This chapter contains racist language used by a character. These views belong solely to the character and are not those of the translator or WuxiaWorld. The terms have been preserved to reflect the character’s personality.

The Long-Tusk Orcs could only be found in the upper reaches of the Danumine Gorge. The last time Do-Jin had been near this place was when he went with Sisala to raid the Magic Workshop Consumed by Evil, and that had only been at the far edge of the gorge. The upper stretch was a whole different beast.

Unlike the lower area, which was basically a barren wasteland, the latter still had water trickling through, with patches of grass and a few scattered trees. But that tiny bit of life didn’t make it better. If anything, the terrain here was even worse.

“No wonder the lower gorge is dry as a bone,” Do-Jin muttered, shaking his head as he watched the water disappear into deep cracks in the ground.

The upper reaches of Danumine Gorge were hell. Some places had sunk down, others had risen up, and the entire stretch was fractured into a broken maze of jagged earth.

“Fuck me...” he groaned.

The idea of killing five hundred Long-Tusk Orcs here, when the things hardly spawned at all, already made his stomach twist. If he managed to finish this grind in three days, it would be nothing short of a miracle.

Whatever. If they tell me to do it, then I’ll fucking do it.

He gritted his teeth and told himself to get it over with quickly. However, not even an hour in, he was already sprawled on his ass, gasping for air. He had clawed his way up a near-vertical five-meter wall, only to find the ground immediately dropped out on the other side, seven meters down. The only reason he hadn’t broken his neck was because he’d clung to tree roots the whole way, arms shaking like hell until he hit bottom.

Then, he approached what looked like flat terrain. For once, Do-Jin thought he’d caught a break, only for a cliff ten meters wide to split the ground like some cosmic prank. He had no choice but to circle all the way around, climbing more walls like some poor bastard training to be an alpinist.

With each step he took, every inch of ground fought back. It was less like traveling and more like a slow-motion death sentence. He was burning more stamina just trying to move than he ever did fighting monsters.

“I’m gonna fucking puke.” Do-Jin groaned again.

He hadn’t set foot on a boat, but he still felt like he was seasick, stomach rolling from nothing more than walking across the warped land.

If this keeps up, I might have to pull out Anemone.

Even with her absurd efficiency, a supercar was still a supercar. Using her as nothing more than a glorified taxi was a waste. Still, on terrain like this, just moving forward was a fight.

Do-Jin decided to grit his teeth a little longer, saving her as a last resort. If things went completely to shit, he would summon her and brute-force his way through. However, before that, he needed a break. No matter how high his stamina stats were, at the end of the day, he was still a mage.

“At this rate, I’m seriously gonna drop dead...”

***

As Do-Jin ground his way through the hellscape that was the upper Danumine Gorge, a storm was brewing outside. A mob had gathered, and at the head of it stood the man who hated Do-Jin more than anyone alive, the Blood King.

“Are you sure he went in this way?” Blood King asked, his voice low and sharp.

Ever since the Haberkan Disaster, he had been obsessed with hunting Do-Jin down. He had thrown the entire Bloodshed Guild at the problem, emptying his coffers to put bounties on his head, but still he had come up empty-handed.

Tracking him had been a nightmare. LOST had too many players, and Lostania itself was too big. To make matters worse, Do-Jin only moved through the places no one else had the balls to go. The bastard was like smoke, impossible to capture.

In the end, the Blood King had to change his game plan. Do-Jin was a mage, which meant sooner or later he would have to swing by Zeron. So the Blood King had planted watchers there and waited like a starving dog chained to a fence.

I finally found you, motherfucker.

The wait had nearly broken him. Stress had chewed him apart from the inside out. People always said resentment ate a man alive, but this wasn’t just resentment. It was something worse. Do-Jin wasn’t some distant rival but the bastard who had made a fool out of him, and the world had been singing his praises ever since.

Smile while you can, asshole. Today’s the last day you get to gloat. From now on, you’re fucking prey.

The Blood King had prepared meticulously, all while grinding his teeth so hard his jaw ached. His guild’s bad reputation would soon be buried after they hunted Do-Jin down, turned him into a trembling rat, and butchered him for everyone to see.

Right now, Do-Jin was flying high as the one mage standing above everyone else. However, fame was a rotten, slippery beast. One crack in the image, one stumble, and the whole thing would come crashing down.

Three kills is all I need. Three clean fucking kills and he’s finished.

It wouldn’t just be revenge but an execution. They’d record every second, edit it into a highlight reel, and blast it all over the community. Everyone would see Do-Jin get torn apart, and the Bloodshed Guild would claw back its old infamy. In fact, it wouldn’t be just a comeback but more of a rebirth. Their prey had fattened himself up plenty, and now it was time to carve him open.

“Guildmaster, should we move in now?” one of his men asked, snapping him out of his blood-soaked fantasies.

The Blood King didn’t even glance at him. He kept his eyes forward and answered in a cold voice. “No. Not yet. This hunt has to be airtight. Our numbers alone can’t form a perfect perimeter. Send word to those bastards and tell them we’ve found the target.”

“You mean the Japs?” the guild member asked carefully.

“Yes,” the Blood King said, spitting the word like it tasted foul.

“Yes, sir,” the man replied quickly.

The Japanese players in the Rōnin Guild hated Do-Jin almost as much as they did. They had already lost members to him in the past and were eager for payback, so when the Bloodshed Guild came calling, teaming up was an easy decision.

A little while later, one of the guild members came back with a report. “They’ll send an elite strike team within two hours.”

“Two hours?” The Blood King frowned.

He didn’t like the fact that he had to wait, but there was nothing he could do. Gathering guild members who were scattered all over the place was never going to be quick. Just like the Bloodshed Guild, the Rōnin Guild had been patrolling near Zeron, hoping Do-Jin would show his face. A delay like this was inevitable.

“Lazy fucks,” the Blood King muttered under his breath. “Fine. We don’t have a choice but to wait. Move into the gorge and lock down every hole he could use to escape. When those island monkey bastards finally get here, we start the hunt.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll get the men in position immediately,” the guild member said before running off.

The Blood King gave a single nod, his fingers tightening around the hilt of his sword. His heart pounded not with fear but with raw anticipation. All the humiliation, the anger, the months of being forced to swallow his pride were about to pay off. A sweet, brutal revenge was within reach, and the thought of it made his pulse thunder in his ears.

Today’s going to be the best fucking day of my life.

That bastard would be driven straight into the dirt where he belonged. And he, the Blood King, would rise above it all. The fools who had laughed at the Bloodshed Guild, who had called him a joke, would finally see what real power looked like. They would learn exactly what kind of guild Blood was, and exactly what kind of man the Blood King really was.

He clenched his sword tighter to the point his knuckles started whitening. The hunt was about to begin.

***

At last, everyone who held a grudge against Do-Jin had gathered in one place. They sealed off every exit out of the Danumine Gorge, their weapons gripped tight as they steadied their breathing for what was coming.

“Shall we begin right away?” the Blood King asked, turning to the guildmaster of the Rōnin Guild, Nobunaga.

Nobunaga, who had borrowed his name from a Sengoku-era daimyo, gave a slow nod.

“The moment that bastard turned his blade on us, our preparations were already complete. The only thing left was to find him,” Nobunaga declared.

The Blood King narrowed his eyes at the pompous delivery, but he drew his blade anyway, the steel singing as it left the sheath. “Fine, we’ll pull fifty men from each guild to form the encirclement.”

“That would cut down the number we can send inside the gorge,” Nobunaga countered. “The strike force will be smaller.”

“Between your guild and mine, we’ve brought 250 men. Even if we hold back a hundred to tighten the net, that still leaves more than enough to hunt down one mage bastard. As long as we seal the exits, it’ll be like choking a rat in a jar. The little fucker won’t have anywhere to run.”

Nobunaga considered this for a moment before nodding in agreement. “Alright. We’ll leave the lower-level trash outside and form the strike team with our best. That should suffice.”

The deal was struck. The Bloodshed Guild and the Rōnin Guild wasted no time hammering out a plan. It wasn’t exactly a masterful strategy. It was more like something a bunch of brawlers would scribble on the back of a napkin. Still, both the Blood King and Nobunaga believed it was good enough. After all, how hard could a hunt be when it was 150 players against one?

“Move in,” the Blood King ordered.

The gorge swallowed their footsteps as a grim smile spread across his face. The grand spectacle of revenge was about to begin.

***

The Danumine Gorge was crawling with monsters. Slimes, weak trash mobs, oozed along the ground, and beasts prowled the brush. Packs of Kobalts and Goblins skulked in the shadows. With the only water source up in the upper gorge, everything with a pulse ended up here, turning the place into a chaotic ecosystem.

However, Do-Jin didn’t need any of that trash. He needed Long-Tusk Orcs, and out of all the monsters in the gorge, they made up maybe two to four percent at best. For every 100 monsters he ran into, only two to four were worth killing for the quest.

“This is fucking miserable. It’s boring as hell and twice as exhausting,” Do-Jin muttered.

If it was going to be boring, then at least the terrain should have been easy on the body. But this valley bled a man dry with nothing but its landscape. It was no mystery why the place had such a bad rep. Even though it was so close to Zeron, a major city, and even though it was full of monsters that were perfect for beginners, nobody came here. The terrain itself drove people away.

“Oh.” His eyes suddenly lit up for the first time in what felt like hours.

Two Long-Tusk Orcs were drinking at the edge of a trickling stream. Excited, Do-Jin raised his hand, ready to send them both to the afterlife.

Strangely, something burst out from the slope behind the Orcs. When he realized it was three figures leaping down all at once, Do-Jin reacted on instinct. His aim snapped toward the sudden movement and his skill was already flying before his brain caught up.

Ah, fuck. This is bad.

After realizing what had burst out weren’t monsters but people, Do-Jin shouted in a panic. “Watch out!”

He fired off the warning as fast as he could, but it was already too late. The Flame Spear he had unleashed closed the distance in an instant and struck its target. The aim had been perfect, the hit clean.

Fuck me, Do-Jin thought.

His stomach dropped. He had just landed the first hit on people. His mind went blank as he scrambled to figure out how the hell he was going to clean up this disaster, but something seemed off.

“Huh?” he muttered.

One of the figures lifted a bow, aiming it right at him.

What the hell is he doing?

Then, it clicked. The killing intent hit him like a fist, and his body tumbled to the side before his mind finished processing. Two arrows thudded into the ground, right where his chest had been a second ago. He rolled, came up on one knee, and lifted his head with a grim smile.

Whatever the fuck is going on, at least I dodged that, he thought.

The guy he had torched with his Flame Spear staggered back to his feet while looking charred and smoking. You are still standing after eating one of my skills? You have got to be shitting me.

The charred man spat curses with his shredded and raw voice. “You piece of shit! I’ll tear your arms and legs off and toss them to the dogs!”

He squinted. Something about the bastard’s face was familiar, even though he looked like a steak someone left on the grill ten minutes too long.

Wait... I recognize that dumb fuck. Oh, right. He was one of the idiots from the abandoned iron mine.

He was one of those Rōnin stragglers, the kind of weird hanger-on who should’ve died with the rest but somehow managed to cling to life longer than anyone else in that sad little guild.

Do-Jin broke into a bright grin, and his voice sounded light but dripping with mockery as he called out. “Well, fuck me, look who it is. It’s good to see you. I didn’t think I’d ever get to say this, but it’s actually kind of nice seeing some prick show up for revenge.”

For a moment, Do-Jin almost felt relieved. He had been half-wondering if he’d somehow pulled a hit-and-run without realizing it, but seeing this bastard’s face cleared that worry. Better a grudge-chasing fool than an uninvolved player. In Do-Jin’s mind, this idiot was as good as buried.

Two of them raised their bows again. The burned one, Gato, tightened his grip on his sword to try and look menacing.

Do-Jin’s smile thinned into something cold as he whispered, “Anemone.”