It has been four months since the appearance of the TTG Guild.
Ever since the Otherworldly Lionheart, Leon Dragonia Lionheart, set foot on Earth, they, or more precisely, Leon, have always brought issues.
The first issue was the complete cleansing of the Naju Plains, the appearance of blessed crops and the virtual cure of diseases.
The crops have been in plentiful supply since the blessing's rapid growth, but next month, when the full harvest is due, they're sure to bring a huge shock.
Considering the prime farmland in Asia and the fields that will be harvested by the Maverick Guild's S-class Hunter Allen and Minutemen, the world will be divided between the Blessed Crops and the rest.
The second issue is the defeat of Yakt Spinner, the nightmare killing machine of Cheongju Gate.
Not only did the S-ranked Hunter, Golden Chul, the semi-S-rank Huang Yeon-ha, and the Mage of the Tower along with Leon took down the elusive field boss in one fell swoop, but he also brought him into his guild as a survivor.
At one point, there was a consensus that the Yakt Spinner should not be accepted after slaughtering so many Hunters, but even that has been silenced in recent times.
As the first official Holy Knight of the TTG Guild, his overwhelming network dominance has not only erased all negative comments about TTG Guild, but has also led to retaliation.
The third issue is the training of the lowest-ranked Hunters, the D-rank Hunters, and survivor Beatrice Aligieri Spero.
He took hunters who weren't even used as carriers at the average D-ranked gate and not only raised them by one rank in just one month, but he also cleared the fluctuation gate where an Archdemon appeared.
No matter how powerful Leon himself was, the performance of the D-rank Hunters in the video was far from D-rank.
Although the organization was briefly criticized for its harsh human rights abuses and inhumane treatment, the miracle of rising in rank in just one month drew countless Hunters to enlist with hope.
And a new survivor of that fluctuation gate, the Magician Queen of Spero.
A Hunter of at least S rank and a rare mage at that.
Her beauty was obscured by a veil, but a reporter conducting an interview caught a glimpse of her face and collapsed in a heap of bubbles.
Since then, the Hunter Academy's collective draft incident, the Firebird and Golden Lion Guild's failed assault on the Jeju Island Gate, the appearance and defeat of the Demon Archduke, the relocation of the 10,000 kikiruks, etc.....
The TTG Guild has been at the center of every issue, and it was well documented on the official TTG Guild YouTube channel.
And now it's been four months since the TTG Guild appeared.
When the famous TTG Guild was about to receive the fourth wave of recruits, they became the center of attention again.
-Dude, this place is a joke.
-What?
-There's a truckload of Hunters on the bus.
-I think they're from the TTG Guild. I saw Yappy.
-…there were a bunch of kikiruks, too.
It was an army march.
The TTG Guild is larger than most guilds.
Usually, a guild would select a limited number of guild members to form a raiding party.
Usually 50 and even if you count 100 people for the second invasion team and a reserve, it's about 130 people.
This is only true for small and medium-sized guilds and above, who can bid on gates and rotate them from time to time.
Guilds in the provinces usually operate in small groups of 3-40 players with no reserves.
However, the TTG Guild was basically a supply chain.
The first and second level Man-At-Arms and Knight Cadets alone numbered around 300. Add to that the third and fourth generation recruits, and you have a thousand. Out of the 10,000 survivors of the kikiruks, there were around 2000 warriors.
Even taking into account the kikiruks, this is a superhuman army of 3,000.
Considering that they are promoted to C-class hunters after passing the four-week hell course of the TTG Guild, their power is unparalleled.
Everybody else is doing it in small groups, but only the TTG Guild is organizing an army.
-The gate opened in front of Gwangju Station, and the TTG Guild appeared! It's Han Ha-ri. Isn't she an employee of the Association?
-She's almost like a dual citizen these days… It's weird. Yesterday, the TTG Guild entered the gate in front of my house? This is Gangneung, by the way.
-Yeah, there's a gate here in Wando, and the TTG Guild is there? It's Yappy and the kikiruks. What are they armed with? They're fucking murderous.
-Wow! The queen is in Hwaseong! The wind scattered the veil on her face and everyone fainted. What is it?
-The Lionheart King appeared in the sky! The orc gate was left unattended for four days, and they attacked!
-You mean the New World Department Store in Sindong-dong, Dongnam-gu? Hey, there was one here in Buldang-dong yesterday.
-Are they crazy? They're just going to capture it in one day and move on to the next gate?
TTG Guild had divided their 3,000-strong army into 20 attack squads to clear gates across the country.
The higher-ranked troops were led by Leon, Yappy, Beatrice, and Han Ha-ri, while the lower-ranked gates were quickly taken by cadets and Man-At-Arms.
In particular, the kikiruks were taking down gates at an alarming rate.
"Let's go, shoot that way!"
-Bang! Boom! Boom!
The monsters inside the gate were swept away by the indiscriminate bombardment of the firearms-armed kikiruks.
While modernized weapons are ineffective inside the gate, the sacred shells that Yappy made himself are a different story.
"Ammunition is limited, so reload and prepare for an all-out war!"
At the low-ranked gates, rather than the high-ranked gates, Yappy warriors swept through the gates with great firepower + faithful armor.
As they swept through the gates, the domestic hunter guilds voiced their disapproval.
-This is too much. There are more than 20 gates that the TTG Guild has taken in the past four days.
-Never before have so many been awarded to a single guild. The Hunter Association's favoritism is threatening the survival of small and medium-sized domestic guilds!
The average guild gets two gates per month. When you're a top 10 guild, that number increases to three or four, but that's for a month.
The TTG Guild closed over 20 gates in just four days, so it's no wonder they're being criticized.
But Oh Kang-hyuk, the Association president, was adamant.
"The TTG Guild is the largest guild in Korea with over 3,000 dedicated hunters. Most of them are D-level hunters who are not hired by many guilds and work as day laborers, so the number of gates they can capture is small compared to their size."
Originally, bidding on gates depended on performance and headcount. If you have a large number of Hunters, you can naturally run multiple raids.
However, TTG is lacking in performance and number of hunters.
The Hunter Association organized and pushed for this, but it was a minor issue, and the citizens responded well.
-Wow, that gate is finally gone. I thought no one would come because it was in the middle of the countryside, but then the Association's raiding party came.
-Guilds don't bid if they think the traffic is bad.
-They almost caused a dungeon break when they gave up on the orc gate in front of my house.
-If they can't do it, they should give up quickly, but I've seen too many assholes give up at the last minute just to maximize the amount of magic stones they can mine.
Gates are a resource. If you bid on it, you have to recover the amount of money you bid on it.
It's been a long-standing problem that guilds mine until two or three days before the dungeon break, with the caveat that they shouldn't lose money, and then leave it to the Association.
Worse yet, how many gates are left untouched and unheard of after challenging the top gates, which is also a burden on the Hunter Association.
"Wow, the Lionheart King is truly a national treasure."
Oh Kang-hyuk, the head of the Association, is almost dying for the beauty of the TTG Guild, which clears the ignored gates at an incredible speed.
The Hunter's Association has been losing talent to the top ten guilds, and thanks to the alliance of domestic guilds, they've been at their mercy.
However, the TTG Guild doesn't care about the Association's interests, isn't negligent, and works quickly.
They don't give up just because it's far away or in a difficult area. Whether it's orcs or demons at the gate, they'll kill them all.
'I'm glad I chose TTG Guild. Only they can stand up to the dominance of the 10 guilds!'
Oh Kang-hyuk was familiar with examples of developed countries being dominated by powerful mega-guilds.
In neighboring Japan, the rise of mega-guilds has led to the rise of guilds that are more powerful than the state, and in some torn countries, guilds have even replaced the government.
South Korea was no better off.
Led by the Blue Star Guild of Kangjin Province, which is said to have surpassed the Divine Sword Guild as the number one guild in the country and is now on par with the Berserker Guild, the Mujin, Shark, Chuwon Medicine, and Firebird Guilds are uniting to push for a tax exemption bill.
A coalition of these five guilds could result in a second Japanese Kaminari alliance.
The last thing we need is for the powerful Hunter Guilds to gain power beyond that of the state.
'His Majesty, on the other hand, is different. He has no interest in political power.'
For a medieval knight-king, he was very different in that he treated President Ahn Dong-gil with respect and was willing to comply with his requests.
Of course, when it comes to taxes, there is a bit of a vicious side. I understand that it's a cultural difference, but the tax structure was too much.
If you dig deeper, it is a structure that is so distributive that it can be seen as the ideal of a welfare state, so it seems that there are no complaints among the members.
Not even Oh Kang-hyuk himself would have any complaints.
Isn't it a utopia guaranteed by the gods if you pray well and follow the code?
"I'd rather Korea follow the system of the Ten Thousand Gods than-
No, this is going too far. Implementing the system of the Ten Thousand Gods Guild in a country means tearing the country apart from the ground up.
Even if the general public didn't know about it, the higher-ups in South Korea would stop it no matter what.
'By the way, they also paid attention to the presidential election.'
Sometimes they imagine what kind of country it would be if the gods blessed it.
Strangely enough, it doesn't seem so bad.
* * * * *
One week.
The results of all of Ten Thousand Gods' troops indiscriminately raiding gates across the country to mine for magic stones were evidenced by the magic stones that filled the guild warehouse.
"13 Unique grade equipment, 89 Rare, and 500 other equipment with a total of...."
-3.83 tons, sorted by grade. Approximately 38.3 billion won in Korean won. Estimated item auction price around 12.7 billion won.
"You're quick with the math, Lord Yappy!"
A thousand human hunters and two thousand kikiruk warriors had been mining the spirit stones day and night.
Leon looked at the ominous blood-colored stones and turned to Beatrice.
"Is this enough?"
"Yes, it's enough."
"Very well then. Get ready."
Leon glanced at the assembled TTG Guild staff.
There weren't many Hunters here now, aside from the ones who were carrying the magic stones.
Yappy, Han Ha-ri, and a few knight cadets.
"This will be a small group effort, and all information related to this mission is forbidden to the outside world."
""???""
Leon's words puzzled them, and they scratched their heads.
Leon has no choice. He can open the gate intentionally and specify coordinates through a medium so this information could be used against them.
The Hunter's Association will have to be informed sooner or later, but Leon intends to withhold the information until he's sure.
"Han Ha-ri, you will have to keep the Association in the dark as well. Can you do that?"
"Uh, um...."
Ha-ri looked confused. She was a goddess of two gods, but she was also a strictly state official.
The reason she was here in the first place was to report the events that happened at the TTG Guild.
"Your Majesty… you're not doing anything that would harm the country, are you?"
"Of course not."
"Then I will believe in His Majesty!"
Ha-ri knew Leon's eccentricity, but also his justice, and as long as that upright justice was not shaken, this negligence was acceptable.
Leon had assembled his entire top tier force, including Beatrice, Yappy, and Han Ha-ri, and only a handful of knight cadets who could ride horses.
"Ready, Your Majesty."
Beatrice was ready. She placed the holy sword at the center of the magic circle and designated the magic stones for sacrifice.
Using the information she had thoroughly gleaned from Hildir, the Beast God's shaman, she activated the magic circle, and the stacks of magic stones in the warehouse began to shake.
"...!!!"
Everyone was stunned by the phenomenon before them. The magic circle swallowed up the spirit stones like they were being sucked in, forming a gate the size of a truck!
"A gate?"
"A gate…artificially created?"
Until now, the gate had been a random phenomenon, and now Beatrice had created it right in front of their eyes.
"What is this....?"
Leon, Beatrice, and Yappy, the machine, are the only ones who don't panic at the situation in front of them.
The knight cadets are left speechless by the shocking truth that is unfolding before their eyes.
"Let's go!"
Leon leads the way, followed by Beatrice and Yappy. As the last of the cadets in the raiding party entered, the gate glowed as static as ever.
* * * *
As they entered the gate, the peculiarly dim vision returned. Leon furrowed his brow at the tinnitus in his ears from the commotion.
-Chang! -Chang!
"Hmm...."
Familiar sounds were heard, it was the cacophony of iron clashing against iron was a sound Leon had grown accustomed to throughout his life.
"As expected...."
Scanning his surroundings with his restored vision, Leon was not pleased to see that his prediction was correct.
Soldiers in armor battling 'green-skins' and knights on horseback slaughtering a pack of bears and wolves.
This was a battlefield.
The soldiers of the Lionheart Kingdom were fighting very familiar and repulsive creatures.
-Stop them! Don't let them get through here!
-Damned orcs! How dare they dig a trap!
-We must buy Lord Jerea time!
"Jerea?"
A familiar voice called out from beside him.
"Your Majesty, what is this place?"
The two knight cadets, Han Soo-ho and Jae-hyuk, were in the middle of the battlefield when a flying axe came flying towards Jae-hyuk.
"Jae-hyuk!"
As the axe came to rest on Jae-hyuk's nose, there was a flash of light.
Leon's holy sword and a shield from out of nowhere simultaneously parried the axe.
"Uh, thank you...."
"Knights, why are you lingering there?"
The soldier, the one who had sent the shield flying, came running back with his shield back on like a magnet, and when he spotted Leon, he immediately fell to the ground.
"Your majesty, how did you get here…!"
The soldier on one knee wore familiar armor and decorations.
Orc skulls on each shoulder, a distinctive sawtooth blade and the dark blood makeup on the inside of his helmet recalled familiar soldiers.
"Baltaric Orc Crushers."
"Yes, Your Majesty, I am Beverly, company commander of the Sovereign Baltaric Legion!"
"Rise. Where is this place?"
"What? Oh, no."
Beverly was taken aback for a moment by Leon's unexpected appearance and questions, but then she began to speak dutifully.
"We were attacked by orcs and barbarians on a convoy for Lord Jerea's holy relics, and most of the convoy is currently fighting them off!"
He remembered.
This had happened in his reign.
This was the last mission of 'Jerea the Twilight', the Holy Knight of Dreams and Death, a holy convoy.
It was a disastrous mission that ultimately failed and the Holy Knight along with his knights were killed.