“Hm? Something happened again?”
Evé also took notice of Little Salty Cat’s situation as the petite girl excitedly send text messages of it in the chatroom.
With an increasing number of players joining the game, Evé recently bolstered the game’s backend system to ensure better control over them. The most crucial aspect involved Evé strengthening the supervision of players’ conversations, modeling it after both Earth’s data filtering technology and the inherent ability of the gods to respond to a prayer of their believers.
For instance, whenever a player mentioned terms like “hidden quest” and “quest trigger,” or any related content, it will then be immediately automatically sorted through the system before being forwarded directly into Evé’s consciousness. This ensured that she would always be promptly informed about the players’ actions the moment it occurs.
Furthermore, the game system even provided Evé with the players’ perspective whenever they mentioned any of such relevant terms.
So, when Little Salty Cat eagerly described the situation in her guild’s chatroom, the girl also inadvertently alerted the monitoring system, which then notified Evé. Thus, she became aware of the disturbance that was currently occurring in the vicinity of Black Dragon Castle.
With that in mind, Evé immediately accessed Little Salty Cat’s perspective. After looking around, she was then slightly surprised upon seeing the three bound players and the mercenaries surrounding the trio.
“…Humans?”
Evé then shifted her attention to the situation unfolding at Black Dragon Castle and after assessing that this incident wasn’t that much threatening enough, she then decided not to intervene right away but instead maintained her curiosity and observe the players’ reactions first.
In any case, the timing chosen by these mercenaries to intrude upon her territory couldn’t have been better.
Due to the active presence of Evé and the players, Meryer had never really anticipated that someone would be daring enough to intrude into his lair, so he completely neglected to deploy any kind of defensive magic around it.
On the other hand, the players naturally regarded Black Dragon Castle as a safe zone, so they were completely unprepared when the mercenaries suddenly stormed the castle.
Inside the Castle Hall
Their incursion to the Dragon’s Castle went so smoothly to the point where even Crocodile himself felt like it was too good to be true.
As they were nearing their designated target location, He first took a peek inside the castle hall and found over thirty elves, with some appearing to be idly waiting for the Dragon’s return, while others simply resting on a corner.
He then sensed each of the elves strength and found no one strong enough to contend against any of them.
Perfect.
Crocodile gestured his arms in a forward motion and the rest of the mercenaries suddenly burst in.
Nearly everyone in the hall was immediately taken aback.
“Where did these human NPCs come from!?”
The elves hadn’t figured out what was happening when more than ninety human mercenaries immediately surrounded them.
Seeing more than thirty elves completely surrounded by his men, Crocodile felt a profound sense of elation.
Elves!
Over thirty elves!
Moreover… they were all young elves, most likely not older than two hundred years old!
Not to mention… there were more than ten gorgeous looking females among them as well!
Young beautiful female elves!
By the Eternal Lord, just where did that damn black dragon find so many elves!?
Crocodile’s heart raced with excitement.
They absolutely struck gold this time!
However, what puzzled Crocodile was the unusually calm reaction of these elves. They did not display fear, despair, or numbness upon seeing them. Instead, their expressions ranged from confusion to suspicion with some even seemed…excited? as if they are enjoying the situation.
Nonetheless, there was absolutely no fear whatsoever upon their faces!
Crocodile found their reactions quite perplexing. Still, setting their odd behavior aside, all he could think about was the monetary value of these elves.
Thirty-plus young elves!
Each one of these was like a walking silver or gold mine!
The other mercenaries also widened their eyes, as their breath grow much heavier with anticipation just like him.
They were seasoned mercenaries who had captured elves before, and they were well aware of the astronomical prices of elven slaves on the black market.
So, when they saw over thirty young elves in the hall, with a significant portion being female, they all realized they were about to strike it rich.
Forget about finding the black dragon’s treasure!
It would already be plentiful enough even if they just captured these elves and left!
Crocodile took a deep breath, suppressing his inner excitement, and menacingly shouted at these elves,
“Don’t move! Drop your weapons if you all don’t want to die!”
However, what surprised Crocodile was that, unlike the three elves outside the castle, none of these elves immediately surrendered.
Instead, upon hearing his words, their initial confusion and suspicion gradually faded, before being swiftly replaced by looks of excitement and enthusiasm.
“What? They seem to be hostile NPCs!”
“Are they human mercenaries?”
“This is crazy! Mercenaries have actually infiltrated the castle!”
“What the heck! Is this a hidden quest?”
“What the—They want us to surrender? That’s ridiculous!”
“Guys, it must be a hidden quest! let’s just fight them first and ask them questions later! Keep a few alive for interrogation!”
These elves appeared to be getting excited, and under Crocodile’s surprised gaze, each and every one of them began taking out their weapons.
Eh? They were really going to resist?
And what’s more, they even wanted to capture some of them?!
Crocodile narrowed his eyes slightly.
He sensed that the strongest among these thirty-plus elves was barely at the lower end of Intermediate Iron-rank. In contrast, his ninety elite mercenaries that he had brought along with him were all experienced Intermediate Iron-rank practitioners!
Ninety humans versus mere thirty eleves, with a significant difference in power.
Moreover, he himself was an Intermediate Silver-rank, capable of singlehandedly overwhelming them all on his own.
He doesn’t get it.
Who gave these elves such courage to fight back despite such odds?
The Black Dragon?
With this thought in mind, the Magic Swordsman raised his longsword and shouted to the other mercenaries, “Hurry up and attack! But try to capture them alive! Especially avoid harming the female elves!”
In the midst of the exhilarating atmosphere on the hall, the mercenaries too were swept up in the excitement and, following Crocodile’s lead, they also launched an assault on the elves, while raising their weapons.
The other side, in response, also drew out their weapons and backed up against what appears to be an array, ready to face the mercenaries’ onslaught.
In an instant, Crocodile’s men clashed with the elves within the castle hall.
Yet as soon as the battle commenced, the gap in strength between the two forces became easily apparent.
With their numerical and strength advantage, the mercenaries pushed the elves instantly on a defensive stance.
Crocodile led the charge, easily disarming one elf and knocking him unconscious with a swift chop to the neck as soon as he passed by.
It was so fast that the entire sequence of actions flowed smoothly, taking less than two seconds.
“Whoa! One-shot kill!”
“Silver! This guy must be a Silver-rank!”
The elves were left dumbfounded, but soon, their expressions turned serious.
“These people are too strong, guys let’s give it our all!”
“Yes, shake them off as quickly as possible!”
“…Shake us off?”
Crocodile muttered as he furrowed his brow, not quite understanding the meaning of the term.
However, this didn’t deterred him from continuing his assault, heading towards his next target.
At that moment, chaos absolutely reigned all across the castle’s hall.
To Crocodile’s astonishment, despite their weak combat skills, these elves exhibited an unruly ferocity akin to a horde of enraged canines when they fought!
They were genuinely fighting for their lives.
Even if it meant receiving fatal wounds, they would still make sure to retaliate in some way or another.
A few elven mages in the back then began chanting spells, before launching ranged attacks at the approaching mercenaries.
In an instant, the hall was filled with dazzling magical light due to a volley of spells.
However, considering the need to capture these elves alive, the mercenaries found themselves somewhat hesitant to use any kind of deadly force.
As a result, one mercenary was directly even killed by two determined elves during their struggle!
Their initially advantageous situation started to slightly shift!
“Humph! Bunch of useless idiots!”
Seeing that the tempo of the battle is starting to shift against his favor, Crocodile’s eyes were filled with anger.
“I’ll handle attacking them by myself. You all just focus on capturing them! Don’t let a single one escape!”
After saying that, he then changed his tactics and began ruthlessly targeting the elves who were evidently much stronger.
The power of a Silver-Rank practitioner was indeed unstoppable.
Crocodile moved through the elves’ formation, effortlessly disarming each one and then knocking them down just as quickly.
And no one amongst these elves could withstand even a single round against him!
Then, the mercenaries followed right behind him, tightly binding the elves whom Crocodile had knocked down.
After he stopped holding back, the elves began to panic as every few seconds, an elf would be easily knocked down by Crocodile and then bound by the mercenaries.
Soon, more than thirty elves became prisoners of the mercenaries, bound in a corner.
The mercenaries erupted into a loud excited cheers.
However, at that moment, the castle’s magic circle at the back suddenly shimmered with a radiant light…
To Crocodile’s astonishment, more than ten fully armed elves suddenly rushed out of the magic circle!
“What the—is that array actually a teleportation circle? And these elves somehow called for reinforcements!?”
Crocodile was baffled.
However, he quickly became elated.
“Well, we still have time! Brothers, seize them too!”
These guys weren’t reinforcements and more like, walking treasures sent right to their doorstep!
He raised his sword once again and charged into the ranks of these newly arrived elves…
The mercenaries’ morale were also heightened, following their leader’s actions.
This time, the elves that arrived via teleportation were noticeably much stronger.
Yet they still couldn’t contend against Crocodile.
With a prefect coordination with his subordinates, it all just took less than three minutes for Crocodile to defeat all these reinforcements!
However just as the mercenaries excitedly tied up more elves, the teleportation circle began to shine once more for a second time…
This time, nearly thirty fully armed elves emerged instead!
“There’s more of them!?”
Crocodile while being slightly out of breath, looked somewhat incredulous at these newcomers.
“Holy Eternal Lord! Did that Dragon enslaved all the elves from the Elven Forest!?”
However, despite finding the situation ridiculous, Crocodile’s heart was still filled with joy.
Yet another group of elves, and they were all still just as young!
Moreover, there’s still females amongst them!
Altogether, he estimated that they can capture at least over a hundred elves!
This was a colossal fortune!
“Charge again! Keep going!”
Crocodile briefly halted, taking a moment to catch his breath. Then after a minute, he began swinging his weapon yet again and resumed his battle against the elves…
The mercenaries were equally excited and followed their leader’s lead.
However, this time, before Crocodile could even defeat all the elves, the teleportation circle lit up yet again for a third time!
And this time around, nearly a hundred fully armed elves appeared with their numbers still increasing!
Not only that, but the teleportation circle’s radiance didn’t dimmed like he expected but still continued to flicker nonstop…
Crocodile jaw dropped, with his expression growing paler by the minute as he stared incredulously at the hall filled with nothing but elves at every corner.
His heart, previously filled with excitement, now harbored a trace of fear…