“It was nice doing business with you,” said Rika Haswell, a female dwarf with bright red skin and blazing red hair.

“That should be my line! I can’t believe I can buy a dwarf-crafted item for this price!”

“Ahaha! It’s fine, as long as you uphold the contract.”

“Of course. We Headless Knights swear to side with Underground in the future!” said a Dullahan, a type of undead, holding their head at their side. “Right, it’s time to go to war! Let’s behead the elves and make them the same as us!”

The Dullahan army, fully geared up with dwarf-crafted items, energetically began its march toward Forestis.

“Yeah!”

“I’d rather die than miss out on an opportunity to take part in a world quest!”

“Though we’re already dead!”

Rika stared at them from behind and mumbled, “Tsk, tsk. Everyone and their mothers are barging in.”

She couldn’t even count how many clans had entered Forestis.

“Well, it doesn’t matter as long as business is good,” she remarked as she grabbed a galvanized steel liquor bottle from her belt and took a swig.

She had been dispatched to the supply station as its overseer at the edge of the southeast fourth zone. Faber, the dwarf society, had announced its neutrality in the war and focused on selling items. It was not only Coins that they earned; in fact, they sold items for less than usual. In exchange, they added a contract outlining that buyers must support the newly established Underground Confederation.

“Heh, we’re much better off profiting from doing what we do best instead of losing precious forces in Forestis. As wise as always, Bafor,” Rika mumbled in satisfaction as she closed the liquor bottle.

Their forces had already been reduced due to the incident in Ferrum, their capital. Their foundation would have faltered if they had also joined the war. Hence, Bafor had devised the best way to profit without directly participating.

“The Sēmen would have intervened long ago if those two world quests were going to develop into bigger issues.”

However, the Sēmen had prohibited the Ten Lords and Fiends from participating, meaning the organization had judged that the issues would be resolved even without them.

“Though I don’t know what the Sēmen has planned—”

Just then, giant vibrations spread from deep inside Forestis, powerful enough to shake even the outer edge of the forest. In Faber, only someone as powerful as Bafor could do such a thing.

“It appears... monsters are running rampant,” Rika mumbled.

For a Spare Ranker like Rika, monsters were only meant for one type of people: World Rankers.

***

There was a giant plain, thousands of times as wide as a soccer field, in the forest. Although it had originally been a thick jungle, it had been leveled within a few minutes of battle. One individual had kicked off the start of the Kill Insectum quest, which others had been reluctant to do.

“I forbid you from taking another step!” shouted a woman in midair as she stared at a dust cloud.

She was Elementum, the last spirit. Her appearance was the same as when she was Ellaim, with the archaic dress and tiara, but the power she could exhibit was in a league of its own. She was now powerful enough to stop the Tenth Fiend, Insectum.

“The Spirit Land is... my friends’ sanctuary! It’s no place for your filthy feet to step on!” she shouted furiously as her eyes shone brightly.

Her mana and Spirit Force, as powerful as a tsunami, increased exponentially.

[Activating Race Skill: Gnoass’s Stomp.]

The ground cracked and was overturned. Elementum continued to activate skills without rest as Insectum fell into the crack.

[Activating Race Skill: Ellaim’s Spout.]

A giant water pillar surged from the ground like a water dragon, which eliminated the flies protecting Insectum. The water mixed with the overturned ground, turning the terrain muddy.

[Activating Race Skill: Lioner’s Judgment.]

A giant black cloud formed in the sky, and bright yellow lightning bolts smashed into the ground en masse. The muddy terrain was dyed a vibrant yellow. An average being would have been reduced to ash, but Elementum’s opponent was by no means average.

The Extermination Wave pierced the yellow lightning rain, flying toward Elementum. It had taken her former self everything to dodge, but she simply clasped her hands and activated a skill.

[Activating Race Skill: Archane’s Embrace.]

A black shadow enveloped her; it was the power of the dark spirit monarch, who possessed powerful magical resistance. The shadow blocked the Extermination Wave, a first since Insectum began his charge.

“HAAAAAH!” Elementum roared as she drew out near-infinite amounts of Spirit Force and activated another skill.

[Activating Race Skill: Freinture’s Breath.]

The power of Freinture, the ice spirit monarch, froze the mud with Insectum in it. Not only had he been completely bound, but Elementum was not his only enemy.

“Incendio, hear me!”

“Do not let her!”

“Take the initiative any longer!”

Adi Dahak’s three heads shouted, and the polymorphed dragons lined up in formation behind her began to return to their original form.

“SKREEEE!”

“GRAAAAH!”

“HISSSS!”

Wyverns sprouted their wings, and drakes landed on the ground as they flaunted their size, as large as a building. They charged toward Insectum, and other dragons like knuckers, lindworms, amphipteres, wyrms, and serpents followed suit.

A giant shadow loomed over them. The body of the entity was as large as a small island, covered in shining red scales. She raised her three long heads proudly, flaunting her shining body. It was the true form of Adi Dahak, the blaze dragon.

“Victoy in this war.”

“Will belong.”

“To Echion.”

An enormous amount of Draconic Mana surged explosively from her Dragon Heart as she activated a skill.

[Activating Race Skill: Dragon Tongue.]

The three heads of the blaze dragon shouted simultaneously, “SET ABLAZE!”

The ground, which had been completely frozen via Elementum’s power, melted in an instant after being engulfed in flames. The environment instantly turned hellish from the immense heat.

Adi Dahak laughed in satisfaction.

“Ahahaha!”

“I will not have my prey taken!”

“By a mere inferior spirit!”

However, the dragons had not been the only ones to act. The naked woman lying on a golden couch rose and said, “Hoho, you’re wasting your strength, ignorant lizard. All that is beautiful belongs to me.”

Once the woman with black hair and eyes rose, the soldiers of Necrophilia exuded their filthy Demon Force. The multiple eyes on the body of Andrealphus, the Beautiful Marquess, a World Ranker of Necrophilia, widened.

“Ohoho! I see it! I can see Necrophilia’s victory! All forces, forward!” she shouted.

The demons of Necrophilia simultaneously fell to the ground like black meteors.

“Yahoo! Finally!”

“Kill everything you can see!”

“It’s about goddamn time!”

Raziel, the first-grade angel with his eyes closed, did not let the chance slip past him either. He commanded, “Orbis will take all the glory. Fifth legion, hear me. We must obtain the Entomancy Stone and offer it to the God of Heaven. We will make up for our past failure!”

The Angelos, Principalities, Powers, Virtues, Dominions, Thrones, and Cherubim began to take action.

“Glory to the God of Heaven!”

“Eternal prosperity!”

“Reproduction of faith!”

“Judgment to the enemies!”

Rotten Bear Ursi, a World Ranker of Barbaria, also shouted to his Bear Paw clansmen, “Keh! Let’s go as well. Old man Modak told me to either bring him the Entomancy Stone or give him my gallbladder.”

Among the two world quests that appeared in the Mirror World, the curtain rose on the Killing Insectum quest first, and an individual had been watching the stage play out from above this whole time.

“Oh, come on! Who is that?”

She was a blonde little girl in a red dress and Mary Jane patent leather shoes. She stomped her feet in the air as she stared at Elementum, barraging Insectum with skills at the vanguard.

“Is that a spirit? How is she that strong? She’s about as strong as an upper World Ranker... Argh! I was supposed to send Insectum to the World Tree...” Her eyes twirled as if they were machinery. “I’m gonna get scolded again! Whine, worst-case scenario, I’ll just retrieve him.”

***

A voice echoed inside a desolate space where roots stretched down from the ceiling, with blood-red light shining from between the cracks.

“Keter... You’ve underestimated me.”

It was Lee Kang-San, who was on the run after his negotiation with the Fifth Lord had broken down. Keter planned to capture him to use as a negotiation tool with the Union. Being one of the Mirror World’s absolute beings, ninth in the world ranking, he likely believed it would be a piece of cake to capture a human, an inferior race.

“Heh, I’m a World Ranker too, albeit one of the lower ones. I’ve overcome pandemonium to acquire my unique caliber. I’m not eighty-eighth for nothing!”

The gap between Spare Rankers was easily quantifiable, but the gap between World Rankers couldn’t be defined with stat numbers. Most Spare Rankers had fulfilled one of two conditions: they were either a superior caliber Double-S(50), or a superior caliber Single-S(99).

Of course, this was not an absolute condition because the result of a battle was highly dependent on one’s battle sense, skill effectiveness, items, and variables such as their condition on that day. Regardless, reaching a superior caliber Double-S(50) or Single-S(99) was impressive. After all, raising one’s stats from S(1) to S(99) was far more difficult than getting a stat from F(0) to A(99).

The stats of some lower World Rankers were not much different from those of Spare Rankers. Hence, many wondered what the difference was between a Spare Ranker and a World Ranker, and what they were missing. It was also the reason why Pippin, the Killer Rabbit, and Taizet, the Demon of Hellfire, had failed to defeat the birdfolk World Ranker, Remus, despite ganging up on him.

It was the difference in their caliber—to be more exact, the difference between common caliber and unique caliber.

“If it weren’t for my unique caliber’s characteristic and this, I might not have made it out,” Kang-San mumbled as he looked at his black boots.

[Contendo (Item)

Rank: S(3)

Description: The boots of a legendary adventurer who is said to have traveled throughout dimensions. Legend has it that his one step is equivalent to an average person’s ten thousand steps.

Skills: Ten Thousand Steps, Void Steps]

...

[The rule of Contendo is rewritten as per the effect of Communication.]

[Void Steps, unlocked.]

...

“I should be thankful to Lord Bafor,” Kang-San mumbled as he smiled.

He had hastened the actualization process of Contendo once he heard Seong-Hwi’s plan to negotiate with Sefirot, in preparation for the possibility of negotiation breakdown. Such a thing was only possible thanks to Communication, his unique caliber, which allowed him to rise to the spot of World Ranker.

You have exceptional insight, Cheon Seong-Hwi. However, that doesn’t mean you have no weaknesses, Kang-San thought.

He thought of two weaknesses that Seong-Hwi possessed. Firstly, he placed absolute trust in the answer he came to after long thought, which was also a strength. It meant that he never wavered and saw things through to the end.

But in the Mirror World, even if you succeed ninety-nine times out of a hundred, that one failure ruins you.

Hence, one needed to be doubtful to the very end. It was only because Kang-San believed there was no such thing as a perfect negotiation piece that he managed to escape from Keter.

But of course, that is exactly why the things you and I can do are different.

Secondly, Seong-Hwi lacked experience. Although he gave off the impression that he possessed far more experience than his age might suggest, it was oddly limited to things regarding humans and inferior races.

He acts like a veteran who spent over a decade in the outer zones, but has barely any experience in areas toward the nescius.

Kang-San’s assumption was correct. Seong-Hwi’s prime arrived in his ninth year, when he perfected the rule for his skill, Borrowing Destiny. Hence, it was only natural that he had barely any knowledge regarding the superior races’ tendencies and the inner zones.

But that’s what makes him human, I suppose.

Kang-San smiled leisurely. Keter had almost captured him, but he did not blame Seong-Hwi for that because he was not weak-hearted enough to pass responsibility to others.

I was confident in my mentality above anything else on Earth. Though ironically, I was the only one who knew about it.

Gruuu!

Hiss!

Lee Kang-Il, the Black Tortoise, complained on Kang-San's shoulder.

“Okay, okay. You guys knew, too,” Kang-San remarked.

“Keke! You’ve been mumbling to yourself since earlier, human boy... Have you lost your mind?” a crackly voice said from behind him.

Kang-San turned around and saw over ten thousand elves standing in formation, each only skin and bones, but possessing eyes filled with turbulence. Standing at the forefront was an old, bald elf with brown eyes and age spots.

“Have you recovered your strength, Binah?” Kang-San asked.

“Keke! I’m the former Binah. My daughter has likely inherited my position, so call me Ozenta.”

“Is your blade of revenge still sharp, Ozenta?”

“Kekeke! What makes you think it has ever dulled?” Ozenta replied, his brown eyes blazing. The eyes of the elves behind him were the same.

“Bring judgment to Keter! The bastard who crossed the one line one must never cross!”

“Ahhhhh! Let’s rebuild Sefirot!”

“Let’s turn the World Tree back to what it once was!”

“There is no such thing as grey elves or high elves! Only elves!”

They were prisoners trapped in Domen, left as nutrients for the World Tree to sap their powers. The group consisted of residents who discovered the truth, revolutionaries, anarchists, and others who were hostile toward Sefirot.

Alright! This should fuck them over real good! Kang-San thought with a faint smile as he looked at them.

As he had been fleeing from Keter’s clutches using Void Steps, an intervention from an unknown force caused him to skip several floors and end up in Domen. As he continued to outrun the pursuit party that had followed him down here, with no sight of an exit, he thought of a fantastic idea: to free the rotting elves that had become fertilizer for the World Tree in Domen.

Time for Operation Cancer Cell, motherfuckers! I wonder what would happen if I took these guys out of Domen and exposed the World Tree’s heinous truth?

“Ahaha! I’m getting excited already!”

Gruuu!

Hiss!

Kang-Il also laughed excitedly. Although Kang-San was the epitome of majesty and fairness in the Union, the first-generation humans had a name for him before he earned the alias of Tortoise Emperor.

Lee Kang-San, the crazy motherfucker.