kill only him with precision while avoiding the emperor.
Dragon Dragon Will Die: Does such magic exist?
Head Mod*: Yep.
[Shop/Firearms/Sniper Rifles]
[AW] - Starting at 150p
[M24] - Starting at 300p
[TRG] - Starting at 440p
[SR-25] - Starting at 450p
.
.
“Yep, big bro's here.”
Amazingly, a weapon capable of making that possible could be bought for only a few hundred points.
In the beginning, prices like this had still made my hands tremble, and I would only buy them after agonizing over it...
[AWM purchased!]
But now I was rich enough in points to buy things after barely even looking at the price.
“Well, I did buy it, but...”
Who should I send it to?
I couldn't put it in an ordinary person's hands.
Giving it to knights who could quickly learn how to use it would be a good option, but that had its own problem.
“I never know where they'll turn up.”
That was also why I hadn't released firearms widely on the market until now.
A gun was a weapon that could kill even mages with ease.
To put it bluntly, if the user had malicious intentions, killing someone would be child's play.
Naturally, I had to resolve the conditions that came with using firearms.
“Doesn't anyone exist who'll obey me without question and protect it like their life depended on it, like in a game?”
In short, I needed someone like a game unit who would die for my word.
But this wasn't a game, and someone who would obey me unconditionally...
“Wait, there is someone?”
There was.
[Entering a message to ‘Colin’.]
There had once been some heretical gallerybros who had founded the Church of Head Mod atop the cathedral.
They were even an elite group made up of cathedral knights.
Head Mod*: Hi.
When I contacted them as they gathered in front of the audience chamber, their grim expressions turned to shock.
“H-Head Mod!”
They reflexively started to kneel, then barely managed to restrain themselves from worshiping me.
Direct worship meant an instant ban.
They quickly closed the live-update post and all looked up at my chat.
And they all waited for my instructions.
[AWM shipped to ‘Colin’.]
I sent a firearm to Colin, one of their number.
“What is this?”
On the outside, it looked like an ordinary firearm.
But the barrel was longer, and the body was much larger overall.
“Should I enter with this?”
There wasn't a gallerybro who didn't know what a gun was.
Colin asked me with an expression of realization, but it was actually the opposite of what he had expected.
Head Mod*: No.
Head Mod*: Now take that and come outside the castle.
It was time to move far away from the scene.
*
A mage's perceptive abilities surpassed those of ordinary people.
That meant they could react instantly whenever they sensed a threat.
“Will this do?”
Colin had come down to the castle grounds with the sniper rifle wrapped in cloth.
The gallerybros now knew that guns could hit targets from far away, having seen their power for themselves.
‘But isn't this too far?’
Helian in the distance looked tiny, like an ant.
Head Mod*: Nope, go farther.
But the reply that came back was negative.
“Nngh...”
Colin went all the way outside the castle walls.
Now Helian was barely more than a speck.
And that was even when viewed through a knight's eyes.
“Head Mod, surely this is far enough now...”
Head Mod*: Nope, go farther.
Even so, the answer was still negative.
Naturally, Colin's thoughts grew complicated.
‘Just how far am I supposed to go?’
Did Head Mod trust him that much?
Colin remembered the jealous look Darian had given him as he gazed at Colin enviously.
He had been chosen instead because they might grow suspicious if Darian disappeared.
All the more reason he couldn't afford to fail.
To be honest, he couldn't even see Helian anymore.
Head Mod*: Okay, that's enough now.
Only after he had gone even farther, all the way to the market street, was Head Mod satisfied.
Colin climbed onto a rooftop, removed the cloth, and placed the rifle on the stand as instructed.
Then he lay down flat on his stomach.
Knights were skilled fighters who could evade even incoming arrows some of the time.
Learning this whole process and how to use a firearm was no trouble for him, but...
“...Will this really be effective?”
Wasn't this far too far?
The distance was so great that it could practically be considered another region outside the battle zone.
But he didn't object directly.
Had anything Head Mod had shown them ever been within the bounds of common sense?
Head Mod*: Now put your eye to the scope.
Head Mod*: Let's check whether you can see well.
“...Yes.”
He swallowed his doubts and brought his eye to something smaller than his hand.
“...!”
He could see Helian.
It wasn't merely a glimpse.
Helian's figure was so clear that it seemed as if he were standing right before his eyes.
He could even make out the shape of his long, outstretched beard.
“H-How?”
Colin was a knight, but he wasn't completely ignorant of magic.
So he had heard that magic could enhance the caster's physical abilities,
but he had never heard of it enhancing someone else's physical abilities.
And certainly not to such an absurd degree.
Head Mod*: Okay, that's good enough.
Head Mod*: At this distance it's close, so I don't think we need to calculate anything?
“This is close...?”
He was completely outside the castle.
If this was considered close, just how far could the rifle shoot?
Colin suddenly felt a chill.
Couldn't Head Mod take someone's life from a distance they couldn't even perceive, if he so desired?
“And he just gave this to me...”
And Head Mod had simply handed it to him.
As if magic of this caliber were nothing special.
With mixed feelings, Colin slowly held his breath and stiffened his body.
Then, the moment he gently pulled the trigger.
-Bang.
With a small sound, Helian collapsed.
Head Mod*: Good work, nice.
And that was it.
The entire commotion had ended with the flick of a finger.
“Uh...”
He stood there dazed and frozen for a moment before handing the sniper rifle back to Head Mod.
“That's it?”
He had still been the court mage of an empire.
The ending was so anticlimactic that Colin could only stand there and blink blankly.
*
[Title: What the Hell Was That?]
(GIF of Helian collapsing on the floor)
(GIF of knights entering the audience chamber looking bewildered)
It's over?
What happened?
[Upvotes 4932] [Downvotes 0]
- He isn't moving. Is he really dead?
- I still can't tell even after replaying it.
ㄴ No, if you look closely, something really does fly in.
ㄴ Fuck, I only noticed it on the fifth viewing. What is that?
Helian, who had been perfectly fine, suddenly went limp like a puppet with its strings cut.
The gallerybros watching the situation only realized he was dead when they saw blood seep out belatedly.
- No, but he was a court mage, for crying out loud.
- Oh, a post went up. It says it was a sniper rifle?
ㄴ They say it was fired from the market street outside the castle, yeah.
ㄴ Fuck, this is unbelievable.
ㄴ ? Don't talk bullshit, fuck.
“Watching people die always leaves a bad taste.”
Helian had climbed to that position by sacrificing many people.
I didn't feel any sympathy for him, but it was true that the sight wasn't pleasant either.
“I wonder if the emperor's okay.”
More importantly, the emperor was only eight years old.
“Won't he be traumatized at such a young age?”
He might have been the emperor, but he was still just an elementary schooler.
The person who had been standing right beside him had died, and that was my biggest concern: whether he was okay.
[Title: Head Mod Became a Grand Duke omg]
But he was unexpectedly fine.
No, he was more than fine—he was calm.
“What do you mean, a grand duke?”
I wondered what that meant when I saw the newly uploaded featured post and clicked on it.
[Title: Head Mod Became a Grand Duke omg]
(GIF of the emperor looking unfazed)
(GIF of the emperor appointing Head Mod grand duke on the spot)
Honestly, I thought he'd be at least a little surprised or flustered, but he's perfectly fine.
And he declared that he would grant me the title of grand duke as a reward for saving his life, omg;
[Upvotes 1021] [Downvotes 0]
- Huh? Out of nowhere?
- But did the title of grand duke even exist in the first place?
ㄴ Wasn't duke the highest rank, seriously?
ㄴ Dunno, looks like he made it on the spot?
“What is this about?”
Of course, there had been several times when he offered me a title as a token of his gratitude.
But in most of those cases, he informed me and asked for my permission first.
This was the first time he had appointed me so abruptly.
“I don't really need it.”
I wasn't particularly interested in a grand duke's title.
I was just about to leave a comment refusing when...
[Title: I Have Something to Say to Head Mod, the Grand Duke]
Author: Muffin
This is my first order as emperor.
There's a mutant orc horde rampaging around the borders right now,
so go there, eradicate the orc horde, and report the results to me.
[Upvotes 2330] [Downvotes 5012]
- ?
- No, what is this now...
- Is Head Mod your buddy?
Head Mod*) ?
ㄴ LOL, Head Mod is bewildered now
ㄴ Ah, you're a grand duke now, so listen to him lol
ㄴ (elf shrug emoticon)
The emperor, who had only just become an elementary schooler, had abruptly granted me a title and started giving me orders.